It’s a few hours before The Rose are due to step onstage at O2 Kentish Town Forum to a sold-out crowd at their biggest UK concert to date. The band are running through an abridged version of their setlist in soundcheck, and midway through the rehearsal, singer and guitarist Woosung launches into an improvised song as keyboardist and singer Dojoon plays a melancholy melody to his left. “He’s sick when we have a show,” Woosung sings mock-forlornly. “Are you OK? / No, he’s not.”
Minutes beforehand, the Korean rock band were practising the jangly strum of 2018’s ‘She’s In The Rain’. When it got to Dojoon’s verse, he opened his mouth to sing but instead started coughing and spluttering. “At the show in Utrecht, it was terrible,” he tells NME backstage later, shaking his head. Before arriving at the venue today, he was given an IV of dexamethasone to soothe his vocal cords.
“That was the worst condition I’ve ever seen him in,” Woosung interjects, curled up on a black leather sofa on the other side of the dressing room.
“I feel bad, I couldn’t sing with my full voice,” Dojoon continues. “Luckily, all the Netherlands Black Roses [The Rose’s fanbase name] supported me and cheered me up. I was so grateful they sang with me.”
The European leg of The Rose’s world tour might have started taking its toll on the four musician’s bodies – “I’m so broken right now,” Woosung sighs, throwing his head back against the wall as his bandmates erupt in laughter – but the shows have been fulfilling in other ways. “Physically, we’re not healed, but mentally we are,” Dojoon smiles.
The idea of healing has long been a key part of The Rose’s music, but on their latest album, they made it clearer and dug deeper into that theme than ever before. The record, fittingly titled ‘Heal’, collates their experiences from their three years apart while completing military service and beyond, delving into and unpacking personal traumas going all the way back to their youth.
“We want [our fans] to accept us just as people… It’s not like an idolising thing that we want”
The record began to take shape with ‘Childhood’, a poignant reflection on losing the wide-eyed wonder of youth and the first song written for ‘Heal’. “When we wrote that song, we were going through some troubles ourselves, so its lyrics and that mindset of not forgetting about our childhood and trying to push through was very healing for us,” Woosung explains. “We didn’t have the album name when we wrote that song, but it was a step that we didn’t know we were taking towards that idea.”
Hours later, during the show, the passionate London crowd will sing back every word of ‘Childhood’ to The Rose, many with their arms aloft, enraptured with emotion. Each brief silence between verses and choruses is filled with appreciative screams. It’s a powerful moment during a concert full of them.
Back in the dressing room, Woosung reflects on the power music can have. “It’s funny because it helped us – those exact lyrics – right?” he muses. “While we’re writing it, singing it and recording it, it helps us heal too. So when they say [our songs have helped them], it makes us feel like we’re on the same wavelength.”
As the singer and guitarist notes, ‘Heal’’s effect on The Rose didn’t end when they left the studio. Playing its songs on tour night after night is just the next step of their journey with it. “On the ‘Heal’ album, there’s a song called ‘See-Saw’, which is my story,” explains bassist Jaehyeong from his seat next to Woosung. The string-laden song details a tumultuous emotional battle, its writer’s feelings going up and down like its namesake. “Every time I endure and endure again, I end up tilting,” he sighs on the track. “My centre is broken again.”
“When the album was released, I thought I had already overcome [those problems],” Jaehyeong continues, but when the tour started in North America last year and they played ‘Swee-Saw’ live for the first time, he quickly realised he was wrong. “I didn’t expect that I would cry, but I was really, really crying.” He smiles sheepishly as he recalls the moment. “Then I realised, “Ah, I’m not totally over it’. I’m overcoming it now, though, so this tour is very helpful to me.”
With an emotionally loaded setlist on the horizon, the band use their time backstage beforehand to relax and conserve their energy. One by one, they head off to get their hair and make-up done, while the others stay behind in the dressing room and tuck into boxes of freshly delivered Korean food. “The chicken is so good, right?” Dojoon asks, giving NME a thumbs up before he returns to a sauce-slathered drumstick.
Woosung opens Netflix on his phone but quickly abandons it to chat with their team slowly gathering on the sofas around him. Drummer Hajoon, meanwhile, returns to the room in his stage clothes and entertains his friends by launching into the choreography to NewJeans’ ‘Hype Boy’.
As their stage time approaches, friends, members of The Rose’s wider team and new connections file into the dressing room to check in and catch up, greeting the band with hugs, handshakes and concerned queries about Dojoon’s condition. As the gaggle leave the room later, they’re replaced by make-up artists armed with compacts and brushes, ready to do final touch-ups. Dojoon, the last member to finish getting ready, re-enters the room with the word “love” now inked in black on the back of his hand.
Suited, booted and looking pristine, The Rose file down the many flights of stairs between their dressing room and stage, their crew following behind them. With each flight they descend, the sound of their fans gets that little bit louder. As Jaehyeong opens the stage door and the four musicians step out in front of the audience, the burble of anticipation explodes into a spine-tingling roar of cheers that barely lets up for the whole show.
It’s Valentine’s Day and the atmosphere in the venue is electric, charged by the feeling of catharsis that comes with each song and its impassioned response. ‘RED’ is pure, unadulterated euphoria, while ‘I.L.Y’ offers a more sentimental moment of pause. ‘Shift’ is just hitting its stride when the band halt so a fan in the middle of the crowd can receive medical attention. As they wait for things to settle down, Woosung points to another section at the front of the room and says: “I think someone just proposed.” A fan holds their new ring in the air in confirmation, and the singer makes heart-hands at the couple. Later, he asks, “Is it OK to have a thousand valentines at once?” to approving cheers.
“All those years writing our own songs, figuring things out on our own really helped shape who we are today”
After recovening backstage, the band return to the stage for a Q&A followed by group photo sessions. They take selfies with fans’ phones and answer a plethora of questions, from the serious to the light-hearted. When one person asks for advice on singing, Woosung replies, “Just sing,” and hands her his microphone so she can do just that. Flustered chaos ensues when another fan asks what inanimate object they’d like to be, and Jaehyeong, doing his best to respond in English, shares that he wants to be a bass “cos I wanna play myself”.
“Who got this on video? Please put this up on Twitter – only cut that part,” Dojoon teases as the band and audience try and control their laughter. “It’s his freedom, so let him be!”
Spirits run high and fans form lines snaking around the venue for the photo sessions. As they fill up the seats around the band when it’s their turn, they hand over gifts and letters, and a pile of roses slowly grows on one side of the room as staff collect the presents between snaps.
“We want them to accept us just as people,” Woosung tells NME of their dynamic with their fans, for whom they opened an official The Rose server on Discord last year. “We accept them as people who listen to our music. We want that barrier to not be there – it’s not like an idolising thing that we want. We want to separate the music from the artist and for them to think of us as friends.”
The night wraps up and the ‘Heal Together’ world tour comes one step closer to completion. It’s the first trek the band have done since embarking on a new chapter in their story by leaving their past agency and founding their own label. As they look to the future, they’re feeling positive about the position they’re in now. “We’ve matured a lot,” Woosung reasons. “All those years writing our own songs, figuring things out on our own really helped shape who we are today and us be able to run our own company.”
Just like the healing their latest album started, their journey is far from over. “We’re growing and learning,” Dojoon nods happily. “And meeting fans in the meanwhile. It’s the best.”
The Rose’s latest album ‘Heal’ is out now
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