[INTERVIEW] Boy band INFINITE - Part 3

From left, INFINITE members Dong-woo, Hoya, Sung-kyu, L, Woo-hyun, Sung-jong and Sung-yeol. [Lee Jin-hyuk/10Asia]

10: Well you shot a show on cable music channel Mnet's "INFINITE! You are the One" where you act as the brothers for one girl.
Woo-hyun: No! I don’t want to think of it!

10: What are you guys most disappointed about when you look back on that show?
Woo-hyun: My looks! Someone completely different from me was in it. My bangs were weird, I was fat and my skin…
Sung-yeol: For me as well… How I had the side of my head shaved.
Dong-woo: For me, my form of speech. I couldn’t understand what I had been saying. That’s why I haven’t been called by my actual name since I debuted. It’s always ‘Kenyan.’
L: People really asked if he was from Kenya after seeing how he stutters and seemingly didn’t speak Korean well. And he was actually born in Seoul.
Hoya: I think I was being too greedy. The producers had me be from Busan which would mean I’d be a man of few words but I didn’t think that would get me in the show so I talked a lot during our first shoot. And I was sure that I’d made everyone laugh when we were on set. But it all got cut out! And you would barely see me talk on the show but they’d written the subtitle ‘blabbermouth’ underneath. Wow, that was the first time in my life I’d heard that. But I was told later that they cut out everything because I didn’t speak like I was a newcomer to the scene. Man…
Sung-yeol: But what we felt while monitoring the first episode was that no matter how much we spoke, L, who said nothing, came out on the show much more than us.
Sung-jong: The writer of the show had promised me that he’d help me pull off a really big scene in the end but I don’t know what I was thinking while filming the show. I was just under the mindset that I need to work hard.
Hoya: Sung-jong had been the rising star in the first episode but he increasingly appeared less and less on the screen…

10: So who do you think was the largest beneficiary from the show?
Sung-yeol: Sung-yeol. All you’d see on our fan websites would be talk about Sung-yeol. Until our album came out. (laugh)

10: What happened after?
L: His fans split up and gradually came to us. (laugh)
Woo-hyun: We thankfully accepted them. But I think we’d definitely be able to do much better if we got to shoot a reality show again.

10: If you could appear on a variety show, what would you want the concept to be?
Hoya: Something like MBC every1's "Idol Show" because there'd be a different girl group on it every week and more than that, we'd be able to show something about ourselves each time, such as our singing, dancing or playing games. But I'm hoping we won't have to shoot it in our house. It's very hard.

Sung-yeol [Lee Jin-hyuk/10Asia]

10: Do you guys still live in the two-story house in Mangwon-dong that came out on Mnet's reality TV show "INFINITE! You are the One"?
Sung-yeol: Yes, our boss told us that we'll move to a different place if we make it into the top 10 of KBS' "Music Bank."

10: Where did you guys rank last week?
Sung-yeol: We were 21st.

10: Do you guys have a neighborhood that you want to move to in mind?
Sung-jong: It just needs to be an apartment.

10: Is there a reason why it has to be an apartment?
Sung-yeol: It'll just be great to have three or four toilets. It's really hard for all seven of us to share a single toilet.
Dong-woo: We needed a microwave and just recently received one as a present.
Sung-yeol: We really needed one to warm up chicken breasts. We had no other way to warm it up but to set it out in hot water for 30 minutes for it to naturally melt since it's frozen food. (laugh)

10: How do you divide the housework amongst yourselves?
Sung-yeol: Each one of us takes turns doing the laundry every week and we do our own dishes. But there is someone who secretly eats something during the middle of the night and just leaves the dirty dishes since he is too lazy to do them. We try to find out who it is in the morning but we can't. How can we find out who it is?

10: Which member do you suspect is the culprit?
(Everyone silently turns to Sung-jong)
Sung-jong: Eh? Why?
Sung-yeol: Lately, our youngest member has gotten lazy about things...
Sung-jong: No. I always wash the dishes.

10: Who is roommates with whom?
Dong-woo: Just recently, our manager moved down to the floor below us so we shouted out in joy. I'm roommates with L, Woo-hyun shares a room with Sung-kyu, and Hoya, Sung-yeol and Sung-jong all share one room.

10: Why did you guys shout out in joy?
Sung-kyu: First, because we aren't being watched by him [referring to their manager]. If we want to sleep late we can and if want to sleep early, we can. Our manager is very sensitive. He gets sullen very easily and his lips stick out and he is the kind of guy who holds grudges for a long time over the smallest things. He's just like a girlfriend.

10: Over what has he been sullen for the longest?
Sung-kyu: A while ago, our manager was talking to us about something while driving somewhere when Sung-yeol fell asleep. Honestly, I think that a person can fall asleep because they are tired! But all of sudden he got angry and told us that we have changed. It was scary since he said that we changed when we had only just made our debut. However, we know he did that because he loves us and thinks about us. It's because we are his everything! (laugh)

Sung-jong [Lee Jin-hyuk/10Asia]

10: Dong-woo, do you still write in your journal?
Dong-woo: I haven't written in it lately. I changed my journal though. I received one that has a lock.

10: You have shown your journal to Sung-kyu before since he has said as the leader he had to know the concerns the members have. Has he seen it since then?
Dong-woo: Never.
Sung-kyu: Honestly, I don't want to see it either. A journal is something that one uses to write down their feelings but all Dong-woo writes about is what he has done like, "I went to practice today" or "I ate."

10: Dong-woo, you have said yourself that you are like the mother of INFINITE...
Sung-yeol: Oh no, if a mom is like Dong-woo then you are in for big trouble.
Dong-woo: Sung-yeol once told me that if I would be in a lot of trouble if I was his little brother. He said that he would beat me up. (laugh) But I like my personality the way it is now.
Sung-kyu: He thinks of himself as someone who is meticulous, devoted and that he takes care of everything.
Sung-jong: And when we're just talking amongst ourselves, Dong-woo thinks he's giving us advice.
Sung-kyu: Dong-woo will ask us if he should turn off the lights if we forget to turn them off before we go to sleep and after he does it he laughs contently to himself.
Sung-yeol: And he gets disappointed when we don't recognize the things he did. When we ask him why he's late, he'd say that he came late because he was getting everything together.
Dong-woo: I usually laugh at the minor things because I'm the kind of person who minds the small things. That's why none of the other members believe me when I laugh and say that their personal talents are funny.

10: "The Day in the Life of an Idol," which Sung-yeol shot last year, was quite a hit. How did you decide to shoot such a video?
Sung-yeol: I thought of how we should shoot a video to make ourselves known after watching how popular "The Day in the Life of an Office Worker" was.

10: Why was Sung-yeol chosen as the main character?
Woo-hyun: It's because Sung-yeol is the jokester and has the childlike image. It would've probably become a documentary if Sung-kyu was the lead.
Sung-kyu: If we shot the video with myself putting on a bitter expression, then it would have become news by people saying, "Is that how idols are treated?" and "The harsh reality of being an idol." I felt that the role was just right for Sung-yeol.

10: Did the video get the amount of attention that you hoped for?
Sung-yeol: Yes, I thought that we received enough attention.
Woo-hyun: Honestly, we didn't keep track...
Sung-kyu: I feel a bit uneasy when Sung-yeol does something....
(INFINITE members laugh)

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Reporter : Choi Ji-Eun five@, Lee Ga-on
Photographer : Lee Jin-hyuk eleven@
Editor : Lucia Hong luciahong@