In the world of K-Pop, one group continues to keep it real with a dynamic that remains still surprisingly unique. KARD, the mixed gender group consisting of BM, Jiwoo, J.Seph, and Somin make up the quartet that keeps bringing songs that make your hips bop and make your heart beat stronger. After they released their seventh mini-album Where to Now (Part.1: Yellow Light), and ahead of their New Era North American Tour which begins at the start of October, we had the chance to chat with KARD about their favorite comeback tracks, tour beauty routines, opinions on their current looks, and what the future of KARD looks like. An interview that started with serious looks and well-guarded spoilers had the quartet practically in tears with laughter unable they were to hold back, along with peeks into what they are preparing for this tour. The group that seems to give IDGAF vibes, actually “gives a lot of f**ks,” and they’re completely hyped to bring it all to a doorstep near you.

Q: THE TOUR IS TITLED NEW ERA. IS THIS A “NEW ERA” FOR KARD AND WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

BM: We’re entering a new era of KARD when it comes to our sonics, but not only our sonics. I feel like as human beings, and as a collective, a lot has changed immensely in the recent one or two years, and that’s something that we’re really excited to showcase with our fans at our tour. We wish we could show you guys all the behind that goes on, but not only will you guys get a taste of our new music with its performances, but there’s gonna be some behind that we’re going to share as well. As much as it is a new era for us, we want our fans to feel that it’s a new era for them as well. 

Q: SO THIS “BEHIND CONTENT” YOU’LL BE SHOWING AT THE SHOWS?

BM: I’m not saying anything, but yes.

Q:  AS THE TOUR IS 18+, WHAT CAN HIDDEN KARDS EXPECT? CAN YOU GIVE ANY SPOILERS?

J.Seph: There’s a lot for this tour. There are songs we never got to perform that were a part of the album. We prepared new and unique choreographies for these songs. So when fans come to see our show, they’ll be able to hear the new songs and see the new choreography and we’ll have a great time. There are many new choreographies so we hope you guys (Hidden Kards aka Hiddens) enjoy that.

Jiwoo: After the last stop of our previous tour, something fun happened. Perhaps the reason for having the tour 18+ is that there could similarly, be a lot of fun things that might happen. I’m just saying.

BM: What she was trying to get at, is that besides the show, the performances, and being at the venue, there might be another spot that you should pull up to, to come party with us. Which other group does that? Having after parties with their fans? (Well, we know the answer).

Q: IN THE VIDEO OF “TELL MY MOMMA,” J.SEPH IS AN ARTIST. DO YOU PAINT? WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES OUTSIDE OF MUSIC?

JS: I do enjoy drawing, but I can’t draw well, so my drawings are really of a particular style. For example, I can draw Tamama’s character, from Keroro (Keroro Gunso manga series aka Sgt. Frog), a flower, and I like drawing logos. I really like drawing the Nike logo, Adidas logo, Puma logo, so if I have a pen in my hand, I tend to draw a lot of logos. But I draw them really well, in particular Puma’s logo. I’m the best at that one.

BM: When it comes to art, I’ve taken a lot of art classes. One thing that I loved when I was young was graffiti. I liked drawing other people's names in graffiti. I used to draw it and give it to friends back in the day. We used to carry around binders and there used to be a translucent pocket that we used to put it in to show off to the other friends. Everyone would hype me up, he’s the one that makes crazy graffiti, you should get one from him. And I think I even sold a couple too. I was really into graffiti, drawing, characters next to the name I’d draw. Other hobbies, I like boxing, skateboarding, and outside of making music, that’s pretty much it.

Somin: I don’t really have a hobby, but I’ve been doing a lot of video editing.

BM: Somin these days has been going crazy with her video edits.

JW: For me, I’ve never had a set hobby. I’m still exploring, looking for a hobby.

Q: KARD’S “MUVIES” SHOW DRAMATIC SCENES FROM TITANIC & PRETTY WOMAN, VERY ICONIC WESTERN MOVIES. WHY DID Y’ALL CHOOSE THOSE MOVIES? 

BM: The label chose them, haha (everyone laughing). You want real, I’ll give you the real. One thing fun about that shoot was having to act like lovers with each other. I think the whole time we just wanted to neck slice each other, well, that’s what I wanted to do.Yeah, showing the fans that type of dynamic was really fun. I wish we had another video showing how we interacted with each other behind the camera. That would probably get more views I feel.

JW: It was a very tough time, haha.

BM: [speaking to Jiwoo] It was for you. You guys had to act like y’all were drawing each other and taking clothes off.

Q:  FOR THIS COMEBACK, YOU ARE ALL BLOND! YOU LOOK AMAZING. IS THIS YOUR FIRST TIME AS A GROUP? ALSO, CAN YOU TELL US HOW YOU MAINTAIN YOUR BEAUTY AND FITNESS ROUTINES ON TOUR?

SM: This is the first time we’ve all been blonde together for a comeback, and even when we looked and saw each other in the mirror together we found it fascinating. As we haven’t done this before, aside from it being novel, our fans reacted so well to it, and we loved seeing that reaction. And we thought that the look worked well with the concept and song of this comeback album. As for my tour beauty routine, simple is the best. So whenever we go on tour, I bring the products that I usually use. Also, these days the high tech beauty devices are so good, so I use them every night. I prefer a lot of different products, depending on the situation, so I’m well prepared.

BM: I go to the gym every day. Primarily the hotel gym. Not that I go hard every day, but I like to start my day with the gym to get some blood flowing and get the day feeling like it’s going to be a good day. It all starts with exercise.

