Were you extremely excited when you performed for the first time on stage as part of BIGBANG?
Rather than being excited, I was extremely stressed out. Only a few people knew of the name ‘GD’ back then. A lot of people had great expectations of us as the first boy group under YGE and because of that, there were a lot of eyes on us. Instead, that pressure brought the 5 of us closer together. I said this to the members, “in order to not let people feel ashamed of the name BIGBANG, we have to do things that exceed their expectations”. Everyone worked hard day by day after that.
Do you have a lot more stress being the leader?
When the group first formed and because I’m in the middle (age), I wanted to make sure I had a good relationship with the youngest and the oldest. I worked very hard during that time but compared to other groups, being BIGBANG’s leader is not as hard work as the others.
It’s like that with 5 members with different personalities?
That is the best part. Everyone knows what they have to do so I only need to say a little bit and then everyone will immediately understand. Of course before building this harmony and trust, we all had our fair share of arguments…
Arguments….? Can you give an example?
Such as different eating habits or the way they fold their clothes (laughs). We all lived together in the dorm so if there was something off in my life, I would be dissatisfied. Now that I think about it, there were lots of arguments about petty things but nothing would be gained from it and it would only hurt each other’s relationships. We stopped arguing after that.
Have you ever argued due to differences with BIGBANG’s direction?
Absolutely not; the 5 of us have the same views about BIGBANG’s music and performances. Of course the way we grow up, the music we listened to before, the artists that we like are all different but our views all come together when it has to do with BIGBANG. Fortunately, we can present our own styles of music when we have our solos so there’s no “pressure” in being part of BIGBANG. In Korea, there’s a popular phrase that says the more you argue, the closer you will get. We are like that….we fought a lot to understand each other and the distance between us shortened. We are like family now.
That’s one way to communicate?
Actually we fight and argue due to mis-communications. BIGBANG members are all surprisingly very shy people and are very polite with people we meet for the first time. When we’re together however, we’ll play jokes on each other and have a lot of fun.
Most 20yr old guys are like that though.
Yes, but when I was in grade school I never had fun playing jokes on people or just joke around. A lot of people were scared of me…I even made some of them cry (bitter laugh). I simply wanted people to acknowledge me back then so I did some mean jokes on them. I transferred schools 4-5 times and I especially wanted to form friendships with my classmates. Every time I transferred, my number of friends would increase so I definitely had more friends than anyone. That’s something that I’m proud of.
No matter where you go, GD is always the most eye-catching one and the most popular, isn’t that right?
I don’t know if I’m popular but I always show off my leadership skills and bring everyone together.
You always like to place yourself in new surroundings and you never feel uneasy?
Never…in fact, I think it’s very fun. Now that we talk about this, I don’t like staying in 1 place for long. I’m still like that now…as long as I go to an unknown place, I will feel really excited. I’ve been like that when I was young and I’m still like that now. I don’t use my brain to think through things. Instead, I use my body to lead myself into the right direction.
Source: jwalkervip
Translation: jwalkervip.tumblr.com
