LE SSERAFIM keep making their world more beautiful

The world of LE SSERAFIM, and its members Kim Chaewon, Sakura, Huh Yunjin, Kazuha, and Hong Eunchae, often appears more circular than linear. Having established the ethos of ‘moving forward without fear’ with their 2022 debut EP, FEARLESS, their subsequent releases – ANTIFRAGILE (growing from adversity), UNFORGIVEN (new paths from defying expectations), and new EP, EASY – are all drops into the same pond, each building off their predecessors to create an ever-growing ripple upon impact.

“EASY is an accumulation of all three of those [album’s] messages, with the added factor of looking back and realising, ‘Oh, I was able to do all this with the help of a lot of my effort’,” says Yunjin, in English, over a video call from Seoul. “Nothing is effortless, a lot goes into what we do and we’ll continue to do [as such] in the future.”

The titular track is a marked change of pace for a LE SSERAFIM lead single, the sinuous alt-R&B vibes juxtaposed with lyrics that draw blood: “My every step, every second makes history, it’s my way / Walk like a heroine even if I am not flawless / Think I had it easy? / You had me all wrong, now you have to know”.

Its origins lie in what Yunjin calls a ”universal message” of people underestimating effort or taking it for granted. They might simply think, she says, “That ‘they’re a natural, they’re just born with it’, but you never know how much work is done behind the scenes. So we wanted to talk about how it’s only possible to make things look effortless.”

Since their explosive debut, LE SSERAFIM’s aesthetic has shifted back and forth between sleek sophistication and a fashionable grittiness, but their lyrics remain a clear-eyed view of their aspirations and achievements, with razor-edged ripostes to naysayers. And, crucially, they’re an unflinching appraisal of their own work-in-progress selves: defiant, celebratory and uncertain in equal measures. 

The public, however, tend to see only what they wish to see, and the immediate success the band experienced seems to have blinkered, for some, the full picture. Their idol careers were forced to start over again for Chaewon and Sakura, who were both from the now defunct IZ*ONE, and their set paths dramatically changed with Yunjin’s academic studies and Kazuha’s life as a professional ballerina. They also faced the challenges (Eunchae juggling education and career having debuted at age 15) and the risks (injury, burnout, waning popularity) that all idols face.

On the pop-punk of “Good Bones”, they ask, “Are you upset that I seized another opportunity? / Are you mad that only I get lucky all the time? / Do you think the world is going easy only on us? ... The world is fair, it’s ugly to everybody”.

It was inspired by a poem of the same name by Maggie Smith, who writes: “Life is short and the world / is at least half terrible, and for every kind / stranger, there is one who would break you, / though I keep this from my children. I am trying / to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, / walking you through a real shithole, chirps on / about good bones: This place could be beautiful, / right? You could make this place beautiful.”

“A recurring theme we’ve talked about since our debut is that the world is a hard place, a cruel place, and we’re going to face whatever adversities in life but we’re always going to have confidence in ourselves,” says Yunjin, who has written on a number of LE SSERAFIM songs as well as releasing several solo tracks. “That poem’s a very good representation of our team’s philosophy, especially the last line, ‘You could make this place beautiful’. The world is our oyster. This poem represented what we wanted to talk about on this album, there was a lot of sentiment which resonated with us.”

But “Good Bones”, the song, is also endlessly quotable, a portrayal of absolute certainty yet rage barely contained: “I will not submerge, I will kick and flail relentlessly, I will create a small wave / When things aren’t easy, I will make them easy”. 

Its accompanying trailer is both confrontational (the members stomping towards the camera, heads held high) and light-hearted (Sakura blasting through walls with X-Men-style laser eyes). One of its most talked about moments is Eunchae’s tumble down a flight of stairs only to sit up, unscathed and only slightly bewildered, at the bottom. 

“I think the scene symbolically shows our resilience to get back up even after a big fall and move forward without hesitation,” Eunchae tells me over email, as she was unable to join the interview with her bandmates due to a scheduling conflict. “Every moment has its ups and downs, but I realised there is always something to learn and take away from them, and I’ve learned to face it head on.”

Wherever possible, they face those ups and down as a team. 23-year-old Chaewon is the band’s leader, having become somewhat of a diplomat during that process. “Me and my teammates have very frank conversations and we can agree to disagree, so it’s okay to have differing opinions,” she says. “These days, it’s easier for me to gather those opinions and convey it to the company and talk about it as a leader, and the members have helped me bear this burden.”

