Client: i-D
Hongjoong and Mingi, the group’s rappers, point to last year’s “Halazia” as the hardest storyline track to pen. “The atmosphere of the song is already quite difficult and complex,” Hongjoong notes, looking over to Mingi, who explains his process of cataloguing his many thoughts to later draw from. “I write down a lot of them as memos on my phone, so I always go back to them to see if they match what we’re going through (as a group); that’s how I write my lyrics,” he says. “Sometimes I’ll think of it as writing a script, to really get into that persona.”
Mingi and Hongjoong are not the only collectors and creators in ATEEZ. “In my case,” says Seonghwa, “I always memo whenever I hear a line from a song or a line from a poem that I like, just for me to look back on. I’m the type to jot down my feelings if I experience something special. These help me when I write letters or want to say something to ATINY because I’m able to better word my feelings.” San, meanwhile, cites legendary South Korean poet 나 태주 (Ra Tae-joo) as an influence. “I love poems too — I’ve been writing my own but I keep them to myself,” he says. “They can be about my feelings on a certain day, the weather, objects or characters. I’m able to lay out my feelings like this.”
Taylor Glasby 