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In Seoul’s Fish Market, SEVENTEEN’s JOSHUA Talks Acting, Acoustic Roots and a Coachella Dream
Over a seafood meal at Seoul’s Noryangjin market, SEVENTEEN’s JOSHUA discusses acting, producing solo acoustic music influenced by John Mayer, and his long-shot dream to perform at Coachella, signaling a quieter, more personal turn in his career.
The setting is as unglamorous as it gets for a conversation about reinvention: the fluorescent-lit corridors of Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market, the 24-hour fish hub in Seoul where vendors shout over stacks of styrofoam and the air smells of salt and iodine. JOSHUA sits with Billboard host Tetris Kelly over a plate of freshly prepared seafood, eating with the casual focus of someone used to being in a group of thirteen yet newly intent on what he does alone.
It’s a good place to notice small things. He reaches for chopsticks with careful, deliberate movements; he laughs softly when Kelly nudges him about life on the road. There’s a politeness to his answers, but also a thread of curiosity: acting, producing, songwriting. Not a laundry list, more like a regrouping.
“It’s very new, but I’m learning new things,” JOSHUA says of acting. “It’s helping me express my emotions more because I feel most of the time I might be a little closed off … I’m having a lot of fun with it.”
That admission — closed off, learning to open up — lands in a way that feels less like a promotional talking point and more like the start of an identity shift. SEVENTEEN are famous for their precision: the choreography, the synchronized vocals, the long unit tours where each member occupies a known slot. For Joshua, acting is an exercise in loosening those slots. It’s not just another credit to add to an idol résumé; it’s practice in feeling.
Music, meanwhile, is reshaping itself around him. He says he’s producing solo music now and that songwriting is finally something he’s found time to explore. Where his work with SEVENTEEN has often emphasized group textures and choreography-friendly arrangements, his solo interest skews smaller, acoustic. “I want to show acoustic music because that’s what I grew up on and that’s how I got into music,” he says, and you can hear how literal he means it: guitars, fingerpicking, songs that depend on lyric and voice rather than staging.
His touchstones are telling. JOSHUA cites John Mayer as the first guitar hero who made him pick up the instrument, and names YouTube-born singer-songwriters Gabe Bondoc and AJ Rafael as fellow influences. Then, casually: “And I really like Justin Bieber.” It’s a neat shorthand for a wider palette—an artist shaped by steady, acoustic-leaning guitar work but also attuned to pop stars who define stadium-era phrasing.
The conversation veers to Coachella—Bieber was scheduled to headline at the time of filming, and both Kelly and Joshua trade a small, giddy excitement about that set. For Joshua, the festival represents a particular kind of validation for a K-pop artist: a place where a solo, unplugged sensibility could be replanted on a more global, indie-inclined stage. “That was like one of my dreams, to go and perform at Coachella,” he admits. “So hopefully in the future.”
There’s an industry logic here. SEVENTEEN’s members have long split focus between collective output and individual projects, but Joshua’s turn toward acoustic songwriting and producing is less a detour and more a deepening: an attempt to translate a lifetime of listening into something intimate that the group’s busy schedule didn’t always allow. If his solo work leans into guitar-led arrangements and quiet confession, it could recalibrate how international audiences assess what an idol’s “authentic” musicianship looks like.
Back at the market, as the conversation winds down, the scene feels fittingly mutable. The fishmongers keep moving through their shifts; Joshua talks about touring with the full SEVENTEEN unit and about wanting to try new formats of performance. It’s a practical, even small ambition. But there’s also a sense of momentum: a member of one of K-pop’s most efficient collectives testing what happens when he chooses notes by himself.
Whether his acoustic leanings will arrive as tender solo EPs or as a reshaped role within SEVENTEEN remains to be seen. Either way, hearing him name Mayer, Bondoc, Rafael and Bieber in the same breath is a reminder that modern K-pop artists are listening to a wide, sometimes contradictory set of influences. That mix is where something interesting can happen—not instant reinvention, but steady, odd little adjustments that, over time, change how an artist is heard.
