Zhang Hao Opens Up About AND2BLE's Debut Success and Life After ZEROBASEONE

AND2BLE leader Zhang Hao is opening up about the music, the team, and the fans driving his new chapter in K-pop. The rookie group's frontman appears in a new pictorial and interview with the lifestyle magazine Singles, released as a special book-in-book edition for collectors.

AND2BLE arrived with momentum. The five-member group's debut album, "Sequence 01: Curiosity," moved more than 730,000 copies in its first week on the Hanteo Chart and earned a No. 1 win on a Korean music show, a strong opening by any rookie standard.

In the interview, Zhang Hao traced the music that shaped him, from a childhood in classical violin to the GOT7 stage that pulled him toward K-pop. That moment, he said, pushed him to leave home and start over in South Korea.500

Looking back on his time on the survival show "Boys Planet," he said he still revisits old performances to remember where he started. "When I look back now, I sometimes think, 'How did I do that?' So I often rewatch my old stages," he said. "I have a favorite video. It's my first stage from 'Boys Planet,' the first round performance. It was my first K-pop stage ever. Watching it reminds me of how I felt back then. The energy on that stage was different."

On the pressure of leading AND2BLE, Zhang Hao said he wanted to show growth. "I wanted to show a more mature version of myself. With the changes in the team, we talked a lot about needing to move as one. We traveled together and stayed up talking through the night, and our teamwork grew through that. It feels like family now."

He also laid out what he wants the group's music to do. "I want to make stages and music that all five of us can be proud of. Going forward, I'd also like to make music that can comfort anyone who hears it," he said. "I hope fans will keep looking forward to the 'Zhang Hao of tomorrow.' I'll keep showing better sides of myself to match that."

Zhang Hao's path to AND2BLE runs through one of the biggest survival show wins of recent years. He took first place on "Boys Planet" in 2023, the first foreign contestant to top a Korean idol survival series. He went on to serve as the center of ZEROBASEONE through March of this year. After the group's contract wrapped, he returned to his original agency, YH Entertainment, and redebuted last month as the leader of AND2BLE.

The group is now moving straight from album rollout into live shows. AND2BLE is staging its show concert "2026 AND2BLE SHOW CONCERT : Welcome to Qurious" at Seoul's Jamsil Indoor Stadium from the 19th through the 21st. From there, the tour heads abroad, with stops in four Asian cities including Japan and Macau.

For Zhang Hao, the throughline is steady. A violinist who chased a K-pop dream, a survival show winner who became an idol, and now a leader trying to bring a new group fully into view. The next stage is already waiting.