JS: I’m doing the early rise “miracle morning.” Surprisingly, even when I’ve lost weight before, there was always some fat under the chin, but these days, that’s almost all gone which is wow. This made me think it is actually a “miracle” and a really great beauty tip.

Q: SO WHAT IS EXACTLY THIS MIRACLE MORNING? IS IT SOMETHING YOU EAT OR DRINK?

JS: [This follow up triggered a round of laughter] It’s a popular trend that says waking up early makes you prettier.

BM: I didn’t know. I thought “miracle morning” was just a “good morning” greeting [Thank you to BM who made us feel like we weren’t the only ones in the know.]

Q: SOME TRACKS OFF THIS EP WERE GIVING “LOVER GIRL” “LOVER BOY” VIBES. HOW DID WE GET THERE FROM “ICKY” AND “CAKE?”

BM: It was primarily the label’s idea but, we all did agree on the fact that it was a good time for us to take a turn sonically and conceptually you know. We wanted to go for a more easy listening sound. Normally, with easier listening pop songs you talk more about love and more about the real things that go on in relationships, as opposed to shaking ass all the time. But I know we have a lot of fans that miss that right now, don’t be sad, we’re coming back with that. We have our B-Sides to show what we normally go for, and we have concepts for that, so be on the lookout. 

Q: THE NEW EP IS MOSTLY IN ENGLISH, APART FROM J.SEPHS RAP, AND A BIT OF SPANISH. WAS THERE A SPECIFIC EFFORT TO MAKE A MOSTLY ENGLISH EP? IS THIS THE DIRECTION OF KARD GOING FORWARD?

JS: First of all, my ability to write lyrics in English is a bit lacking, so I couldn’t help but naturally write the rap portions in Korean. The company was also a bit lukewarm on the album being entirely in English, so they encouraged me to go ahead and write my parts in Korean, so naturally, I did. I’d like to try writing lyrics in English and Korean to mix it up going forward as well.

Q: IS IT THE DIRECTION OF KARD GOING FORWARD?

BM: Not in particular. This is not something we want to keep doing in the future. With English, we wanted to cater to a certain audience, clearly. But this is K-Pop, so I think with the next album we want to try to incorporate some more Korean, we don’t know for sure yet. We said right now, we’d try for a primarily English album, and that’s doing great. But it’s always beautiful to stay where your roots are as well.

Q. JIWOO, YOU DIDN’T RAP THIS COMEBACK, WHY NOT? WE KNOW YOU HAVE THAT TALENT IN YOU SO WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET A SPECIFIC RAP TRACK FROM YOU?

JW: [Laughs] So, first of all, I don’t think I’m that good at rapping. Also, I felt with this album there really wasn’t a track I could rap on. Moving forward, if there is a track matching my rap style I’ll definitely hop on it, with that being said it's coming soon.

Q. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SONG ON THIS EP AND WHY? 

BM (without hesitation): “Waste My Time.” It makes me cry. I think I cried about five times listening to that song.

SM: “SPIN.” 

BM: Why? Does it make you cry?

SM: The song just embodies a fun spirit, and also the choreography for “SPIN” came out so well and is amazing. We’re just excited to perform the song on stage.

BM: Spoiler alert!

JW: I really thought about it, and initially I was going to go with “SPIN” too because the choreography is so good. I love the choreography, and the track is also great. But “SHIMMY SHIMMY” also has great choreography. So “SHIMMY SHIMMY” goes head to toe against “SPIN.” “SHIMMY SHIMMY” is also great! Spoiler!

JS: I agree with all of her feelings. My favorite song is “SHIMMY SHIMMY.” The choreography is really nice, so [that’s] my favorite song. 

Q. BEING THAT KARD EMBODIES THE “IDGAF” ENERGY, HOW DO YOU BALANCE THE GENERIC K-POP IDOL’S PUBLIC IMAGE WHILE STAYING TRUE TO YOURSELVES AS INDIVIDUALS?

BM: You know I have the perfect answer. The only times we show that type of charisma is when we’re on stage, in the booth and when we’re shooting content in front of the camera. But, when it comes to our fans we give so many f**ks. We give many many f**ks and I feel fans can see it as well.

Q. LOOKING AHEAD, WHAT ARE SOME GOALS OR DREAMS YOU HAVE FOR YOUR GROUP AND FOR YOURSELVES?

BM: Make a million, billion, trillion dollars! [laughs] And eat a lot of french fries while being able to stay healthy. But mostly to be able to do this for a long time, for as long as we can.

SM: I hope, in the near future, there will be more co-ed groups, like KARD.

Q. LAST QUESTION, IS THERE ANYTHING SPECIFIC YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOUR FANS AND OUR READERS?

SM: For always sending generous amounts of support and love, I want to send my heartfelt thank you to our fans. And with the recent release of “Tell My Momma,” fans sent us so much energy, so for the many tour stops in the U.S. and Europe coming up, we’ll be working hard to put on great shows in return. Also, going forward we’ll be releasing the second part of the album and we’d love it if you’d look forward to that as well.

With that, our time with KARD had come to an end, but the conversation filled with deep thoughts and occasional moments of crazy laughter showed off the incredible chemistry that the group has. Their ability to poke at each other, jump in, and egg each other at times was fun to see directly. The excitement for this album and the subsequent second part, as well as their upcoming tour was clearly apparent. The tour is going to be a blast not only for them, but for Hiddens. The spoilers that they did let out, the amazing choreography for the new tracks, background scenes (likely some fun VCRs), some after parties, are all definitely something to look forward to. Get your tickets here and we hope to see you there!

Thank you to DSP Media and KARD. Hiddens are so proud of you guys and we know y’all will kill this tour so pop off!

*Korean has been translated and edited for better readability.