[EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW]: Inside the Beautiful Mind of Xdinary Heroes
Photos: JYP Entertainment
A charming energy radiates through the screen as Gun-il, Jungsu, Gaon, O.de, Jun Han, and Jooyeon, otherwise known as the six members of South Korean rock band, Xdinary Heroes, appear on camera, via a Zoom call, ready to discuss the release of their sixth mini-album Beautiful Mind, in this exclusive interview with The Kraze.
Gun-il, Gaon, and Jun Han sit in front with Jooyeon, O.de, and Jungsu sat behind, with the members immediately waving and greeting us with beaming smiles as we commence the interview:
“What’s up everyone! This is Gun-il and I am the leader and the drummer of Xdinary Heroes.”
“Hello I’m Gaon and I play guitar and I sing.”
“My name is Jun Han and I play guitar too.”
“I’m Jungsu and I’m the keyboardist.”
“Hello, my name is O.de and I play the synthesizer.”
“Hi, I’m bassist Jooyeon.”
The members introduce themselves one by one, in a humble manner that doesn't fully dive into some of their talents and what they bring to the band. As well as playing the keyboard and bass, Jungsu and Jooyeon are the two main vocalists of Xdinary Heroes, each bring stunning and distinctive vocals to each track (with many describing them as two of the best vocalists of the fourth generation), whilst synth player O.de adds an attractive, and sometimes unique, rap and vocal charm to the tracks alongside Gaon.
Since making their debut in December 2021, with the extraordinary single “Happy Death Day,” Xdinary Heroes have taken South Korean rock music to new heights with their diverse and experimental sounds that see them break away from the norms of rock music. Since debut, Xdinary Heroes has never conformed to one style of music. When asked how Beautiful Mind differs from Xdinary Heroes’s previous comebacks, Gaon revealed, “The most different part about this album and the title song ‘Beautiful Life’ is probably the length. It’s the longest song we’ve written so far; this is partly because of its genre, which is rock-opera.” It’s a music genre not commonly heard within the K-Rock and K-Pop realm, conjuring up even more excitement ahead of its release on March 24. "The song has dramatic developments and we adapted the structure of [these] dramatic developments to convey our message and the output is very different because of that,” Gaon adds.
Detailing the concept and creative process behind Beautiful Mind, Gun-il explained, “The main concept for this album was this one word: ‘resistance.’ I think as a rock band, the spirit of resistance is very important based on one’s conviction, so we wanted to show the spirit of resistance and rebellion in our album with all of the lyrics going back to this theme.” Going into detail on two of the tracks, Gun-il adds “"George the Lobster” is about resisting oneself to better oneself [while] “Supernatural” is about finding oneself, who has fallen on the ground, and picking himself up to make improvements and grow as a person. This album is full of new tries, as always.” Jungsu adds to Gun-il’s explanation saying: “We not only focused on the spirit of resistance, but we wanted to interpret the meaning of the word in our own way, wanting to add a fun aspect to it. The lyrics, the melody, and all of the instrumentals have a little bit of a quirky side that is unique to our music.”
Not only the lyrics and the melody, but some of Xdinary Heroes’s tracks exude quirkiness through the words in their titles. For their debut track, Xdinary Heroes greeted us with “Happy Death Day.” The first mini-album, Hello, world!, served us a slice of “Strawberry Cake,” and the second mini-album, Overload, told us to go to “Zzz..,” whilst the fifth mini-album, LIVE and FALL, gave us the chaotically brilliant "XYMPHONY.” Now, it’s time for Villains to be introduced to “George the Lobster.”
“We decided on the theme of a lobster because lobsters are a species that possibly have immortality. They keep on living by breaking down and regenerating their shell, so practically they can live forever,” explains Jun Han when asked the meaning behind this track’s title. “And I believe we, as a band, want to be the same way. We want to break down our own mold and continue to grow and regenerate ourselves,” he adds.
Listening to Jun Han explain in great detail about the lives of lobsters, and gaining some educational knowledge from him, was a captivating moment that added more substance to an already highly-anticipated track. “Of course we haven’t seen a lobster that has lived 300 or 400 years. If the lobster fails to break its shell in a proper way, it dies. The oldest lobster, recorded to this day, has lived to be 140 [years old] and its name is George. So, we wanted to devote the song to this lobster and play off of his or her story," Jun Han continues.
