Although they continuously try out different vibes and genres in their music, P1Harmony have made their own lane in the K-Pop world clear and easily distinguished. They have the swagger of a music group with decades of experience, while still going through the natural and expected growing pains of a newer group. They’re not perfect- they show the grit and hard work that makes an audience able to relate to them in a time where authenticity is key. The 6-piece sat down with Pop Crave before the release of their new album SAD SONG to discuss the cohesiveness of P1Harmony, what albums they think their P1ece love the most, and the inspiration behind the music.
You each have very unique tones as vocalists and rappers, but you also have very unique flows and how you flow together in the song. You end up in songs gelling very well together- not making it feel disjointed, it always feels complete. It seems that there’s a very big intentionality in being cohesive while still showing your individual colors. Did that come to you all naturally, or was it something that you had to work on together and it came as you’ve gotten more experience?
Jongseob: Even I’m surprised sometimes, because we don’t really do anything in preparation to make it sound cohesive and flow well or gel well together. I get surprised, too, because we all have very unique and different voices. But when we get on a track together, it just seems right. And I guess it’s just fate or destiny. So it’s just really fun.
Keeho: I think for me, in the technical aspects of it, I think because we do distribute our own parts and our own lines, we’re able to just give the person the part that will suit them the best and also dynamically in a song. For me, I’m a very heavy and very thick singer. So sometimes when I take the very first line of the song, it can come off a little too burdening. We like to give the first few parts to Jiung or Theo- it depends on the song, obviously, the genre and the vibe. But we all have our pros and cons, and we’ve done it so long now that we know what we’re good at, what we’re not good at, then we’re able to assign the parts accordingly. And you know… the power of mixing and mastering. They mix our voices and master them so beautifully so that our voices sound great together. Also, the people that direct us while we’re recording- our engineers and directors, they make sure that none of us are doing some crazy adlibs at the beginning of the song that don’t make any sense.
Watching your behind-the-scenes vlog of the Killin’ It album, it was really interesting to see you all distribute the parts, how you all discussed it and moved forward after being like, ‘Okay, you can have this, but maybe this isn’t your vibe.’ I thought that was interesting. Not a lot of groups show that part of themselves.
You all have improved and evolved as artists individually. Was there any experience while being in the group that you attribute to that growth in your talent and your abilities?
Jongseob: Working in a group, all of us are very different individually. But I think one thing that really is similar amongst all of us is that we’re very much perfectionists, and we really take pride in the music that we make and our own individual skill sets, and we always are trying to make it better and do better. So we’re always practicing and making sure our voices and raps or everything we are doing are in the best condition.
Keeho: Because, like you said, we have so much involvement in the music making process, we’re able to communicate so much more because we have to sit down and talk about what music we want to make and what song you want to do and just talk to each other in that sense, musically. We’re able to learn from each other as well, too, and just be able to know, ‘Oh, you really like this type of music, and this is the type of music that you sound best at’, and just learning about each other more, which helps us all grow together as a team.
This might be your best album yet. It really shows every genre and skill that P1Harmony has to offer. Was that an intentional choice to include different styles of music and different things that P1 can do, or did that just come naturally as you were making the album?
Jiung: I think it’s a bit of a thing we always wanted to show you guys, but this time, especially, we have a lot of our own songs. Making new songs and working on songs with new genres has always been one of our goals because we really want to break the boundaries and experiment with as many sounds as we possibly can. But I think especially with this album, it might seem more experimental, and it might seem like there’s more genres in it because there were just that many more songs that the members produced themselves. Keeho has a song to himself called “It’s Alright”, I worked on a song by myself called “Last Call”, and the rap members both have their own unit song [“WASP”] that we’ve never done before, ever. Just being able to put our own little taste into the album just naturally made it so different. Every song has its own life to it. Whatever is inspiring us in the time period where we’re creating music, that’s the music that got involved in the album. The crazier and more experimental moments the album gets through that.
As a group that often enjoys viral moments due to your personalities, your good nature, how do you think that has affected the way that you indulge on social media with your fans?
Keeho: I definitely think social media is more of a huge thing in music now than it ever was. I think it’ll continue to become even more impactful in how artists communicate with their fans and really show their personalities. Because I feel like for a long time, if you were a singer, you really just noticed the art and the music on the stage. But now in the age of social media and technology, it’s so much more than performing on stage and just singing, creating music. There’s that whole personality aspect of it and how relatable you are, how likable you are, personality-wise, and all of these things that come with it. When we do our social media, I think we try to keep it as real as possible. And that’s why we get that much of a reaction as well, because we don’t try to sugarcoat anything- we don’t try to film or do anything that we feel like it isn’t us. We really film what we find funny. We post pictures that we think that look really good. We really talk to our fans and share things that we find that are cool and fun. We just keep it real. And I think that’s why our fans like us so much because they can really see our personalities.
Which P1Harmony album does each member think is the fan favorite, and which album is your favorite? What do you think are some gems in your discography besides this new record?
Keeho: I think the fan favorite is DISHARMONY: BREAK OUT, which is our second mini-album. That’s the album that I wish people would like the most, too, because I personally really like that album. One of my favorite songs off of that album is “AYAYA”.
Intak: I think our fan’s favorite album is the fifth mini album, the “Back Down” album [HARMONY: SET IN]. My favorite is the second mini album, DISHARMONY: BREAK OUT.
Jiung: I would say the fan’s favorite album is second mini album [DISHARMONY: BREAK OUT] as well.
Keeho: We love BREAK OUT!
Jiung: Fan’s favorite is the “Back Down” one. Yeah, then my favorite is the second one, DISHARMONY: BREAK OUT.
Jongseob: Me too. My favorite is the second mini album as well. Fan’s favorite, I think second mini album. I think it’s you know- a masterpiece.
Theo: I really think fans are going to love SAD SONG, but my guess for fan favorite is the second mini album, and that’s my favorite as well.
Soul: I think the second mini album is fans’ favorite. The second mini album is my album too. I think a reason that the fans really, really like it is because “End It” is on that album.
Speaking of P1Harmony live, “Last Call” will definitely be the encore song on your next tour, right? It has to be. When I was listening to it for the first time, I was like, ‘I can see myself at a P1 concert right now listening to this song’. It really gives those vibes. It’s the encore song. I know you can’t spoil it, but could you tell us more about that track?
Keeho: I can’t tell you. We can’t tell you. I don’t know!
Jiung: We can’t guarantee or let you know if “Last Call” will be on the setlist on our next tour because we don’t know when it’s going to happen, but when I wrote the song, I imagined people jumping and having fun with us in the crowd. That’s exactly what I imagined!
At Pop Crave, we’re all about pop culture. What are your current pop culture obsessions? What are you guys really into right now?
Keeho: I think for me, I watch a lot of dating shows in Korean. I watched ‘Singles Inferno‘ with Intak when it first came out. Also a different pop culture thing that is super huge is Brat– I think everyone was having a Brat summer. A lot of our fans ask me if I play Dress to Impress. I’ve never played Dress to Impress before, but I see it all the time, everywhere. So maybe in the future, that might be my pop culture rave.
Jongseob: I heard about Oasis, they started their tour again…that’s amazing. I really want to go.
Is there anything you’d like to say to P1ece through Pop Crave?
Keeho: I just want to say this year has been such a great year for us, and we really, really, really want to say thank you for all the love and support that they’ve given us ever since the beginning of the year, starting with “Killin’ It” and then moving on with all the stuff that happened this year. It has been such a good year for us, and we really wanted to manifest that love and support into this new album. So hopefully, our P1ece all over the world, and our P1ece that are reading on Pop Crave will really, really like our new album.
