[ENTREVISTA / INTERVIEW] KINGDOM 킹덤

El grupo de K-Pop KINGDOM, al cual conocimos en en febrero del 2021 bajo la compañía GF Entertainment, acaba de realizar su esperado comeback con History Of Kingdom : PartⅢ. Ivan y con ello hemos hablado en exclusiva con ellos.

No te pierdas la entrevista en exclusiva de BA NA NA al grupo KINGDOM. En el que hablamos de su nuevo trabajo, concepto de los reinos, curiosidades y sus planes de futuro.

¿Quieres conocer mejor a KINGDOM? Sigue con BA NA NA.

© Imágenes cedidas por GF Entertainment

For everyone who doesn't know KINGDOM... How would you describe KINGDOM? Can you introduce to our readers the group?

Spain fans, Open The Gate, we are KINGDOM. It’s an honor and we are so happy we could greet the Spanish fans. We are a seven member boy group with seven kings and seven kingdoms. It is a team that reinterprets all cultures around the world with K-pop and wears our Kingdom's own colors again to show a four minute movie-like stage. We will also show you a fantasy movie in the music video, so please look forward to it and show us a lot of love.

© Imágenes cedidas por GF Entertainment

We would like to say that KINGDOM’s Universe and Concept are amazing. We are fascinated and always wanting to know more about the history that surrounds your group. Can you bring us closer to the KINGDOM universe? What story is behind it and how are we going to see it through the 7 kingdoms?

Kingdom’s worldview is a story about 7 kings who rule 7 kingdoms. This first season, which is the one we’re currently on, shows the process of the seven kings getting lost, wandering around and growing up in their own way. The story of all seven kings sitting on the throne will be really amazing, so please look forward to it. To give you a tipo, our music video has a story but, if you look closely at the lyrics and the choreography and watch it again, you will find out there’s a reason why the lyrics and choreography happened. I think these factors will be a lot of fun.

Before we go to the present, we would like to know how the beginnings were for Kingdom. You debuted in February 2021, Your debut was in February 2021, how did you experience this moment? What memory do you have of your pre-debut era?

Honestly, when we debuted, we didn’t realize what was happening. We all worked so hard setting the debut as our goal, so when it happened it didn’t feel real. We only realized that we had (actually debuted) when we saw the debut stages on TV. When we were trainees, the memory we remember a lot is just practicing very hard until late at night. It was very hard, but we miss that kind of emotions sometimes.

Your new work is 'History Of Kingdom : PartⅢ. Ivan' with the title track 'Black Crown'. What story do we find behind this work? What makes this song unique and representative in the era?

History Of Kingdom Part III. IVAN relates the story of the Snow Kingdom, ruled by Ivan. This albums narrates the struggle between the good Ivan and the evil Ivan over using the Black Crown, which has the power of absolute evil. There’s good and evil within Ivan but to protect his kingdom, he chooses the power of absolute evil and uses the crown. This is the story that you can see through Black Crown, our title track. We tried to capture it so that fans can understand the story of Ivan, the Snow Kingdom and his inner pain through this song.

You currently have 3 musical jobs: History Of Kingdom: Arthur, Chiwoo and Ivan. Of all the mini albums, which songs are the most special to you?

DANN: I wanna choose Make Us. It’s the first song that me and Mujin wrote and composed, and it contains our honest feelings. In the future, we will continue to tell you the story of our Kingdom, so please look forward to it.

ARTHUR: I really like Magical. Honestly, I think all our songs are good, but I specially think Magical is a good song to listen to when you’re having a difficult moment. You can gain confidence, and there’s this lyrics that goes “일어나 부딪혀” (get up and jump into it (?) ) and it felt like it was telling my story, so it touched me. In particular, the melody in the chorus is addictive and easy to sing along, so it’s a good song for the general public.

MUJIN: For me, it’s 밤공기. It’s meaningful because it’s the first song I participated in the production for a KINGDOM album, and personally the atmosphere of the song is just my favorite.