With the tracklist unveiled on the band’s social media accounts, Beautiful Mind consists of seven new songs: “FIGHT ME,” “Beautiful Life,” “more than i like,” “Diamond,” “Supernatural,” “George the Lobster,” and “BBB (Bitter But Better).” Jooyeon reveals “more than i like” to be his favorite song on the album due to the “lyrics not really matching the sound of the song so, it has very surprising aspects to it,” whilst Jun Han went on to say his favorite track is “‘BBB (Bitter But Butter)’ because [he thinks] it’s really easy to understand.” Gun-il dove deep into his reason behind choosing the title track “Beautiful Life” as his favorite song on the mini-album, as he expresses his love for the song’s meaning: “There isn’t a single point I don’t love about this song, especially the message we’re throwing to the audience," he confessed. "That’s the biggest point as to why I love this song because I believe it’s important, as a band, to have a message inside of a song.” He further explains “I’m not saying all other songs don’t have messages included [in them] but the message in ‘Beautiful Life’ is very strong. It’s throwing a very philosophical question to the audience. Questioning one’s beliefs and values that they have been thinking is right their whole life and I think that’s a very strong message and that’s what I love about this song.”
A song of the rock-opera genre that asks its audience a philosophical question, of course the beautiful and wonderful minds of Xdinary Heroes created something on this scale, and this is why Villains (the band’s fandom) love them. The level of creativity and uniqueness that Xdinary Heroes have demonstrated from the very beginning is something that deserves endless amounts of praise and recognition. These six multi-talented men are leading the way in a new era of Korean rock music with a force that continues to get stronger and stronger with each new release.
O.de revealed the synthesizer to be playing a bigger role in this album, sharing this as a memorable moment in the creation of Beautiful Mind for him. "While preparing and creating this album we wanted to highlight the synthesizer more than previous albums and as a person who plays [the] synthesizer, I was very happy. I’m very happy with the output and I’m just really excited to practice the songs for the live performances," he continues.
Relating to the mini-album’s title, Beautiful Mind, the members revealed who in the band they believe to have a “beautiful mind.” O.de sweetly nominated Gun-il as his choice because “even before debut, [Gun-il’s] life goal and his purpose of life has always been making the world more beautiful and it stays that way to this day so, he deserves the title.” With Gun-il being the eldest member and the leader of the band, hearing O.de share these words about him proved to be a touching moment, one that emphasizes great leadership in the band and a mutual respect between the members, with Gun-il thanking O.de and expressing his gratitude for his words. Jungsu chose to shine a light on Jooyeon as his member with a beautiful mind. “I think [Jooyeon’s] mind is very beautiful in a way that he has confidence that he can do anything that he puts his mind to,” says Jungsu. “He doesn’t worry much about things and that kind of mind and that level of confidence is something that I really aspire to, personally,” with the other members agreeing on these two choices.
As Villains wait in high anticipation for the new tracks of Beautiful Mind, the members provide an insight into their favorite tracks to perform live from the hits we know and love thus far. “My pick is the song ‘iNSTEAD!’” says Gaon. “Whenever I play that song, my confidence level just goes out the roof and I really feel like a rockstar playing with our fans.” Jungsu follows Gaon with a different song choice. Smiling through his response, Jungsu says, “This is an extremely personal answer but my pick is a track called ‘XYMPHONY’ because I am at my most nervous state whenever I play this song but somehow, I think I [became] addicted to that feeling and the adrenaline that comes from being nervous.” Jooyeon was next, choosing “Money On My Mind,” the fifth track from their first full-length album Troubleshooting, as his pick. “My reason is similar to Gaon’s,” says Jooyeon "Whenever I play this song, I feel like I am visiting the past era where all of my favourite rock bands existed and I am actually playing with them.” Like Gaon and Jungsu, Gun-il also chose a track from LIVE and FALL, stating, “Personally, it varies from time to time for me but recently, ‘LOVE and FEAR’ is a song that hypes me up the most when I play live.”
The songs from their five mini-albums (Hello, world!, Overload, Deadlock, Livelock, and LIVE and FALL), Troubleshooting, and their Open ♭eta project series, have each delivered sounds of alt-rock, pop-rock, ballads, and more, with discussions of more genres being thrown into the mix in future releases, including the tracks of Beautiful Mind.
With various genres under their musical belt, there remains a few that Xdinary Heroes are still yet to pursue. “So far we have tried many different genres and explored many different themes but in the future I would like to put out a song that is truly instrumental,” expresses O.de when asked what genres the band would like to try in the future. Although the band's discography does contain instrumental tracks, O.de further explains his reason. “In the last album, the intro track ‘XH_WORLD_75’ was instrumental but it was very short so, I would like to create an extended version [of an instrumental song] that carries our message properly, only with instruments and thematic developments in it. That is one of my future goals,” he adds.
