#and then 5sos themselves?????????? they sounded amazing dude!!!!!!!!!!!!

[settingtrends]

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[d6official]

Meet the indie kings of K-town, DAY6

DAY6 prove that there's more than one way to cut the K-pop cake.

If you think K-pop and think all singing all dancing big budget with bells on, you’d be… well, you’d be right, but that’s not all the genre has to offer.

Enter DAY6, the indie kings of K Town, who’ve always stood out among their label mates for writing and composing all of their own music, and favouring playing their instruments on stage over tightly choreographed dance routines. They’re signed to JYP, a Korean entertainment company, also home to Korea’s favourite girl group TWICE, multi-talented Wembley conquerors GOT7, and fast-rising young ‘ens Stray Kids and ITZY, meaning DAY6 get all the fun of the K-pop fair without losing their own artistic freedom.

When Dork meets vocalist and guitarist Jae, and vocalist and bassist Young K – remaining members Sungjin (vocals/guitar), Wonpil (vocals/keyboards), and Dowoon (drums) are getting ready for show time – it’s the day of their massive Brixton Academy show, about an hour before they go on, to be precise. Judging by our slot, they’re extremely busy boys.

It’s not their first time over here, in fact it’s almost exactly a year since they last played London, previously packing out the Kentish Town Forum.

“We’ve definitely taken a step to become a little bit more live music orientated,” says Jae. “We focused on energy before, but we felt even more importance of getting the energy in our live show, especially with the ‘Gravity’ album, and we used the ‘Entropy’ album to kind of aid us in generating that energy I guess, you know, the back and forth with the audience, and just to make it a better night. That’s definitely been our biggest evolution as a group since last time.”

The Brixton show is part of their ‘Gravity’ world tour – although there’s been another full length (‘Entropy’) since, crikey K-pop moves fast – which means we’re not treated to many of the new songs live, but to be fair, we’re not sure they could fit them into the already two-hour long set.

‘Gravity’ and ‘Entropy’ make up the ‘Book Of Us’ series, an EP and and album focused around being in a relationship.

“The first one was ‘Gravity’, which was the beginning, and then ‘Entropy’ was anything beyond that,” Young K says of the record. “So anything beyond the beginning, any changes, good changes, bad changes, especially the title song, ‘Sweet Chaos’.”

The song is definitely a representation of the whole record, if only metaphorically, as ‘Entropy’ weaves its way through every genre you could think of, it’s chaotic at least. ‘Sweet Chaos’ is the most pop-punk they’ve ever gone (think old Fall Out Boy), ‘EMERGENCY’ is big retro bop complete with video game sounds and a horn section, ‘365247’ could’ve come straight off 5SOS’s ‘Youngblood’ album, ‘About Now’ is a lo-fi little bedroom pop ditty, and that’s only four of the tracks. The huge mix of genres is a result of the boys writing their own bits everywhere and bringing the songs together in the end to create the album.

“We went into a song camp session, which is like, all of the members split up into different rooms with a bunch of songwriters, and so we came up with a lot of different songs, different genres, anything that we wanted to try, and that all added up being ‘Entropy’,” explains Young K.

“I feel like for every song, most of them came from the song camp, so each member would do one song per idea, so we’d have like thirty songs at the end of one session right, so I feel like with that being the case, everyone had different inspirations,” adds Jae.

“We wrote parts of the album individually, and the hodgepodge of all those songs became the album, therefore there was no genre continuation,” he continues. “So with each song, the energy might be a little different but overall, our goal in the end is just to put out good energy and be able to bring our listeners along for our journeys.”

They’ve always experimented with different genres, namely on their ‘Every DAY6’ project, where they put out two songs every month in 2017. They’re just having fun with it and enjoying showing all of the different sides DAY6 have to offer.

“I would definitely say ‘Sweet Chaos’ is the one I’m most proud of writing,” says Young K, “because it’s the most recent title song, and I think it represents the most recent DAY6. That, and ‘Like A Flowing Wind’, ‘Mine’, I think a group favourite was ‘Not Fine’, and ‘How To Love’ from ‘Gravity’.”

