Xdinary Heroes are back with one of their most sonically ambitious mini-albums yet, and that says a lot for a band that continuously pushes the boundaries of their sound and the concept of rock in K-Pop. Impulse started off with a great concept and gave us a flawless mini-album with some of their best songs yet. A few days before the release, we got the incredible opportunity to sit down and chat with Xdinary Heroes about what makes this such a special release, the concept and ideas behind the album, the b-sides and everything that is Impulse!
Hello, welcome back to The Honey Pop! We’re beyond excited for Impulse! How are you feeling in the run-up to the release?
Jooyeon: After releasing many albums, more than the release itself, I care more about how the songs in the album will be received by our fans and the listeners. I’m very curious and looking forward to seeing how they’ll react. I imagine how we’ll perform these songs on live stage and that’s what keeps me going.
Gaon: I would like to also add to that that we really appreciate our fans because they’re the reason we’re able to release another album.
Of course live performances are a big part of your music and something we all look forward with every Xdinary Heroes comeback. What is the song you’re the most excited to play live?
Gaon: All of them. But if I had to pick, I would pick ‘Slashhh!’ because this is our first time doing legitimate EDM song so I’m very excited to play it live.
‘Slashhh!’ was actually a stand out to us ever since we listened to the Instrumental Live Sample and we were already wondering about that song specifically. What inspired you to explore that kind of sound?
O.de: We wanted to showcase our version of EDM with this song but at the same time we wanted to maintain our identity as a rock band. Creating the harmony between synthesiser and guitar was our focus and we had a lot of fun with it.
We were really intrigued with the Mood Film for Impulse and it seems to put the idea of desire at the center of this comeback. How did desire become the driving force behind Impulse, and how do you think that theme comes through in the songs?
Jooyeon: I think desire means having a clear goal. So rather than something negative, if you look at it positively, desire can be the driving force of one’s life. So we wanted to look at the many different kinds of desires that reside in a human being and that’s what this album is about.
Speaking of desire, the aesthetics of this comeback feel much darker and moodier than what we might usually associate with that concept. What made you want to explore that contrast between desire and a darker atmosphere?
Gaon: I think it was a period of time when we really thought about the concept of desire and we thought about our own desire in the past and how we had dealt with it. In Korea, the word “desire” is often used in a negative way, rather than a positive way, so we wanted to show the two sides of desires.
‘Love in Dystopia’ caught our eye from the day the tracklist was released because dystopia has been a recurring theme in your concepts and music. How does this song connect to the way you’ve explored dystopia throughout your music?
Jun Han: We’ve been using the concept of dystopia as a narrative component in our visuals and music, but what is more important is what’s in the middle of the dystopia – what lies with dystopia as a background, what exists within it – we wanted to focus of that. By contrast, what’s within dystopia is often very optimistic and promising, and that changes with each song and each album so that’s what we want our fans to get the feeling of.
Of course ‘Give Up The Ghost’ also caught our eye as it was written by some really big names in the industry, including Oli Sykes, and you’ve covered Bring Me The Horizon before. So how did that song come to you, and what was the process of getting it onto the EP?
Gaon: We were working with Zakk Cervini and while working on this song, we reached out to different artists to upgrade the song and make the song better, and very luckily for us Oli Sykes came on board and worked with us on this song. And we’re very grateful for this opportunity.
You’re usually very involved in writing and composing your songs; what was it about this song that made you feel like it was right for Impulse?
Gaon: We loved the song from the get go. We heard the track and we really wanted to include this song in the album. When we got the melody, we were definitely sure that it had to be included in this album because it went so well with other songs that will be in Impulse.
You’ve always experimented a lot with your sound and pushed the boundaries with your instrumentals. Looking at Impulse, which song do you think pushes that experimentation the furthest?
Gaon: All of us think that it would be ‘Slashhh!,’ because it’s the first song where we really explored the genre of EDM. It’s kind of resonant of arcade games, the sound is very witty, and for us it was very experimental.
It looks like ‘Slashhh!’ is really an outlier in this album, but as a band, which song was the most challenging to record in the studio, and why?
Jooyeon: My personal pick is ‘You Right There.’ When you listen to it, it may sound very soft and sweet, but when you look closely at the strings, the pattern is the most complicated. It’s almost like when you look at a swan peacefully swimming on the pond, but underneath the water, it’s paddling so hard. It sounds very sweet and calming in the surface but technically it was very challenging.
Jungsu: I remember ‘u and me in arguments’ being particularly tough during recording. I felt it needed to be sharp, powerful, and witty all at once, so bringing those nuances to life was tricky. On top of that, the bridge features an extremely high note, so I paid extra attention to that part while recording. In the end, I’m really proud of how it turned out!
There’s clearly a lot of intention behind both your concepts and your music. As a band, how important is it for you to create music that has a message or different layers for people to discover?
Gaon: For me, the most fun I get when listening to music is discovering the hidden messages or intentions behind the music, and I adapt this same approach when I write music and I try to hide gems for our listeners to find.
Jooyeon: I believe songs with clear messages are the songs people repeatedly come back to.
So what do you feel like it’s the song with the most hidden gems in this album?
Gaon: I wrote the lyrics for ‘You Right There’ and it’s about unrequited love. I think the concept of unrequited love can apply to so many different situations in personal life. I’m very curious how our fans will interpret the lyrics.
If you wanted to give fans a taste of this new release without playing them any of the songs from Impulse, what other songs, books, movies, or pieces of media would you recommend as an introduction to this new era?
Gaon: There is a movie called Warm Bodies that is about zombies. It suits the overall concept of this album but also in particular ‘Love in Dystopia.’
You’ve explored so many different sounds throughout your music. When you look at Impulse as a whole, does it feel like it fully encapsulates the Xdinary Heroes sound you want, or is there still a sound or direction you haven’t explored yet that you really want to try?
Gaon: There are always too many things we want to do, that’s the problem. We’re already working on our next songs before even releasing this album and we’re already making a lot of new attempts. I cannot tell you the exact direction because it’s would be a spoiler but I can say this much: we’re going to develop the sound and the style we are representing even further in the future.
Thank you so much for talking to us today! Lastly, we want to ask: what would you like to share with our readers today?
O.de: I think everyone has desires and those desires often lead to impulsive behavior or decisions, and I don’t think impulsive decisions or behaviors are always bad, there are positive sides to it. So I hope that whenever you perceive it in a negative way, I hope our album, our songs, can help you overcome those negative thoughts. I hope our music, not just this album, but our music so far, all of our creations, can help you become healthy inside and out.
Gaon: My message to the readers: just always be honest with yourself and listen to your intuitions, accept your emotions and use that as a catalyst to grow and self reflection. I hope you all happiness and health. Thank you!
Thank you to Xdinary Heroes for sharing so much of their process and the thoughts behind this incredible mini-album. Make sure to check out ‘Obsessed with Youth’ and Impulse now! You can also check out our previous interviews with the band here and here.
What’s your favorite song in Impulse? What is the song you can’t wait to see live? Be sure to let us know by tweeting us at @thehoneypop or visiting us on Facebook and Instagram.
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