BOYNEXTDOOR on ‘19.99’ and entering adulthood: “I think all of us are still kids”

BOYNEXTDOOR aren’t quite ready to take on adulthood. Sitting on staggered chairs inside one of HYBE’s cavernous, black-walled practice rooms, the six-member boyband (whose ages range from 17 to 21) are telling NME about their struggle to feel like they’ve actually come of age, and how they channelled those feelings into their latest mini-album ‘19.99’. After his birthday came and went with no magical transformation into a ‘real adult’, Leehan says, “I realised that inside I was the same as when I was a child.” Sungho agrees: “Honestly, I think all of us are still kids.”

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Reaching the milestone can take a second to register, especially when a good chunk of said childhood was spent training in rooms just like this one, with several of them starting as young as 12 or 13. BOYNEXTDOOR leader Jaehyun recognises that becoming an adult isn’t just something that happens to you; real effort is required to change your mindset. He describes this transition as a time full of reflection “where you realise the change of one digit has a big meaning”. To him, that meaning took on two shapes: freedom and responsibility. “With more freedom, the things that I need to be responsible for also increase,” he explains.

Sungho swears up and down that the group are “not mature quite yet”, but their initiative in the creative process on ‘19.99’ suggests otherwise. Independently, the members came up with the idea behind the album, says Jaehyun, before they took it to their producers. “Since we went into the process knowing what we wanted to create,” he adds, “the work felt authentic, very much like our own.” They also kept the process as collaborative as possible, to really unify their six voices. “We took into consideration each individual’s thoughts,” says Sungho. “So, by the time the album is finished, we are all on the same page.”

Since BOYNEXTDOOR still dorm together, that communication should be a given. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t also a work in progress. “I would say that the conversations [between us] never ends,” Leehan says. “We are together 24/7. We live together, eat together, sleep together.” It’s no surprise, then, that their childlike tendencies still show up every now and again: “Even if we don’t share a room, we just show up and have a sleepover.”

Since they know each other so well, who better to ask for a cheatsheet of their personalities? (Listen up, YouTube guides.) Stepping into emcee mode, leader Jaehyun describes smiley Leehan, sitting behind him, as “always growing”. Leehan has a slightly different idea about Taesan, who he says effortlessly seeks out what will suit him: “He’s good at finding what fits.” Potent dancer Riwoo can be “introverted”, observes Taesan, but, behind the scenes “he is always cheerful and bright”. Meanwhile, it’s their youngest member’s “musical ambitions” that Riwoo admires most, applauding Woonhak for constantly studying, both in school and the studio. He finishes with a very dry, “I like it,” cracking up fox-faced Sungho, who is next in line to receive his assessment.

“I think for a singer, performances are everything,” Woonhak says, taking the chance to rattle off praise for Sungho’s schooled vocal technique. His gushing keeps circling back to “foundations” and “fundamentals”, which, based on the number of times they’re referenced, his groupmate must firmly have under his belt. Then comes Sungho, who offers up his own measured dissertation on their leader’s empathy and decisiveness. “Sometimes we have an idea but can’t figure out how to discuss it,” he says. “Jaehyun solves these issues. Watching [him in those moments], I think, ‘Wow, Jaehyun really is a very smart guy.’”

Key to BOYNEXTDOOR’s emotional intelligence, though, is admitting the answer doesn’t always come easily. While working on ‘19.99’, especially, Jaehyun found himself spinning his wheels. “I got stuck and just could not write,” he says. “At that time, the producers told me that I might be trying too hard.” Jaehyun is used to brute forcing his way through writer’s block; usually, that looks like tugging on the threads of his dad’s adventures in love or, at least once, quoting British spy films. But, this time, the team posed a challenge to him: just be vulnerable.

