For Seoul-based trio off the menu, there’s no such thing as staying in one lane.
Comprised of vocalist and synth player Jung Jun Ahn, synth player and drummer Seung Min Lee and bassist Ji Won Park, the band has spent years moving between indie pop, electronic, R&B, rock, synth-pop and everything in between. What began as three musicians finding their way together has grown into a sound that feels less interested in rules and more interested in following whatever feels right.
That freedom has carried off the menu from Seoul to stages across Taiwan, Japan and Australia, while their music has continued to evolve with them. Their latest album, Concrete Valley, became its own imagined city, inspired by the noise, speed and loneliness of Seoul while leaving room for warmth and love to exist within it.
(Image courtesy of off the menu)
Now, with “Radiohead” arriving Sep. 3 as the first single from their upcoming album Limerence, the trio is already stepping into something new, embracing a rougher indie-rock and bedroom-pop sound and giving themselves even more room to explore.
For Sweety High, off the menu sat down to reflect on their journey, their evolving sound and what comes next. With Limerence on the horizon, the trio is entering a new chapter without knowing exactly where it will lead—and that’s part of the excitement. Read our full interview with off the menu below.
Sweety High: For anyone discovering off the menu for the first time, who are you guys, and what should people know about you?
Jung Jun Ahn: We’re off the menu, a three-piece band based in Seoul. I think the easiest way to describe us is that we try to make music that can be enjoyed anywhere in the world, through all kinds of different genres.
We don’t really limit ourselves to one particular sound. We tend to put whatever emotions or sounds we’re feeling at the time into our music, so even within one album, you can find a pretty wide range of genres. We like the idea that it’s almost like a buffet. You can pick a song depending on what you feel like listening to that day.
Seung Min Lee: We started out making music that was heavily influenced by indie pop and electronic music, but over time we naturally moved through R&B, rock, synth-pop and a lot of other genres. We never really wanted to stay in one lane from the beginning, and I think that fits the name “off the menu” pretty well too.
SH: How did off the menu come together, and what made you want to create music together?
A: It actually started very naturally. Seung Min and I met through music, and we quickly realized that we had very similar taste but very different ways of making music. I think that contrast was what made it interesting. But now that we’ve been making music together for so long, it almost feels like telepathy. Sometimes we don’t even have to say anything and somehow we’re already making the same thing, haha.
L: At first, we just started making songs together without really thinking about what kind of band we were supposed to be, and eventually that naturally became off the menu. Ji Won joined later, and I think the band changed a lot in a good way after he came in. It started to feel less like a project and more like an actual band where each person has their own character.
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SH: What’s something you’ve learned about each other since starting off the menu that has made you better as a group?
Ji Won Park: I think we’ve learned when to trust each other and when to fight, haha. After making music together for such a long time, we know each other’s strengths really well. Sometimes one person might be hearing something that the others don’t hear yet.
In the past, we would all try to understand it immediately, but now we’re more comfortable just trusting that person and letting them take the lead. I think learning to trust each other like that has ultimately made our music better.
SH: How would you describe the music you’re making to someone who hasn’t heard you before?
L: That’s always a difficult question for us because every song is so different. But I’d say most of our music has a mixture of electronic and organic sounds, and melody is probably the most important thing for us. Some songs lean more toward indie pop or R&B, while others are much closer to electronic music or rock. So instead of recommending just one song, I’d rather have someone listen to a few completely different tracks. I think that gives you a much better idea of what off the menu is.
(Image courtesy of off the menu)
SH: You cover a lot of different emotions and subjects in your music. What makes a song feel like an off the menu song to you?
A: I think it’s more of a feeling than a particular sound. We’ve never really had a rule like, “An off the menu song has to have this.” Sometimes we make something completely different from anything we’ve done before, but somehow it still ends up feeling like us.
Maybe it’s the way we write melodies, the way we use synths and different textures, or this slightly bittersweet but warm feeling that keeps appearing in our music. I think those things connect all these very different songs together.
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SH: What does “Welcome to Concrete Valley” mean to you, and how does it fit into where off the menu is right now?
A: Concrete Valley is an imaginary city that we created for this album. It’s a place where nature, steel, glass, and endless concrete all exist together. A lot of the album came from our experience of living in a city like Seoul. The speed, the noise and those moments when you’re surrounded by so many people but somehow still feel completely alone.