As the group’s primary songwriter, Young K wrote ‘Gravity’ in its entirety, and eight of the eleven songs on ‘Entropy’, with Jae and Wonpil chipping in for the other three. It’s pretty rare in K-pop for a group to get that much input in their own songs, with most companies hiring teams to write behind the scenes (not that that is much different from the way we do things over here in the ‘West’), but it’s even sweeter that the boys would open up about their relationships in song too, especially considering dating a bit of a taboo in K-pop. What can we say, it’s proper Real Music stuff, Dear Reader.

As a company, JYP Entertainment seems to give its acts plenty of freedom and input in their music. Alongside DAY6, members of GOT7 and Stray Kids have been given the chance to produce their own tracks; knowing that the artists are given some independence and an opportunity to present themselves musically the way they’d want to be seen removes some of those ideas that K-pop is extremely regimented. That being said, when we ask if they have a hand in the creation of the videos and concepts that are so vital in K-pop, we’re met with a straight “nope” from Jae, and hefty laugh. “Yeah we just focus on the music and let the company expand on it,” explains Young K. Fair enough, they’ve probably got plenty on.

We were also curious as to whether they felt any pressure to go down the EDM/pop route, like many other groups, but it sounds like they’re pretty comfy doing their own thing. Plus, they still get to do fun things every now and again, like the music video for ‘EMERGENCY’, which they jokingly put a little dance routine together for, and being part of a huge company has never negatively affected the group.

“To be honest, in the beginning, a lot of people didn’t know we were part of JYP, so they didn’t expect anything from us,” says Young K. “To them, we were just a band in the beginning, then as it went on they realised we were from JYP, when we started doing more K-pop things.”

Jae adds, “In our first year, we went around the Hongdae area and got in the band scene, and after we played live for a while, the dudes from JYP were like what’s up, and we joined them, but at the start no one really expected us to sound any particular way.”

Since our chat, Jae has started releasing solo music under the name eaJ, working closely with 88 rising, an Asian-American collective of artists (Rich Brian, Joji, NIKI, ring any bells?) who he’s happy to big up. “There’s a lot of really good artists coming out, especially like with representation in the states,” he says. “There’s a lot of amazing artists coming up that we all listen to, and 88 has amazing toplines, a great vibe, they’re upping the standards for Asian representation.”

So with Jae experimenting with solo stuff, what’s coming next for DAY6 after they wrap this world tour?

He says, “To be completely honest with you, we’re not sure. We just keep on writing good music, but we’re just tryna make our path, make our next title song for our next album, so whether we complete the ‘Book Of Us’ concept or whether we do something else, we’re not sure. All we can say is that we’re focused on the music.”

Taken from the March issue of Dork, out now.

[bumblebet-20]

What we left behind

5sos x reader

warnings: swearing, divorce, angst (oh so much).

A/N: GUYS OMG THIS IS MY VERY FIRST SERIES AND IM SOOOO EXCITED :3

Couldn't have done this without my boo @aspiringwildfire

-FLASHBACK-

“Happy Birthday, Enid!” Everyone yells after I blow out the candles, tossing up confetti they held in their hands.

“What did you wish for, Ed?” Calum asks, face covered in frosting from the chocolate cupcake.

“You know I can’t tell you, Cal!” I giggle slightly, turning towards the slice of strawberry cake in front of me.

“I can’t believe my baby is 7 today!” My mum says, suddenly behind me and nearly squeezing the life out of me.

“Hey, Ed! Let’s go play!” Michael exclaims on the other side of the yard, holding a yellow ball in his hands. A quick giggle escapes my lips as I quickly move out of my mum’s arms, running over to where he stands, followed by Calum and Luke.

“Be careful of your dress honey!” My mum hollers as we chase the ball, her words barely reach my ears as I focus on beating the other team.

We played football until the sun set, the only time we took a break was when people left and I had to say goodbye to them. Daryl came out and brought us inside for dinner, only us four and our parents remain to finish the celebrations.

“Eat up kids, we’ll set up the tent in a bit.“Liz says, setting down a box containing a large Cheese pizza in front of us.

