8TURN achieves milestone sales with 'STUNNING;' talks musical journey, TikTok success & future plans

FOX 13 photojournalist Clint Edwards sits down with K-Pop group 8TURN.

Only a year into their career, 8TURN has seen nothing but consistent growth-- Growth in their skills, discography, and most notably, their album sales.

The group dropped their mini-album "STUNNING" last month and achieved a goal a lot of groups dream of: selling over 100,000 albums in the first week of sales.

8TURN debuted with the album "8TURNRISE" last January, followed by "UNCHARTED DRIFT" in June.

Photo from MNH Entertainment

With "STUNNING", the members wanted to show just how cool they are.

"We're just trying to show who we are, and who we were, and we think that in itself is what cool really is," explains leader JAE YUN.

The album has five tracks just like their previous albums, but for this album, the members were able to have their own voice in the writing.

"With this album, while sort of doing the promotions for our second album, we talked with our company, saying that for the future albums, we really want to dive down as artists and be involved as much as possible. So the company said ‘You know what? Let's just give it a shot!’" JAE YUN said.

That shot resulted in two of the tracks being written by the members themselves. Those songs were "GLOW" and the title track, "RU-PUM PUM".

The members have become known in the fifth generation of K-pop for their high energy, humor, and top-notch choreography.

While the members are young, their drive to create the perfect performance is evident.

"We monitor every stage we perform, and have feedback for what was good or bad from that performance, and have a talk with each other and reshape our performance to improve it," HAE MIN says.

The group isn’t all work and no play, however.

Their TikTok account and ability to predict trends before they kick off has gotten them new fans as well.

Under their videos, you will see numerous comments, such as:

"Is this my sign to stan 8TURN??"

"That’s it, I’m gonna stan 8TURN"

"8TURN never fails to make me laugh"

According to the group, the two masterminds behind their Tiktok creativity are JAE YUN and KYUNG MIN.

"It's because I have to follow the trends on TikTok. I have to know what is popular," says KYUNG MIN after the members say he is always watching videos in his free time.

Photo from MNH ENTERTAINMENT

Looking ahead to the rest of 2024, while the members can’t give too much away, JAE YUN says, "I think TURNINGs are going to be very happy this year as well, and I think we are going to be very, very busy!"

See more K-POP interviews from FOX 13 photojournalist Clint Edwards here.

"I hope all of our members are well and promoted with success this year. Also, although we got so much love last year, we hope for more love for 8TURN this year," says MIN HO.

K-Pop