It’s pouring rain in New York City the day ATEEZ sit down with Consequence. We meet on Madison Avenue; the members — Hongjoong, Seonghwa, Yunho, Yeosang, San, Mingi, Wooyoung and Jongho — are snapping photos in front of the glittering holiday decor before our conversation, unbothered by the gloom. They’ve been in the city for a full week at this point, wrapping up a string of stateside concerts on their second world tour of 2022, which means they had the day off on Thanksgiving.
“In the morning, we went to SoHo,” shares Seonghwa. “But every store was closed. It was really funny.” Instead, he ended up with Hongjoong and Yunho, searching for the best lookout point to see the Statue of Liberty.
San chimes in with the New York itinerary as well. “I went to the Empire State Building, and Times Square, too,” he says, delighted. “Wooyoung and I went to the Hudson River, and that was my favorite experience.”
“Just walking in New York is really interesting for me,” says Yunho. “I feel like the star of a movie.”
ATEEZ, photo by Ben Kaye
As we sit down to officially start our conversation, good-natured and talkative group leader Hongjoong asks why I couldn’t attend their sold-out show at the Prudential Center. I explain that we missed each other this tour and how we traded places — when the group left for the American leg of their “FELLOWSHIP: BREAK THE WALL” Tour, I was headed to Seoul. He shrugs, considering. “You’ll just have to come to a show in Korea next time, then.”
As anyone who has seen the eight-piece act perform can confirm (as this writer had the opportunity to in January during the “BEGINNING OF THE END” Tour), ATEEZ put on an awe-inspiring concert. An ATEEZ show is a feat of human endurance, three hours of notoriously intense choreography, costume changes, and live vocals, with moments of banter and connection with fans, known as Atiny, peppered in.
In the intensely competitive world of K-pop, the group stands out for a few reasons — there’s an ease and freedom to the way they operate, both onstage and off. They’re remarkably unrehearsed and open in conversation. As the product of a somewhat underdog label in South Korea, KQ Entertainment, their music (written and self-produced largely by Hongjoong and fellow rapper Mingi) goes in experimental, sometimes unexpected directions. The members of the group also seem to genuinely like each other.