This resilience and tenacity are vital tools in LE SSERAFIM’s arsenal. Not only does fame have a way of sticking a target to one’s back, but the internet’s favourite pastime is to be mad about everything, particularly towards those doing nothing more than harmlessly being themselves. That kind of sputtering, apoplectic rage, thinks Yunjin, “is rooted in fear and we talk about it in ‘Good Bones’. We’re all going to die and we only have control of half of our life and our biggest enemy is our own selves.” 

“I think people are very afraid to admit that. When they see people who are living their truth and being very authentic while acknowledging this universal fact that life is limited and we all have hardships, then people get insecure or jealous, maybe,” she adds. “It’s deeper than just fear, it’s existential fear. In some way I recognise it and understand it but it’s pitiful sometimes, you know?”

EASY may hold a mirror up to the world but it's unafraid of looking into those depths either, plunging them to form a clear narrative progression along its five tracks, where sweat and tears flow but, ultimately, backing down is never an option. On “Smart”, they sing, “Instead of beauty blossomed from my defeat, I chose the more powerful villain instead”. 

“Every moment has its ups and downs, but I realised there is always something to learn and take away from them, and I’ve learned to face it head on” – Hong Eunchae 

Sakura notes that “on [last year’s] ‘Unforgiven’, we said we’d rather be the villain…” There is a brief pause for the band to consider who might be their favourite fictional villain: “Cruella De Vil,” says Yunjin and Chaewon. “Elphaba from Wicked,” says Sakura. Kazuha picks Maleficent.

“We wanted to go down the path that we chose without thinking about how people see us or judge us, we wanted to frankly show our greed and that’s quite villain-like,” Sakura continues. “‘Unforgiven’ showed our ambition as well as our aspirations, and it’s the same with ‘Smart’, it’s how we have plans for everything that we do, which also aligns with that concept [of succeeding on our own terms].”

The rapid growth of LE SSERAFIM doesn’t just encompass their album sales, vocal strength or stage presence. In a 2022 interview, Sakura defined being fearless as “admitting to your flaws” and, in 2024, they’re picking ever deeper at not only complex emotions but the knock-on effect of their fiercest desires. “I fear this greed will kill me”, pens Chaewon on “Swan Song”, where concerns and quandaries entwine with raw hunger for success.

“People are all greedy. If they receive a lot, they want even more,” Chaewon explains, her signature black chin-length bob now blonde and brushing the shoulders of her leather blazer. “[As an idol], you receive a lot of love, if you have this objective [in mind] and reach it, then you’ll just have [yet another] level that you want to reach.” It creates a disconnect from the here and now, stealing attention where it shouldn’t. “Sometimes because we’re greedy,” she acknowledges, “we’re not living in the present moment. This song represents what we’re going through in a very candid way, and how we feel at this moment in our journey.”

“I’ve wanted to do a song like this ever since ‘Fearless’,” says Sakura. “No one is strong all the time. Yes, LE SSERAFIM has their challenges but they work to get over those hurdles. I hope with this message people feel they have more courage and are more empowered.” 

For former ballerina Kazuha, it’s EASY’s essential track “because we’ve done a lot of ‘take the world down’ type songs [in which] we’re always very confident, but this is about how we still work hard and struggle to get the best output. That’s the true side of us that’s [mostly] hidden, we haven’t had many songs about our vulnerabilities like this.”

It creates this era’s definitive concentric circle. Four months after their debut, a four-part series, The World Is My Oyster, was released, the film crew capturing their relentless work ethic, and struggles as trainees. “Swan Song” dissects the same subject matter but as fully fledged idols rather than trainees, not passively under the camera’s eye but actively to record, and not interpreted through the lens of others but via their own hand. 

Given their stature, sometimes it’s hard to fathom that LE SSERAFIM will be on only their second anniversary in May, a milestone they’ll celebrate mere weeks after performing on the main stage at Coachella. It’ll undoubtedly be one of the most talked about, hotly debated shows of the festival, generating, unironically, an ultra meta moment as the very discourse and sentiment – both sweet and sour – that shaped EASY burbles across social media while they perform. 

That’s an intimidating prospect to some but being in conversation with LE SSERAFIM, who sing “Even in doubt, the flame blooms” on EASY, you come to realise things like this are akin to gasoline for them. The more people pour on, the bright and hotter they become. “LE SSERAFIM leads me to victory,” they declare on “Smart”, and there is absolutely no arguing with that.