[INTERVIEW] TWS turns members’ fears into fan anthem on ‘TO US’

Before K-pop boy band TWS began work on its new single album, each of the six members sat down for a one-on-one interview with their agency about what frightened them most and who helped them back on their feet.

Those answers, the members say, became the backbone of the upcoming record.

“TO US,” which drops Monday at 6 p.m. with the lead track “Call My Name,” arrives just over a week after the group wrapped its first Asia tour, and finds the members looking back on the trial and error of their early years while turning their attention to “42,” the group’s official fandom.

Introduced in January 2024 as Pledis Entertainment’s first boy group since Seventeen, TWS — Shinyu, Dohoon, Youngjae, Hanjin, Jihoon and Kyungmin — debuted with “plot twist,” a breakout hit that made the group one of the most sought-after rookies of the year. The group calls its sound “boyhood pop,” a label it uses for songs about the experience of growing up.

“This album is precious to us,” Jihoon said during an interview with The Korea Times at a cafe in eastern Seoul on Wednesday. “It started with interviews with each member, and I think it expresses the sincere feelings that came out in those interviews.”

He recalled being asked what he feared most and when he felt anxious, and said those questions led naturally to another — who helps him get back up in those moments.

The lead track grew out of the same reflection. Jihoon explained that the group drew its message from the moment that gives the members the most strength, when fans call out their names.

“The moment we first heard the song, we were all of one mind about what we needed to express,” he said. “It was our sincerity, the kind where we’d throw everything we have when we think of our fans.”

Youngjae, Shinyu and Dohoon, who have been involved in songwriting since the group’s previous release, once again took part in penning the lyrics.

Dohoon described the song as a story about “an invisible kind of trust,” pointing to a pre-chorus line that roughly translates to “I’ll leave myself to you” as its emotional center, while Shinyu said an album built on sincerity called for a title track that spoke honestly, so he simply wrote down his thoughts as they came.

Jazz pianist Yoon Seok-cheol played on the track, layering emotional piano harmonies over a driving drum-and-bass rhythm. Kyungmin said the piano added a “wistful touch” to the song’s most stirring moments.

The single album also includes “WE UP,” about the group’s ambition to keep growing toward bigger stages, and “heavy,” a song of comfort for young people worn down by the weight of the world.

Finding their pace

Heading into its third year, the group has also had to reckon with its own growing pains. Jihoon said the members were once in a hurry, more fixated early in their career on what they might lose than on what they could gain, before they came to understand themselves and learned to pace their work.

Kyungmin said he went through a stretch of lethargy and boredom that came with a repetitive routine, and worked through it during his livestreams on fan platform Weverse.

“I reflected on why I love this job and why I started it in the first place, and I tried to find the fun in it again and be a positive influence,” he said.

Shinyu, the group’s leader, said not a day has gone by since debut without him thinking about what kind of leader best suits his members. Jihoon said those efforts had paid off.

“Now he’s someone who catches things without us having to say a word,” Jihoon said.

The members also pushed back, with some amusement, on the introverted image that has followed them since debut. “When introverts get together, they’re even louder,” Youngjae said, adding that the six are rarely apart and get noisy whenever they joke around.

Dohoon said the image took hold early on because everything was unfamiliar and the members were still finding their footing, and that taking on duties such as hosting a music show had since drawn him out of his shell.

“I’ve talked so much that I’ve become more extroverted,” he said.

The 15-show tour “24/7:FOR:YOU,” which opened at Seoul’s KSPO Dome and traveled through Fukuoka, Hyogo, Kanagawa, Macao, Bangkok and Singapore before closing at Kaohsiung Arena on Oct. 24, sold out in most cities, according to the agency.

Jihoon said the unit stages and the cities themselves had given him a great deal of inspiration, and that he hopes the group can one day take on a world tour.

For now, he said, the goal is to stay what the group has always been.

“Our relationships are healthy, and I want us to be a healthy team with healthy fans,” he said.