mino for dazed, june 2021

" minomalism "

<To any human being – that is, to all life and art – there is clarity on one side, and chaos on the other. Fashion, music, art, sports. Like Song Minho's maximalist tendency to not leave out any of these things. Full, flood, rich, bright. Like Song Minho's minimalist tendency to burst no matter how much he removes and subtracts. On the trend of 'Minomalism'. >

 

 

dazed. I think there’s a lot of similarities between Song Minho’s world and Virgil Abloh’s. When I think of you two I envision a theme park — there's a strong, impactful story, everything within the park is handmade by a master craftsman and painted with one-of-a-kind colors. Tell me how you feel about the clothes you've worn today.

mino. I thought the jacket I wore in that first cut was pretty cute. Same with the monogrammed set-up, and then the short-sleeves with the shorts combo. I liked all the looks from the Louis Vuitton x NBA collection today, actually.

 

dz. I particularly liked the set with the basketball court that was lined with lasers. It was more than you just standing there, Minho. It was like you were drawn into it.

mn. I like basketball. I practically hugged my basketball to sleep every night back when I was in elementary and middle school.

 

dz. Maybe that’s why you’re so tall.

mn. Hm, if that’s how it worked, then I feel like I should be a lot taller by now. (Laughs) I used to just play basketball by myself; I even took classes for it. I’d dribble the ball on my way to the supermarket and stuff. And I joined a basketball competition in middle school as the school rep. 

 

dz. Then could that be the reason why you became the model for Louis Vuitton and NBA’s capsule collection?

mn. I doubt it. It’s not really a well-known fact that I like basketball this much.

 

dz. Well, if not basketball, what do you find yourself preoccupied with the most nowadays? 

mn. Lately, it’s been my music again. Working on music has always just been something that’s as natural and obvious as breathing. It didn’t matter whether it was with the purpose of releasing an album—music has been my life and my job. Just sitting in front of a computer, making music. It’s habit by this point.

 

dz. You mentioned that you put a great deal of affection into your second album, <TAKE>. 

mn. It’s crazy how much of myself I put into that album. It was like writing an autobiography. That's how personal <TAKE> was. I put everything that stemmed from myself, my experiences, and my emotions. It was kind of like taking a journal and just going 'Bleh!' to throw up all the feelings and stories inside of me. The lyrics, composition, production, sound, visual concepts, design… My fingerprints are all over that album.

 

dz. Love — regardless of who’s at the receiving end — is impossible to do without a constant overflow of naïve, innocent energy. And I think you’re circumstantial evidence that proves that people are still capable of loving in this way. You’re a sort of strength, youth, and innocence in the middle of everything going on in life.

mn. Yeah, maybe. But I feel like I’ve lost my way again. I don’t have any more to throw up, you know? I think it’s time for me to fill up this empty part of me again. I’ve poured and poured, so now, I don’t know what else there is for me to say. I’m wondering, ‘So what do I make now?’

 

dz. But you’ve been doing everything so well, Minho. Music, fashion, art, variety shows, you name it. Everything!

mn. Right. I mean, I’ve had so many happy moments in my life that it’s almost unfair for me to talk about times where I’ve been sad or upset. I’ve been loved by so many people, and lived day after day of feeling full and satisfied. So what went wrong, you know? Whenever I’d find myself thinking, ‘Why am I like this?’, I’d just start writing. And that’s how ‘Lost in a crowd’ came to be. I came to terms with the fact that these feelings of depression, loss, and emptiness have no rhyme or reason to them. 

 

dz. There’s a very Minho-like humor to the lyrics if you take a look. It goes from warm to cold to lukewarm. Then prickly to tickly to bitter to relieving. This is my favorite part: ‘I come back to my room after a good laugh / But it’s like there’s a spell cast over it, why am I getting lost in thought again and / Turning so sincere, don’t want to waste this intoxication / So I leave a missed call for my ex’.

mn. Once that unexplainable feeling of loss became a theme, I began to tack on a bunch of experiences to it. Even when I feel a bit down, once I hang out with my friends and have some fun, I’ll sometimes feel better and a bit brighter. But when I really get swallowed up by these emotions, it’s hard to let myself feel even that brief moment of happiness. That experience was the most painful to me. 

