From day one, Le Ssearfim has been fearless.

The K-pop girl group, hailing from Korean entertainment giant Hybe’s Source Music label, burst onto the scene in 2022 with their first catchy and aptly named single “Fearless.” But it’s bigger than just one song — the group’s name is quite literally an anagram for “I’m fearless.”

In the increasingly crowded K-pop landscape, Le Sserafim’s always stood apart from the pack. The two eldest members, Sakura, 28, and Chaewon, 25, had already found immense success in Korea as members of the temporary girl group IZ*ONE, formed through a popular Korean music competition series that the American-born Yunjin, 24, was also a contestant on. By the time Sakura had joined that group, she’d already had a long career as an idol in her home country of Japan.

Kazuha, 22, was a professional ballerina and had been studying at the Dutch National Ballet Academy when she was scouted by the entertainment company. Eunchae, 19, the youngest of the group, was just 15 when she debuted in the group. The five-member girl group has constantly evolved, and their latest album, Pureflow Pt. 1, released last month, is no exception.

“Our main message with this album was about our process rediscovering ourselves as a team and redefining what it means to us,” Yunjin tells The Hollywood Reporter on an early morning Zoom from Seoul. The girl group, known for their fashionable and trendy ensembles, have traded their glitzy stage costumes for casual looks, befitting a group of young women in a rare moment of rest.

The album’s pre-release single “Celebration” is the congratulatory message of their new mindset, they explain. Whereas they find the album’s main single, the experimental “Boompala,” which features a sample of “Macarena,” to be the message itself. Thursday night, the group is set to release a rare cross-group collaboration, “Iconic By Mistake,” with fellow K-pop girl group Illit, under Hybe’s Belift label, and American-based global girl group Katseye, formed through a Hybe x Geffen partnership.

“That’s just Le Sserafim’s mentality right now,” Yunjin continues. “It’s the most representative message that we have as a team.”

Below, Le Sserafim digs into the pressures of young stardom, what they’ve learned from one another, how their sound has evolved and what they hope people understand about them as a group.

You’ve tried so many genres throughout your career. What do you think makes something a Le Sserafim song, sonically speaking?

YUNJIN We do a lot of different things sonically. We, as a team, just really enjoy trying new things. It’s not just musical. A lot of the visual aspects, especially for this album, we’ve tried a lot of new things. I bleached my eyebrows for “Spaghetti.” Performance-wise, we also like to try a lot of different genres like tutting and whacking and hip-hop. I don’t know how to explain “Boompala,” but it’s really new for us as well. Rather than have a frame of what we do, I think our most defining factor is our message and what we talk about. And how it truly is rooted in what we feel as a team and things that we want to express. What makes something Le Sserafim is the teamwork that we feel with each other and our desire to connect with the audience through our messaging.

There’s many different aspects that play into the final product you’re putting out. One of the most important things is your relationship and your dynamic with one another. How do you feel that’s evolved? I know you’ve had ups and downs but you seem to keep each other balanced.

SAKURA Rather than there being a major change, last year we had our world tour. That allowed the five of us to spend a lot more time together. Whenever our performance ended, we would take time to give feedback to one another and that conversation was sometimes quite serious. We were also able to share about the ideas we have about our team going forward, and that really helped us develop a deeper understanding of each other. I think that’s what allowed us to come into this era with this new album.

Do you find that you’ve learned anything from each other during this process?

YUNJIN I’m personally constantly learning from all of the other members because in some ways I might be better at things than them, but in a lot of ways the members really teach me how to be more patient or be more forward. I’m a very up-and-down person. I have crazy mood swings. Some days I’m super energetic, and then some days I’m super depressed. But I think the members really balance me in a way. If I’m a little down, another member notices that, and even if they don’t say it, they bring their energy up because they have the availability for that. I’m a very verbal person, but some people aren’t. You don’t have to always talk about things. If you feel it, then I think they act upon that a lot and that teaches me that everything doesn’t have to be verbal. You can just speak with feelings. That’s a big difference.

People feel comfortable saying whatever they want online because they might think that since you’re celebrities, you won’t have the typical human response to things. But that’s obviously not true. You have feelings and emotions. How do you ground yourself in that regard?

KAZUHA As you mentioned, because our job is being a celebrity, it’s very often the case that people just talk about us very easily. Sometimes they tend to judge us by what they see from the outside and say just anything they want. Of course, it would be impossible to not be conscious of what they’re saying at all. But instead of focusing on what others think about us, we try to focus on being satisfied with ourselves and how we feel about ourselves in the moment. That’s the mentality we try to have.

Is that something you feel you’ve always had, or is this something you learned along the way?

CHAEWON Looking back from our debut, I think we’ve undergone a huge change. In that process, we’ve grown a lot as well. If you think back to when we just debuted — even if we felt certain emotions and even if it felt difficult inside — because we wanted to seem stronger, we tended to avoid that emotion. At some point, however, we decided to accept those emotions and instead learned more about ourselves. Rather than avoiding those feelings, we decided to just face them. That helped us to rediscover ourselves, which helped us become stronger versions of ourselves.

Chaewon or Sakura, I’m particularly interested in your perspective on the responsibility you might’ve felt as the members with more experience going into the group.

CHAEWON I was really young when I debuted in my previous group. Since it was my first time [as an idol], I think I was rather fearless. As I went through promotions and worked as a member of that group, I had the thoughts and feelings that I had [at the time]. After I debuted in Le Sserafim, I realized that our younger members might feel similar to how I felt then. I really hope that I was helpful to them. I always try to make sure [they know] that they can depend on me.

Why do you feel that’s important to use your platform as idols? Particularly in terms of speaking about beauty standards.

YUNJIN One of the overarching goals that we’ve always had as a team is to show our listeners and fans that we are the same. That we are also people that feel the same emotions and go through the same hardships. But we’re also just as capable of getting back on our feet. We care about showing people that it’s possible to heal. It’s possible to be resilient. It’s possible to keep going on with fear still in our bodies. It’s just a natural instinct, I guess. I think it’s our responsibility to take care of each other.

Despite there being a spotlight on you, people don’t see the everyday moments you have with one another. Is there anything you wish people could see that would shine a better light on who you are as people and performers?

EUNCHAE I hope that people know we’re not just celebrities; we’re also human beings just like them. We have these thoughts and feelings. We’re a group that tries to express those through music. We hope people understand that. While we are doing our promotions and various activities, whenever we see people who actually understand that and relate to that, we find comfort in them. And that gives us more strength to keep going.

Do you think there’s an era or song in your discography that you can point to as the thesis of Le Sserafim?

EUNCHAE Rather than selecting a single song, I think Pureflow, the album itself, actually shows our identity as a group really well. It’s the album that we were the most candid about our thoughts and emotions. Our debut dealt with the concept of fear, but throughout our promotions and activities, we felt so many different emotions — and our perception toward the idea of fear has changed. This album represents that change, and who we are at this moment.