W ith their third mini album HOPE, ARrC aren’t trying to reinvent optimism. They’re reframing it. The Mystic Story boy group – made up of HYUNMIN, KIEN, CHOI HAN, ANDY, RIOTO, DOHA, and JIBEEN – have been quickly building a name on fearless experimentation since their 2-24 debut; this time, they’re pulling joy from more complicated places.

Across five tracks, HOPE plays with friction: early 2000s hip-hop refracted through chant-like irreverence, liquid DnB colliding with bossa nova guitars, and a whole track about cracked phone screens and lost earbuds that somehow lands as a statement of radical resilience.

Throughout HOPE, ARrC navigates emotional contradictions with purpose: dawn as a metaphor for both anxiety and potential, night as both a time of solitude and creative freedom. Members HYUNMIN and CHOI HAN stepped into lyric-writing roles for the first time, contributing raw, diary-like lines to “dawns,” while the title track “awesome” finds transcendence in the everyday. There’s a deliberate tension between light and dark, clarity and static — and ARrC don’t resolve it so much as live inside it.

Visually, they teamed up with Karafuru to extend that ethos — not through glossy perfection, but with stylised characters and surreal world-building that mirror the group’s vision of hope as something unpredictable, sometimes awkward, but deeply personal. It’s a smart move that frames HOPE not just as a sonic evolution, but as an immersive experience that asks how much of the future you can build from what’s already cracked.

In this exclusive interview, the rising boy group breaks down the emotional architecture of HOPE — from genre collisions and first-time lyric writing to finding light in the glitch. The group speaks candidly to us about creative risk, lyrical honesty, and why they’re more interested in connection than perfection.

HOPE feels like a record that balances chaos and clarity. What kind of artistic statement did you set out to make with this album?

CHOI HAN Our third mini album, HOPE, might sound lighthearted at first, but it actually carries emotions from our current generation, such as anxiety, failure, and repetitive routines. While working on the track, our focus point was how we could express those not-so-pleasant moments in an uplifting way with ARrC’s style. For example, we considered the attitude of being able to say “awesome!” even when you lose your earbuds, crack your phone screen, or miss your bus, to be the emotional core of our title track. We spent a long time exploring rhythms and building the music like layers of various scenes, trying to blend those emotions into our sound naturally.

ANDY Everyone goes through big or small failures and deals with the same cycles of emotions, so while working on our new title track, it felt like we were telling ourselves, “It’s okay, you can still get through this moment with an awesome attitude.” Not only did it come from a personal experience, but we also wanted to pass that message on to others going through similar times. That’s what ‘hope’ means to ARrC, and it’s the message we really wanted to emphasize with this album. We hope to deliver the message that “Hope grows everywhere, and we can create it” clearly to anyone who listens to our album.

Please complete the following sentence: “HOPE is not just a word. It’s ______.”

HYUNMIN “HOPE is a lighthouse.” There are times when life feels like sailing through a dark sea. In those moments, hope becomes the lighthouse that lights the way forward. It’s also what helps us hold on and keep moving.

JIBEEN “HOPE is courage.” To have hope means believing that things will get better someday. It’s the strength that helps us stand up again, no matter what tough situation we face. I believe that is the true meaning of HOPE.

As artists, what makes you feel “hopeful” right now, and what challenges that feeling?

RIOTO For me, it’s the members who keep me hopeful. Just practicing together, sharing laughs, and sweating on stage with my members naturally gives me energy. Having friends who feel more like brothers, who can all laugh at the same silly joke, is what hope looks like in my everyday life.

KIEN I think it’s our fans, ARrCers, who help me stay positive. When I make eye contact with our fans from the stage, I feel a sense of reassurance, like, “I’m doing okay.” Even the smallest cheers or the shortest comments give me so much strength. I’ve come to realize that hope doesn’t have to be something deep or grand; rather, it often comes from the warmth of people’s sincere hearts.

The Karafuru collab frames the album visually. What aspects of your creative identity did you want the visual world to reflect?

ANDY While this album centers around the theme of ‘hope,’ I don’t think hope is always something simple, especially for teenagers. To teenagers, it can be complicated, confusing, and unpredictable. That’s why we wanted to explore those emotions in a more playful and sometimes quirky way, with the Karafuru characters as our partners in expression.

DOHA Collaborating with Karafuru, one of Asia’s leading character IPs, allowed us to bring a new dimension to the message we put into our music, especially through the digital artwork and animation. We really wanted to express the complex side of hope, and we felt that couldn't be captured through just simple imagery. By using visuals that feel a little surreal or detached from reality, we aimed to share our own emotions and imagination. I hope these creative efforts can extend beyond music and resonate across other forms of art as well.

On “awesome”, you take small frustrations — losing an earbud, cracking your phone — and flip them into a chant. Where did that instinct come from, to turn inconvenience into something rhythmic, even joyful?

HYUNMIN Everyone goes through small, annoying moments in their daily lives. I’ve also lost my AirPods before and even cracked my phone screen, but instead of getting stuck in that unlucky feeling, I try to think more positively by reminding myself, “It’s fine, just laugh it off.” That kind of positive mindset of saying, “It happens,” became a natural source of inspiration for me. I wanted our music to carry that same energy, so that anyone listening could feel encouraged and maybe even have their mood lifted.

