There’s a particular kind of energy that surrounds an artist right before a new chapter lands – the charge of someone who knows exactly where they’re heading. JUNHEE has been moving in that space lately.

His first solo album, September’s The First Day & Night, introduced him as a vocalist with range and a performer with emotional intent, but the months since have pulled him into a wider orbit. Song camps, new collaborators, late-night sessions, unexpected friendships. All of it building towards something bigger than the version of him fans met earlier this year.

What stands out immediately when he talks is how much he’s holding back in the best possible way – not secrecy, but momentum. His first solo U.S. tour is set for early 2026, dates still being finalised, but the emotional blueprint is clear in his mind. “I hope they can finally see and experience in person, ‘JUNHEE is finally doing something on his own,’” he wrote to us over email. There’s no hesitation in the way he describes it. He wants fans to release whatever they’ve been storing up while he does the same.

Most of his focus is on the arrangements; reshaping songs so the stage versions hit differently, building moments that don’t exist in the recorded cuts. He talks about performance in physical terms – movement, breath, the shared rhythm between artist and crowd – and how his catalogue started to shift once he imagined carrying it alone. “The music you hear on stage has to move together with the audience for it to create a bigger synergy,” he says. It’s the kind of realisation artists usually reach deep into their solo careers. He’s getting there now.

But the clearest transformation is happening behind the scenes. JUNHEE talks about songwriting with the seriousness of someone who has already chosen his lane. Not as a side skill, not as a bonus line on a credits sheet, but as the core of the next version of himself. “The music that I plan to show from now on will probably almost all be songs I worked on myself,” he says. He isn’t tiptoeing around authorship; he’s claiming it.

His sessions start with conversations – themes, emotions, what he actually wants to say. And because the stories come from his own experiences, those vocals are now rooted in something much more internal. He describes it plainly: writing his own material gives the songs “an added sense of authenticity”, a feeling of solidity that wasn’t fully possible before. The technical power in his voice hasn’t changed; the intention behind it has.

Suddenly he was in rooms with people from different countries, different musical backgrounds, but all equally open. “They didn’t set any limits,” he says. “We could imagine more freely and create fun things together.” It’s not the usual polished anecdote about “global sound”. It’s more personal – someone realising the world is wider than he thought, and that he fits into it.

You can feel the excitement lift off the page when he’s talking about specific sessions. Or the unexpected lesson from collaborators who kept circling back to the same three words: love, happiness, gratitude. At one point, in the middle of that creative rush, someone asked him, “Are you happy right now?” He said yes. And the moment stuck. It shifted something. “Whatever you do, start everything with a heart full of love,” he says now. It sounds simple, but the way he describes it makes it feel like a turning point.

He’s been stretching creatively too, trying new genres, taking risks. One session with a friend named Ronni pushed him into a full K-pop performance track. He’s been composing for years, but crafting something that leans that heavily into choreography and power was new territory. He wants that song out in the world someday, somehow. You can tell it marks something for him.

Ask him what he’s growing into, and the answer lands without ego: he wants to develop his musical skills, collaborate more widely, and step beyond the label of “idol” into the space of a fully realised musician and songwriter.