But we didn’t want the album to be completely dark. We felt that even in an environment like that, things like warmth and love can still find a way to grow. So “Welcome to Concrete Valley” was basically our way of inviting people into this world we created.
SH: “Love Is a Shade of Blue” has such a different feeling from “Concrete Valley.” How important is it for you to leave room for different sides of off the menu in your music?
A: It’s very important. Concrete Valley is a project we’d been thinking about since 2023, but “Love Is a Shade of Blue” actually wasn’t originally part of it. We already had the instrumental for the song, and as I developed the idea of Concrete Valley, I realized that the song somehow fit more and more into the world I was imagining.
The album has a very clear emotional arc, and I think this song captures one of the strongest and most essential emotions for any living being, love, in its most intense form. At the same time, I don’t think every release has to sound like a direct continuation of the one before it. “Love Is a Shade of Blue” and Concrete Valley can feel completely different genre-wise and still exist within the same world.
SH: Is there a song you’ve made that feels especially personal to you? What makes that one stand out?
P: For us, it’s probably “Missing Calls.” Sometimes a song becomes personal because of the lyrics, but sometimes it becomes special because of the period of your life when you made it. It was also the first song that the three of us made together. Whenever I hear it, I can immediately remember what we were like at the time and everything that was happening around us. To me, it almost feels like a photograph that captured that period of our lives.
(Image courtesy of off the menu)
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SH: When you’re not making music, what are you guys usually doing? What’s something fans might be surprised to learn about you?
L: Honestly, even when we’re not making music, we’re usually doing something related to music, haha. We spend so much time together working that when we actually have a day off, we tend to do pretty normal things. We eat together, have a few drinks, watch something or look for new music. Outside of that, we all have our own things too.
P: I box, go running and take care of my plants.
A: I like cooking, shopping and probably watching way too much YouTube.
L: I like working out and cooking.
SH: Who are some artists you’re listening to right now, and is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
L: We’ve been listening to a lot of different things lately. Dorian Concept, Justin Bieber, Cochise, Two Shell, Omar Apollo and a bunch of others. For collaborations, I think it would be really fun to work with someone like Dominic Fike or Steve Lacy. But we’re also really interested in working with artists who come from completely different musical backgrounds from us.
Sometimes when two artists who make similar music work together, you can kind of imagine what the result might be. But when two completely different worlds meet, something unexpected can happen, and I think that’s much more exciting.
SH: What has been the biggest highlight of off the menu so far?
A: I think one of the biggest things has been being able to take our music outside of Korea and perform it in different parts of the world. We’ve played in places like Taiwan, Japan and Australia, and it still feels surreal when people in a completely different country sing along to songs that we made in a small room in Seoul.
Whenever that happens, it reminds me that music can travel much further than we ever imagined while we were making it.
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SH: What’s one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were first starting out in music?
A: I think I’d tell ourselves not to worry so much about what’s “right.” When we were younger, we thought a lot about what kind of music we were supposed to make, what a band was supposed to sound like and what people might expect from us. Over time, we realized that the most interesting things usually happen when we stop trying to do everything the “right” way. I wish we had figured that out a little earlier.
SH: What’s something you haven’t gotten to do yet as artists that you really want to experience?
L: We’d really like to tour more. Instead of flying somewhere, playing one festival, and immediately coming back to Korea, we want to experience a proper tour. Getting in a van and traveling through different cities and countries, playing shows night after night. We’d especially love to spend a longer period touring Europe or North America.
I think the experience of waking up in a different city every day and sharing our music with a different audience every night would have a huge influence on us as a band.
(Image courtesy of off the menu)
SH: What’s next for off the menu? Can you tease any new music, collaborations, performances, or projects that fans should be watching for?
A: We’re actually already moving into the next chapter. Our new single, “Radiohead,” comes out on Sep. 3, and it’s the first single from our upcoming album Limerence, which is scheduled for release next January.
After Concrete Valley, we wanted to loosen things up a little and make music more freely. “Radiohead” has a rougher indie-rock and bedroom-pop feel than our previous work, and the new album is already taking us somewhere completely different again. We can’t talk about everything yet, but we also have a few collaborations and shows in the works. So rather than thinking of Concrete Valley as an ending, it feels like we’re already building the next place.
For even more from the artists we can’t get enough of, click HERE to read our interview with Splayit on SPLAY: CHAPTER 01.
