Stray Kids holds press conference for newly released EP 'Maxident'

K-pop

Published: 07 Oct. 2022, 16:08 Updated: 07 Oct. 2022, 17:51

Stray Kids holds press conference for newly released EP 'Maxident'

Stray Kids during an online press conference to promote its latest EP ″Maxident″ [JYP ENTERTAINMENT]

Stray Kids released a new EP “Maxident” with the lead track “Case 143” on Friday.

A few hours before its release, the eight-member boy band held an online press conference to promote the album.

“'Maxident' is a compound of ‘maximum’ and ‘incident,’” Hyunjin said. “It represents how love is like a big accident that happens out of the blue.”

Unlike the band’s previous lead tracks, like “God’s Menu” (2020) and “Back Door” (2020), “Case 143” is the band’s first lead track to tackle the emotion of love in a very Stray Kids-like way: rough and straightforward.

“We do have love songs in other tracks from our previous albums, but they were a bit more subtle,” Changbin said. “So this time we wanted to create a large-scale love song that has choreography and comes with a performance. People say that Stray Kids reminds them of a powerful energy, and this was a challenge for us — how we were going to mix that energy with the concept of love. I think Stray Kids’ love songs stand out in the fact that they tend to be direct.”

Stray Kids during an online press conference to promote its latest EP ″Maxident″ [JYP ENTERTAINMENT]

“Case 143” was produced by the band’s producer subunit 3Racha, which consists of Bang Chan, Changbin and Han.

“The numbers in ‘Case 143’ are not random. It’s the number of letters in each word of ‘I love you,’” Seungmin said.

“Maxident” has been surging in popularity even before its release — as of Thursday, there had been over 2.37 million orders, JYP Entertainment said.

It has seven more tracks: “Chill,” “Give Me Your TMI,” “Super Board,” “3Racha,” “Taste,” "Can't Stop" and “Circus (Korean Ver.),” all of which were produced by 3Racha.

Stray Kids during an online press conference to promote its latest EP ″Maxident″ [JYP ENTERTAINMENT]

“After our world tour, we feel like our capacity [as artists] has upgraded a lot, thanks to STAY [the name of Stray Kids’ fan club],” Lee Know said. “We’re trying to give back the love we received to STAY.”

The band is currently touring the world for its “Stray Kids 2nd World Tour ‘Maniac.’” On Nov. 12 and 13, Stray Kids will perform in Indonesia and then fly to Thailand, Singapore, Australia and the United States next year.

Stray Kids debuted in 2018 and consists of members Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin and I.N.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]