DOHA I usually get inspiration from trivial moments in daily life. For example, my phone slipped under the bed one day and while trying to get it out, I ended up finding my glasses that had been missing for months. It could’ve been a frustrating moment, but instead, it turned into a surprisingly good one. Seeing the positive in the little things in life is what inspired the vibe of “awesome.” We tried to capture that attitude in the track overall.

What emotional space do you hope “awesome” opens up for listeners who might be having a bad day?

KIEN Everyone has tough days, but I truly believe that even in those moments, there are always small sparks of light and laughter. “awesome” is about not missing those tiny but precious glimpses of positivity. I hope this song can give listeners a bit of strength and comfort, something to lean on when they’re feeling overwhelmed. Even for just a moment, I hope it feels like a place where they can emotionally take a breather.

JIBEEN When you’re going through a rough moment, everything can feel heavy. I believe hope is always there, even in a difficult time, but it just takes a shift in perspective to find it. Even in times of failure or uncertainty, I hope “awesome” can help people brush things off a little more lightly and rediscover the sense of hope again.

On “dawns,” you write about anxiety, digital intimacy, and the emotion of late nights. What made this the right song for your first lyrical contributions?

CHOI HAN For “dawns,” I wanted to capture the quiet thrill and flutter of emotions I often feel at dawn, which is also the moment when feelings usually begin to stir. It felt like the perfect song for my first attempt at writing lyrics, because I could channel my own experiences and sincerity into it. Since it was my first time contributing to lyrics after our debut, I felt a positive sense of pressure, and I was genuinely excited to dive into working on it because I have always been interested in lyric writing. I approached the process like writing a personal journal, focusing on turning emotions into specific words while also making sure it matched our team’s unique color. I think listeners will be able to feel the deeper story of the track if they reflect on the lyrics while enjoying the track.

HYUNMIN “dawns” explores the complex emotions and thoughts that teenagers often experience. As a teen myself, I felt like I could write something that would resonate with people my age, so I wanted to give it a try. Dawn is such a contradictory time, because it’s both anxious and full of potential, calm and tense at the same time. We tried to express that duality through our refined musical language. I also focused on sharing my honest thoughts and feelings, almost like writing in a musical diary. To me, this track represents a new boundary and identity for our sound.

“kick back” blends liquid DnB with bossa nova guitar. How did that genre fusion come together without sounding disjointed?

ANDY With this song “kick back,” we wanted to express the strength of ‘us,’ and the power of being together. Like the lyric, “we are blooming like a flower on the road,” the track delivers a message that even in a tough and empty concrete city, a new sense of hope can grow when we’re together. That’s why we focused on blending the fast, powerful energy of drum & bass with the laid-back feel of bossa nova guitar in a way that doesn’t contradict each other. We wanted the emotional tones of both genres to merge into one rich experience. In doing so, it became a fun challenge to make these contrasting styles flow naturally as one.

“night life” is a portrait of ambition — people working late, writing, creating. What part of that song is most personal to you?

RIOTO “night life” captures the solitude and focus that can be felt when working alone in the studio late at night. It’s also about the quiet strength that pushes us forward to our dreams. For me, those late-night hours are when I can fully immerse myself in music and really connect with who I am. I hope listeners can relate to our stories of the night through this track.

CHOI HAN In “night life,” the moment right before the chorus hits me the hardest. That’s when the emotion truly swells, and it reminds me of the loneliness that sinks in around 3 a.m. in an empty studio. I think the song does a great job of turning that vibe into music. It also reinterprets the sound of ‘90s R&B through a more modern lens, so both musically and emotionally, it resonates deeply with me.

Was there a moment in making HOPE where you actively chose to break a pattern or expectation?

RIOTO While preparing for this album, I tried bleaching my hair for the first time. It was a big change for me, but I wanted to show something new, not just through the music, but visually as well. Since the overall vibe of the album feels different from anything we’ve done before, I felt it was important for my look to reflect that shift too. Thankfully, our fans seemed to love it, and I hope people see it as one of the many fun and fresh directions we're exploring with this release.

How do you keep your sound evolving without losing the thread of who ARrC is?

DOHA I think the reason ARrC can explore new sounds while still staying true to our identity is that we always prioritize authenticity. Even when we're experimenting musically, we make a conscious effort to convey feelings and stories we've personally experienced. Such sincerity naturally seeps into our music and allows every new direction to still feel like us as ARrC.

CHOI HAN As ARrC, we’ve always centered our work around the themes of connection and solidarity. So even when we try something new sonically, it’s still grounded in the reality we live in and the emotions we actually go through. As long as that authenticity remains, I believe we can continue expanding our sound without losing our identity. Our goal is to keep challenging ourselves while making music that never strays from its core.

What’s one thing ARrC does differently from any other group?

RIOTO What truly sets ARrC apart is how each member’s unique background and culture naturally blend into our music and performances, and it allows us to break genre boundaries and create a sound that’s colorful and diverse. At the core of it all is our team philosophy of ‘connection,’ and we constantly push ourselves to try new things by blending different genres, with a base of hip-hop. I think that spirit of challenge that welcomes new experiments continuously is also one of ARrC’s strengths.

JIBEEN As a group, ARrC doesn’t just follow trends; we focus on building a distinct sound and message with every release. Because we’re a multinational group with different emotions and sentiments, our music reflects a wide range of perspectives, allowing us to stay fresh and think outside the box. I believe that spirit of experimentation, combined with our teamwork, is what makes ARrC truly unique.