230908 Rolling Stone: V Shares The Journey That Led to Layover – And How His BTS Members Helped Get Him There

NGL parts of that interview made me emotional.

>**Why didn’t you show your members your songs that much?**

>It’s just that we didn’t have a lot of opportunities to meet in person, since we were all busy with our own personal schedules. For me, at that time, I was filming the show Jinny’s Kitchen. So whenever we did have a chance to meet, we just caught up on life, and we didn’t really have a chance to discuss music.

I dunno why but this made me very 🥹

Lovely interview. Naming the album Layover was so cool. Reading about his explanation made so much sense.

And mentioning BTS and Namjoon and how he’s inspired by his members is quite sweet.

I really liked the part where he said this album wasn’t meant to be a big piece of art, but something like a little gift. Layover does feel very intimate and personal. And the writer is right, Taehyung’s songs often carry a hint of sadness and nostalgia but IMO not the kind that brings me down, but just makes me think about my life and experiences so far.

This was an absolutely lovely interview, especially reading it while listening to Layover on repeat. I love all of Tae’s answers so much, and I think it cleared up a lot of things for me as well, especially clearing up my initial disappointment on not seeing him in the credits. Here, he mentions how he kept scrapping and rewriting songs, being shy and feeling pressured over his first solo release, then finally deciding to showcase himself as a “soloist” in this first, because he will have many more opportunities to show us his songwriting later on. The album still perfectly captures the essence of him as a singer, so the producers did a flawless job and I’m sure Tae picked all the tracks with extra care to do this.

>Yet in conversation, V’s demeanor is the opposite of gloomy. Showing flashes of playfulness, he takes advantage of the time that the translator spends interpreting in English to draw a goofy face on the whiteboard in the HYBE meeting room. Then, he pretends not to know it exists when I ask him about it.

That’s so Tae 😭 none of us are surprised.

>First of all, I made sure to watch all of my members’ stage performances, one by one. I’ve never seen anyone else in this world who is as much of a fan of my fellow members as I am.

This got me properly emotional. I think that’s bangtan’s biggest strength, not just that they have each other and are endlessly supportive, but the fact that they respect and are genuine fans of each other, more so than anybody else. Every single person in the team finds himself awed by the others and wanting to challenge himself even more, and wow, who could ever beat such a team? I think what’s made me the happiest about every one of their solo releases is that none of them feel just like “ah, I see what they are about” and then being done with it, but that they all have me even more excited to see what the future has in store for them. It’s so so obvious that this is just the start. Like, I can’t wait to see the rest of their musical journey. As Tae says, “Layover” is the perfect term for it.

Good interview! I loved when he said the different members all have unique colors to their music, i think that’s a big part of what’s made Chapter 2 so fun and interesting. As a whole team, you see the rainbow, the whole spectrum, with moments for each color to shine but now we’re really getting to see each individual one, including all the shades and variations they contain.

I also loved when the interviewer said “his vocals impart a world of feeling just through slight adjustments to his inflection and rhythm”. I was ranting about this to my family a week ago, that it’s these little inflections that made “Love me again” so interesting – he’s adding some whine, some scoops, some inflections that are kinda missable if you don’t pay attention. And it’s the same with “Blue”. The ‘simplicity’ of the lyrics and sometimes the vocal line can trick some people into thinking it’s basic, but there’s so much more that V is doing on a technical level to add depth and nuance.

Great interview!

My takeaway from it which was my gut feel to begin with is that he did indeed write all the songs but somewhere along the way decided to take professional help in finessing it thereby leaving his contribution to be the spirit of the song rather than actual words and music. This would explain the lack of writing credits yet the songs feeling SOOO Tae.

This got me giggling to myself: “Showing flashes of playfulness, he takes advantage of the time that the translator spends interpreting in English to draw a goofy face on the whiteboard in the HYBE meeting room. Then, he pretends not to know it exists when I ask him about it.” 😂😂

i like reading taehyung’s interviews, not only because he’s my bias, there’s something charming about his outlook on life. the explanation for the album’s title is pretty cool and i loved the sweet moments with the members that he described here.

i hope that he will release one day his unreleased bangers (but the probability is low), with his lyrics instead of what we got in layover, but i understand his decision, despite i admit that i felt confused and frustrated that he didn’t have any credits. the pressure can be hard, especially when you have to show the world who you are as a soloist.

don’t get me wrong, i love layover’s vibe, but taehyung has a lovely prose when it comes to lyrics (looking at you, scenery, winter bear etc.!). it’s lovely that he’s taking inspiration from namjoon (and joon is an amazing lyricist), but i already see a defined voice in him that he has to refine through his future works.