After making history by becoming the first Korean group to have a No. 1 debut on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with their first English-language track “Dynamite,” BTS said Tuesday that they now have their eyes on the Grammys as their next goal.
“We went to the Grammys at the beginning of the year and did a collaborative performance. Now I would like to do a single performance with just BTS on the Grammy awards stage,” said group member Suga at an online press conference late Tuesday evening. “It would be great to receive an award, but that’s not going to become a reality just because we want it. For now, just getting to perform on the Grammy award stage is our goal.”
RM echoed the sentiment, saying: “The Grammy awards are what all performers dream of. Of course we’d like to perform there. It would be great to receive the award — that is the direction we should be headed for.”
He added that another objective of theirs is to someday hold a festival or “really big performance to bring everyone together” outdoors — distant as the idea might seem during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Hot off their performance at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, BTS has now become the first Korean musical act to perform at all four major American music award shows.
When asked what it felt like to reach this particular milestone, V said the group had long watched performance videos of these shows, wondering if it would ever be their turn.
“Performing on these stages itself seems like a dream come true, and thinking that we have touched all of these ARMY members is something I would like to applaud us for for the rest of our lives,” he said, referring to the group’s massive fanbase. “It will be a memory that’s seared [in us] forever.”
Their Monday Billboard milestone was marked even by South Korean President Moon Jae-In, who on Monday tweeted his “heartfelt congratulations.” BTS has “written a new chapter in K-pop history,” he said, calling the accomplishment “truly amazing” and a splendid feat that further raises pride in K-pop.
At the press conference, RM said that “Dynamite” couldn’t have reached the number one spot if it didn’t resonate with a portion of the general U.S. public beyond ARMY, saying it might have appealed because it is “more familiar because of the language and other elements” familiar to Americans, such as being a disco pop track.
The singers got personal recounting their own initial reactions to the news of their top hit.
Jimin said that he first heard the news alongside fellow group member Jungkook at 4 a.m., and “was basically crying” until three hours later, when he “just fell asleep exhausted.”
“We were thrilled, excited. We were staring at the chart, just sort of caressing our phones, and then the tears just started coming out. We said to Namjoon (RM) that it’s because of him that we’ve accomplished all of this,” he said.
“What we talked about the most was that… we can really do this. This felt like an acknowledgement for all the things we’ve been doing this whole time. Being lauded for this accomplishment made me cry.”
RM said that he was initially the first to hear the news, but tried to go to bed anyway because the boys had a full day of practice ahead the next day. “I didn’t want to overexcite myself. I wanted to preserve my emotions.”
Jungkook said that he heard the news a bit later than the others. “I wasn’t sure if the webpage I was looking at was really real. I was out of it for a bit,” he laughed. Since his birthday on Tuesday, he said it all felt “like a really huge birthday present.”
V said the milestone made him think back on how far they’d come, and reflected on BTS’ earliest days as an unknown rookie group. “We came to Seoul together from the provinces with nothing. We had a very small practice studio in the basement,” he said, going on to recount a story of how he and his dad were cheated by the taxi driver when he first arrived in the capital.
He explained: “When that happened, I was angry, but now… these have become cherished, fun memories of all the difficulties we had to go through practicing as trainees. All of these are now pleasant memories that amplify the joy I feel now.”
