[🫧] 260123 Hongjoong - ‘👋👋’, TOKTOQ pop live, p.2:
🐿 You’re asking if I have anything I’m working on these days? I’m always working on something. I’m working hard. But although the direction I aim for changes each time, honestly these days I really want to let you hear a lot of things and I want to show you a lot, but after last year, after working together on the members’ solo songs… it’s not a period of wandering, but it feels like the time I spend thinking has gotten longer. But honestly, I think this way. I do participate in ATEEZ songs too, but… on the other hand, these days I sometimes think it’s a good thing that I’m not working on the entire ATEEZ album together a lot. As time passes, the members’ needs all become different and increase, and the same goes for me, and as that happens, the standard level rises, and I also have things I want to show you, but when I think about what I’m good at and many different things, I feel thankful that there isn’t too much pressure placed on me. Because I have a lot of desire for the stage, I want to do promotions well, and I keep studying and thinking about rap, and if on top of that I had been producing intensely with myself as the main person, I think it wouldn’t have been easy for either me or the members (smiles). So these days I think about that a lot.
🐿️ Honestly, I know very well that there are ATINY who always want to hear Hongjoongie’s songs more, I know that very well, but when I think about many things, and because I don’t want to explain this by talking about situations or my abilities or levels or circumstances, but simply about choice and focus, when thinking objectively about a direction where all of us - the members and me - can move through the process without creating problems/causing issues and have things progress well, I’ve been thinking that it’s actually a good thing that too much responsibility wasn’t centered on me.
🐿️ When I was younger, to be honest, I had a lot of ambition, and even now I still have a very strong desire to write good songs, but I don’t think that it absolutely has to become an ATEEZ song. So I… actually, I’m working that way as well within Edenary (team), but there we also do many song camps with overseas writers, and the writers and I are the same in that sense, and then Mingi also works hard on writing songs, and when there are good things/songs, if it’s judged that it would turn out well when combined with ATEEZ - not by me or the people who made the song, but when the members or people around us see it that way - then that’s what we would do.
🐿 Anyway, right now, last year I took charge of the members’ solo projects, and I really wanted to do well, and I worked extremely hard, and I worked without regret, and after that ended, while having many different thoughts, I think this is always my tendency (smiles). After holding a photo exhibition, these days I’ve started carrying a film camera again too. While doing the photo exhibition, at some point I realized that when something becomes a burden to me, and when it becomes difficult for me to take responsibility for the result, if not doing it doesn’t create a problem, then cleanly emptying my heart a little can be a method for a better tomorrow. So after the last solo song ended, on one hand I had that thought - that it’s such a relief that the pressure related to (the responsibility surrounding) ATEEZ’s album and things like that isn’t concentrated on me.
🐿️ Of course, I keep trying to live up to what I’ve been given, and I’m still trying even now. But even so, I often think that being in an environment where I can let go when I can let go, and hold on when I want to hold on, is something I’m extremely thankful for.
[🎬] ATEEZ(에이티즈) - GOLDEN HOUR : Part.4
Deep in my heart, Deep in my soul
2026. 02. 06 RELEASE
https://t.co/QJzUyAvzF6
#ATEEZ#에이티즈#GOLDENHOUR#GOLDENHOUR_Part4