Up-and-coming K-pop sextet P1Harmony seem genuinely excited to be backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, one of the most significant houses of music, not only in Music City but in the entire U.S.

Speaking from one of numerous green rooms in the vaunted venue, Keeho, Jongseob, Jiung, Intak, Theo and Soul explain how they just arrived in town the day prior but have already been around town and have plans to explore more as their second-ever North American tour winds down.

“I’ve been trying to feel the States’ culture more, so I’ve been walking around and seeing some people and some nature or going to landmarks. I’ve been having a great time,” Jiung says, in English.

P1Harmony is based in South Korea, though bandleader Keeho was born in Toronto and Soul is originally from Japan. When possible, each member attempts to answer our questions personally, but Keeho serves as the group’s translator as needed.

Keeho says he was intrigued by the Grand Ole Opry’s backstage tour and historic signage up everywhere. Their first day in the city included visiting Nashville’s famous Parthenon replica.

“We also went to Broadway. We had some steak. We walked around the city,” Keeho says. “For me, personally, I got some cowboy boots last night.”

P1Harmony kicked off their latest tour on the West Coast, including a show at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre where the six showed off a mix of impressive singing, rapping and dance moves that included numerous aerial maneuvers.

The group debuted under FNC Entertainment during the height of the pandemic in 2020, which meant that it couldn’t perform shows for more than a year, but has become one of the most successful members of K-pop’s fourth generation. The members all have input in songwriting and the more visual aspects of their performances. They’ve so far released five EPs (or mini-albums); most recently last fall’s Harmony: Set In, with hip-hop-infused bangers like “Back Down” and “BFF.”

The members range from 17 (Jongseob) to 21 (Keeho) years old but already have more experience than most in the genre. Theo was a trainee with SM Entertainment before switching to FNC. Jongseob won popular TV contest “K-pop Star.” He then trained with YG Entertainment and appeared on another reality show, “Treasure Box.”

P1Harmony took some time out of their day to chat about their wide-ranging tastes in music—from Gorillaz and J.I.D to Led Zeppelin and Earth, Wind and Fire—and the effort required to make it big in K-pop.

RIFF: Are there parts of yourselves that you keep just for yourselves; things that wouldn’t make it into public performances or on social media?

[The six confer before Keeho answers for Soul].

Keeho: Soul says that he doesn’t know if it’s a Japanese culture thing … but it’s kind of like a lucky charm thing that his mom sends over from Japan every year. Kind of like a care package, but it brings good luck, and it brings good energy, good chakras.

[Keeho has Soul pull out his cell phone and show a picture of the latest charm, which Keeho puts right in the camera].

Keeho: It’s one of these things [a pouch], and he brings it around with him all the time, and I guess it just brings him good energies and stuff like that. It’s something his mother gives him every year, and he switches it out every year. I didn’t even know that, so you got some good insider stuff!

Who are your favorite K-pop groups? 

Jongseob: Actually, my favorite group is Seventeen.

[Keeho and Intak nod in agreement].

Jongseob: I went to a Seventeen concert one time, and their energy is very good. The concert is going like four hours.  They’re fun, and their stage etiquette is very good.

Theo: I like Big Bang.

Keeho talking for Theo: Theo says he’s been liking Big Bang for over 15 years now. So he’s a huge fan.

What other kinds of music do you like? Because you definitely incorporate a more of a rock sound in your shows.

Keeho talking for Jongseob: Jongseob really likes band music. He loves Led Zeppelin. He also said he likes Earth, Wind & Fire, like old-school stuff.

Keeho: I think you say “rock” because you saw our show in Oakland, and the first half of it was all very band-oriented. We actually changed up a lot of songs so that it had band sounds and live sessions. The reason why we chose to do that this tour was because we feel like—even though we couldn’t have a live band on stage with us—having band instruments incorporated into the music makes the music so much better to hear, especially on stage, and it just kind of elevates the music in a different way than just playing the regular song. We definitely really wanted to do a little bit of a band remix for a lot of our songs this time around.

I presume, as you guys continue to grow larger, eventually you will have segments where you’re performing with a live band.

[Everyone nodding in agreement.]

Keeho: Yes, hopefully. We really want to. That’s one of our goals.

When you speak between songs at concerts, do you wish you could talk about your personal opinions on things, like current events, more than you do?

Jiung: Our fans made us [successful] to [be] in front of them. … It’s thanks to them we can do all of these things. I was so thankful, but I couldn’t say it yet. I’m thinking about it.

