An Intro After Staying Up All Night:
Infinite’s Dongwoo, Hoya, Sunggyu, L, Woohyun, Sungjong, Sungyeol. (From the left)
10: There was a recording for MBC’s ‘Idol Track and Field Competition’, right? How were your scores?
Sungjong: We failed. Hoya hyung could’ve done well, but he was eliminated at the preliminary round.
Hoya: When the person next to me fell, I also fell too.
Sungjong: But since we could still get our reactions caught [on camera], we stayed to cheer others on.
10: The recording probably finished near the morning, but what’s your schedule after this interview?
Woohyun: Pracitce.
10: Were there any breaks after promotions for the 1st album till comeback?
Infinite: Nope!
Hoya: We did events, practiced, recorded, and received vocal training. It wasn’t a break.
10: What did you do last Christmas?
Infinite: Practice!
A Final Determination - Evolution:
10: To start off, tell us about your album.
Sunggyu: Our album title is ‘Evolution’ and the meaning is to evolve. That’s why the participation amount is higher than the first mini album. Our vocals got more mature and you can see a more colorful group dance on stage. Dongwoo and Hoya also personally did the rap making. And for a song like ‘Can U Smile’, it’s a song that was supposed to go into our first album, but after adding more to it for completion, we recorded it again. All six songs are good songs, filled with our eagerness. And besides anything else, it’s an album that must! (Infinite: Euhahaha!) succeed.
10: But I think the reason that the second album must succeed is different from ‘wanting to receive popularity’.
Sunggyu: Our CEO said it in a serious tone. If this album doesn’t do well, he’s not going to release another album.
10: Will your CEO really not release another album? (Laughter)
Sunggyu: Ah, I don’t think he’ll really do that. Haha. But if we think like that and work harder, our next album will come out, and if that does well, we can do things like unit groups. Although there’s no set plan, Woohyun, for instance, can do a ballad solo or since Hoya and Dongwoo like hip-hop, they can go have promotions near that road. Truthfully, the problem isn’t that our company isn’t pushing us towards it, but if the results are not as great, we think that we’ll lose courage so we’re going to work hard to not have any regrets.
10: For the 1st album, Epik High’s Mithra had helped with the rap making, but since he enlisted into the
army, you probably did it all by yourselves for this album. How was it?
Dongwoo: Although I did it since I was a trainee, Mithra hyung had helped us to create a better quality for the 1st album. It was fun to do it all by ourselves this time.
Hoya: For those with a lot of experience, they just write it once and say okay, but we had to write five to six raps for it to pass. Even then, if the arrangement changes, we had to rewrite it. I learned a lot.
10: Infinite’s songs have that trendy 90’s pop feel. And although the songs’ colors are great now, I feel that everyone has a different style of music that they want to do.
Sunggyu: I honestly like R&B and African-American music, but our group songs can’t always be the same with the genres I like. And the dance songs we do now are fun.
Scorpion Transformation, Feel Released/Free!:
10: Infinite’s performance is the representative for perfectly fitting group dances, is there a tip to do BTD’s
point ‘scorpion dance’ well?
Woohyun: You need to always have a scorpion pose.
Infinite: …
Hoya: When I first taught the scorpion dance to Sunggyu hyung, he said ‘I don’t think I can do it’.
Sunggyu: Our CEO was watching from the sides at that time and said, “We probably won’t be able to do this dance because of Sunggyu”! Wow, it really gave a scar to my confidence, but the reason why I couldn’t help but agree, was because I really thought that we wouldn’t be able to do it because of me. But it seemed to work after practicing so hard. That’s why I think it’s important to have a faith and mind that you can do it.
Hoya: Truthfully, anyone can learn and do the move, but you need to have a relaxed look when you stand up, as if it were nothing. But there’s a moment where you’re released/feel free after doing the scorpion dance. It’s when everyone does their own freestyle dance after sweeping the floor.
10: What do you think of during that moment?
Dongwoo: Ah, freedom.
Sungjong: It’s my world~
Sunggyu: People like Hoya and Dongwoo, who like dancing, start dancing because they’re excited, but I look around for my original spot and go back to it. Since I need to do a high-pitched adlib, I straighten up my breathing, do hmhm, and go to the back.
Dongwoo: Everyone is thinking something different even though we’re on the same stage. Heuheuheu.
Become a traffic light:
Sunggyu “I truthfully like R&B and African-American music”
10: Because Dongwoo-sshi dyed his hair red [T/N: This was before his hair color changed] and Sungjong-sshi dyed his hair blonde, you guys really stand out. How was this chosen?
Sungjong: Our CEO said that he was going to dye my hair blue no matter what after ‘She’s Back’, but he saw how this hair color came out and said it was good, so I kept it like this.
Dongwoo: My hair color was normally wine-colored, then it turned into a cherry color, then a tomato color came out, and then it finally became red. They bleached my eyebrows and colored it together, so it changed every time. It was pink, yellow, red, lilac, and the eyeliner was always changed between blue and green.