-After finishing the pizza and getting the tent set up, we settle in our sleeping bags, the only source of light being the lantern in the middle of our circle.“Did you have a fun birthday?” Michael asks, stopping his game of ‘Crazy Eights’ with Calum.“

I had a blast! You three made it great” “

Aw, Ed! We’ll always be here to make your birthday awesome” Luke exclaims, pulling me into a tight hug. The others soon join, causing a dog pile and loud laughs to erupt from all of us.

Once the laughter calmed down and we resumed our previous games, a thought ran through my head “Hey guys? Can we all agree to remain friends no matter what?” 

“Of course! Nothing will tear us apart” Calum says, earning agreement ‘yeahs’ “We’re gonna be best friends for life!” Luke hollers

.-10 years later (2012)-“Come on,Becks! We can’t miss this!” I exclaim, grabbing the hand of my best friend, weaving through the crowd outside the building and stopping in front of the stage, waving at the boys while they are getting their instruments ready.

“Oh! Here are our seats” She points to a round table filled with chairs right in front, our names scribbled on paper. 

“Hey girls,”Joy says, taking a seat in her designated chair, Mali following right behind her. 

“Everyone else is right behind us, “Mali says, motioning to the door where the familiar heads of the Hemmings’ bobs over everyone else.

-

Once everyone got settled in their chairs, Luke taps the microphone lightly.

“Hello, we are Five Seconds of Summer and welcome to our show!” Luke says into the microphone, earning a round of applause and a ‘whoop’ from me.

“1,2,3,4!” Ashton exclaims before the music begins, filling the nearly empty space with the beginning of ‘Unpredictable’. My foot starts to tap at the beat, unable to contain my smile when Lukes’ voice fills the room.

“She sit at home with the lights out” Rebecca sings lowly next to me.

“Seeing life in different colours” We finish together, pretending our hands are microphones.

-

“Thank you for coming! This has been Five Seconds of Summer! Good night!” Luke exclaims into the mic before walking off stage.

“Alright, let’s go see our boys,“Liz says as she stands up and heads to the doors where the boys went off from.

“Mum!”  Luke exclaims, running to her once we all enter their changing room. All the boys greet their families before I’m swiftly picked up by Ashton and spun around.

“Alright,put her down before you hurt someone, “My mum says, stopping Ashton from spinning my brains out and gently places me on solid ground.

“So, food anyone?” David receives shouts of agreement in return.The parents walked ahead to the cars while we took our time heading out.

“Oh boys! I made some gifts for you” I dig around my bag before finding the plastic baggy, taking out four bright bracelets, each one having a letter for each boy. Rebecca takes two and puts them on the right boy’s wrist.

“Are these friendship bracelets?” Michael asks, twirling around the orange one on his wrist.

“Yeah. I just thought that you boys are gonna make it big someday and I just- don’t  want you to forget about the little people” I awkwardly shuffle my feet across the concrete floor, suddenly feeling embarrassed that I even did this.

“I love it! What better way to signify our friendship than with a bracelet!” Ashton tugs me into a hug, squeezing me tightly.

“Alright you kids, let’s go!” Liz says from the end of the corridor, motioning with her hand to come.

“We better go, don’t want an angry Liz on our hands” Calum comments as we all walk towards the door.

[1 month later]

I hum quietly as I braid Becks hair, the two of us deciding to have a sleepover at my house.

“Have you been watching the videos they upload? They’re gaining a lot of views” She says quietly, busy drawing in her sketchbook.

“I know, it's about time people realize their talent”

A knock on my window makes us jump as we turn to it and see Calum’s face pressed against it.

“Cal, what are you doing?” I question once he’s inside.

“ You won’t believe the news we just got” Becks and I share a confused look before returning our attention to the bouncing boy.

“Well? Spill dude” Calum gives her an unamused look, but continues to bounce.

“Okay so we’ve been getting a good number of views on our covers and earlier we got an email asking if we’d be interested in opening for this group-”

“What group?” Rebecca asks, curiosity getting the better of both of us.

“One Direction” Both our jaws drop at the name.

“That’s amazing Cal! I told you you boys would get famous one day!”

“We sign the contract tomorrow and start working out a setlist”

“When do you guys leave?” Calum nervously swallowed at the question.

“Three months” I feel my heart drop at how soon they’ll be leaving.

“Senior year starts in three months…”

“We know, but this is such a great opportunity and this is the boost we need to become famous”

“I’m so happy for you guys!”I exclaim overly eager, earning an odd look from Rebecca.

