Just days after dropping a 3-disc career retrospective compilation Proof, K-pop icons BTS shocked the ARMY nation on Tuesday (June 14) with the surprise announcement that they are going on an indefinite “hiatus” to allow each man time to focus on solo ventures.
The revelation from the 7-man boy band came around 20 minutes into an hour-long FESTA dinner, during which members RM, Jin, SUGA, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook casually sat around a dinner table joking around while deciding what to drink, reminiscing about their rocket ride to fame and playfully teasing each other.
“We’re going on a hiatus now,” Suga casually stated at one point apropos of nothing else they were talking about in a segment that suddenly made the tone more sober. “Should we talk about why we’re not doing the FESTA or making content?” he added. “Should we get into that?” RM wondered.
“Yeah, we have to talk about the direction we’re taking,” Suga confirmed. And since Suga brought it up, RM felt free to expound on the apparent upcoming break following the group’s relentless pace since forming in 2013.
“Gathering like this today and shooting content, ‘I’m glad we’re BTS… what would I do if we weren’t BTS?,’” RM asked. “It made me think I’m happy just being together. I started music and became BTS because I had a message for the world.” He said he didn’t known what he would do after the group released “On,” the second single from their 2020 Map of the Soul: 7 album.
But then the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down and the band focused on recording new singles including their No. 1 hits “Dynamite,” “Butter,” “Permission to Dance” and “Life Goes On” and, he realized, “the group has definitely changed.”
“We have to accept that we’ve changed,” RM said as his bandmates looked on with decidedly more serious faces than during the earlier part of the celebratory dinner. “For me, it was like the group BTS was within my grasp until ‘On’ and ‘Dynamite,’ but after ‘Butter’ and ‘Permission to Dance’ I didn’t know what kind of group we were anymore.” He said that whenever he writes lyrics and songs the story and message he wants to spread is very important, “but it was like that was gone now. I don’t know what kind of story I should tell now.”
RM, 27, said he always thought of BTS as being different from other groups, but that the “problem” with K-pop and the idol system is that “they don’t give you time to mature. You have to keep producing music and keep doing something.” He described getting up in the morning and having his makeup done and feeling like he doesn’t have any time for growth.
“And it’s not just about music and work,” he added, noting that he’s also changed “as a human” over the past decade. “So I need to think and have some alone time and then those thoughts can mature into something uniquely mine.”
ARMY, of course, was top of mine for each man, with Jimin saying, “We can’t help but think of our fans no matter what, we want to be the kind of artists that are remembered by our fans. I think now we’re starting to think about what kind of artists we each want to be remembered by our fans. I think that’s why we’re going through a rough patch right now, we’re trying to find our identity and that’s an exhausting and long process.”
The disclaimer at the beginning of the video states: “NOT scripted! NOT staged! It’s all BTS sincerity of ARMY, by ARMY, for ARMY.” At press time a spokesperson for the group had not returned requests for additional information on the hiatus. Back in 2019, the group took a month-long break from the spotlight that a representative said at the time was an “opportunity for the members of BTS, who have relentlessly driven themselves towards their goal since their debut, to recharge and prepare to present themselves anew as musicians and creators.”
They also took an “extended period of rest” at the end of 2021 that their management company said in a statement was intended to allow them to get “re-inspired and recharge with creative energy.”
Watch the dinner video and hiatus announce below (hiatus talk is around the 21:00 mark):