"Recently, we kind of toyed with the idea of trying country music," confesses Gaon, joyously, as he flashes an infectious smile upon his face. "Or maybe the disco genre as well," he says as he performs a little disco dance movement in his seat. Jungsu also revealed his ideas for new material saying, “So far, our music has focused on creating heavy sounds but going in the opposite direction, maybe we could try acoustic sounds and songs that mainly [focus on] vocals.” With all of these exciting ideas for new music, Xdinary Heroes's creativity and talent continues to not disappoint, leaving us with a need to hear a country-rock or disco-rock track from them one day.
In September, 2024, Xdinary Heroes delved into nu-metal and hardcore rock with the release of "iNSTEAD!" their first-ever collaboration (and Gaon's favorite track to perform live) featuring vocalist Yoon Dohyun of veteran Korean rock band YB. "iNSTEAD!" unveiled another side to Xdinary Heroes, one that was unexpected but left us wanting more from the band in this genre. “After we finished writing [‘iNSTEAD!’], we had to work on the growling part but we don’t have any members that are used to making that vocal sound, so we needed to find an expert who is very good at growling,” explained Gun-il, when asked how the collaboration with Yoon Dohyun happened. “At that time, a video went viral on social media which was Yoon Dohyun growling at a university festival, so we contacted him and thankfully he said yes right away and that’s how our collaboration began,” leading to the exceptional “iNSTEAD!” as well as Xdinary Heroes’s appearance on YB’s track “Rebellion” earlier this year. “[These collaborations] made us feel wonderful because, although YB are a band who debuted years and years before us, they really treated us like an equal band and they really loved our song. It was a very good experience because we were able to learn a lot of things from Yoon Dohyun-hyungnim and we still keep in touch with each other, so I am very happy that this relationship was able to happen.” As are Villains! The collaboration between Xdinary Heroes and Yoon Dohyun and YB highlights Xdinary Heroes's position within today's K-Rock scene. Four years into their careers, signed to JYP Entertainment’s Studio J, the band has already become globally recognized as leading figures of a new generation of rock.
Most musicians who enter the rock field grow up loving the genre and having specific artists and bands they look up to and take inspiration from in this scene. For O.de, his love and discovery of rock music tells a different story to many. "This may come off as shocking to you but I was never exposed to rock music that much," O.de confesses. "Of course I knew about the genre but it’s not the genre I liked listening to. But as I started this band, I became very familiar with the rock genre and I am thankful that I did. It’s something I cannot live without these days." Gaon, on the other hand, discovered his love of rock music whilst at school through the help of his friends. "I first became familiar with the rock genre when I joined a school rock band. My closest friends were already in that band so I joined and I got really into Green Day [and] that’s how I fell in love with the genre," he reveals. "I would say half of my life has been playing rock and I would say that rock music is almost like my soulmate. It de-stresses me and it also speaks messages on behalf of me. That's how much I love rock music," he continues.
Gun-il's discovery and found love of the rock genre comes from a more vulnerable and emotional place as he details the way in which English rock-band MUSE helped him through tough times. “MUSE is my favorite band and [they] really played a big influence on making me love rock music," he explains. "I moved to the States when I was 13 and it was a very new environment that I had to adjust to. I actually had a hard time adjusting and I felt like an outcast. I was very lonely [with] no friends and I had these bad emotions, but I got to listen to a song from MUSE and it felt like, as Gaon said, the music was expressing the feelings on behalf of me and it helped me to get through the hard days. That’s how I got to love MUSE and that’s how I got to love rock music." A personal insight from Gun-il that some Villains will be able to resonate with, with Gun-il now providing that same level of comfort and musical guidance through his band, just as MUSE did for him.
Having been active for the past four years, Xdinary Heroes have done so much together. From releasing albums to embarking on a world tour across Asia and Europe to holding a showcase in the U.S., and to having their own variety web series on YouTube called Xdinary Heroes BEGINS and XH’s Rock the World–it’s very rare to see the Xdinary Heroes members in solo endeavours. Whilst Gaon is known to co-host MBC’s Show Champion alongside Keum (a member of K-Pop boy group EPEX), Jooyeon recently graced the stage of South Korea's hit singing competition The Masked Singer, reaching the final round hidden as “Hakuna Matata.” When asked about that experience, Jooyeon says “It was an opportunity for me to really think about how to structure the stage and lead the performance all by myself. I’ve never had that opportunity before so it was a great opportunity, and I think through that experience, I grew a lot as an artist and I'm really proud of myself for doing so.” After a humble introduction of “I'm bassist, Jooyeon,” this appearance on The Masked Singer shone a brighter torch on Jooyeon's impressive vocal skills, allowing more people to recognise him as one of the best vocalists of today, and simultaneously discover Xdinary Heroes in the process.
