K-pop boy group BTS is seen in this photo provided by BigHit Music.
SEOUL, Dec. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — As BTS prepares for a full-group comeback next spring, RM, the group’s leader and most public voice, acknowledged that the band had wrestled with existential questions during its hiatus — including whether it should continue at all.
The group is slated to reunite in 2025 after all seven members complete their mandatory military service, a milestone that marks the end of a period defined by individual pursuits, public speculation, and a rare pause in one of the most profitable cultural enterprises in modern pop music.
Speaking during a livestream on Weverse over the weekend, RM said the transition has been less seamless than devoted fans might imagine.
“We have wondered ten thousand times whether it would be right to disband or suspend activities,” he admitted, noting how the intensity of the past decade — relentless touring, global fame, and historic levels of scrutiny — forced the group to reconsider what their future should look like.
What ultimately sustained BTS, he suggested, was not commercial momentum or global expectations but the emotional architecture inside the group itself. “What has kept this team going is how much we love each other,” RM said, adding that the members’ commitment to their audience has remained a constant even as their careers and identities have evolved.
RM confirmed that work on the group’s next album is moving steadily. BTS announced in July that it plans to release a new full-group album and embark on a world tour next spring.
RM, the leader of the global pop phenomenon BTS (Yonhap)
“Preparations for the album are almost being made,” he said with his characteristically understated phrasing. “We practiced together yesterday. We are filming and practicing every day. We will show you after we prepare well.”
If released on schedule, the album will become BTS’s first full-group project in nearly four years, following the anthology “Proof” and the group’s final concert before enlistment, “Yet to Come in Busan,” in 2022. For a band that has often represented the centrifugal pull of globalization — millions of fans, dozens of languages, an industry reshaped in its wake — the comeback is less a simple return than a test: Can the most influential pop group of the 21st century regroup after the rare experience of stopping?
RM’s answer, at least for now, seems hopeful, grounded not in inevitability but in renewed intention — seven men, out of uniform and back in a studio, deciding to make music together again.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
