The Rose Discusses Their Musical Journey, Their Fans And New Film

The Korean indie rock band The Rose performs at Madison Square Garden this July and their new documentary The Rose: Come Back To Me recently debuted at the Tribeca Festival. Getting to this point in their career wasn’t easy and that’s the compelling premise of their feel-good documentary.

Band members Woosung Kim (Sammy), Dojoon Park (Leo), Taegyeom Lee (Jeff), and Hajoon Lee (Dylan) all began their musical careers as k-pop trainees, but wanted something different. So, Taegyeom, Dojoon and Hajoon formed an indie band, busking together in Hongdae, before asking Woosung to join them. When the band signed with an agency in 2016, it wasn’t a shortcut to success. Despite releasing their first single, “Sorry,” in 2017, it was hard for a rock band to get noticed in a music scene saturated with k-pop. That’s when their story had an unexpected plot twist. Fans in Europe discovered the music video for “Sorry” and shared it widely. Billboard would later call the song one of the best Korean pop songs of 2017. Yet, without the support of their ever-expanding global fandom, now known as Black Roses, the band said they might not have made it this far.

“We were in a very, very small company in Korea, and we started out with no money, no PR,” said Woosung at a Tribeca interview. “And the funny thing is people in Europe just found our first music video and that’s how we got offered our first tour. We had only one song and they offered us a European tour and that’s how it all happened. So for us, that’s why I think we have this special relationship with our fans. Because of them, we’re able to do this.”

Issues with their agency eventually led the band to file a lawsuit and then take a three-year hiatus in which Korean members of the band fulfilled their mandatory military duty, while the sole Korean American member, Woosung, focused on his solo career.

“In the tough times that we’ve gone through,” said Dojoon. ‘Which was COVID, a three-year hiatus and the lawsuit, Black Roses were always there. We could feel it by our videos still being watched, our music still being heard. We could tell that they were still waiting for us, and that became a very great strength for us to keep carrying on.”

“We got the most streams when we were on our hiatus,” added Woosung.

Breaking up would have been a practical option at several turns in the band’s journey. However, they were committed and remember exactly when that commitment began.

“We all agree there was this one moment when we decided to be a team together,” said Woosung. “We were practicing in this one room for the first time in Hongdae. I think that’s what kept us going because everybody else from that point on said it wasn’t going to work out in terms of a rock music band in Korea, especially when k-pop was such a popular thing in Korea and becoming hotter overseas. Even with all the people not believing in us, we still remember that one moment where we felt in our hearts that it was right”

Dojoon remembers the moment and how much fun they were having playing and singing together. Woosung sings and plays guitar, while Dojoon sings, plays guitar and keyboard. Hajoon plays the drums, Taegyeom plays bass.

“We all had different interests in a lot of genres too,” said Dojoon. “But when we were trying to do our first gig as a band with all the instruments, that moment was so strong to us and it just kept us going as a band.”

That resolve helped them accomplish some impressive goals.

”We’re just trying to do what we like doing because we just love playing music and making music and performing it,” said Woosung. “We were just so happy to be doing it that we didn’t even know it was hard work.”

As they performed together the idea they might have a message began to crystallize. The message is healing. Music is medicine.

“When we first started, when we formed the band,” said Dojoon, “We really didn’t have a specific clear message yet, but as we were doing it for seven, eight years, it grew inside us. We were trying to heal, we were trying to get healed and we were trying to do healing with music. After seven, eight years, we realized that we were people who got healed by music too when we were teenagers. Even now. Yeah, even now.”

“Music is special and we just happen to be the messengers that write it and do it on stage,” said Woosung. “And there are listeners who get the exact same thing we get out of music. We always say this, it’s our first life too, and we’re just trying to learn and experience it the best we can. So mistakes are always made, but all we know is that music is healing and we just go with that message.”

The film features conversations with each of the members and in one such exchange Taegyeom shares some of his own struggles with depression and how music helped heal him. When he was down, he admits, he hated music.

“I felt music made me more depressed,” said Taegyeom. “But I realized that I overcame the depression through the music. I wrote the music, I wrote the lyrics and realized that, oh, I love music, and music is healing. So, I wanted to share that with my fans, that music is healing. If you are having a hard time, please listen to music and look to your friends. There’s so many good people around you. I want to share this story.”

The Rose: Come Back To Me is named after one of the band’s most powerful songs, the brutally self-deprecating break-up anthem “Come Back To Me.” Director Eugene Yi (Free Chol Soo Lee) diligently documents the musicians’ resilience, their fans’ loyalty and the power of their distinctive sound. The band members have long wished for a documentary to communicate with fans, but it wasn’t until 2023 that they finally began filming this one. By then they were used to cameras following them around and being interviewed.

“We kind of enjoy the camera following us,” said Dojoon with a smile.

“We kind of forget it, right,” said Woosung. “Yeah, we’ve got nothing to hide.”

Ten years is a long time to engage in any kind of working relationship. Since the band played, lived and toured together, arguments were inevitable. They still often disagree.

“The unique thing is that when we argue we are talkers,” said Woosung. “All four of us, we like to discuss things and we like to discuss them very openly. So I think we have pretty good communication skills.”

Talking things out does take time, jokes Dojoon. Physical fights might be faster.

“So we could have just been like, okay, let’s just,” said Woosung. “But yeah, we’re not fighters, we’re lovers. So for us, we just argue about the same things, which is music, money and business. We don’t agree with what each other thinks most of the time, but we have to make sacrifices, each one of us. That’s how we go about doing it for the team.”

It’s important to stay honest with each other.

“We don’t have anything else,” said Woosung. “This is all we have. It has to work, right?”

The band members compose together and the new album “Once Upon A WRLD,” released on May 30, was written by all of them.

“Just us four,” said Woosung. “We did the producing, the lyrics and the writing of the melodies. When we started out writing we would usually all do a melody pass. We would all sit down for hours, just going through all the lyrics, one word by one word. It was tiring.”

“Very tiring,” echoed Hajoon.

“It was very tiring, but we had so much time,” said Woosung. “That’s all we would do because we were living together at the time.”

After a few years the creative process evolved.

“Now mostly Hajoon and Taegyeom write the melodies and they bring them to us,” said Woosung. “Then from there I write the lyrics and then we’ll finish the music producing part of it. That’s our usual thing now.”

Notes on their latest album describe it as “a warm hug wrapped in melodies” and like so much of their music the “WRLD” album benefits from a world of musical influences. It’s a trippy, dreamily optimistic selection of songs, with a nod to John Lennon and the Beatles’ “marmalade skies” musical era, but it also hints at Coldplay and suggests an affinity for the Korean band Nell.

“This album is heavily influenced by music of the 60s, 70s, maybe a little bit of the 80s,” said Woosung.

One commenter on the new album’s YouTube release noted that “Once Upon A WRLD” is more than music, it’s “an experience.”

That’s no accident. The Rose aims to present a story, a complete experience in each album. With its hypnotic melodies and reassuring lyrics “WRLD” presents a hopeful story, inviting listeners to float a while, to hum along and look at the stars, to breathe deeply and trust in the power of love.

“When we write an album, I feel like it should be a whole,” said Woosung. “It’s this new space that we’re presenting and where listeners’ imaginations go. We’re taking on a story in an album.”

The band’s mesmeric rock and roll journey can be enjoyed in The Rose: Come Back To Me, which premiered last week at the Tribeca festival and will again air at the festival on June 12 and 15. The Rose is currently on their Once Upon A WRLD tour.