The Ok-pop band making Glastonbury historical past

The most important act on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage this yr isn’t Coldplay or Dua Lipa. Actually, you may not even have heard of them.

The act in query is Seventeen – a Ok-pop boyband that boasts a whopping 13 members, and which bought greater than 10 million albums final yr.

The one act to promote extra? Taylor Swift.

However regardless of Ok-pop’s international success, the UK has remained frosty in direction of the style.

Despite the fact that bands like BTS, Blackpink, Stray Children and Aespa have damaged out, their largest hits have tended to come back in collaboration with Western artists like Selena Gomez, Woman Gaga or Coldplay.

Seventeen do not do collaborations. Not like most Korean pop acts, in addition they write and produce their very own materials. Now, they’re making historical past as the primary Ok-pop act on Glastonbury’s essential stage.

The size of the honour isn’t misplaced on them.

“There’s an incredible sense of duty,” says Choi Seungcheol, aka band chief S Coups.

“We’ll hold coming again to that feeling and do our greatest to organize, in order that we are able to blow everyone away… Not simply our followers, however each different member of the viewers.”

Seventeen play the pageant in a yr that sees it transferring additional away from its rock roots than ever.

Reflecting the viewers’s evolving listening habits, they will be joined on the Pyramid Stage by Afrobeat icons Burna Boy and Ayra Starr, whereas pop star Dua Lipa and R&B sensation SZA achieve headline standing.

Seventeen play shortly after lunchtime on Friday afternoon. It is a far cry from the late-night units they play in Asia however S Coups is unfazed.

“The time of day would not actually matter to us,” he says.

“It is truly even higher that we’ll be performing within the afternoon as a result of the viewers can see us higher beneath daylight.”

That positivity will likely be acquainted to anybody who’s listened to Seventeen’s music.

Lemonade contemporary and stuffed with zing, songs like Shining Diamond and Very Good are a welcome reminder that pop may be enjoyable.

The band’s origins lie within the pistachio inexperienced basement of South Korean leisure firm Pledis.

That is the place members had been chosen, rejected, coached and pruned over an extended and gruelling apprenticeship.

“It lasted perhaps 4 to 5 years,” says rapper Jeon Received-woo, recognized to followers as Wonwoo.

He was one of many first recruits again in 2013 and survived a number of rounds of auditions, all of which had been documented within the on-line collection Seventeen TV.

The present was unscripted and unedited, typically working for hours at a time. Followers on the livestream may select the digicam angles, watching because the teenage trainees ate meals, confronted evaluations and, on one infamous event, had been scolded for fooling around.

At one level, the collection vanished for eight months, leaving followers questioning if the group had been dropped.

Wanting again, S Coups says that hiatus – throughout which three members had been changed with out clarification – helped Seventeen take management of their future.

“Our deal was pushed again a bit and Woozi, certainly one of our members, thought we may debut sooner than deliberate if we made our personal music.”

Woozi, actual identify Lee Ji-hoon, turned out to be the band’s ace card.

A classically-trained musician, he has co-written and produced nearly all of their output – greater than 140 songs up to now.

“He impressed the opposite members to take an curiosity in making their very own music, so that they began to be taught song-writing and lyric-making, too,” says S Coups.

“Being engaged in our artistic course of goes a good distance in direction of making our music extra genuine. so we take nice delight in it.”

“That’s the nice weapon we’ve got,” provides Wonwoo.

It appears inconceivable that Pledis would give up artistic management after 4 years of moulding their younger recruits – however the band say the connection relies on mutual belief.

“Typically we’d make one thing and it might come out in a different way than the corporate had deliberate,” says S Coups, “however I would not essentially name it a combat”.

“It is extra like convincing them to come back over to our facet and perceive our imaginative and prescient.”

Seventeen lastly made their debut in Could 2015, with an hour-long stay showcase on South Korean TV, adopted by the discharge of their first EP, 17 Carat.

At that time, the line-up was settled as (deep breath) S Coups, Jeonghan, Joshua, Jun, Hoshi, Wonwoo, Woozi, DK, Mingyu, The8, Seungkwan, Vernon and Dino.