“We just knew you would be!” He flashes us his award winning smiling before slipping back out the window.

“Alright, spill. That was such a fake congratulations.”

“I’m- I’m happy for them”I fiddle with the brush I was holding.

“Bull. Shit. I’ve never seen more forced joy than right there.”

“What’s gonna happen when they leave for tour? We’re gonna stay behind while they go off and make a name for themselves.” 

“Aren’t you happy that they got this opportunity? This is what they want” I sit on the edge of my bed and she joins, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah but- I can’t help but think that it was supposed to us 6. Forever. No one and nothing can come between us”

“They’re still your boys. Now-” She stands, grabbing my hands on the way. “Let’s go get some ice cream and watch movies.. We can deal with this later” I laugh but follow her out to the kitchen.

[5 months later]

“Any response yet?” I simply shake my head at my mum’s question, returning to the book I was reading. “They’ll text back. Just got to be patient honey.”

“Yeah” I reopen IMessage and all texts to them since they left have all been left on read and I can’t figure out why. “I’m going to hang out with Rebecca for a bit” I say after reading her text, receiving a simple ‘mhm’ from my mum.

<

“And they haven’t even said a simple ‘hi’ or ‘ thanks’?” Rebecca questions, popping a crisp in her mouth.

“Nothing. Did- Did I do something? Should I have sent mail or-”

“Ed stop. You did nothing wrong, okay? They’re hormonal teenage boys, we should really expect this behavior.. But that by no means excuses their rudeness.” I go quiet, opting to play with my sandwich.

“They’re performing in Sydney in two weeks.. I was thinking of stopping by” I casually say, not looking up from the food.

“Alright.” I look up at her, shocked by her response. “I don’t agree with this idea but I’m not not gonna let you do this- definitely not alone.” She puts her hand over my own, offering a soft smile. “Now. About this Art assignment”

\night of concert\

“Okay, the plan is as follows: we go to the concert. Park where we see tour buses and wait. Find the boys and talk. Ending the night with pizza, candy and scary movies at my place.”

“Sounds like a well thought out plan.” I take one last look at myself, adjusting my top before turning to my brunette friend. “Ready?”

“Ready” We loop arms, skipping the whole way to her car.

..

“Damn, they are loud” Becks jokingly says from our position against the car, listening to our boys play.

“They sound good (feels good hehe :D)” I comment, pushing some of the gravel around with the toe of my combat boots.

We remain in a comfortable silence until the doors swing open and familiar voices fill the air. I look over at her, wide eyed.

“Now or never babe”

“What do I-”

“Hey boys!” She screams, making them all turn around, alarmed looks on their faces.

“Uh- Hi” Luke says, waving awkwardly in our direction.

“Enid here would like to talk to you boys. In private”She nudges me forward and I take timid steps to them.

“Let’s go in the bus” Ashton opens the door for everyone before closing it behind him.

“So-”

“Why’d you guys do it? Why did you just up and ignore me?” They nervously look at one another before Calum steps forward.

“We- uh got busy?”

“If you wanted to still be my friend you would’ve made an effort” I state, crossing my arms across my chest.

“We do it’s just that-” Luke begins but I cut him off, anger starting to run in my veins,

“What happened to ‘remain friends no matter what’”?

“You don’t understand, our life is so crazy now! We still consider you a friend, not best friend but, friends. Why are you still upset about this? It’s not like we completely abandoned you” Michael says from his position in a chair.

“ You couldn’t say ‘hey thanks!’ when I congratulated you?”

“Yeah bu-” Ashton tries but I cut him off.

“You could’ve tried.. But you ALL decided I wasn’t worth the effort!” I take a few slow breaths to try and keep calm “I tried to keep this friendship when you guys left but, not much I can do when you won’t even try”

“We still want a friendship. It’s just gonna be a little different now” Ashton says, taking timid steps towards me.

“No. If you wanted a friendship you would’ve kept up with it. None of you even reached out when my parents went through a horrible divorce. I really needed my best friends support but I got nothing.”

“We didn’t know your parents divorced Ed” Michael explains, all four of them clearly looking distressed.

