Korean Rock Group The Rose on Coachella Debut, New Fragrance and Their Next Album

Korean pop-rock group The Rose closed out their recent Coachella performance with their 2023 song “Wonder,” bringing the University of Southern California marching band out for the performance.

“It was like a dream come true in a way,” main vocalist and keyboardist Dojoon tells The Hollywood Reporter on a Zoom call from Seoul.   

The Rose consists of four members — singer and guitarist Woosung, bassist Jaehyeong, drummer Hajoon and Dojoon. The quartet released their first single “Sorry” in 2017. Two years later, Dojoon, Jaehyeong and Hajoon went on hiatus to complete their mandatory military service. Woosung, who did not have to enlist, spent that time releasing solo music.

The group reunited in 2022, releasing their first full-length album Heal. “I mean Heal was the fundamental … the deep backbone of our music,” says Dojoon. The album earned the group a No. 4 spot on Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums chart.

Last fall, The Rose released their second full-length album, Dual. Dojoon explains that the group wanted to experiment more with it. “It went pretty well, and we loved how the album came out,” the 31-year-old shares.

The Rose’s Coachella performance signified the end of their recent Dawn to Dusk tour — the second world tour the band has embarked on in the last two years alone. Dojoon describes it as the “essential version” of the tour — “short but powerful” as he puts it.

“Now, we’re back in our home resting, and if we look back to our videos and photos, it doesn’t feel like it’s a thing that happened to us,” Dojoon jokes about their Coachella experience. “It looked beautiful.”

Bringing the USC marching band out for the performance played into the “big picture,” as Dojoon puts it, in keeping with the scale that the group sees for their music. “When we write the songs, we’ll always imagine about huge-scale stadiums,” Hajoon adds.

The Rose has carved out a space for themselves on the festival circuit. They played several Lollapalooza dates, including the main festival in Chicago last August. The quartet says other groups they saw during these festivals inspired them. Overall, they attribute their festival success to an earnest appreciation for what they do.  

“We feel like we love music so much,” Dojoon says explaining that he feels like that comes across when they’re playing live.  

Post-Coachella, The Rose has a few things on the horizon. The group recently released a unisex fragrance Black Rose, named after their beloved fans. Dojoon says the group was very involved in the creation process, noting that they had 20 scents made and used a voting process to help decide.

Woosung adds that the group always had an idea of a signature scent that they and their fans would connect to their shows. “We definitely wanted to create that experience of always walking into our show and smelling this,” the 31-year-old singer says.

The group has another main objective for this time: Rest. “I think after such a long tour and just constant festivals, tours, albums, I think we wanted to rest a little bit,” Woosung says. “But I am pretty sure while we’re resting, we’re going to feel like we need to do something,” he adds noting that the group will start talking about their future plans “very, very soon.”

During this rest time, they have some individual plans as well. “I’m going to work out every single day,” Hajoon says, instantly met with questions from his bandmates. The 29-year-old drummer assures them that he’s already doing that. Meanwhile, Jaehyeong’s plans seem pretty clear. “I’ll take a rest every single day,” the 29-year-old bassist explains.

While it’s clear rest is rightfully at the forefront for The Rose, they are certainly thinking of their future. Woosung says they are “of course” going to put out another album but aren’t sure when. However, he does share one tidbit that fans will be glad to hear.

“I could confidently say that we already have the next album basically,” Woosung shares. “We have all the songs. We just got to make the details right, but we’ll rest for two months and come back soon.”