Ask CORTIS about being both one of K-pop’s most popular new groups and also one of its most divisive, and Martin, James, Juhoon, Seonghyeon, and Keonho  – all aged between 17 and 20 – lock in. 18-year-old Martin – their shaggy-haired, 6’3”, music buff leader – scrunches his nose and grins. Keonho and Seonghyeon, the group’s two youngest at 17 years old and known as the ‘Eom-An twins’ for their strikingly similar facial features, lean forward. 

Do they read the reams of discourse on social media centred around them? Juhoon – calm, softly-spoken, and the last to join the group with just over a year as an idol trainee – half-nods and says, “I mean, sometimes.” 

James, CORTIS’ eldest at 20 years old, meanwhile, folds his hands, takes a breath, and the words tumble from him. “From the start, our approach has been to do something new, right? I don't believe everything could have been smooth sailing, and everybody’s like, ‘Great!’. As long as there are people with open minds who are willing to take a listen, and maybe take a second listen. For us, as long as you have a reaction, that’s fine. Maybe you like this, maybe you don’t. It starts a conversation on music, on art, and that’s the beauty of life.”

CORTIS burst into the public consciousness last August with their two million-selling debut EP, COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES (from which the group’s name was also derived), containing the Travis Scott/Playboi Carti-influenced “GO!” and “FaSHIoN”, and the punk-pop meets Britpop of their official debut single “What You Want”. 

The band had writing credits on all five tracks and co-choreographed their dances. They produced, co-directed or ideated their coolly polished yet rowdy, chaotic music videos. Their lyrics were autobiographical – sometimes heartfelt and vulnerable, sometimes purposely fleeting and DGAF vibe-coded – snapped tightly to a wireframe of raw, boyish energy and what Martin terms “a kind of amateurism”. 

Juhoon describes what they do as “definitely something new in K-pop”, and it has split the internet as being either enormously fun and refreshing or derivatively bratty. It’s now eight months since their debut, and Seonghyeon believes that although “people might not have liked it in the beginning, I feel they’re changing, they’re being more open and liking our approach.”

Sophomore EP, GREENGREEN, was made even as they promoted COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES, a record that’d been created in and by a small handful of moments – their pre-debut excitement and that era’s relative naivety, meeting a revolving door of new and established songwriters and producers, the process of flying back and forth from Seoul to LA for song camps and weeks-long studio stints. 

“We’d never had stage experiences. We’d never met with our fans. We didn't have any fans back then,” says Keonho. Seonghyeon interjects: “When we were working on our first EP, like, I was even kind of afraid to hop in the booth!” Keonho continues: “The first EP was all about introducing ourselves [and what] we experienced at the moment before debut. But for the second EP, we’ve been on stage, met fans, travelled abroad, and our working style has changed. Our perspective has widened.” 

“David Bowie once said that when you’re creating, if everything feels safe and right, there’s something wrong. That’s what we were doing on this album”

– Martin, CORTIS

Their new lyrics are still diary-esque, moored in life’s minutiae, even if their world is more sparkly and frenetic than it was pre-debut, and intertwined to create a tapestry rather than single snapshots. Martin notes that on “GO!” they wrote about painting the town green, which has segued to become GREENGREEN: “We use that expression when we want to get things going – ‘Everything is greengreen’”.

But GREENGREEN sounds scuzzier, more densely detailed, and more intentionally antagonistic than its predecessor. “We don’t like to play it safe. We don’t like to play it small. We don’t give a damn [about what people say],” says Martin, smiling. “David Bowie once said that when you’re creating, if everything feels safe and right, there’s something wrong. You gotta try new stuff even though it first feels and sounds wrong. That’s what we were doing on this album.”

They’ve included the self-aware, chest-beating “YOUNG CREATOR CREW”, whose yodelled hook sent the internet into a furious, sputtering froth last February. On lead single “REDRED”, meanwhile, they declare they “couldn’t care less” if you dislike their music over a clamant, surging bass that evokes Substance-era New Order. 

“It sounds rebellious. In the lyrics, there’s the word ‘팔랑귀 (pallang-gwi),” Juhoon says, throwing it to Keonho who explains it means “someone who is easily swayed or influenced. It's a very Korean word. ‘Pallang’ means flapping and ‘gwi’ means ears. The lyrics are ‘팔랑귀, 팔랑귀 red, red’, and it’s something that we don't want to be.”