With Heroes in their name and the endless amounts of creativity in their work, the thought of Xdinary Heroes creating their own superhero universe would be an exciting one. Of course, they have their ♭form universe (pronounced flatform), but imagine a cinematic space where the members each have their own superpower. When asked what superpower each member would have if they were the heroes of a movie, instead of answering for themselves, the members decided to choose a superhero and a superpower that best matched the person beside them, bringing out more of their endearing personalities and friendship through their answers. "I think Gaon would be like Quicksilver or like The Flash," says Gun-il, "because his image fits in really well with running fast, super fast."
For Jun Han, Gaon also went down the X-Men route picking “extremely high intelligence like Professor X [because] I think that really fits his image,” to which the other members agreed with. Jun Han had the members laughing with his answer as he chose The Hulk for Jungsu. Jun Han explains, “For Jungsu, I think he would be like The Hulk because out of the six of us he is the tallest and the biggest in size,” to which Jungsu responds with a thumbs up as they all laugh at Jun Han’s description. For O.de, Jungsu sees similarities in him to Spiderman “because his movement is so light.” O.de makes a Spiderman pose as Jungsu expands on his choice, saying, “I pick Spiderman for O.de because he really cares for the people around him. Just like Spiderman cares about his neighbours, O.de cares about those who are near him so that's why I picked it.”
Picking a superpower for Jooyeon, O.de chooses “the ability to control the weather. I pick that character because [their] hair is silver just like Jooyeon’s hair right now so, I think it really matches,” he adds, assuming that he is referring to Storm, joining Gun-il and Gaon with another character from the X-Men universe. Like Jun Han, Jooyeon’s answer also ensues laughter amongst the band as he says, “For Gun-il, I would say Black Widow, who is prone to making mistakes.” The members giggle as he adds, “I don’t know it just suits his image.” With JYP Entertainment labelmates Stray Kids featured on the soundtrack for last year’s Deadpool vs. Wolverine movie, the talk of Xdinary Heroes as superheroes gives us wishful thinking for them to also appear on a Marvel or DC soundtrack one day.
Besides living their best lives as rockstars, these extraordinary musicians also do ordinary things when their schedules are done for the day. To relax, Jungsu revealed he had “recently really got into LPs [and has been] collecting and listening to LP records,” while Jun Han says he continues to “play guitar for fun and practice for fun, even after [his] schedule.” “I sleep like a corpse,” admits Gaon, something many of us can relate to after a busy day of schedules, while Jooyeon says he likes to “watch anime” as his way of relaxing. O.de and Gun-il also give extremely relatable answer with O.de confessing to doing “anything [he wants ] to do that day and at that time,” while Gun-il says he enjoys “going to the convenience store, picking up a couple of bags of chips, and then getting into bed and watching YouTube while eating snacks.”
As the end of the interview approaches, we congratulate Xdinary Heroes on the recent announcement that they will be part of this year’s Lollapalooza lineup in Chicago on July 31, joining other Korean music acts such as BOYNEXTDOOR, KickFlip, and wave to earth, as well as K-Pop inspired girl group KATSEYE. The members clap and show their excitement at the mention of the upcoming festival, thanking us for the congratulations. “Including Lollapalooza, we are preparing lots of new things for 2025 and I think our fans are going to love it, so we are [also] very looking forward to it,” says Gun-il when asked what else Xdinary Heroes have planned this year. “Please look forward to Xdinary Heroes’s new plans and please keep your heads up to our new updates. We love you, thank you,” he adds. O.de wraps up the interview, following Gun-il, as he shares, “A lot of things are planned for this year such as our tour and Lollapalooza. Our goal is to come and meet you as much as possible so stay tuned, and we love you,” bringing the interview to a bittersweet end as we say our goodbyes and well wishes.
Thank you so much to Xdinary Heroes for taking the time to talk to The Kraze about their new mini-album Beautiful Mind and for allowing us to get a deeper look into their beautiful minds, finding out more about each of them and their music. Also, a huge thank you to JYP Entertainment, Studio J, and 42west for making this interview happen. We at The Kraze can’t wait to see what else awaits Xdinary Heroes this year and beyond, with so much already to look forward to.
*Interview answers edited for clarity and readability