CRAVITY Share How They Want To Break Musical & K-Pop Industry Standards With ‘New Wave’ EP

With the release of CRAVITY’s New Wave EP, the K-pop boy band is not only making a musical shift but also seeing how they can shake up premonitions in the industry.

After debuting in early 2020, the nine-member CRAVITY has racked up a string of consistently successful albums as all five of their releases boast more than 150,000 in global sales and spawned multiple singles to date. Nowadays, K-pop groups aren’t created to stay local but have a global perspective with CRAVITY vocal from the start on its hope to expand internationally even as they began their musical journey at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

From the hip-hop/pop sounds of their debut single “Break All the Rules” to embracing house music in “Adrenaline” and the ethereal dreaminess of “Veni Vidi Vici,” CRAVITY has had a broad musical perspective. The group’s latest effort New Wave shines a spotlight on the palpable energy the young group brings in person with new singles “Party Rock” and “Boogie Woogie” highlighting them at their most fun and feel-good.

Speaking ahead of the album release during a stay in Los Angeles, CRAVITY say they took an active role in ensuring their “natural side” was highlighted more with the EP and stray away from any pressures from the K-pop industry. Artistic involvement and ownership speak to what international listeners look for, with trends showing U.S. fans drawn to acts involved in their musical production and direction. Highlighting their approach is undoubtedly led by member Allen, the Los Angeles–raised rapper-dancer in the group who not only lends his words in CRAVITY’s music (including credits on half the New Wave songs, including “Party Rock”) but acts as the group’s key spokesperson abroad as the most fluent in English (translating and expanding on thoughts from his band mates). Allen’s confidence in CRAVITY’s unfurling path is infectious in how he speaks and moves on stage as the 23-year-old spun through aerial cartwheels at the end of the group’s performance at KCON 2022 Los Angeles.

Read on for more from Allen, Serim, Jungmo, Woobin, Minhee, Hyeongjun, Wonjin, Taeyoung, and Seongmin on New Wave, their first concert dates, next steps together and more.

Jeff Benjamin: This new era kicked off the release of your first English single “Boogie Woogie.” How was the recording process?

Allen: It was fun while recording in the studio, we really enjoyed it, and we were really thinking about how the overseas fans will listen to this and get the hype with us. Everyone was singing along when we first performed it at the KCON Rookies showcase, apparently. I supposed because it’s in English, that’s why it’s easier to sing along to it.

Taeyoung: We’re super excited to hear that we were finally releasing an English single and, while recording for it, we were just really happy and enjoying ourselves. We hoped that our fans would enjoy it as much as we did.

Minhee: Yeah and by releasing our first English single, we can connect to more global fans and through the KCON stages.

Hyeongjun: We’ve always tried different genres and concepts since we debuted, so it’s kind of challenging to find different genres. But right now, I feels that this pop sound and the “Boogie Woogie” sound is the most suitable for our group which is something we can play along with it.

Jeff Benjamin: Does that mean more English music is coming?

Allen: The reason why we released “Boogie Woogie” around August time is because we knew we were coming to LA. We knew what we wanted: release this English single, catch everybody by surprise, and just let you all know who we are. We’re really going around with media, doing interviews, meeting music executives. So, definitely, exciting stuff to look forward to like more English songs and albums in the future. We met with the head of Universal Music Publishing Group, and he gave us a lot of great insights on how important a good hit record is for a singer. The singer shouldn’t be bigger than their songs, if you know what I mean. As big as your name is, your song should be even better. We’re going to work hard with whatever is thrown at us to bring our fans better music and spread positive energy through our music and performances.=

Jeff Benjamin: That’s excellent advice and a great mindset. How are you taking all this into your New Wave EP? Can you introduce it with this new mindset?

Wonjin: This album is really rocking.

Allen: Yeah, you got a lot of guitar sounds. Even with the performance, we have a lot of these fun hand gestures. With this “new wave,” we really wanted to show a new side of CRAVITY, a completely new side, more of our natural side. In our earlier days, I would say, we were more “packaged” by the company for different images and concepts. Now, it’s really the concepts, images and vibes that suit us so that we can really do well. Most of the songs on this album has really bright sounds, I would say.

Jeff Benjamin: That’s amazing. How are you showing more of your natural selves? Is it through participating in the production?

Allen: We definitely had more chances to participate in this album. From songwriting and writing lyrics, composing and lyrical composition to ideas on like what kind of sound or what kind of theme that we want to talk about, we contributed opinions in that sort of way.

Hyeongjun: You’re definitely going to hear more of us.

Jeff Benjamin: Congrats to you guys for taking that initiative because it can be challenging to put yourselves into the music. How do you work to gain a bit more like in control, like you said?

Allen: I feel like you need to take charge. You need to fight for it yourself. We can’t always be told what to do by the company. These days, we’ve been expressing a lot of opinions, we’ve been more active and trying to participate as well. Before, we’d always get asked, like, “Oh, what kind of concept or genre do you want to try in the future?” And I’d always say back when we were still doing hip-hop and hard-hitting sounds that I’d like to do house. And then we came back with “Adrenaline.” And after that, I said, I want to do something like rock, and now we’ll come back with “Party Rock.” After releasing our first full-length album in two parts, this is definitely a new beginning. Starting with the fourth mini album, it’s the first one that is not a part of a trilogy like the Hideout series or something like Liberty: In Our Cosmos. It’s just New Wave, by itself.

