[0:00]SiriusXM K-Pop. My name is Michael Tam and I'm super excited to welcome to our studios for a very first time. We have Cortis. Thank you for having us man. What's up guys? Welcome to New York. Really excited to have you guys here. Yes sir. We're so excited. Yes, How are you guys? You guys all good? We all good. We just landed. Um I mean, New York is insane. It's our first time as a group and also individually to New York, so it's like everything is big. The concrete jungle thing is real. It's so tall, you know. Dude, you guys are also much taller than Seeing you guys for the first time. They're so tall. Yeah, Martin's massive. Sean, Sean said in the van like, you look small, like compared to those buildings. Yeah, yeah. Well, you guys have taken the world by storm and you guys have only put out your first EP. Um, Color Outside the Lines. Tell me about this EP and just overall walk me through the production of this uh EP. First of all, thank you for um Thank you. Yes, thank you for having us today. I would really like to talk about our first EP um Color Outside the Lines. Um First of all, I think the audience should know like what Cortis means. Um Cortis is a name of our group, which we made by um taking six alphabets randomly from the phrase Color Outside the Lines, which is also our um first EP's title. Um It I think that phrase just best represented our group's a group, you know, because we like to do things in unconventional ways like breaking the mood, literally coloring outside the lines. So, I feel like that should have that has had to be the the title of the first EP. And this album uh, it doesn't really have fixed concept, but rather we wanted to like, you know, express who we were when we were making this album last year in Seoul and LA. So, we wanted to, like, we tried hard to like, put our like, rawest emotion and like, our like, you know, true emotions into this album, so like, many people can relate to it. Yeah. And just for context, like this EP includes five songs. Um, and um, and those are dude totally different five songs. Very different. totally different five songs. And through the song camps and the sessions that we we've gone through, we made about 300 songs. Yeah. And so those five songs made made the cut. Well, we're looking forward to the rest of the 295 of you guys. Oh, man. Yeah. Maybe in the future. They're archives. Yeah. We'll never know. Well, one of the songs on your EP is called Go. Um, it has, you know, taken over the world. It is blown up all over the place. Um, how does it feel or, you know, what is it like to see a song that you guys produced from scratch, you know, just be so big right now in the world? Yeah. Man. Um, I mean, that that track go, we we really loved it since day one. At like, we were bumping that in the car ever since it was, you know, made. It is crazy because like, we've been working on that one song for like months and months. And um, finally it's out and the world loves it, so, I mean, it's truly an honor first of all, and um, thank you for our fans for um, enjoying it and, you know, all the listeners out there. Thank you so much. And to be honest, I think we kind of knew it.
[3:38]Whoa, whoa. Not gonna lie. Tell me, James. But yeah, I think um, as of go, it's it's the first song that we made since like, we got into the studio. And so, like, literally the first song made was go and the hook was immediately like, just out and very organic. Everything was smooth. At the time, we were like talking about like, like, song called go. Yeah. Like, every song is good. So, every song that has a name under go has like crazy energy. So, I think like, I think like, the word go has this energy, like, Exactly. Yeah. It brings you some into a space. And so, I think yeah, with us, like, working on the song for a few months, we are able to find a very authentic place and a very raw place that like, it is able to be our intro song and um, really describes us very well. Yeah. Yeah. And even with the choreography, like, it's really hooky. So, I mean, I I I saw I see some people doing our go challenge just in the streets and that's just that's a crazy experience. Yeah. It was crazy. I want to share this one experience. What he said is like, yo, actually we went to shoot a like magazine. And um, at the spot, there were we there were like people doing our challenge. We saw a couple groups doing it. It was crazy.
[5:05]that that was when it was like, oh, like this challenge is really going viral. And then they were like, like, They were like, oh, wait, they spotted you guys, right? Yeah. Spotting us. No, yeah, the song is extremely catchy. Even like, when we were setting it up, some of our team members were were humming the song. So, so catchy. Um another song on your EP uh is called What You Want. You guys did it with uh Tizo Touchdown. Yeah. Tell me about this uh collaboration. Um I think Tizo is just beautiful human being first of all. And um, he brought uh, like balloons into the studio. And so, like, I think we, like, spoke about like, what we want like in our lives. Yeah, he actually asked us like, yeah, what you want in your most what you want, like most in your life. Yeah. So, like, Tizo asked the whole room and we answered, like, I said love, what what I said peace. Peace. Like money. Happiness. Freedom. Everybody, like, even the producers, the staff, everybody was like answering. And as uh when answer came out, he like started to blow into the balloon. And um, that big balloon was like remaining through the whole session. And then at the end of the session, we like popped it up. And that was like the inspiration of the song. What you want. Yeah. He just went into the studio and like in 10 minutes the song was done. So, like It was crazy. It was crazy. He was like dancing, standing on the chair. Yeah. Like, just like this. The real rock star.