Vulnerability, though, comes naturally to Taesan, who has always let feelings lead. If he speed runs the songwriting process, it’s not for any lack of caring about the creative output. Quite the opposite, in fact. “I am fast at writing lyrics because I want to record the emotions as I’m feeling them,” he says. Instinct kicks him into high gear, and after taking a beat to cool off, he “goes back and organises later”. In fact, he has almost a hundred self-composed songs on Soundcloud that won’t see the light of day until he has a chance to properly revisit his work.

“[Before,] I would take bits and parts of different artists,” says Woonhak, who contributed to every song on the project with Jaehyun and Taesan. Those artistic liberties were essential to the process of figuring out their sound — especially where it differed from the vibes of K-pop star Zico, the founder of their agency KOZ Entertainment and de facto mentor, and their HYBE labelmates — but now, rather than piecing together bits of outside ideas and phrases he responds to, he’s trying to go his “own way,” Woonhak adds. “I was able to express myself rather than imitating anyone else.”

There are moments in the music videos for the singles off ‘19.99’ where they step into shoes that aren’t entirely their own. Living at home (‘Dangerous’) and taking on part-time gigs as dog groomers and pizza delivery boys (‘Nice Guy’) might not be part of their actual everyday as idols — but the underlying emotions are theirs just the same. In the more straightforward ‘20’, though, their lives come to the fore. Especially how there’s a growing barrier between them and their peers who are reaching the stock milestones: “My friends of the same age / Are all filled with talks of college, retaking exams and jobs.” Everything they took for granted takes on a nostalgic hue: “Even my mom’s usual nagging / I’m starting to miss it.”

Of course, there’s more to getting older, and existing in the public eye, than the crushing weight of responsibility, as Jaehyun alluded earlier. There’s another side to the coin. The primary joy of growing up is learning to feel at ease in the world, exactly as you are, which only comes with time. (“The playground that felt so big when I was a kid / Looking back, it’s no big deal,” ‘20’ figures.) Embracing that freedom, they’re on top of the world in light and funky ‘Nice Guy’, the album’s title track. “Don’t be such a wuss,” Woonhak sings, full of bravado. “Seoul is mine tonight.”

That energy keeps rolling with the raucous ‘Dangerous’, which sees them sneaking out, turning off their phones, and rapping lyrics like “Everybody, be quiet / Mom and dad should not hear this song” and “The curfew for tonight is 4am”. The original Korean title (‘부모님 관람불가’) means “parents, don’t watch this”. “But they watched it as soon as it came out,” Woonhak says, shifting in his chair. “They texted me saying that they enjoyed it [and] I looked cool. It’s a relief I didn’t get scolded,” he adds, with the subtle smirk of a kid who got away with sticking his hands in the cookie jar.

That’s part of why ‘Dangerous’ works. Somehow, it’s not hard to imagine these six boys, sitting on Zoom dressed in casual getups of ripped jeans and flannels that look off-duty even on a press day, getting told off by their parents. It’s not because they’re actually half as bad as they brag in their lyrics (unlike the others, ‘Dangerous’ is admittedly more fiction than fact). Rather, as the name BOYNEXTDOOR suggests, they feel like everymen. They’re the kids you know from down the block, except it could be any block, anywhere.

It calls to mind a line from last year’s single ‘One and Only’, which could be taken as a group thesis of sorts: “We’re not like everyone else but can be anyone.” To put it another way, their relatability isn’t an invisibility cloak, conferring anonymity or hiding what makes them special; it’s a badge of honour, proudly displayed. In an industry that curates every image so consciously — with a soft spot for bafflingly convoluted, cerebral concepts — their easygoing accessibility makes them stand out from the crowd.

“We all felt that that lyric perfectly described us,” Sungho says. “Even before our debut, we hoped to do what only we could do, to make something no one else can follow.” That’s why telling their own stories matters so much to them. And why they’ll continue to do so, far into their twenties. “We always keep in our minds the idea that no one can replace us,” he says. “Any of us.”

BOYNEXTDOOR’s new mini-album ‘19.99’ is out now on Spotify, Apple Music and more

Additional translation provided by Gene Kim.

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