Jeff Benjamin: What songs are you looking forward to fans’ reactions for?

Allen: There’s a song on this album “Knock Knock” that we recorded back when we started working on The Awakening: Written in the Stars [album] with “Gas Pedal.” That song has been waiting to see the light of day, and now it finally gets to shine. I bet 100 percent that our fans will love it—Serim was spoiling the song for like forever.

Serim: Spoiling the lyrics on VLive and private message.

Jeff Benjamin: New Wave comes just after you wrapped The KCON Tour. How important was this experience in connecting with international fans?

Woobin: This was a very important tour and our first opportunity in the U.S. to perform our English song and Korean songs as well.

Allen: One of the tour managers with us at KCON told me that in order for a K-pop artist to do well in the States, you actually need to come to the States. You actually got to put yourself out there so people can see who you guys are and see what all the talk is about. We can’t keep releasing music in Korea and just hope for people to watch us like on YouTube or through videos only, right? We got to show and prove. So, that’s why this trip has been really important to us and we’re on our 100 percent to rock every city from San Francisco to New York.

Hyeongjun: The KCON Rookies Tour will be like an official announcement that CRAVITY going to take on all of the U.S.

Jeff Benjamin: Looking forward, what more goals are there for this year?

Minhee: I really want to go busking. Really anywhere, the beaches, Santa Monica, or Times Square—anywhere.

Seongmin: I wish that our song would win first place on the music show and that it’ll place high on the charts so that many people can listen to and enjoy it.

Taeyoung: And head to the year-end award ceremonies his year. We really want to be able to be nominated and actually participate.

Allen: I feel like as we become more mature, I would always say, “I just wish our members are happy, healthy and that we keep doing what we love” and everything. But now, after the pandemic’s over and everything, reality really started to hit me and the results and numbers have caught up to me. So, I really wish our hard work would pay off. Even though, I know our fans love everything and always give us unconditional love and support; I’m really grateful for that and they’re the reason why we are able to keep going. But I really wish that, statistically, we may be able to prove and show everyone else that we’re also a competitor that you guys should look out for.

Jeff Benjamin: What would that recognition look like?

Allen: Honestly, winning first place on the music show would be a lot, for now, or even just placing on music charts. Honestly, we’re grateful for anything, but we also don’t want to be satisfied that easily, right? We may get like triple crowns and we may get multiple all-kills, but I think we should always be striving for greater things. That should be in the far future so let’s just work on what we can do right now, and what we can see that we may be able to achieve in the near future.

Jeff Benjamin: Serim, as the leader of such an ambitious group, where is your head at in kind of leading towards these larger ambitions?

Serim: Rather than me setting myself as the leader, our members tend to follow, respect me and regard me as the leader of the group. So in that way, CRAVITY is able to achieve more goals and have those larger ambitions over time.

Allen: Something that Serim always says before we go on stage is to just have fun. He’s always reminding us to just enjoy every moment and enjoy the times we have with our fans. I feel like that’s really important because sometimes, personally, I get caught up in the results. I want results, but when you’re too caught up in that, you’re just never happy. I feel like, in that sense, that’s what makes him a great leader; he can keep our ambitions in check.

Jeff Benjamin: It sounds like this new music that’s a bit more free-flowing and fun can be the perfect combination for that.

Allen: Yes, we definitely can have fun with the new song.

Jeff Benjamin: Looking at your label, Starship Entertainment, have you stayed close with the senior groups? Or have you learned anything new by now being a senior group to a junior group?

Taeyoung: We have a lot of seniors who are very big globally, so we have a lot to learn from them, and we’re very proud of them. On the reverse side, we want to be a group that our juniors can be proud, so we are learning a lot from them as well.

Allen: Like our teachers who have taught us since our trainee days taught Monsta X and WJSN since they were trainees too. So sometimes, specifically the vocal coach, she would tell us stories. Like how they would’ve done during evaluations and just how hard it was for them back then. Also, how we sort of have it, I don’t want to say easier, but just how hard it was for them back then. When we hear those stories, we’d always just think like, “Oh, okay, since our seniors worked that hard, we just got to work as hard.” Because we see where they are now, we see how well Monsta X is widely known and accepted in the States. As we make the first footsteps, I believe we can get there too.

Jeff Benjamin: Anything else you want international fans to know now?

Jungmo: These days, we have a lot of plans, tours, and the comeback so it’s always exciting and interesting. I’m always staying positive.

Wonjin: We really want a lot of stages in the USA.

Taeyoung: We just really want to say thank you, to all you guys, as fans. These aren’t just words, like we truly mean it: thank you. Even though they haven’t seen us in person, they still love us from long distances: we want to thank you guys. Please keep on loving us so we can meet you guys.

Allen: So we can “Boogie” together.