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T-ARA TALK ABOUT HAVING PANIC ATTACKS, “THEY MUST HAVE HIT EACH ONE OF US AT LEAST ONCE.”
Considered to be one of the top idols in terms of ‘extreme mental strength,’ T-ara revealed their honest thoughts about ‘psychological health.’
T-ara revealed their thoughts in an interview with TV Daily in a certain area around Yongsan-gu, regarding the recent complaints from various idols about panic attacks. They said, “we’ve all been hit at least once (by panic attacks) too.”
Since T-ara’s debut, they’ve had non-stop activities, music shows, variety shows, dramas and movies, etc. and did not even rest. In 2012, because of a conflict and malicious comments that arose, their image took a huge hit. Since then, T-ara have became the main target of hate comments and verbal abuse, receiving a great deal of psychological pain. In a period of 7 years and 4 months (since their debut) in total, they’ve had to put up with that for more than 4 years.
Recently, even though the sort-of trending ‘panic attack’ word is spreading among idols, there are still strong and hateful contents in the responses and comments. In reality, T-ara members confessed in interviews with broadcasts and the media, “we’ve come to have extreme thoughts. Actually, we’ve had people in our family who were diagnosed with mental illnesses.”
With regards to this, Eunjung said, “I don’t think we were used to the word ‘panic disorder’ at that time. That’s why we just promoted without really knowing what condition we had. We promoted while having a disorder. When we look back, there were times when our mentalities were in really bad conditions.”
Jiyeon said while laughing, “we were all the same (having panic attacks) so we couldn’t know any better.”
Hyomin added, “I didn’t have any thoughts of getting better or avoiding it. Didn’t I just have to accept it? Not only that, when we made mistakes, we should reflect on ourselves and tell ourselves to do better the next time. All 6 of us had that mindset.” :(((((((((((((((
Soyeon said, “all 6 of us were like that. We’re the type who just accept it. A really long ago, we had conflicts with our companies when discussing about concepts and stuff too. We had the mindset that this was beyond our capabilities and willpower that we could never do it. At that time, all 6 of us went to talk to a lawyer. But someone said, ‘but no matter what, we can do it all,’ so we went ahead to just accept it like that again.”
Hyomin added, “it wasn’t all bad in 2012. We beat ‘Park Taehwan silver medal’ on the real-time search ranking and got first place. But 4 years has already passed and Park Taehwan is on the top rankings of search results again. It’s been 4 years. We’ve survived the tough and difficult periods. Our moods are strange and curious. We want to tell ourselves, ‘you’ve been through hard times.’” Eunjung said, “looking back at those days really make our moods feel strange.”
T-ARA RECOUNT THEIR 7 YEARS TOGETHER AS A GROUP… “WE HAVE NO THOUGHTS TO DISBAND.”
Q. What did you do for 1 year?
Soyeon: Split activities between China and Japan. I’ve missed Korean activities.
Q. It’s been 8 years since debuting in 2009, what are your thoughts?
Eunjung: I think it’ll be better if I explain by using the lyrics in our new song. “There’s nobody else who loves (us) like you do” is for the fans. We are reminded of people who like us and have been with us in the past. Of course, this would apply to other groups’ fans as well. They’ve went through the hard times together, that’s how they’ve become a family.
Q. There are a lot of singers making comeback recently. It’s a competition, are you worried about your rankings?
Soyeon: We have no expectations. (Laughs). We’re not aiming to survive on the charts, instead we just wanted to promote in Korea. During the 1 year and 3 months break, we’ve promoted in China and Japan. I don’t know if it’s considered a long time but, the fans have waited for a long time. I want to interact with the Korean fans as soon as possible. We don’t even concern ourselves with things like competition, we don’t even think about it. We made the album this time only thinking about the fans.
Q. It’s unexpected that the new song is a ballad.
Eunjung: As for the song this time, it’s a style that all the members agreed on. It’s an expectable concept coming from a girl group, but we didn’t do that. This time T-ARA tries to not be unique.
Jiyeon: It’s innocent and soft.
