Back from military service, Jeonghan joins bandmate Joshua for the K-pop duo’s first album and the pair reflect on meeting halfway, finding their voices and the warmth Jeonghan brought home For more than a decade, Seventeen’s Jeonghan and Joshua have shared the spotlight with 11 bandmates in one of K-pop’s best-selling groups. Now they get it to themselves with “Dreamscape,” their first album as the duo JxJ. The record is also Jeonghan’s first new music since he completed South Korea’s mandatory military service this summer.
While he served, Seventeen kept performing without him, and at times he watched his bandmates from the audience, among the group’s fans, known as Carats. Joshua spent the same stretch producing songs of his own and sending them to their company. The pair met as trainees and recorded the duet “Falling for U” for the 2018 special album “Director’s Cut,” but JxJ is the first project built entirely around the two of them.
Joshua says their company first suggested they collaborate together. And a lot of our fans actually like our chemistry, the chemistry that the two of us have.” Jeonghan says that with several members away on military service, those who remained talked with the company about how to keep bringing Carats new music. It holds the record for the highest-selling K-pop album, “FML,” and was the first K-pop act to sell more than 5 million copies of an album in its first week.
All 13 members renewed their Pledis contracts this summer, the second time the full group has re-signed. Military service has thinned the lineup, though. Six members are currently serving, and Seungkwan and Dino enlist together on Oct. 26.
That leaves five active members: Jeonghan, Joshua, S.Coups, Jun and The8. Jeonghan and Joshua both sing in the vocal team, and JxJ is the group’s seventh unit. I just wanted to get ready after finishing my military service, prep myself, and get back on there as soon as possible.” He says he came out of the service having grown more as a person than as an artist.
I just wanted to weave that into the music, and I just hope that that will show when the listeners and our beloved Carats are listening to our music.” Of everything he felt in that time, warmth struck him hardest, and he came to see it as “a form of love.” It is the one thing, he says, he doesn’t want to lose sight of. The songs Joshua handed over made an impression. It seemed like he gave it a lot of thought and has confidence in it.” The credits bear that out.
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