When he was in secondary school, long before he was the leader of the K-pop group Stray Kids, Bang Chan stood alone in the center of a coliseum and sang the national anthem of Australia. The honor was his earliest taste of stardom: singing at his performing arts high school's graduation ceremony to an audience of teens and their beaming parents. He preened under their rapturous applause. His confidence swelled. Even now, more than a decade later, he can't recall a single thing about his performance, but he remembers the sound of their acclamation — how it rang out like thunder and filled him with an overwhelming sense of pride, leaving a perennial cavern in its wake.
You could say that the 24-year-old performer has spent the intervening years chasing that same feeling, a rush of adrenaline that momentarily satiates a desire he can't quite describe.
"It just felt weird — really, really weird — but in a good way," Bang Chan tells Teen Vogue. "Trying to impress the people around me has been motivating me since I was a little kid."
Off stage, however, he'd like to stay as far away from the center of attention as humanly possible. It makes him physically uncomfortable to talk about himself; it's a challenge for a young artist who doesn't like to cede control. He prefers to be one, two, several steps ahead. He swears he's trying to be better about it, but opening up doesn't always come easy to him. "A compliment makes me feel really shy," he says. "I'm thinking, am I allowed to accept it? When I look at myself, I'm not satisfied with myself yet."
The chronically flustered artist has led Stray Kids, a K-pop group that's had what some might call a watershed year, for more than five years now. In the spring of 2021, they won the competition series Kingdom: Legendary War, a testament to their creative ingenuity and sharp performance skills. Summer marked the release of their highest-selling album to date, NOEASY. Fall brought their Japanese single "Scars.” Winter saw the group take home their first daesang (or, grand prize) for Performance of the Year at the Asia Artist Awards.
Bang Chan has played an instrumental part in their success, though that statement makes him want to crawl out of his own skin and hide behind his hands. But it's true, whether he's fully ready to acknowledge it or not. He was just a teenage trainee when he selected the group's debut lineup alongside his label JYP Entertainment; with over 110 song credits to his name, his fingerprints are all over Stray Kids' diverse discography of angsty confessionals and boastful hype tracks. Still, Bang Chan asserts that Stray Kids are a package deal.
"I don't think I've ever fully focused on something that's just for me," he says sincerely. Nor does he want to. "I have learned and accepted that I am probably not going to be able to do anything without the members." For this industrious soul, it's eight or none.
But here he is, sitting in a Seoul conference room in the middle of November, ready to talk about himself. He's not that nervous. He's dressed casually in what some fans might recognize as his unofficial uniform: a black hoodie and matching onyx joggers. "I just want you to have fun, and then I'll probably have fun too," he smiles through his uneasiness.
The first thing you have to know about Bang Chan is that he's a perfectionist. He holds himself to his own highest standards. He always has.
As a boy, he maintained a rigid schedule, carefully penciling in lessons one at a time in his notebook. He was active in sports, music, and academics. If he wasn't in school or at an afternoon tutoring session, you'd find the Sydney-raised student in the pool, where he swam competitively throughout his childhood. His father was a swim coach. "He was always watching," Bang Chan nods. When he wasn't in the pool, he was practicing piano or playing soccer with his mates. He went fishing with his dad on weekends; it was an activity just for them, a space to exist outside of the ink-and-paper confines of his timetable.
On the rare days that he had nothing to do after school, he took on the responsibility of being the eldest of three children. "I'd be at home taking care of the kids when my parents would be at work," he says. "So my imagination would run wild." They'd immerse themselves in the animated universes of WALL-E and Up and host highly competitive Beyblade matches. He'd tell them about the dragon that lived in the backyard ("They had to be careful of that," he laughs), creating an entire world of make-believe for his little sister and brother to play in. From a young age, Bang Chan was drawn to storytelling. He had the innate ability to capture someone's attention through words, to spin fantastical tales of heroes and misfits and weave them into magic.
It's what ultimately drew him to music. He attended a performing arts high school in Newtown, an artsy suburb of Sydney, Australia, where he studied vocal performance. He looked up to performers like Hugh Jackman, entertainers who could sing, dance, and act — chiseled Swiss Army men who could do it all, always with a handsome smile. "That's what I enjoyed doing, too," he says, "entertaining people and impressing them. So that's who I wanted to follow." He also wanted to write his own music. Inspired by his older schoolmates, whom he befriended across generational lines, Bang Chan wrote, or at least attempted to write, his first song. What started as a homework assignment ignited a fire of self-actualization. "It was pretty hard, harder than I thought," he laughs, slightly embarrassed to revisit his most formative work. "But I had this idea of 'maybe later making my own music might be fun.'"
