TVXQ made a comeback last week through KBS' weekly music show "Music Bank." They had not changed in the sense that they gave a powerful performance of "Why (Keep Your Head Down)" but the TVXQ on stage was no longer a five-member group and instead a duo.
After members Jaejung, Yuchun and Junsu filed a lawsuit against agency SM Entertainment in July 2009, demanding for their exclusive contract with the talenthouse to be nullified, they formed trio JYJ which launched its activities last year. And leader U-Know Yunho and youngest member Max Changmin are now back under the name TVXQ.
Below are excerpts from a press conference with the two singers held in Seoul on Wednesday.
Q: You're back for the first time in a while. How does it feel to be performing on stage again?
U-Know Yunho: To be precise, it has been exactly two years and three months. I was very nervous and felt a lot of pressure. I practiced really hard as well, constantly telling myself that I need to do well but I caught a cold just four days before going on television for our first comeback performance. I was very worried because my voice wouldn't come out but I got IV shots and kept practicing. I think I was able to well thanks to everyone's support.
Q: It must've been difficult to decide to release an album by yourselves. Was there a certain reason or event that led you to reach the decision?
Max Changmin: We put on a duo performance for the first time during SM Entertainment's world tour "SMTOWN LIVE" last year and it was more nerve-racking than when we staged our comeback performance on television last week because we both felt anxious and restless to see what our fans would think. But our staff helped us out a lot and we received great response from our fans, many of them saying that they think we’d do fine even as a duo.
U-Know: We had halted on our activities to wait for our three friends, but two years passed and it seemed like we were getting forgotten. I once met a seven-year-old while I was out and when I asked which singers he likes the best, he answered Girls’ Generation and SHINee. I asked whether he knew TVXQ but he said he didn’t.
Max: When he’s talking to THE Jung Yunho! (laugh)
U-Know: Nah. (laugh) He may not have known us because he’s young but it made me realize that we’d been on quite a long break and that someone should carry on the name of TVXQ. And since we regard TVXQ as the sum of SM Entertainment who has been there to see us grow, the five of us members, and all of our fans who love us, this is how I want to put it.
The three have briefly left home and the two us have decided to take care of the house in the meantime so that TVXQ will not get forgotten. There are a lot of complex issues but I’m hoping they will all get solved for the better one day.
Q: I’m guessing you’ll have to approach your album in a different way from when you worked as a five-member group.
U-Know: We wanted to bring out TVXQ’s original style. One of our traits is that we will sing live accompanied by powerful dancing so that’s why we decided to go with song “Why.” And while before there was a lot of chorus to our songs, this time we fused our individual styles of singing together. There have also been changes to our parts. Max usually doesn’t rap a lot but he did in a song called “Our Game” and I used to be the bass singer for the choruses but I sing a lot of the high notes this times.
Q: What are the points you tried to emphasize for your performance for “Why”?
U-Know: TVXQ is strongly associated with powerful performances so we thought hard about how we could work with the dancers to give off the powerful image. “Why” itself has a rather heavy beat than being fast so we worked at including many fine movements within. That’s why a lot of people helped us out including Black Beat’s Shim Jae-won and Hwang Sang-hoon, the choreographers for Girls’ Generation and Super Junior, the choreographer for 4minute’s “Hot Isuse,” and the dancers for Lee Hyori’s “U Go Girl.”
Q: Max, you seem to stand more at the front of the stage this time and your dancing stands at more as well.
Max: From the start of our debut, U-Know was the guy people thought of when it comes to dance and I wasn’t that guy at all but it’s just the two of us this time so I didn’t want to bring our group down in the slightest bit when it comes to the performance. In other words, I didn’t want to seem less capable.(laugh)
U-Know: It’s the same for me as well, Max can sing high notes and he had the image he can sing well but not me. So I worked harder because I’d be working with him.
Q: In the ‘Thanks to’ segment of your album jacket, you wrote “Yunho, like a real brother who I have been through more thin than thick with.” I’m sure you two have grown closer to each other while experiencing various things.
Max: Our personalities haven’t changed ? we’re completely the opposite. But when you spend a lot of time with someone, you look for the good things and similarities in the beginning but discover one flaw after another. It doesn’t really relate to us but that’s also why married couples fight. (laugh) So we have our differences but we’ve come to respect each other more after accepting the fact that our differences are just part of who we are.
Q: In exactly what ways do you clash?
Max: They’re very small things but for example, when U-Know will drink out of the water bottle with his mouth to it or wear his shoes into the house… I feel bad over the fact that I may unintentionally be criticizing him but they’re things I just possibly can’t understand. (laugh)
U-Know: When I’m in a rush, I’ll sometimes go inside the house with my shoes on to grab what I’ve forgotten but he’ll immediately say, “You’re not going to take off your shoes?” He sometimes like my wife. (laugh)
Q: What do you do when you’re on breaks?
Max: We’re completely different. I’m more of the quiet type so I live like a loner (laugh) and U-Know likes to meet his friends from his hometown because he’s more active.
U-Know: Max likes going on the computer and I like playing sports outdoors. And I know I don’t look like it but I don’t like drinking too much. (laugh) Papparazzi’s, you can wait for me in front of bowling alleys. You don’t need to chase me all the way to the end of the world. (laugh) And Max sometimes joins me but me and my friends are very loud so he only comes when there aren’t too many people.
Max: I can’t get used to it. The bowling alley is not the place for me to be. (laugh)
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