“Stop. Stop right now. Our parents all still talk so you would’ve been told about it but sure, let’s play dumb. Also, that nickname is reserved for close friends and none of you are that.”

“ Alright,let’s all calm down and think about this rationally.” Ashton says, trying to mediate the best he can.

“I’ve already said everything that I wanted.Goodbye” I quickly leave the bus, practically diving into the passenger seat.

“How did it go?” At the sound of her voice I immediately break down in tear, sobs shaking my whole body. “Oh honey no shh” She brings me into her side, rocking us slowly. “They didn’t deserve your friendship. You’re too kind and you need someone who will love you for yourself and not make you cry like this.”

“I’ll never trust them again” 

- 

AND THAT’S PART 1 HOLY SHIT I’M SO EXCITED. please let me know your thoughts but be nice cause I’m a small bean :3

[gamerwoo]

okay so i went to a 5sos concert last night and here’s how it went (even though nothing that cool happened to me except Calum looking at me one(1) time)

Okay so my sister and I were waiting in line for like 2-ish hours to get in and like, all the fans waiting outside were like........real weird. Like I haven’t been in the 5sos fandom for like a year but they used the term “tea” constantly but not even correctly??? Some girl referred to herself as “the tea” and idk what that’s supposed to mean???? Idk it was like stan twitter irl but with -482 braincells tbh. ANYWAY they were all really loud and super extra too. Some girl kept doing drops and splits and just y e l l i n g for no reason. And then these dudes my age showed up and they looked like they were stuck in their 2008 scene phase, idk it was weird. They were my age but they were hitting on underage girls but the girls were flirting back even after the guys said they were 20/21 so the whole thing was just a mess. They played some music because they were a “band” but ngl the singer sounded real bad and the whole thing was just awful. Waiting in line was awful.

So we finally got inside and my sister immediately buys some beer because the last two hours were awful. I couldn’t get anything because in Boston, if you don’t live in Mass, you need to have a valid ID AND a valid passport to buy alcohol under the age of 25 so I was shit outta luck. But nobody near our seats were obnoxious so I was fine. But everything was cash only and I only had $70 in cash so we couldn’t get any merch which made me sad because they had these really cute long sleeve shirts but instead I fed into my sister’s alcohol consumption.

The openers were an all-girl band called The Aces and I knew literally nothing about them but they were actually really fucking good. Like, their music was cool and the girls themselves had good stage presence. Their lead guitarist was fantastic, and their singer highkey made me really fuckin gay lmao.

5sos was amazing as always. This was my third time seeing them live, and I was the closest I’d ever been this time. I sat 6th row right in front of Michael and it was really fun. I did notice Luke kept looking at the same general area and going over to that area so shoutout to whatever lucky bitch he thought was cute (he kept smirking at said area too idk that girl probably dead now). Luke also wore this leopard print shirt and said it was his “best shirt”, and literally e v e r y b o d y roasted him for it, but especially Michael. But I mean........leopard print???? Luke pls, u can do better. Michael never stood still lmao he was all over the fuckin stage. Calum stuck to his side except to do the jump for slsp. The ONE TIME Calum and I made eye contact, I was screaming because he was finally right in front of me, so I’m embarrassed lmao. Boy looked real good tho. Ashton stood on his drums and it scared the shit out of me. He also swore a lot???? Like.......a lot. He actually sang his parts too!!!! Last time I saw them, Calum pretty much sang all of Ashton’s parts so it was nice to hear his voice. And as Mass always does, we did the orange heart project again which was super pretty, and I was so happy for Wilma because the guys know it’s her who puts it together, and Luke called her an angel, and she sat like 2 rows in front of me and she was so happy to hear that, so it was really cute. They played Meet You There too and Michael wore a mask for it for some reason??? And they played Jet Black Heart but everyone thought that song had died with their last tour so I was really happy to hear it. OH, AND AMNESIA!!!! 

But uh, yeah, that’s basically it. My voice is completely gone now, my throat is a lil uncomfy, but I’m really happy and I stan 5sos again. Like, going to the concert, I didn’t think I liked them that much. As soon as the ran on stage though, I was S C R E A M I N G like I was so happy. Idk the fans were hard to deal with but I’d wanna see them again.