It's like what his dad always said: "Just enjoy." No matter how difficult or overwhelming a situation can be, it's the belief that you can find joy in most anything. If a song isn't coming together the way you want it to, that's okay. Just enjoy the process. If you didn't get the result you wanted, there's always next time. Just enjoy. "Feeling good is the answer to all of your problems," he says. "So 'just enjoy' is and will always be my motto."
At 13 years old, Bang Chan was selected by Korean talent agency JYP Entertainment to join their idol trainee program in Seoul. Home to iconic artists like J. Y. Park, 2PM, and Wonder Girls, he took a chance and followed his dreams, flying to South Korea with that mindset in tow. Whatever happens, happens. Just enjoy.
It served him well. He trained under JYP for nearly 8 years, and he watched as his friends and fellow trainees either debuted or left the company altogether. Yet, the wait allowed him to firmly hone his own skills in music production. He took his hurt and frustrations and put it into the music. He took MIDI classes at JYP alongside his future bandmates Changbin and Han. Together, they learned how to use the program and forged an alchemical partnership, a relationship that would come to define Stray Kids and their rambunctious sound. "The thing that stands out about him is that he’s always striving for perfection," Han tells Teen Vogue. "And [he's] eventually able to actually achieve that level of perfection."
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It's not easy for Bang Chan to ask for help. "I'm usually the type of person who tries to do everything by himself," he says. "I don't like relying on others." There are a few exceptions: his members, of course ("they always listen to me"); his management team, who he's worked with for over a decade; and his sunbaenims, or senior artists in the industry. As a trainee saddled with finding his voice, he often sought the advice of the older trainees at the company. They had been through this, too, and he wanted nothing more than to bask in their wisdom.
"My next-room neighbor was [DAY6's] Young K, Brian hyung, and sometimes I'd let him listen to what I wrote," he recalls. "He'd give me good feedback. He's very straightforward. That helped me a lot when I was learning to make music… I'm not the type to ask for feedback, but the people who I'm close with, I can at least be a little brave and ask them what they think about it."
The first song he composed at JYP as a trainee wouldn't see the light of day for five years. It was called "오늘 밤 나는 불을 켰어," which translates to "Tonight, I turned the lights on." It was partially inspired by his own tireless work ethic, how ideas come to him in the hum of darkness. It remained neatly categorized on his hard drive until, years later, it turned into "오늘 밤 나는 불을 켜 (Up All Night)," a unit track released in June 2021 as part of the group's ongoing SKZ-PLAYER series — a project that allows the members to produce their own original works, from songs to choreographies. "Up all night again," Bang Chan sings on the track. "In the quiet darkness / When the world is asleep / I open my eyes again today."
Contrary to popular belief, Bang Chan does sleep. He squeezes in three to four hours a day, somewhere between dawn and noon. He knows he could — no, should — be better about resting. But his mind is always racing, jumping from one fledgling idea to the next, thoughts knotting inside of his stomach. Even when he has the time to relax, his brain won't allow it. "I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking about that, I'm thinking about the future, I'm thinking about what I did… I'm thinking, thinking, thinking," he says.
Despite his lack of sleep, he says he still feels healthy and energized. He doesn't even rely on caffeine to get him through the day. "Water is doing the job!" he laughs.
In reality, he's just hyper-fixated on the tasks at hand. He keeps a daily schedule on his Notes app and memorizes it at the start of each day, a habit from his school days. "Free time is always the last priority," he says. "In order to have my own free time, I try to finish off everything I need to do." He pauses, then grins: "It's like a dog treat [for] me." He will, however, make time for his members, who he playfully refers to as "the kids." He's always there to offer them guidance in songwriting and composition; to arrange a track; to listen and give advice; and to, occasionally, roll up his sleeves and fix the kitchen curtains when no one else will. He's reliable.
"The kids ask me, 'Hyung, can you make this for me? Can you do this and this?'" he says. "And I'm always like, 'Yeah! Sure!' When I have time, I make sure to do it straight away."
Life as an idol is that of continuous motion, going from one thing to the next. It's a blur of meetings, studios, fittings, practice rooms, concepts, recordings, and events. Bang Chan also carves out an hour every week to host a live stream where he listens to music and shares stories with fans from around the world. These live streams score millions of views, a number that, when actualized, makes him uncomfortable. As a leader, Bang Chan takes on the responsibility of being the middleman between the company and the group — advocating when necessary. "He has a strong sense of responsibility, and makes a lot of sacrifices for the team," Changbin tells Teen Vogue. To Han, he's a "good older brother, a good friend, a good person, and a perfect leader," adding, "Of course, there are times he himself makes mistakes, too, but he always acknowledges them and tries to do better."
