Getting Familiar with W24

If you’ve yet to familiarize yourself with the band W24, now is the time! The four member band consisting of Jonggil, Howon, Aaron, and Yunsoo has been on the scene since 2018, and has been known for their activities in South America thanks to Howon’s multilingual abilities. The group sat down with The Kraze to discuss their origins, music, and future goals.

Q: Thank you so much for having this interview with us! For our readers that are getting to know you, could you please introduce yourselves?

Howon: Hello, The Kraze! We are W24. My name is Howon, nice to meet you.

Aaron: My name is Aaron Park, and I’m the keyboardist. Nice to meet you!

Yunsoo: My name is Yunsoo Kim, and I’m the guitarist.

Jonggil: Yo, [I’m] drummer Jonggil––hi!

Q: Where did the name W24 come from? Is there any special meaning behind the name? 

J: I started W24 with my younger friends (juniors) from school, and we all auditioned. Howon then joined the team after auditioning for the band. Our team name is an abbreviation for “World 24 Hours,” which translates our desire for our music to be heard for 24 hours worldwide.

Q: Are there any specific types or styles of music that you’d like to try together as a band? 

A: Recently, we’ve been arranging our past releases and performing a new version of those songs at concerts or on stage. Rather than specifying a certain genre, we tend to do a lot of music that exudes energy and exhibits our style. On our journey in finding our artistic identity, we’re doing a variety of music so that we don’t limit ourselves in the genre of rock.

Q: What is something that you’d like listeners (new and old) to take away from your music and sound? 

H: I think the message itself that we W24 want to make sure that the listeners do get is that we are a team that shows a lot of positive energy as well as give a good message. For example, giving hope to some people, giving support or energy. I mean, sure, you can do different kinds of genres and different kinds of styles and give different kinds of messages, but we are very bright I want to say as a group. So that’s the message we wanted the listeners to get when they do listen to our music.

Q: Is there an album or possibly any other future project that you can tell us about that we can look forward to sometime in future? 

Y: The song “Fine.” 

H: When is it coming out?

A: September 13 at 6 PM.

Y: The song is being released on September 13 at 6 PM. “Fine”... what is it about?

J: The song “Fine” embodies an extremely powerful rock sound, and probably the most strongest rock sound out of our releases. 

Y: In a kind of different way though.

J: The lyrics are about a breakup, but I’m sure you will be able to feel diverse emotions. Please look forward to it!

H: Okay, one more time just to clear things up: September 13, Korean Standard Time (KST) 6 PM our new song “괜찮아질 거야" (in English title “fine”) is coming out, so that’s the most recent thing that everyone can actually be looking forward to!

Q: If W24 had the opportunity to participate in the soundtrack for a show or movie, what kind of genre of show/movie would you like to see your music in? 

J: Teen/youth dramas.

Y: High school teen dramas. 

J: Our songs fit with youth.

H: So I guess Yunsoo just said like teen movies would be a nice/good genre that our music can [fit in].

J: What do you think [Howon]?

H: I think teen dramas are nice too, but I think romance in general? Or I think like... what else is there?

J: Coming-of-age.

H: Yeah, like growing up dramas... what could be a nice drama example… like Reply 1988 is a good one. That could be a good drama to have our music on. Especially this song called “어린 날" (“Once upon a time”) could be a nice OST, I guess. Praying that that would happen, that’ll be nice.

Q: Once able to, what is the first thing you’d like to do when meeting your fans in person?

J: What I’d like to do? Yell “make some noise!!!”

H: Actually, holding a conversation is [what we want] the most. We just recently had a concert which was in August. One of the things that was really really sad was that we had a couple of fans come to the audience and listen to our music offline, but they couldn’t actually say anything because that’s the rule for the event––like you can’t actually make noise. So you only see their eyes with their masks on, and they’re just like [clapping] and couldn’t say anything. So literally just having a conversation with our fans, just like it could be something very casual. Something like that would be very nice.

Q: W24 has been very active on YouTube, from vlogs to variety-show type activities and especially covers. What has been your favorite cover to do thus far? Who would you like to cover next? 

H: One of the things we always have in mind when we do cover songs, first of all is our fans because mostly [they’re] the ones that listen [to our cover songs]. We tend to think about the audience we have in Latin America so we decide on [popular Spanish] genres or like Spanish songs especially. Our fans really do like it, so we are grateful about that, too. In other cases, we try to look for songs that are most recently released. Could be a nice way to choose a cover song. Sometimes, I think we don’t tend to narrow our range to one artist. We tend to look at the charts and what kind of music trends are recently done. With that, we make the arrangements and then we say, “Oh yeah, I think that song goes really well with this” and then we choose it. “Alcohol-Free” was one of them.

Q: If you could switch instruments with any member, what would it be and why?

Y: Drums because it’s cool.

H: I really want to learn how to play the guitar well. It’s not that I haven't tried it yet—I have tried and Yunsoo has taught me a little bit but I don’t know if I’m good at it. I’ve also tried the bass and they said that it looks better than playing the guitar. They say the bass [is] harder than guitar. So maybe the bass.  

Q: What’s an instrument that you’d like to learn and incorporate using in your music? 

J: The flute. It would be nice to use in our music, but Howon should learn it.

H: I learned how to play the flute for four years when I was in high school or middle school. I could, but I don’t think I’m at a professional recording level.

Q: What is your go-to convenience store/cafe item that you always get? 

H: Starbucks! Aaron especially really likes it. Starbucks is the basic coffee taste, so anywhere you go or any other country you go to, it’s a comfortable taste. In Korea, there’s a convenience store called CU and GS. We go there and it’s the most common. We actually have a coffee shop related to our company. It’s called Jacob’s Ladder and I really like the taste of it. If you see the V LIVE that we’ve done until now, Aaron always has coffee with him and he gets it from here. 

Q: When you’re feeling stressed out or having a bad day, what is something that you do to relax? 

A: I like to eat any delicious foods.

H: Yunsoo and Jonggil recently went to the zoo in Seoul National Park and had a really nice time.

Q: Lastly, are there any last words that you’d like to tell our readers? 

Y: Just like our new song that’s coming out–it’s called “Fine”–we hope that our Everies are fine out there, staying safe and healthy. We hope to see you guys very soon in person. Thank you very much.

A: There’s another way to enjoy our song. We are actually making our own variety show, which is uploaded on our YouTube channel. It’s called Eat, Play and Sing. In that variety show, what we do is show you guys how we created that song. It’ll be a nice way to enjoy the song in more detail on how we made it and how it was created. I hope you guys do enjoy it. Thank you!