During ATEEZ’s Biggest Year, Leader Hongjoong Wanted to Share a Song About Having ‘Enough’

In April, Hongjoong returned to Coachella with nothing to do.

Two years earlier, he had been on the Indio Valley stage when ATEEZ became the first K-pop boy band to perform at the festival.

This time he was a guest, watching other people work.

“That day I got so many inspirations,” he says of a trip where he linked up with Teddy Swims , PinkPantheress , Central Cee , Swae Lee and Daesung of BIGBANG .

“I really love to experience everywhere.” He came back to Los Angeles, booked a session and crafted an atmospheric pop song that he specifies is “not just chill” but about a feeling he had been chasing his whole life.

That song arrives Friday (Sept.

18) as “ENOuGH,” a collaboration with Bazzi , that is unhurried, openly emotional and, perhaps most notably, sounds nothing like the group he leads in the midst of their biggest season yet.

On June 26, ATEEZ unleashed GOLDEN HOUR : Part.5 and made a headlining debut at London’s BST Hyde Park in the U.K. just two days later.

The EP gave the group its third No.

1 on the Billboard 200 , opening with a career-high 228,000 equivalent album units.

At home in Korea, Part.5 ‘s lead single “BAD” climbed the local charts thanks in part to a viral dance, helping ATEEZ secure their first entry on the Billboard Global 200 .

Next month, a full day dedicated to ATEEZ and their fans at the inaugural 82WORLD: LA festival is already sold out.

But none of that superstardom is visible when Hongjoong joins an afternoon video call in August from a sun-filled Los Angeles hotel room.

He’s dressed down in a plain white V-neck T-shirt with the collar cut off, a few silver rings stacked on different fingers, and a single fingernail painted black — a signature he rarely goes without to raise awareness for the Polished Man campaign, which aims to end violence against children.