Soyeon: We’ve been doing exaggerated and loud type recently. As we practised, we felt bored and feel slightly refined at that.
Hyomin: Bored to the point of should we keep doing this. We’ve been around for 7~8 years, we feel like showing our mature self on the stage.
Q. If you’re to choose the song you’re most obsessed with out of all your hit songs?
All members: ‘Roly Poly’. We received lots of love. We enjoyed being on the stage and it’s a song which we really enjoyed the promotion of. We’ve always been 2 nd for 11 weeks and Super Junior sunbaenim got the 1 st . That song was 1 st on annual melon chart at that time.
Hyomin: It’s almost like a song that dominates an era.
Eunjung: We’re the group that leaves at daybreak.
Q. You were really popular but have to endure some difficulties after the discord with Hwayoung.
Eunjung: Our image as T-ARA changed due to that issue. We’ve gone through some difficult times due to that and the fans have experienced it alongside us. It’s our own issue so it’s only right we persevered on, but the fans have no such obligations. They’re still here out of their own will because they liked us and I can’t express enough gratitude and apologised enough. I will never forget this till the day I die.
Q. Is it possible to meet Hwayoung like nothing’s happened now?
Jiyeon: Hwayoung is doing well too; a long time has passed now I think we can smile when we do meet now (lets see if she posts something shady on sns on the comeback day like she always does)
Q. You’ve recently heard much news of groups disbanding and leaving, what is T-ARA’s plan?
All members: It’s something we’ve all been talking about but in our hearts we want it to stay the way it is. (The group that split/disbanded) has 7 years in their contract, but our first contract wasn’t even 7 years, in fact even shorter. We’ve signed a recontract 2 times. T-ARA will keep going in the future. We’ve passed the 7-years curse. We definitely have no intention to disband or split.
Q. Your comeback song is not dance but medium tempo. Explain the change.
Eunjung: Actually we wanted to do another T-ARA –ish song. Another song where people who listen can make out it’s another ‘T-ARA’s song’. We wanted to do another upbeat song or EDM etc. But, the song this time is indifference and not as upbeat. Actually, we’ve also always wanted to do a calm song. We haven’t had the chance to try a song that other girl groups have given a shot at least once. We’ve done many unique concepts, this time we want something calm.
Jiyeon: Among other tracks, the mini albums have the title track, Chinese ver. and Inst. Ver.
Q. How much did the members participated in the album this time?
Soyeon: We hardly have any time this time. After the meeting for comeback preparation ended, the comeback is moved up to early November, there’s hardly any part where we contributed.
Q. You collaborated with Duble Sidekick again this time.
Soyeon: In our perspective, we’re already thankful for giving the song to us. We rarely receive compliments of nice songs. To others, they listen only because they believed in Duble Sidekick’s skills, in the perspective of a singer, we also believed in them and accepted it. There’s also a good atmosphere working together because we’re close with one another. Actually, we receive more songs from Shinsadong Tiger and Jo Youngsoo composer. We do wish to work with them in the future.
Q. Do you not worry about change?
Eunjung: Of course we do. But if you worry about it you can’t accomplish anything. We have to make a decision among the songs given.
Hyomin: We do worry if the song is too boring to listen to, but as we listen further we are reminded of the fans. It’s a song that’s suitable to listen to during cleaning or to concentrate while driving.
Q. I think you would want to be 1 st in music chart.
Jiyeon: We’ve agreed to do it in the most T-ARA way as possible. We will come out with the mentality of we’re receiving as many love as possible. Of course we don’t know what the public reaction will be like. We think of this time like an event.
Eunjung: We really do not expect anything like charting 1 st , getting all-kill or getting cheers. We only want this to be a memory between us and fans. We want to use our time interacting as much as possible with the fans. We do not cling on results for our promotion. To tell the truth, we’re only here because we miss promoting in Korea.
Jiyeon: We want to present fans with our hearts. We release our albums as a form of payback for their love.
