I Gave My All To Create This Album - V

Vspent much of his childhood with his grandmother in Geochang, a small town in southern South Korea.

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He came away with a taste for older music, from Chet Baker to Frank Sinatra to Elvis Presley, and a broody, smoldering vibe that stands out among his bandmates. He has a voice to match, a smoky baritone that he lets loose on his vibe-y, bedroom-eyed debut EP, Layover. He's always been an essential element in BTS' sound, and on Arirang, his songwriting contributions included essential tracks like “Into the Sun.” He seems quietly confident about it all, with the exception of his inability to hit the kind of high notes that come so naturally to the likes of Jimin. "I am on the lower end," he says. "But I've learned a lot. I've gotten better since learning from our past albums, but it will always be a challenge for me."

How did you feel in 2022, when it became clear a break was coming? This is all you've known for so long. Well, while we're in the military, we can't perform even if we want to. So I did really yearn to perform. I wanted to release an album, I wanted to sing and dance. I definitely felt that... desire? Let's call it desire. But since we were needed by our country, we had to do the best with our situation at the time. So I tried very hard to forget about V of BTS for a while, so that I could concentrate on living my life as Kim Taehyung.

You said that after discharge, you rebuilt and reset your mind and body. What does that mean to you? That idea was so important to me. I knew that my time in the military was going to be quite long, so I thought very hard about how to spend it well and not waste it away. First off, I considered my values and my health. I tried to organize and give a lot of thought to my inner world, looking back on myself and contemplating the kind of person I ultimately want to become. So for that year and a half, I worked out a whole lot. Read a lot, listened to a lot of music. And I think that gave me the opportunity to rebuild my body and mind.