MONSTA X‘s Joohoney has opened up about his personal goals as a songwriter and producer for the group, revealing his intent to dispel the “fixed notion” that older idol groups make “half-hearted” music.

In a new interview with Arena Homme Plus, the MONSTA X rapper revealed that the hardest song he’s ever produced is the K-pop group’s June 2021 single ‘Gambler’, through which he hoped to dispel assumptions about older idol groups.

“I wanted to break the fixed notion people have that the further you get into your career, you’ll start making music half-heartedly, or the tempo of your songs will get slower,” Joohoney said, per translations by Soompi.

Joohoney also said he wanted ‘Gambler’ to be a “powerful” song that would allow MONSTA X, who are nearly seven years old as a group, to showcase the same levels of energy of a younger K-pop act.

“Because if a song has a powerful sound, its choreography gets more powerful as well,” he added. “I feel apologetic to the members who suffered [because of the song’s choreography], but looking back on it now, I think it was the right decision. Because it made MONSTA X’s unique colour and style even clearer and more developed.”

‘Gambler’ was the title track of the six-piece’s ninth mini-album ‘One Of A Kind’. The song was singled out by NME reviewer Ruby C in a four-star review, who noted that “Joohoney’s approach [to ‘Gambler’] departs from the group’s usual (and predictable) title-as-a-repetitive-hook formula to create an alluring and unadulteratedly fun song”.

It’s been confirmed that MONSTA X will return with new music in April, arriving nearly five months after their tenth Korean mini-album ‘No Limit’ and their sophomore English album ‘The Dreaming’. In conjunction with the latter record, the boyband released Monsta X: The Dreaming in the same month, which was their first-ever feature film.