[6:51]Yeah. No, that's an that's an incredible story. Um, but you know, you guys have a very interesting upbringing in terms of in K-Pop. You guys have a lot of creative freedom when it comes to producing your own music, writing your own songs. Uh, what kind of experiences do you guys incorporate from your life or what themes are recurring when you guys are feeding into producing your music? It was it's it's really thankful to have this opportunity to like actually join this process of making this album. Yeah. They really pay the way. And like, so grateful. Yes. And um, yeah, back to the question, I think we um really pull a lot of inspiration from our daily life first of all, it's just like, we treat our music like a journal. Like a diary.
[7:46]Yeah. What what you talk about it. And and I think like, yeah, it's just starts starts from little things. Like, even with fashion, it's start it starts from yeah, just drifting. Yeah. Thrift shopping and like, us wearing clothes and us like, being not being able to afford costly clothes. So, yeah.
[8:09]I mean, I think we we went into the session one day, like after, you know, stopped by Fairfax and like, buying a bunch of vintage clothings. And um, we went into the session, like all getting after we all got changed into those new new clothes that we bought. And um, the producer said like, oh, you're dripped off, you look different today. He was like, yeah, and that kind of became the inspiration. And like, we had to write about it, so. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can see it in in your outfits today. Great fashion sense as always. Um, but you know, as you guys are producing music, there's got to be times when you guys don't align on the same vision for producing a certain song.
[8:52]How do you guys approach in terms of, you know, kind of like resolving your conflicts and and uh re-aligning. How do you guys go about with that? First of all, having five members, five hats, it it takes a lot of time to like narrow it down to one conclusion. We class. Yeah. And like, but I think we like, like, when we make things, I think we just play around and fool around. So, we just talk a lot with each other and and I think we try to like, start to kinda convince each other with our own opinions. And like, we ha how make it to one. I think like the more we debate, like, the more you can see like, one side is winning. And then slowly like the other side gets convinced. And then like we we can like resolve our problems. Yeah.
[9:54]So kind of like a majority rules kind of situation. Yeah. It's like the majority thing. Yeah. Well, at least it's five of you guys, so it's three against two, right? Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Uh I mean, so, you know, just not long ago, you guys are living regular lives. And pretty much almost overnight you guys can say like, you've had, you know, have gone international fame. Um, how has life changed for you guys so far since since uh since entering the scene? Before the before we got debut, you know, I was just the normal teenager. Yeah. Personally, I just think like, we're still living normal lives. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just like, just a little bit more indoors. Maybe a little bit more delivery. Yeah. I mean, I mean it it is just because like, you know, there's there's more like schedules and it's like, it's more, you know, But at the same time, I think it's like so much fun because like now we're finally out and like we released music. We can see people react to it. Like positive reactions, negative reactions. I don't care. Now they're reacting to it. So, it's like that's the fun part. And like just listening to people's opinions and like just seeing the comments and also going on stage is most of all. Yeah. Performing is the best part. Yeah. To just seeing seeing people just jump around, like, singing, singing on their top of their lungs. It's like the best part. Yeah. Just sharing great energy. Yeah. No, you guys gotta get used to it because you guys are going to the moon at this point. No, no, man. No, not at all. Yeah. Well, you know, entering fame obviously has its pros and cons. As you mentioned, sometimes you receive criticism. You see these comments. Sometimes it's not not the best. How do you guys tend to your mental health and just like, you know, cope with these uh, you know, these things? Oh, great question. First of all, as I say, I think just getting any kind of reaction is a blessing, you know.
[11:51]Yeah. It it means we're doing good. Um and um what do we do? I think like for mental health, I think we sometimes we used to do yoga. We do yoga. We do yoga. Yeah. Meditation a little bit, right? Yeah. And we have that thing called singing bowl. Singing bowls. Yeah. Some zen for you guys. Yeah. Showering and jazz and like calm down time is also nice. Yeah. I think every like individually we all have like different health care like mental care um routines but like in like in general I think we all like to do yoga and like sing bowls. And sometimes we we go um drifting. Drift shopping. Yeah. Drift shopping. I think like doing any kind of hobbies is like the best way to do it. Yeah. We even play like sports like we we went to skateboarding once and we playing basketball. Yeah. We play ball one time. Yeah. Uh you know, as you guys are out now, you guys are debu, your talents are on full display to the entire world now. Uh, but while, you know, it's on full display, what are some hidden talents that you guys might have that people may not have uh, you know, known about you yet? Hidden talents. Yeah. Hidden talents. Wow. Hidden talents. What what else instruments can you play?
[13:18]I mean we we knew that he could play the piano. I mean, actually we didn't know first. And like we became a group. Like he was the last one to join our group. So, like we had we had we took some time to get close to him and then we kind of like get along with him. And then like one day we see him on the piano like just like fluently playing it. And he only knows like a couple songs to play, but he's like perfect with it. And it's like, oh my goodness, like is there any instruments that you can play more? And then next up we notice like from from another show he released that he can play the flute. Yeah. And and then next we know that he can play the guitar. So, it's like bro, what's next? Like. I mean, I was I wasn't that good when you were when I was like at your Really? My level. Your your yeah. Yeah. Yes. They they know.