 

dz. So I guess in the end, you still haven’t discovered where the roots of melancholy and loss stem from.

mn. No, I haven’t. But I did want the song to end on a hopeful note. It could be me talking to myself, or to whoever’s listening. I wanted the song to tie together with this final message: ‘Recklessly locking you up within yourself and shutting the door only hurts you in the end. Don’t struggle and suffer on your own. I might not know the little details of what you’re going through, but I know that you’re hurting, I know that it’s hard. I know.’

 

dz. I hope you’re not struggling with a sense of loss the same way you were when you wrote this song. I’m also curious about the kinds of songs you’ve been making nowadays.

mn. I think the severe amplitude of my emotions hasn’t really changed. (Laughs) But I’m not feeling exactly the same way I was back then. I’m doing well. If <TAKE> told the story of the different aspects of different kinds of love, I think I’ll be able to share something different for my next album.

 

dz. How do you write your lyrics?

mn. I think lyrics take up a significant portion of the song-making process. So I try to talk to people around me or watch variety shows, and search up and save any kind of new thoughts that strike me in that process. Writing it down is the first thing I do, whether it’s journaling or quick note-taking.

 

dz. Do you like reading books and different kinds of texts?

mn. I read poetry more than anything else. I’m not a big fan of fiction. I hate it when I read and forget the name of the main character or the side characters, you know? (Laughs) Because then that would mean I have to go back and look for their names. But with poetry…(He lets out a small exclamation of admiration) I just love it. 

 

dz. Can you recommend to me a poem that you’ve read recently?

mn. There’s a romance poetry book called <Hawawa, To Give You a Flower> by the poet Park Jinsung. How can I explain… It’s a relatively easy read, but the comparisons and symbolisms that those simple expressions make are far from easy. I got a lot of inspiration from reading that book.

 

dz. Wow, I’ve got to read that.

mn. One of the poems is called ‘Tidings’. The whole thing is just two lines: ‘How lovely would it be, if your shadow could be your chair / How lovely’. Reading this sent me into a sort of shock. There’s so much meaning packed into such a short poem. It’s a sentence that tells so many stories and invokes so many different images. And I think that’s the power of poetry.

 

dz. You’re still making art, right? I’m curious where you get ideas and inspiration for your visual creations.

mn. I get them from whatever I’ve been feeling most recently. Things that I’ve gone through — and maybe that’s feelings of hurt or sadness. I’m in the middle of fighting with my emotions but the irony of it all is that I’m supposed to take those feelings and express myself with them. My intention is to always take it all in and create the best output possible. So when those emotions build up to become this giant source that gnaws at my thoughts and at my heart, I can imagine and see a figure out of it. A figure staying still, sometimes with its hand twisted like this… Just a general image like that at first. Then I turn that imagery into reality.

 

dz. Musician, performer, variety star, artist, model… As much as the emotions you fight may feel deep and wide, the persona of Song Minho that the people discover is just as rich and bottomless. It makes me wonder what ‘expression’ means to you. An excess of emotion that feels overwhelming? A hundred different roles you take on and then succumb to? But I also can’t help but think this isn’t a portrait that’s exclusive to you, but rather one that many different people today can identify with. If a season of ‘minimalism’ and ‘minimal life’ that made you keep only what you need has passed, then now is the time for Minho’s ‘Minomalism’. Throw away but it keeps overflowing, hold back but it ends up showing. We’ve found ourselves tossed into a peak of egos and expressions.

mn. I’ve actually seriously thought about this before. Being helpless — so being unable to express yourself — is a kind of death. You need to do it somehow, whether it be through drawing, music, whatever. The fact that I can take my thoughts and feelings and create them into experiences of sight and sound is proof that I'm alive. But something that is just as important is that there are people who observe and listen to those expressions of myself. So it's fate. I've decided. I was born to express.