Q. You have so many Chinese fans; it’s possible to get 1 st is it not?
All members: Eyy~ seriously, no such thing. We don’t expect getting 1 st . We’re only planning music shows, fan meeting and promotion
Q. If there’s anything you’d expect out of this promotion?
Jiyeon: A good time with the fans, making good memories. That’s the priority for this promotion.
Eunjung: We fed on memories to carry on living (Smile.) Long story short, we want to make good memories with the fans. To repay the protection the fans have provided us. Our gratitude can’t be expressed in 1~2 words. We don’t even know how to repay that debt. We will release many albums to meet them. Try to become a good person, or be an even better person. We’d like to keep going. This might sound like a cliché answer but it’s probably because we’ve endured more hardships compared to other teams.
Q. T-ARA is inclined to receive bad comments from the netizens. Is there anything you’d like to say to them?
Eunjung: It’s better than no comments. We’re fine with anything.
Jiyeon: We’ve released ourselves from it.
Hyomin: We’ve debuted for 7~8 years and it’s been 4 years since the incident. It was the Olympics then. This year is also the Olympics and we thought ‘Ah it’s been 4 years’. We couldn’t believe we actually suffered more and getting loved more during all that time. We tell this among ourselves but we really endured well.
Q. Another genre T-ARA would like to try in the future?
Hyomin: We’ve really done a lot since debut. Having fun and enjoying ourselves is our number 1 priority at the moment. We don’t really expect anything out of this promotion other than to enjoy ourselves. We are already content for the simple fact of us releasing an album.
Jiyeon: We’ve returned after 1 year and 3 months, we only want to have fun.
Hyomin: It’s actually dreadful if you look at it. I don’t know when exactly we’ve lost our goals. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. We have no heavy burdens. Of course, we’re apologetic towards the fans. In the fans’ perspective, it would be better for their favourite artist to clinch 1 st . I think it’d better if the fans lower their expectations now.
Q. You seem like you really like your fans. Any events you’d like to do with them?
Eunjung: I’ve always said this but it was never fulfilled, but I’d like to go camping with them. (Laughs) But it’s getting too cold now, should we still go camping or go to a ski resort? It’s better if we do it at least once.
Others: What Ski Resort!?? (Laughs)
Q. Any varieties show you want to guest as full members?
All members: We want to go on ‘Knowing Bros’. It’s spiteful but I think the viewers will laugh and enjoy at the sight of us getting spewed with insults.
Hyomin: That’s right. I think people would laugh (at us getting dissed). I want to go on ‘SNL’
Q. Any plans to release full-album within this year?
Soyeon: We want to release it sometime between March~April next year. It’s our 12 th mini-album this time. We’ve been telling our agency. Everything may be up to us but there are still no specific details on next album. For now, just focus on this album.
Q. Your hoobaes seemed really active these days. Anyone that catches your attention?
All members: Of course TWICE. Very pretty and makes us happy when we look at them. We watched Music Bank together last time and stuck ourselves on the TV screens like guys. We picked our biases. (Laughs). TWICE has 9 members and they’re all pretty. Really jealous.
Q. T-ARA members are also pretty. You’re now in mid-20s to early 30s. How do you self-manage?
Boram: I’m concerned with recovery with blood so I find things suitable for me to eat. As long as my body isn’t tired I feel like I can do anything. Like in the interview, I’m totally drained. Haha.
Soyeon: Your stamina goes down as you turn 30.
Eunjung: I also have chronic fatigue
Q. You’ve recently become very popular overseas. What’s the secret to getting such popularity?
Eunjung: Having released many genres of song, we seem to have a variety of songs to choose from. We seem to be able to satisfy different type of people. We’re doing fine everywhere else except in Korea. We debut during the rise of Hallyu and luckily got many love calls from overseas and enter the market. It’s not like we’re looking for something in particular, we just entered and fit naturally. We have many memorable concerts, in Japan Budokan, 10000 attended. In Shanghai Mercedes-Benz Centre 12000 attended. Thank you so much.
Hyomin: No particular reason on why overseas fans like us, but it are more because we have many contents. We’ve been really busy in the past but now that we look at it, we’re grateful for it. We filmed one MV per month, that’s 12 a year.