“REDRED” sounds exactly like CORTIS while also not at all like CORTIS. “We made [the decision] before we started this album that we didn't want it to be categorised in a certain genre or sound,” Martin says of this unique juxtaposition. “We’ve been going through a lot of stuff since the first EP. Our experiences from doing stages influenced our music; that was the main point of this whole album. We were experimenting with different sounds and textures, and I feel like ‘REDRED’ was one that just stuck. The intention, the mindset of it is pretty punk to me.”

It’s a paradox that will sit uneasily with some. While ostensibly, punk is regarded as anti-authority, anti-establishment, and anti-consumerist, the multi-billion-dollar K-pop industry is monetised down to the smallest merch sticker, a tightly controlled and cleverly crafted world of beautiful people, elaborate storylines, and catchy choruses. CORTIS themselves were created by Big Hit Music (home to BTS), which sits within the powerful entertainment conglomerate, HYBE. 

“CORTIS is a team effort. Not just us five but our crew behind us. For the future, I wish CORTIS can be a very big creative household”

– James, CORTIS

CORTIS are proud to say they’re K-pop idols. It’s important to them, they say, to maintain the aesthetics of K-pop and its roots. But in standing within its hierarchical fishbowl as teenage artists using their platform and a previously unseen level of autonomy over their sound and visuals to rattle a creative status quo that’s changed little over the last four decades, it may not look punk to you but it sure as fuck feels punk to them.

Says James: “We’re here to set trends, not to follow them. To do that, you can only push the boundaries and try new things.” But despite their intense hands-on approach, James adds that their wider intention doesn’t include “doing everything ourselves”. 

Seonghyeon cuts in, grinning: “We could.”

Martin: “We could? You wanna?”

Seonghyeon: “Yeah, why not?” 

Martin: “I can’t be my own A&R and do marketing on my own…”

James: “CORTIS is a team effort. Not just us five but our crew behind us. For the future, I wish CORTIS can be a very big creative household.”

Martin: “A collective.”

James: “A creative collective. You know, like a brand.” 

Martin: “Maybe we can add more members.”

Let me sidenote here that the more comfortable CORTIS gets, the more they’ll happily digress. If our time wasn’t quickly ticking down, the inclination would be to let them keep going, just to see where the conversation spirals off to.  Martin cheerfully calls their crew “great”, adding that “we fight a lot, but [mostly] we have a lot of conversations with them about great ideas.” 

Kim Seoyoung, CORTIS’ Head of Creative at Big Hit Entertainment, uses the phrase ‘Team CORTIS’ to describe this collaborative creative process. “We’re all looking at the same vision, we wanted a team that could express its own voice and identity, even if that meant not appealing to everyone,” she explains over email. “Artists with strong individuality, a clear sense of agency, and an unmistakable human appeal. The creative process is a constant back-and-forth – challenging, breaking, rebuilding ideas together. What matters most is protecting the original instinct and direction that made us excited in the first place. When someone already has the quality of a raw, unpolished gemstone, the best way to let it shine is not to cover it with artificial colour.” 

In a time when the word ‘authentic’ has been stripped of meaning online, hollowed out by partnership-hungry influencers and flint-eyed brand managers, and everyone’s too scared to dance in clubs, CORTIS’ unfettered and unpolished selves in all their goofy, clumsy glory have played a significant part in their success, finding more than 22 million followers across Instagram and TikTok. The band upload the obligatory dance challenges and cute selfies (they’re popstars, after all), but much of their content, in the best possible way, embraces silliness, turning the notion of K-pop perfection on its head.

“Luckily, one thing for our team is that embarrassment is an underexplored emotion,” James says, deadpan. “You have to put yourself out there, make a fool of yourself, experiment, and don’t take yourself too seriously. Otherwise, you learn less about yourself.” To be cringe is to be free? Even when the internet is forever? James laughs. “Yeah, exactly. The internet doesn't stop us from making ourselves look dumb.” 

The lure of CORTIS is that everything they do feels thrillingly urgent and alive. Of course, there is in-depth planning behind them, but perhaps it’s that they are unhampered by one of K-pop’s favourite tools – the narrative concept – which allows for that live-in-the-moment existence to flourish. “We want to express ourselves in the most genuine way possible,” sums up James. “As we grow, everything will change. And it will go in the way that it goes.”

GREENGREEN is out now