Q: You’ve finally made your comeback.

Daesung: “We started the MADE project last year, so it ended up taking a long time. (laughs) I do feel sorry about that, but I’m relieved we were able to finish it in the end. Seeing how much love it’s getting makes me feel like all our effort didn’t go to waste.”

Q: This album doesn’t have an intro track.

Taeyang: “That’s right.”

Daesung: “Wow… I didn’t even realize. There’s no outro either!” (laughs)

G-Dragon: “That’s a fresh question. (laughs) Now that I think about it, our singles and mini albums always had intros. Usually, we make the intro last, as something that opens the album. But since this one was built around the MADE project releases, we didn’t really think about adding one.”

Q: Let’s talk about the MADE project. It was a new kind of release format.

G-Dragon: “The full album was originally supposed to come out right after the singles. But even if we had songs prepared, if a newer one felt better, we replaced it.

When it came time to complete the album, we kept seeing things we weren’t satisfied with. So we kept delaying it… and that turned into a whole year. That part is on us - we’re sorry.”

Q: This is also your first full album in 8 years.

G-Dragon: “I didn’t even realize it had been eight years until now. We’re the kind of people who don’t really keep track of time - we’ve just been running forward nonstop.

Even now, with tours, we perform, sleep, wake up, and sometimes don’t even know where we are. When people said it’s already our 10th anniversary, that’s when it hit me.

Time passed really quickly. But honestly, I’m just glad the album came out at all. (laughs) If we hadn’t been satisfied, we might’ve postponed it again.

Luckily, in the past few months, we made songs we felt confident in - enough to present this as a masterpiece for our 10th anniversary.”

Q: You’ve received a lot of love over the past 10 years.

Taeyang: “We talk about this a lot among ourselves, it’s something we’re really grateful for. Even just being able to stay active as singers for 10 years is difficult, but it was only possible because people loved our music. I feel happy and thankful.”

Q: You’ve turned a big page with these 10 years. (translation note: closing a significant chapter of life and moving on the next one)

Taeyang: “Now it’s time to move on to the next page. Not just as a group, but individually, we need to grow too.

We can’t say exactly what will happen in the future. But what we’ve built over 10 years has become a habit for us.

Even if there’s a gap because of military service, I think we’ll be able to come back together, make the music we want, and meet everyone again with a more developed version of ourselves.”

G-Dragon: “We’ve filled these 10 years pretty fully, densely, even. It wasn’t always good. There were problems, we overcame them, we got help from people around us, and we grew both musically and personally.

There might be a hiatus. There might be a blank space in our group activities. How we write the next page - that’s our responsibility.”

Q: What makes BIGBANG’s music so distinct?

T.O.P: “Since we create our own music, we just express whatever we’re feeling at that moment. Whether it’s good or bad isn’t something we define, it’s just BIGBANG’s music as it is.”

Taeyang: “A lot of idols write and compose now. But what sets us apart is that each of us has a really strong individuality. That could be a weakness, but when it comes together as BIGBANG, it becomes a strength.”

G-Dragon: “Each member has a clear character. Whether it’s on stage, in music, or on variety shows, we can all do multiple roles. Musically, we like songs that people of different age groups can enjoy. When people in their 40s or 50s listen to and sing our songs, I feel like we’re doing well as artists. That’s when I feel the most proud.”

Q: Your music constantly changes. Why?

G-Dragon: “I think that’s natural. As both artists and fans, we listen to a lot of music and get influenced, that’s what people call trends.

What we like changes over time. Early on, we listened to a lot of house music, which led to ‘Lies.’ Later, we studied EDM, dubstep, and other genres.

As we learn those genres and turn them into our own style, our music naturally changes. And I think we should keep changing.

If an artist sticks to one genre, that can become their identity, but that’s not what we’re aiming for. For us, the fun is taking different genres and making them feel like BIGBANG.”

Q: There’s a saying that you have to stay a little immature to make music.

G-Dragon: “We’re very immature.” (laughs)

T.O.P: “We try to make music that matches our age.”

G-Dragon: “To put it differently, I’ve heard seniors say that singers shouldn’t grow up too much. I take that to mean you shouldn’t lose your purity.

Of course, we’re in our 30s now, we can’t just act childish without consideration. We’ll grow and take responsibility.

But when it comes to music, we try not to lose that purity.

Sometimes when you ask kids questions, they give answers adults wouldn’t think of, and sometimes those answers feel like the truth. It’s like that.

We grow like everyone else, but when it comes to music and the stage, we try to keep that purity. I don’t think there’s another group that’s as different on and off stage as we are.”

Q: What inspired the title track “FXXK IT”?

G-Dragon: “It’s a very carefree, almost reckless emotion.” (laughs)

“When we work, there’s a lot of pressure, even among the producers we collaborate with. Since everyone has a strong musical identity, there are a lot of disagreements.

When one album does well, you start worrying about the next one. We’ve been lucky not to fail, and that makes us want to maintain that level and do even better.

We kept asking what we should do, and a year passed. Then someone just said, ‘Ah, whatever, let’s just do it.’

(translation note: “에라 모르겠다” means “whatever, I don’t care anymore,” said in a moment of letting go)

Teddy picked up on that and suggested making it into a song, and it came together naturally.”

Q: People expected a more intense sound, but you went for something softer.

G-Dragon: “At some point, I started thinking simply, if a song sounds good, it’s good. If you don’t listen to it, then it’s not.

When people expected something intense from us, we took a step back instead. We wanted something more pop, more melodic, something you can listen to anytime without getting tired of it.”

Taeyang: “If we like it, we believe people will like it too.”

Q: Do you consider public taste when making music?

T.O.P: “We don’t calculate things like that when we make music.”

G-Dragon: “Our CEO has a good ear for what’s popular. We make experimental songs, and honestly, we get criticized a lot.” (laughs)

(translation note: “까인다” is slang for getting harshly criticized or ‘roasted’)

“But that’s part of the role. We’re a group loved by the public.

Even with ‘BAE BAE,’ we thought it might be too difficult, but people found it fun.

We don’t try to match people’s tastes on purpose. There’s no point in copying ourselves either, it wouldn’t be growth, and it wouldn’t be fun.

Even if people don’t immediately respond, if we think a song is good, we believe others will eventually feel the same.”

Q: Tell us about the new track “GIRLFRIEND.”

T.O.P: “It’s actually one of the oldest songs we made. It’s also one of our favorites. We wrote the lyrics thinking about our fans.”

G-Dragon: “There’s a nostalgic feeling from our early music. It was originally meant for the single project, but it got left out as we worked on other songs.

Since the goal of the MADE project was to show different genres with every track, we decided to save ‘GIRLFRIEND’ for the full album.”