Keeho: Definitely, like you said, we might want to say different things, or take time to talk about different topics and stuff like that. But I feel like, in a concert setting, the reason why we do ments [between-song breaks] is just trying to keep that energy up throughout the entire show. Our biggest goal when talking in between segments is to just keep the energy up and make sure that the fans are enjoying what they’re seeing. We take a little bit of time to explicitly communicate with the fans … and just be able to see how they’re feeling, and just have fun with them a little more that’s other than just singing, dancing and rapping. … We can also just take a little break in between, because it’s so physically demanding to sing and dance and rap for so many songs straight.

Do you watch fan-recorded videos of yourself performing? Do you read the comments?

[They all nod].

Keeho: Yeah, all the time! I think we all watch, but I also feel like that’s a part of the job. I think it’s a part of the job to look at these videos because we can never see ourselves in a third-person perspective. So it’s good to see how we’re doing on stage, how we look on stage, how we’re interacting with the fans and if there’s things that we need to improve on. Or if there’s things that we shouldn’t do, what we should do more of. Those videos are the only ways to find out. So I feel like all of us are making sure to look at videos and see what fans are saying about the show and stuff like that.

[Intak nods].

What is the craziest part about this whole K-pop idol thing that you still can’t wrap your head around?

Keeho talking for Jiung: Jiung says that … once we start promotions when we’re releasing new songs, a new album, you have to get into a mode where, unfortunately, we’re not able to sleep as much as we want to. Whenever that happens, it still takes us some time to get used to. Just not being able to have that regular sleep schedule is something that is always kind of hard for him to get used to.

It’s lot of work.

Jiung: A lot of work.

Keeho: Also, for me personally, just people noticing us on the street. Even still to this day it’s like, “Oh, are you P1Harmony?” and I still get shocked. Like, why do you know who we are? Sometimes it just surprises me because you don’t expect it, and it’s not even us trying to be humble. We genuinely get surprised. I don’t know why. It’s happened a couple of times during the tour as well, but every single time it happens it just takes us off guard because we don’t expect people to know us out in the street.

When you go out, do you have security people with you, or are you on your own?

Jiung: No, no, no. It’s just us.

Keeho: Nobody expects us to get noticed. Maybe we’ll [eventually] have someone to do that.

Do you have time for interests outside of the group?

Jongseob: First, I really like gaming and photography. And that’s it. That’s my hobby. I really like taking pictures. I really love games, too.

Keeho talking for Soul: Soul says that he really likes cleaning. So he purposely waits ‘til his room gets really, really, really messy, just so that he can clean it all up again because he loves that feeling of cleanliness.

I could show you my house. It could really use some cleaning:

Keeho pointing to Soul: He will come and clean for you!

Intak: I really like shopping, and I really like clothing. I’m collecting something these days like vintage varsity jackets, or very Western styles, like a blazer.

You collaborated with Pink Sweat$ on the song “Gotta Get Back” last year. Are there other American artists you’d like to work with?

Jiung: Justin Bieber. I like his music a lot. … I hope to see him in person, and then I’ll make some music.

Intak: I really like Frank Ocean.

Keeho: I’ve been a diehard fan of SZA since I was in middle school. … I also really want to work with Pharrell Williams. I would love to get a track with him. That’d be absolutely insane.

Jongseob: I would really like to collab with J.I.D. and Gorillaz. I like the Gorillaz’s beat sounds. And J.I.D. is crazy.

Where do you get your choreography? Whose idea were those aerials? How do you make that work?

Keeho: We actually have our own choreography dance team that works with us all the time back in South Korea. Kwon Cheol Jun…

Jiung: …Kim Min Seob.

Keeho: Yeah, I love them. Those are our brothers. They don’t sleep. They work really, really hard just for all of our choreos to work. … We talk with them a lot, and they show us a lot of different ideas and a lot of different choreos that we can work with. They’re always coming up with something new. Thanks to them, we’re able to create such magnificent, crazy and cool choreography.

Jiung: Shout out to them.

In what ways do you think that starting P1Harmony during the pandemic was different from what it’s like any other time?

Keeho talking for Jongseob: Jongseob said definitely the fact that the audience isn’t there.

Keeho: I feel like people that are able to experience that straight off in the beginning are so different than people that haven’t been able to, and we’ve been longing for an audience for so long because of Covid. That’s probably just the biggest difference, because we had to be so chronically online in the first year of our careers. That’s all we could do in order to keep in touch with our fans and be able to get our music out when it shouldn’t be that way. You know what I mean? We had to get used to … being online, doing our shows online, making sure everything is online, communicating with our fans online. That wasn’t the easiest thing. We’re just very glad that we’re able to perform in front of an audience now, and we’re trying to make the most out of it.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.