K-pop stars Monsta X talk bright future and dark reality-TV past: 'It was just really the hardest time of my life'

Lyndsey Parker
·Editor in Chief, Yahoo Music
·5 min read
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Monsta X are one of the biggest K-pop acts in the planet right now, with their second English-language album The Dreaming dropping this week, coinciding with the limited theatrical run of their concert film of the same title. Dreaming is the much-anticipated follow-up to 2020’s All About Luv, one of the first-ever full English pop albums from Korea, which debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, making Monsta X only the third K-pop group to chart within the U.S. top 10.

Now world domination seems within their grasp — they even tell Yahoo Entertainment that their ultimate goal is to headline a Super Bowl halftime show one day. But when they look back on their troubled beginnings, they confess they never expected to make it this far.

Monsta X were assembled in 2014 by Starship Entertainment on a South Korean Making the Band/X Factor-style reality show called No.Mercy, on which 13 young K-pop trainees, including the six future members of Monsta X, competed against each other and were ranked from best to worst week after week. Ultimately the show gave the men their big break, but the group’s Kihyun, speaking to Yahoo Entertainment via Zoom from Seoul, confesses that the experience “was the worst thing in my life.”

“It was literally ‘ain’t no mercy,’” quips Kihyun’s bandmate, I.M.

“Because it was so hard. It was too hard, and I struggled a lot emotionally to get through the next stage. It was just really the hardest time of my life,” says Kihyun.

“We were formed through that group, but we received a lot of pressure and stress during that time. All of the bad things,” adds Minhyuk.

“Yeah, I think it was not a good way to make a good group. I think it was not worthy,” says I.M. “But since it is the past, we just leave it to the past. … You can find it on YouTube — but we're not going to watch it again.”

All of the members of the group stress that the don’t regret the experience because of their “thoughts of Monbebe,” the name given to the loyal Monsta X fandom. “That’s the reason that we are singers right now; we don’t regret it,” says I.M. But he admits that he and his bandmates did struggle to adjust after the show, when they became overnight K-pop sensations.

“You need to give up your normal life. As a celebrity, you need to think about the public and the public talks a lot about you. They may talk about you negatively, even if something is positive. So you get very stressed out, and once this thought goes deep inside of you, it makes you think of yourself as a product, not a person,” I.M explains. “This negative circle goes round and ‘round and sometimes gets so messed up but eventually, it's OK. Because at the same time, we have a lot of fans who love us so much.”

The effects of fame on K-pop artists’ mental health has been in the news lately, and last year, right before the release of All About Luv, Monsta X member Joohoney (also known as Jooheon) took a temporary hiatus from the group, after announcing that he was “mentally very weak right now and in a difficult situation.” I.M explains that they group’s members have turned to each other in dark times, saying, “Since are not solo artists, we are a group, we still have time to, like, talk about our problems, talk about very personal, necessary, deep kind of emotions. So, we talk to each other like this, drink some beer — and get drunk!”

Monsta X in 2021. (Photo: Starship Entertainment)
Monsta X in 2021. (Photo: Starship Entertainment)

They also leaned on each other for support during the COVID-19 pandemic. “To be honest, we were like, nonstop scheduling [in 2020]. So, we were like working all day, all night, without sleeping, without any holiday. But through that time we had a time to think inside of myself, like I'm digging into my emotion. The outside situation was bad with COVID-19 and everything but for us, it was in fact not that bad,” says I.M. Monsta X also tried to serve as support system to their fans. Joohoney and I.M even co-wrote a lockdown anthem, “Stand Up,” for their 2020 EP Fantasia X, with lyrics that translated in English to: “It's been a hard time/Whether the painful wound hurts/I can't feel the pain anymore/How many times have you cried… After a sigh/I have to shed tears/I have to stand up again and again/Even if you fall on your knees, you can wake up again… After pain comes joy.”

“I think people are lonely because of COVID. So, K-pop's message is that fans and the artists are together as one, the artist can become a friend, husband, just everything to the fan,” says Minhyuk.

Monsta X have obviously weathered adversity, ever since their televised formation, but as they prepare for their next career stage with Dreaming, the members—who cite the Notorious B.I.G, Nas, Tupac Shakur, Post Malone, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, and J. Cole as key influences on their aggressive hip-hop/EDM sound — are still dreaming big and looking at the big picture. “Since we had a hard time, a very tough time like that [on No.Mercy], I thought it will be worth it to my future. Like, it will be a very, very, very big picture of my future,” says I.M.

“Honestly, my dream was more big!” Minhyuk jokes. “What we have now is too small. I don't have anything specific in mind yet but. It's not that detailed but it's definitely something bigger than now.”

“We don't really set a final goal as a group; we just move forward, looking at various opportunities and thinking about the next step,” says I.M. “Even if we make a goal, it's probably about our next step and the step after that. It's definitely not our final goal.”

But then I.M adds with a sly smile, “Oh! A final goal? OK: The Super Bowl.”

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— Video produced by Jen Kucsak, edited by Jimmie Rhee