[14:44]You guys are all just very musically talented. Thank you so much. Yeah. So much. Well, James, you are, you know, talented in your own rights. Uh you're a very good dancer. Um and you know, I, you know, saw that you were once a backup dancer for John Cook. Yes. You know, during his golden era. Um, tell me about that experience. What was it like to to be, you know, the backup dancer for one of the the biggest musicians and artists in the entire world? It's just an honor and I think you're there and yeah, you're just trying you're just trying your best to be help. Yeah. And um, yeah, if I was any help then yeah, great. Yeah. I'm just I'm still I still, yeah, look back and think it it's still cereal. Yeah. And um, yeah, it's definitely a huge honor. Yeah. No words can describe that. Actually. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it it's gotta be cereal because you went from being a backup dancer to now being friends with the guys, man, right? And then now, you know, recently you were in Soul and you were um at the career to creator concert with uh RM, J-Hope and V. Is that correct? Uh What was that experience like? Tell me about hanging out with those guys. Still, it's like, I don't I don't I don't really believe I'm cool enough. Yeah. So, um, I'm still a very young and dumb weird teenager. Positive way. So, yeah, I was there jumping and yeah, all over the place and um, yeah, luckily to yeah, just to have a little chat with our seniors and um, yeah, had a had a great concert like enjoyed the concert a lot. So. It was amazing. Yeah. No, it must have been an incredible experience to to be in that moment with them. Um, but you know, Martin, you have you've had your own uh BTS experiences as well. Um, you know, I from as the as the leader of the group, um, I I read that you guys made advice from RM once. Um, and you know, he mentioned to you, obviously he's the leader of BTS and he mentioned to you that as the uh role of the leader of the group, um, your job is to re-energize the group when they're tired, right? Um, you know, how has this advice been relevant to you guys so far? Um, you know, like sometimes you see like members like exhausted, also I get exhausted too because I'm human. Everybody's human. So, like we all get tired and exhausted but like, like sometimes it's it's it just his his advice just reminds me to like, you know, get back up. Yeah, take the lead and like, you know, some like doing stuff. But like I I gotta be a better leader to be honest. I'm I'm not even like being humble. I just gotta be a better leader because like I've never really took role like took a role like this and it's my first time doing the leader. So, um, yeah, I'm trying to I'm trying to really step up my game and cultivate my skills to you know, lead lead the group and um, I think the members are doing a great job to um, you know, really help me and um, I think we all work it out together. So, yes. Definitely a team effort, right?
[18:04]Yeah. I think yeah, just taking taking the team to the goal and like just setting a good goal and just going there all together is just the best thing that I could do as a leader. So, yeah. Yeah. He's a good leader. Yeah. Yeah. You guys all agree? Yeah. Thank you so. I'm sure so. Um, so you know, as there's since you guys debuted and with BTS and TXT as your seniors, there's been a lot of comparisons. Like all over, you know, the internet, like everybody's saying, oh, they're next group from Big Hit and everything. How are these comparisons for you guys? Is it like a lot of pressure to like fill big shoes or is it very motivating to to have these comparisons to push you guys to the next level? What is that like for you guys? Both. Yes. I mean, both. I mean, being able to debut in this big hit label with this great seniors like it's really an honor, you know, like and we're really thankful to them every time and like, like, you know, like, they're so great so like we really respect them a lot. So, like admire them. Yeah. Admire them. As we said, they really pay the way so you're like following the trace but at the same time really like trying to make our color and style find our style um as an artist. So like, I think, yeah, they're they're amazing, man. Yeah. If you're if it weren't for them like, we won't be in New York. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. No, it's not too long ago sitting in this very room, you know, I've worked with a few of those guys as well. So you guys are you guys are definitely up next. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you so much. Uh you know, while you guys, you know, you guys are now out to the public now, here you guys are. Um and uh what are you guys hope to accomplish within the next uh year or two? What are some goals for you guys? For me, um I I definitely want to, you know, finish more albums and like release it, so we can go on tour and like do concerts anywhere like just you know, any country, any place, no matter the occasion, it's just like going on stage with new music, you know. Yeah. Sharing energy. Yes, sharing energy. That's always the best part. Yeah. For me, uh um as Martin and Jun said, like, we want to, I want to find our like, color and style more. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. For me, I want to try skydiving once. Oh, yes. That's been a bucket list. And also, you know, one bucket list is ticked off is coming to New York. So, Yeah, man. Actually, that was a bucket list for me too. That's just a huge moment. Like, as a kid that grew up listening to like, ASAP Mob, Wu-Tang Clan, like all those like East Coast rap like, it's a dream come true. Yeah. No, I have a feeling that you guys would be back here very soon for um uh part of your world tour. Yeah. So. Right? If if it's I mean if it's able to like. No, definitely very soon. So well, thank you guys so much for coming in. Yeah. We're looking forward to this opportunity. Thank you guys again for coming in and let's get into the music. Yes, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you.
