"It Was a Dream Year": DAY6's Young K Reflects on a Decade

Young K of K-pop band DAY6 is returning as a solo artist, with his bandmates cheering him on. His second full-length album, "YOUNGEST," drops July 27 at 6 p.m. KST.

Young K recently sat down for a press interview in Seoul's Dongdaemun district to mark the release.

The conversation kept circling back to DAY6, which is now 10 years into its career. "A 20th or 30th anniversary would mean something too, but a 10th anniversary hits differently," Young K said. "I wanted to go big, with no regrets. I started thinking a year in advance about how to make it something that would sit large in our lives."

He said the past year still feels unreal. "We shot a film and had a premiere. The Goyang concert was a stage where I used to wonder, 'Can we really stand on something like that?'" he said. "It was honestly a dream of a year."

His bond with the band came through in the details. Bandmate Wonpil has already heard every track on the new album. "Wonpil said, 'Young K's album is a masterpiece,'" he said. "He shouted it from the stage at the end of our 10th-anniversary concert. I was proud, but I didn't want to show how happy I was, so I just brushed it off with a 'whatever.'" He laughed as he told the story.

"YOUNGEST" is built as an answer, at least the current one, to the many questions Young K has been asking himself for years. The 15-track album includes the title track "Shut The Door," along with "Marionette," "F world," "Hey Honey," "Cheer Song" (Eungwonga), "SPIKE," "Yonge St.," "million reasons," "100 Reasons We'll Break Up (with JINJOO of DNCE)," "Drivin' into Hell," "whatever," "Goodbye, Love," "Heading Home" (Jibeuro Hyanghanda), "Baby's Breath" (Angaekkot) and "Coffee in the Studio" (Jageopsireseo Keopireul).

For Young K, this album is less a solo detour than the next step in a career shaped by a band that has grown up in public. Ten years in, he sounds like an artist who finally has room to answer his own questions in his own voice.