Bang Chan doesn't see his role within the group as anything special. "The moment that you accept that you're a good leader, it means that you're not a good leader," he reasons. He sees it as more of a personality quirk. "I always like doing stuff for other people," he explains. "I have learned to accept that I am someone who thinks about others before myself."
And the members, for the most part, make it easy. "They are angels," he says prematurely. "Okay, they're not angels. They're good little demons. Let's put it that way. They're just really nice kids, and they listen to what I have to say. I listen to what they have to say, too. We communicate a lot. It's all thanks to them that I can be who I am right now."
As one of the group's primary songwriters and producers, he works on music alongside Changbin and Han. They're known as 3RACHA. As trainees, they released three mixtapes together in 2017 and went by the monikers CB97 (Bang Chan), SpearB (Changbin), and J.One (Han). Looking back on it now makes Bang Chan elicit a deep, guttural sigh. "I get so red and embarrassed thinking about it," he says, covering his eyes and folding in on himself. "I wish it never existed."
The Bang Chan in those early mixtapes was intense. He was a livewire, an exposed nerve who carried himself with the unchecked bravado and deep-seated frustrations of a person who just hadn't lived enough life yet. How can you just enjoy when nothing is going your way? When life is so hard? Tracks like "P.A.C.E." and "Start Line" laid the foundation of Stray Kids' signature sound: loud, potent, and exploding with an undercurrent of anxiety and clever assuredness. Those mixtapes are a timeline of their adolescence. You can hear them figuring things out as they go.
"That's probably the reason why we can always show improvement, and if you think of it that way then I'm glad that [the mixtapes are] there," he says after a moment of reflection. "And I'm glad that it could be made. But deep inside I'm like, oh my gosh, I wish it wasn't there." (If you really must know, he's most proud of his work on Horizon.)
3RACHA has more than a symbiotic relationship. The way Bang Chan describes it, they share the same brain cell. "We're like three different bodies that all share the same mind," he laughs. "Sometimes our opinions are different, but most of the time we all have the same thoughts. We know each other too well now." They don't even need to communicate with words anymore. "Through gestures and body language, we just know what's going on," he adds. "Whatever it is, we talk through it, figure things out, and make something."
In the studio, there is no one more focused or organized than Bang Chan. He has hundreds of folders on his laptop, so much so that his folders have folders. "It's a compulsion that I have," he says. "I need to have everything organized for myself. I need to know where things are." He's at his most confident when he's creating. He's engaged and present, arranging a melody and adding the instrumentation. He puts the pieces together. "I can visualize it all really seamlessly," he explains.
But his focus doesn't temper his sense of humor, or his congeniality. "He’s not always that serious," Changbin says. "The atmosphere is joyful when he’s working on music." 3RACHA's greatest strength as a unit is that they don't often take themselves too seriously. They like to joke around, to have fun — to just enjoy. "We enjoy being chaotic," notes Bang Chan. Even now, when asked to reveal one of their leader's most remarkable traits, Changbin jokes, "He’s well-mannered, and he looks like a baby when he smiles." (He's not wrong. Have you seen those dimples?)
In a moment of sincerity, Han adds, "Bang Chan is a kind leader… [who] has taught me leadership and responsibility."
It's the kind of compliment that would surely make the tips of his ears burn bright red. "These days," Bang Chan says, "I'm trying my best to accept [compliments] and feel good about it."
And he has a lot to feel good about. NOEASY sold over 1 million copies, becoming the best-selling album in JYP's history. Meanwhile, the group's penchant for camp humor and electrifying performances caught the attention of two Hollywood titans, earning Bang Chan the title of Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds's "new favourite Australian" and an Instagram follow from his childhood idol Hugh Jackman. Even now, the Aussie can't believe it. "How did that happen?" he beams. "Oh my gosh."
Still, it's not in Bang Chan's nature to rest on his laurels. If anything, all of this newfound notoriety has only made him more determined to work harder and to push Stray Kids further. The pressure is there, but he's trying to enjoy it, too. When asked about the future, he often likes to utter the phrase, "Don't expect too much." It's not that he doesn't think he has anything more to offer — that he can't top the undeniable success of 2021 — but rather, all of this is so much more fun when you expect nothing at all. "If you expect too much and then that doesn't satisfy how much you expected, you're disappointed," he reasons. "So you might as well keep your expectations low and then, bang, surprise! You know what I mean?"
The desire is still there. Bang Chan always knew he wanted to perform — to entertain crowds full of strangers; to tell fantastical stories and slay make-believe dragons; to play the dutiful role of son, brother, and leader; and to make the people around him proud. Standing on stage, it feels good to be adored and appreciated. But it feels even better to know that you are responsible for making others feel that, too. It's the way a song can soothe and energize; applause can crest into a wave of catharsis; and music can reverberate around an entire theater, reminding you to just enjoy.
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