Sungyeol: And together they became ‘the sun and dawn’, the beginning and end. I kept asking because I wanted to dye my hair too, but they said it wouldn’t match me…
10: If you could dye your hair, what color would you do it?
Sungyeol: Green to be really unique!
Just What is Noir?:
10: I heard that the concept for the ‘BTD’ performances was ‘noir’. How did you prepare for it?
Sunggyu: Our CEO came to the dorms in the middle of the night and showed us a Hong Kong movie. Movies like ‘A Better Tomorrow’ and ‘To Love With No Regrets’. Our CEO watched it in middle school and was really impressed by it; he decided that he would do something similar to it one day. And then he made us do it.
Hoya: There was a similar scene in KBS’ ‘I’m Sorry, I Love You’. Riding a motorcycle.
Sungyeol: Something that didn’t make sense from what our CEO said was, “The main character always dies in the end of a noir movie, a public pay phone always comes out, and since they smoke cigarettes in there, think of it and practice your expressions.” I mean, what is he telling us to do…
Dongwoo: We have cellphones, so why is a public pay phone really necessary…
Sunggyu: And what was worse was that a public pay phone didn’t even come out in the movie. Heuheuheu. When it came out once in the end, our CEO said, “There we go, the public pay phone came out!”. And there was a movie that was a noir, and the main character didn’t die?
10: What did you feel after watching those movies?
Infinite: Mm…
Sungyeol: Is that kind of guy… cool?
Dongwoo: What is noir. That we have to.
Sunggyu: Movies that recently came out like ‘A Sweet Life [달콤한 인생]’, are really fun and cool, I’m not really sure about old movies… But I think we felt a somewhat bitter and a grim mood.
Woohyun: Then we went to the practice room and practiced expression in the middle of the night. It sometimes comes into my mind when I’m on stage.
10: If you had to choose, who was the coolest/handsomest?
Infinite: Yoo Dukhwa!
Hajime Mashite [[Nice to meet you]. Watashino Sunggyu Desu [I Am Sunggyu.]:
10: I heard you’re getting ready for your showcase in Japan.
Woohyun: It’s planned for April, but since it’s our first foreign showcase, I think it will be really meaningful. And besides Hoya, none of us have ever gone to Japan.
L: For me, I have this illusion about Japan.
10: …What illusion?
L: Wait, why are you looking at me oddly? Haha. Just, after I just heard things about the performance system like the camera rehearsals are done a day before, and the sounds systems are good, so I think we can show a good stage.
10: You probably will need to learn Japanese, are you prepared?
Woohyun: Probably… Sunggyu hyung is probably preparing.
Sunggyu: I received lessons awhile back. Hajime mashite [nice to meet you]. Watashino Sunggyu desu [I am Sunggyu].
10: But if you make only one person do the translating, there’s that negative point that you don’t know what
they’re saying about you…
Woohyun: We can do that much too.
Sungjong: We’ll just believe and entrust it to him.
Woohyun: Hajime mashite. Watashino Woohyun desu. Arigatou gojaimasu [Thank you]~
7 Years Later, Diving Into the Audience at a 19+ Concert:
Dongwoo “It was fun to personally do the rap making”
10: The largest dream for rookie singers is to have a solo concert, what side of yourselves would you like to show if you could stand on a stage like that one day?
L: I’m learning how to play the guitar, although it’s still insufficient. If we were to do a concert, I would compose my own song and sing it.
Sunggyu: I believe that it will take about 7 years.
Sungjong: I want to sing a song that I’m confident in, then sing one measure of a trot and dance. And what I want to do more than anything is to jump into the audience! Then have the fans move me around.
Woohyun: You’ll die like that.
Infinite: Euhahaha!
10: If Sungjong-sshi jumped into the audience and was in danger, what would you do?
Sunggyu: I would jump in also.
Woohyun: He would already be dead by then.
Sungjong: (Doesn’t give into it) I want do that too. Going on a wife, no I mean, wire and coming down amazingly like in a musical.
Woohyun: What? Wife [T/N: Said in English because Sungjong got confused about it.]? Wife?
Sungjong: Hanging my leg on the line and going shu~oong, backwards.
Sungyeol: I want to do a comic dance with Sungjong or a trot and give happiness to the audience.
Dongwoo: Euheuheuheu, I would do the…
Woohyun: Reaction.
Sungjong: We would have a VIP area for Dongwoo hyung and he can sit and watch what we’re doing.
Dongwoo: I just want to enjoy it together. Hahaha.
Woohyun: Well, since he does the work by just watching. There’s a rumor that if he goes as a panelist, he can do the reactions of 100 people because he laughs so often.
Sunggyu: I want to sing a R&B song while playing the piano and do rock songs with a band.
Hoya: I want to do a special stage that I can’t on broadcast, and concerts have 19+ stages too. I want to show a heated performance like Usher does at his performances.
Infinite: Ohohohoh~
article cr; 10asia
trans. cr; hyejin @ infinite updates ; take out with full credits ♥ (adding yourselves to the credits is not allowed.)
this honestly took long, so please don’t edit the credits.
