In [BIGBANG is Back] what changes have you challenged yourself with?
GD: rather than a change of style I think it’s an album that most clearly shows our growth. We’re still not musicians, not artists, but we’re not idol singers. We’re the right age to call ourselves idols, and we’ve felt thankful to everyone. So we want to express that the album is a transition of our growth from idols to musicians or artists.
The album contains the genre Digilog, but what sort of music is it?
Taeyang: recently in electronic music, as it’s an environment where the artist and listener are comfortable, the listeners also get bored a bit, I think. In everyone’s music you can’t see any huge differences, it makes you think there’s only a really minute variation between them. We have to get out of that situation. Moreover, global music is becoming more analogue in feel. Because of that, while the sound is current, we added a little analogue feel to the melody and tried to mix our old and new music together. As the current circumstances are hard, we want to comfort peoples’ hearts through warm music, so it’s Digilog music.
What is the strength of BIGBANG’s music?
Seungri: there aren’t any hidden genres in our music. Hip hop, pop, punk, bossenova, rock – we add diverse interpretations to various genres of music and mix it all up. Because of that a wide range of age groups, from 10 – 40, can listen to our music. I think that’s the strongest point.
BIGBANG is a group that shines with the member’s individual personalities, but what do you do to harmonize as one group?
GD: each member’s voice is different. Taeyang’s voice is best for pop and R&B, it has an emotional and subtle image to it. Daesung has a bright image, and at the same time it has a traditional Korean feeling, rather than taking on an international flavour. Seungri’s voice uses lung capacity and has a deep feeling of sorrow to it. TOP has a husky, masculine voice, and mine is light and has a high tone. Since each voice is very different, even when you put them together there isn’t a sense of them not fitting. I think that because everyone’s balance of high notes and low notes is different, it’s interesting. The first track is 3 minutes, and in all I think it has a really interesting feel to it. While recording we try lots of mixing, and we plan to do the same from now on.
Daesung: All five of us in BIGBANG try to adjust. In order to make our music listenable to people, we try hard to welcome/match our personalities to each other.
So rather you work to match each of your personalities?
GD: We worried what would happen if rather than as BIGBANG my personality or Taeyang’s stood out, but when standing on stage again as five after such a long time we could express our personalities as BIGBANG. And so we devoted ourselves like when we debuted and tried our hardest. We made a penalty system for being late in rehearsal time etc, and all in all we prepared really hard.
A lot of work must going in to trying to fit everyone’s personalities into one…
GD: When making the mini album this time, we were able to know everyone’s personalities better. Since we combined while emphasizing each of our own strengths in the whole thing, it was much less difficult than I’d thought. Even if we bring together things that at a glance are completely difference it fits perfectly as BIGBANG, and likewise while our individual likes and feelings are different, when we combine them there’s this sense of doing it for the first time/a sense of newness. It’s not that I thought it was difficult; we were able to feel excitement/fun at producing our individual artists.
Without doing any particular promotions, you have had a great influence on the Western market for the first time. What are your feelings now that you’ve spread your wings in the world?
TOP: I don’t think it’s that we’ve become famous. Looking at the results of our individual promotions – Taeyang’s solo album, the GD&TOP album etc - I think that the attention even overseas has increased. Of course we can’t help feeling pressure from that. Taeyang has been to America previously, and the artists there seemed to have an interest in Korean music. Before we had a strong desire to make music that Korean listeners wanted, but now we feel like we have to compete with international artists too, it’s quite exciting.
GD: BIGBANG’s music isn’t made just for people in Korea, we’re also working to enter the foreign market, and we have the motivation for it. I think we’ve had the benefit of the accumulation of the efforts of Jinusean and Se7en-hyung and lots of other seniors. It would be great if in 10 years time if we’re lucky our juniors will also have the benefit of our efforts. If all Korean groups, by working like this, gradually raised the overall quality in the music industry, it would be wonderful. I’d be happy if Korean singers worked hard to be frequently noticed abroad.
Talking of BIGBANG, your performances with their overflowing confidence are striking.
GD: we’ve been working hard for almost 5 years, and maybe because we’ve made music that we want to, it seems that BIGBANG now could have the ability to not be embarrassed whenever or wherever we perform. About my guitar performance in Tonight – it was actually something I didn’t have much confidence about, but if I think it’s embarrassing then it falls apart. On stage I feel like that part alone is my stage. I think a performance is all about how much confidence you have.
What is BIGBANG’s wish, music-wise?
GD: Abroad really famous artists release an album after a long absence and simply through blogging that artist is noticed, but in Korea if a singer releases an album and doesn’t do promotions then they can’t be recognized. I think that’s a shame. These days although we want to record music one day and release it through the simple way of blogging the next day so that fans can hear lots of songs, there’s a company system in place in Korea and it’s not that simple. And we want to do loads more performances. However, if the system could be changed so that we could make the music we like, record it, and share it with everyone, it would be really great I think.
So you mean you want to share music more easily?
GD: If we could, then I think that musicians who really want to release music will be given so many more opportunities. Then we could have comparatively relaxed feelings, produce music regardless of the genre, and be able to choose music that listeners also want to hear. That kind of free feeling is great, isn’t it? So from now on we’re planning on increasing events through blogs. Perhaps before the end of the year it/we will change dramatically.
BIGBANG’s members have stress or worries, I think. How do you all overcome it?
TOP: We’ve been in bad condition due to stress and worries. So from about a year ago we decided to regularly take breaks to talk. I think that even now we’ve grown. From now there are many things that we have to show. Korean idol singers are restricted by a set framework, but I think that it can also be called a good environment. However, we don’t want to be restricted by it. If you look at it, we’re very free, I think. That isn’t because of a freedom of behaviour, but because each of our likings and personalities are different, we are truly free. So if we’re restricted then we feel stressed.
What meaning does 1st place in music shows have for BIGBANG?
TOP: I think that a simple ranking system for music shouldn’t have such a huge standard for judgement. However the reality where we judge artists based on rankings is a huge shame. Recently in today’s music industry, being 1st or 2nd isn’t that important. We’re not obsessed over being 1st. If we can have confidence in the music we make ourselves and have fun, then I think it’s good.
GD: Even though it’s a no. 1 chosen by everyone, there are times when the person who I think is no.1 and the person who others think is no.1 is different. Without knowing if that was correct or not I asked other people, and everyone also seemed to think the same thing as me.
Is there anything you wish for/from your fans as BIGBANG?
GD: It would be great if our fans could also think bigger. It’s not about having a fixed idea where you think ‘oh that!’ when you say BIGBANG; because we all want to show lots and lots of things from different angles, we’d be grateful if fans watch over/respect that. We want to try to change lots of things as much as we can with the word ‘BIGBANG’s before and after generation’.
Source: Scans posted here by Tisya @ bigbangupdates
Translations by butimbigbang and Sabrina
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