Soyeon: There’s also a time when we filmed for total of 300 hours for 5 MVs
Q. I heard you’re more popular than Beyoncé in China.
All members: We’re really surprised to see ourselves having the largest girl group fan base in China. We’re 1 st among K-POP female artists. In the mixed ranking, 1 st is EXO, 2 nd Big Bang, 3 rd T-ARA.
Eunjung: In the Shanghai concert, the stadium is fully filled. We don’t know who to share such proud moment with, we just talk about it among ourselves. (Laughs)
Q. Do you think you will regain your popularity in Korea?
Hyomin: I don’t think so. We don’t think to gain more popularity now. We’re just living in the moment.
Q. Do you have any big picture as idols that have been around for 10 years?
Eunjung: I want to keep carrying T-ARA’s name with me
Soyeon: Do some acting, even after getting married and becoming housewife T-ARA won’t split and will stay together
for the fans. Not in the near future but if you’re talking about the big picture.
Hyomin: The thing we’ve always said among ourselves is to stay together as T-ARA. We don’t know what will happen.
Even if we did split I want to keep having fan meeting and concerts even if we can’t do album promotion.
Q. What’s T-ARA in your life?
Eunjung: We call it ‘love-hate T-ARA’ among ourselves (Laughs). We really hate it, despise it, and gone through many difficulties but now we know what each other is thinking just by looking at one’s eyes and expression.
Hyomin: When we quarrel during our dorm times it’s not really because of any reasons in particular. Even for biological sisters, they can fight every day when young and grow up to be closest friends.
“Other idol group peers who debuted around the same time as us have already went through contract termination changes but our contract is still about a year from expiration. The contract expiration dates of the members are not very different but we recently discussed it with our company and we have set a (new) date for the contract termination,” T-ara honestly spoke.
Also, T-ara mentioned Shinhwa who have been maintaining their team for 19 years now and said, “we will indeed not disband this group called T-ara. We wouldn’t be able to decide this if even one member’s heart felt differently. All 6 of us want to maintain this T-ara team.”
Especially Soyeon, she expressed her heart and said that regardless when or where the members are, even if they were to go back to leading ordinary lives, as long as the fans ask for it, they would want to gather once again as T-ara and perform whenever.
Hyomin said, “honestly, there are times where we’ve had a ‘T-ara love-hate relationship.’ There were times of difficulty and hatred but we can never throw (T-ara) away. The members all understand that they can’t throw this team away and have gained more sense of responsibility. T-ara is everything in our lives. So we hope that we can go a long way with T-ara’s name.
Qri said, “when we were rookies, we were busy like crazy so there wasn’t much free time for us to stop and feel the love from our fans. But when we had free time, we would think of our fans a lot. We get more strength when we think of our fans.” Soyeon added, “because our fans want to get us first place on music charts, they stream our music. We know that very well. Even if we don’t get first place, it’s fine. Just our fans’ intention and hearts are enough to make us happy and thankful.”
When we asked T-ara about what they hope to get from their company, all 6 members said that they wanted a second full-length album that contained “T-ara’s colours.” Eunjung said, “we want to release an album that is of the highest level and songs that anyone who hears them would say that these are T-ara’s songs.” Hyomin added, “we released 18 to 19 albums but only one of them is a full-length one. We want to release a second full-length album with good choreography and songs in the first half of next year.”
T-ara will be facing off with other junior girl groups like Twice, Black Pink and more. Eunjung said, “Twice, GFriend and other junior girl groups are really cute. Just looking at them will give you an endorphin rush. I think it will be exciting to meet and greet the junior girl groups whom we’ve only seen on TV so far.” Jiyeon also showed her liking towards Red Velvet.
In relation to this, T-ara were asked if they have any strengths if compared to the other junior girl groups. The members said while waving their hands, “nope. We indeed don’t have any thoughts of winning.” They said that they are satisfied enough to be able to stand on the same stage as Shinhwa, SechsKies and other senior groups, along with Twice and other junior groups.
