Interview: Xdinary Heroes Talk New EP 'LXVE to DEATH', Lollapalooza, and Goals For the Future

South Korean rock band, Xdinary Heroes, are back with their new EP titled LXVE to DEATH, out now! The EP features seven new tracks including the title track "ICU", and the group's recent single "FiRE (My Sweet Misery)".  

The group has had a huge year which included a show-stopping performance at the iconic Lollapalooza festival that took place in Chicago this August. The group also wrapped up a slew of US dates for their world tour which saw them take the stage at iconic venues such as The Palladium in LA and the Brooklyn Paramount in NY.

I got a chance to sit down with the members of Xdinary Heroes - Gunil, Jungsu, Gaon, O.de, Jun Han, and Jooyeon - to talk about the creation of their new album, their time in the U.S., and more.

I want to talk, of course, about your upcoming album! I know that the theme of the album is about love, and that was the concept you guys are going for. Can you talk a little bit about the album and how it sort of ties into that concept?

Gaon: Yes, the theme is love, but not the ordinary kind. We wanted to talk about a love that exists very deep in our heart, that is very frank and is also that is very distorted sometimes. It's basically the kind of love that are unspoken, but definitely exists. So that's the theme of this album.

Gunil: When you think of the word love, you might think that it's a very simple concept, but it's a concept that is really hard to put into words. It's really hard to define what really what love is. There are 7 songs on this album and my interpretation is that each song deals with different stage of love. So one song deals with the love that you only give but never receive. And another song deals with the kind of obsessive love where you just don't want the other person ever to leave you. So it deals with many different types of love. It's not the love that is experienced by one person, but many people. It's many different emotions, built by many different people. But the commonality of these people is that they're kind of outsiders. They are loners.

When you went into the creation of the album, did you have that vision in mind of what you wanted the theme to be, or did it kind of form itself as you were creating the songs? 

Jooyeon: We rarely start working on songs with the specific theme in mind. Having fun is a very important and big aspect when we write songs. So when we start writing songs, the direction kind of forms itself, we don't really have like set direction when we begin working.

Jungsu: A lot of our fans wondered why we never sing about love. So I think the fans would really love to know our take on love.

So of course you guys write a lot of your own music, lyrics, and composition. Can you talk a bit about the process of writing some of the songs for this album or at least the title track?

Junhan: When we started working on the title song, ICU, we began writing the melody with guitar and drum and bassline. But we wrote those melody lines with the genre hard rock in mind. When we were writing the lyrics, we focused on the type of foolish love that crashes and we wanted to use the ICU as a metaphor.

How do you guys think that this album differs from any of your previous releases as you've grown as artists? Has anything sort of changed about your style or evolved or have there been any influences from throughout your career that made this album any different?

Jungsu: This is something that we, as a band, always thought really hard about, which is how to be more unfiltered and raw as a band. And it has not been easy, but I think this album kind of brought us closer to that goal, which is being more unfiltered and being more raw. So I think that's the achievement.

Gaon: This album is filled with love songs, but it deals with many different types of love. We really thought hard about how to describe each type of love with each song. So it has 7 tracks and I really feel like we were putting on 7 different theater plays with each song. So, in order to express that different type of love, we tried many different, new things and new instruments. We imagined how to incorporate this into our live shows. Thinking about and playing about love is, I think, one of the most difficult challenges there is, and I think we've become artists who can sing about love.

Do any of you have any favorite lyrics or favorite musical parts from any of the songs on this album? 

O.de: My pick is "Lost and Found:. Towards the end of that song, there's only guitar and keyboards, and a group chant comes in and that part always gets me.

Gaon: I think the synthesizer part that comes in the beginning of "FiRE (My Sweet Misery)"  really signifies and represents this song. That synthesizer part of fire.

Gunil: I personally think the guitar solo in the title track, "ICU". I think it's going to be a legendary guitar solo.

I also wanted to talk about your time in America recently. You guys recently did Lollapalooza, and you also performed some of your own shows here. So can you talk a bit about like what that experience was like?

Jooyeon: We basically flew to the opposite side of the world to perform and it just felt so unreal from the beginning to the end. It just felt like a dream before we arrived. That kind of feeling of unrealness continued even on the stage when I saw the huge audience. So basically, it just made me lose my mind and I just had so much fun on stage. R

Gunil: Lollapalooza was amazing, and we started our US tour right after Lollapalooza, and, seeing so many fans, on the opposite side of the earth, it was an unforgettable experience for us. Also, we visited LA and New York last year as well for our showcase tour, and seeing about triple size of the crowd came this year, and that gave me a feeling of, relief that Xdinary Heroes is just doing well. It gave me hope to dream for even bigger success in the States.

Do you have any plans to come back to America anytime soon?

Gunil: Of course. There are some places that we did not get to visit. One of the places being Boston, which is where I went to college. I personally really want to visit Florida as well, because I heard the beach there is amazing. And maybe Alaska. I just like Alaska. [Laughs] But anyway, yeah, we'd love to visit America again.

Do you guys have any specific plans or goals in mind for like what you want to do for the future? What's the next big thing for Xdinary Heroes?

Gunil: We have a concert coming up next month, which wraps up our Beautiful Mind World Tour. So that is one of the goals that is just right ahead of us, we want to finish our world tour successfully next month. If you look more forward, we want to gain more international attention, so that we may be able to travel around the world more often and see our international fans more often. Eventually, maybe we'd like to go to bigger venues, like, Wembley Stadium. That's what we're aiming for. Maybe be able to get nominated for Grammys, who knows?

Lastly, do you just have any message that you'd like to say to your fans around the world? 

Gaon: Wherever there are villains, we will go there. So stay healthy until we get there. And this year, I hope your life is full of love. Love and health.