All his hard work was gone.
3 hours ago
ATEEZ‘s Hongjoong has one of the most painful pre-debut stories in K-Pop. He once lost years’ worth of music after his laptop was stolen while training in the United States.
Before ATEEZ had even debuted, Hongjoong was already heavily involved in songwriting and production. In fact, he had reportedly composed around 40 songs as a trainee, storing much of his work on his MacBook.
The incident happened in 2018, when the pre-debutmembers of ATEEZ traveled to Los Angeles for intensive dance training. Their experiences were documented through the pre-debut series KQ Fellaz American Training.
Throughout the trip, Hongjoong could frequently be seen working on music whenever he had spare time. One particularly important project was “From,” the song the trainees planned to record and film a music video for before leaving Los Angeles. Hongjoong composed and produced the track himself. He worked on it late into the night, even continuing to produce music alone while the other members rested.
Then, his MacBook was stolen. The laptop was eventually recovered, but there was one devastating problem: it had reportedly been reformatted. All his files were gone. For Hongjoong, it wasn’t simply losing an expensive computer. The laptop contained the production files for music he had spent years creating, including his extensive collection of pre-debut compositions.
Thankfully, Hongjoong decided to start over. He reconstructed the material needed for the song and worked through the night so the group could still complete the recording. Accounts of the original footage describe fellow member Jongho staying with Hongjoong late into the night as he rebuilt the project.
Ultimately, they succeeded. “From” was completed and became the final release associated with the group’s KQ Fellaz American Training series in July 2018.
The story became legendary among ATINY after ATEEZ debuted. You can revisit it below.