Hyomin said, “it’s great that our friends do well. We’re all girl groups so it’s good and we’re proud of them and we like it. Because of that, among the T-ara members, we’d talk about how we should work even harder because we’re all classified under the modifier ‘girl group’.” Therefore, she emphasised that instead of looking at their peers, juniors and seniors as “rivals,” they are more of “companions.”
ENGLISH COMMENTS ON NEWS PORTAL SITES, THOSE ARE NOT PART-TIMERS! THEY ARE WORDS OF THANKS
Girl group T-ara expressed their thanks to comments in foreign languages on various news portal sites.
Recently, large amounts of comments were made in foreign languages on articles about T-ara. Reporters who met T-ara members at a cafe in Itaewon asked them about the comments and they said while laughing, “Those are definitely not part-timers (people hired to comment on news articles).”
The comments were made in English, Arabic, Chinese, among many other languages. T-ara said, “we are nothing but thankful for them, it gives us strength.”
source: tiaradiadem 1,2,3,4,5, TVDaily 1, Osen via Naver 1,2,3, Xportsnews 1, 2, DailySports via Daum 1,
their interviews are always so eloquent
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Date: 2016-11-08 08:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 09:02 am (UTC)i was watching you all this time
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Date: 2016-11-08 09:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 08:29 pm (UTC)hope you're doing well too
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Date: 2016-11-08 08:33 pm (UTC)I hope you'll get up to 100% soon ^^
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Date: 2016-11-08 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 10:18 am (UTC)...okay
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Date: 2016-11-08 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 08:25 pm (UTC)I will not apologize for only highlighting that issue because panic attacks and panic disorders and other mental health issues are not just "trendy words" that idols just happen to use and it rubbed be the wrong way that they are referred to like that. But hey if you like that, then ok, good job, OP! A+!
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Date: 2016-11-08 11:21 am (UTC)It seems they have talked about everything between themselves and help each other. It's interesting to see other groups that seem to do better with the korean public end up disbanding, meanwhile T-ara with so many problems keeps being alive and looking at the bright side.
At first I wasn't sure about how I felt about them releasing a slow "christmas" song, but after reading this I don't mind at all.
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Date: 2016-11-08 11:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 12:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 12:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 02:19 pm (UTC)I'll have to wait for their next comeback though, not really into ballads
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Date: 2016-11-08 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 04:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 02:42 pm (UTC)They seem really chilled and confident in their future, I'm happy to read that. They went through a lot, even before the scandal...
The part about panic attacks is so sad. At least the disorder being talked about so much lately will prevent idols thinking that it's part of the job like T-Ara explains it here. It must have been so hard to deal with back then. I hope those disorders are left behind and that they're all feeling better now.
Anyway it's heart warming that they're sticking out together, focusing on their fans and going with the flow. I also doubt they'll gain popularity back in Korea, but does it really matter given how big they are in China? I never expected them to be active this long (already back then when they were so awfully overworked I expected them to jump ship asap) but it's nice to be proven wrong!
And T-Ara always had nice slower song so this could be good.
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Date: 2016-11-08 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 04:56 pm (UTC)The MV is out
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Date: 2016-11-08 08:33 pm (UTC)i want the yt version though ugh mbk fucked up again
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Date: 2016-11-08 05:33 pm (UTC)tho im still unsure about their new release!
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Date: 2016-11-08 06:28 pm (UTC)OP you have to tell me what Hwayoung do ???
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Date: 2016-11-08 08:37 pm (UTC)when so crazy came out she posted photos of her in similar outfits that t-ara wore
i cant remember the captions of them but i think they came across as looking for attention
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Date: 2016-11-09 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-08 10:31 pm (UTC)I'm a big fan of T-Ara, I love their dgaf elegance, beauty, and bops. They're everything you need in a girl group, I just feel so bad for them. I remember before the whole Hwayoung incident too, you could just feel how much they were bottling stress. Soyeon seemed really cold all the time. I am glad that they are vulnerable and honest enough to share now, but I am just sad they had to go through so much.
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Date: 2016-11-08 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-09 01:21 am (UTC)maybe korea's mentality on mental health will slowly take a healthier direction and people will be more open about seeking help