From there, they’re divided right into a vocal group, a hip-hop group and a dance group. The band’s identify is derived from tripartite set-up: 13 individuals + 3 items + 1 band = 17.

S Coups, born in 1995, is the oldest member of the group and its official chief – a task he approaches with humility.

“I attempt to hearken to what each member has to say and have everyone aligned on the identical path,” he says.

“My purpose is to ensure we are able to final so long as attainable, so we are able to make as a lot music as attainable.”

That’s to not say the band lacks hierarchy: Woozi takes cost of the music and Hoshi leads the choreography, however every member is inspired to contribute.

US-born Joshua performs guitar, Seungkwan is the strongest vocalist, The8 is the resident fashionista.

Because the identify suggests, they’re greater than the sum of their elements. Every member brings a special flavour, however once they carry out collectively, they transfer like a pack.

Followers have even noticed that when Seventeen rehearse, the squeak of their trainers is so in sync that it appears like one shoe, not 26.

But it surely’s not all the time so clean.

The8 (actual identify Xu Minghao) threw out his again in a single rehearsal, Seungkwan has undergone corrective ankle surgical procedure, and S Coups solely lately returned to the stage after damaging his anterior cruciate ligament.

“I’m nice now,” he smiles, acknowledging that accidents are an accepted a part of the job.

“The choreo is so bodily exhausting, our bones and ligaments and muscle mass are drained on a regular basis,” he says.

Because the band know all too effectively, exhausting work doesn’t assure on the spot outcomes.

Seventeen’s debut EP bought simply 1,400 copies in its first week and it’s taken a decade to succeed in the purpose the place they will obtain tens of millions of gross sales in pre-orders alone.

Alongside the best way, their sound has progressed from the frothy pop of 2015’s Adore U to the broody, syncopated EDM of 2017’s Don’t Wanna Cry and the genre-hopping exuberance of 2020 single Left & Proper.

Extra lately, they’ve experimented with Amapiano, deep home and distorted guitars. And final yr’s mini-album FML raised eyebrows for its atypically downbeat title monitor.

“I am getting so numb to this life that it seems like I am shrinking away,” sang The8 over an old-skool hip-hop groove.

“Once we had been placing collectively the album, a few of the members had been going by a tough time,” explains Wonwoo. “Our mindset is mirrored within the songs.”

“However once we truthfully, brazenly discuss our emotions, it actually helps to do away with the negativity.”

As if to show it, FML’s sister single, Tremendous, was an upbeat celebration of the band’s inside power: “I like my group, I like my crew“.

Talking by a translator in Seoul, S Coups, Wonwoo and The8 all choose Tremendous as the right primer for any newcomers (Jeonghan, who additionally joins the Zoom name, opts for the posse minimize Very Good).

“It’s such an intense track, it actually exhibits Seventeen’s presence,” says Wonwoo.

The 2 singles propelled Seventeen to new heights. The FML EP was the biggest-selling document of 2023, shifting greater than 6.3 million copies and successful album of the yr on the Asian Music Awards.

“I anticipated it to do effectively, however not this effectively,” laughs S Coups.

To get new followers up to the mark, the band have simply launched a 33-track compilation, 17 Is Proper Right here, amassing all of their singles up to now – in addition to a brand new monitor, Maestro, that acts as a manifesto for his or her freewheeling sound.

“Combine and match, it is our factor,” raps Vernon. “Loopy is the brand new regular!”

“In a approach,” says Wonwoo, “the track is us applauding ourselves for all the hassle that we have put in, and the journey we’ve needed to take to face the place we’re proper now.”

However even the world’s biggest-selling artists have targets.

Glastonbury is a part of a plan to increase their viewers even additional – with a world tour on the playing cards for the tip of the yr.

“We’d like to succeed in followers in as many nations as attainable, as a result of we do not actually get to see them that always in individual,” says S Coups.

“I nonetheless imagine that we’ve got an extended option to go and we need to develop into much more profitable.”