LOUIS: I think all our songs are good but I have to settle down for ON AIR. It’s a song that’s very easy to listen to and I have very good memories of the time we recorded it.

IVAN: For me it’s Black Crown. It’s because I’m the main character of this album’s title track, and it gave me a lot of confidence and I was very happy.

JAHAN: I think for me it’s Fallen Star. It’s a song that give off my favorite feeling, so I really like it.

CHIWOO: I like ON AIR the most. If you ever go on a drive, I think it’s a good song to listen to. I totally recommend it!

One of the strengths of Kingdom, in addition to the music and your amazing talent, is the set design, choreography and performance in each era. How are the filming processes for videoclips? Can you tell us any anecdotes?

This time as well for this music video, the results were so cool and the entire music video had a lot of story so it felt like we were watching a fantasy movie all the time. It was a bit hard to film, because we stayed up all night for like 48 hours, but it was totally worth it.

For music videos, you have group shots and individual shots. During group shots we mostly film group dances or drama scenes, so for Black Crown it was really nice to try a different style of acting. Through this music video we also tried our first time at filming using a green screen, it was a bit awkward because it was our first time but it was very fun.

We know that Kingdom is part of the process of creating your own songs. Where do you get the inspiration for it? How is the writing process to tell your story?

DANN: While doing music, people feel a lot of different emotions. Through music, I got the feeling that I could sympathize and communicate with each others through sadness and happiness. For me, personally, while writing lyrics for the songs, it feels kind of like an escape or a way to express my feelings. I think i get a lot of inspiration if I close my eyes and just think about music or just dance while feeling the music.

MUJIN: I’m not very good at expressing my feelings or my thoughts, to be honest. However, I think that writing and composing is more precious because it feels like the only way I can fully express my sincerity. When writing or composing lyrics, I always work based on what I imagine or experience, but I often become a speaker by directly joining the situation.

 

At the end of the of Black Crown’s videoclip we can see a spoiler for the next chapter… and we are really excited about it. Can you give us a clue of this new era and chapter in Kingdom's history? What can we expect from this new job?

If you saw the last part of the music video, you must know by now that our next main character is DANN. DANN is the king who rules the Kingdom of Transition. In the next album, we plan to show a new oriental concept, so please look forward to it!

What will happen when all the 7 Kingdoms are discovered? What can we expect from Kingdom in a musical and conceptual sense in the future?

In the 8th mini album, there will be a world view but we don’t know the details yet! We’re looking forward to it too! Since we have introduced each king through seven albums, we may show the story of a team called Kingdom instead of the ‘main character’ concept!

  

We always ask this question to our interviewees since we love to know curiosities. Do you have any hidden talent? (Cooking, sports, playing instruments…)

DANN and MUJIN, the representatives of KINGDOM when it comes to writing songs, can play the piano. DANN can also play the drums! IVAN is good at Taekwondo and CHIWOO at soccer. We don’t really have anyone who is good at cooking but CHIWOO and MUJIN are picking up interest in it.

2021 is almost over and we have 2 questions: What was your favorite memory of this year? What are the goals or dreams that you have in mind as a group for 2022?

Wouldn’t the most treasured memory be our debut? We can’t think of anything else besides our debut since 2021 was our debut year… In 2022 we’d like to win 1st place in a music show.

You are followed by fans from all over the world, and many are linked to the kingdoms that you represent in your works. What does the support of the fans mean in your day to day?

We are still amazed every single day to know that we have fans from all over the world. We get so many cheering messages in different languages, it feels like a dream. Our fan’s support is our biggest energy and the biggest reason why we’re on stage. We will always work hard to return what we received as KINGDOM

Can you send a message to your fans?

Hello KINGMAKER! We’ve made a comeback with our 3th album! Thank you so much for waiting for us! We will try our best to show you a better KINGDOM through our promotions! Thank you so much! Love you!