BTS almost didn’t have an “ARMY” to support them – instead, they would have had “Bells.”
On Tuesday (July 13), RM, Jin, Jimin, J-Hope, Jungkook, Suga and V were on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where they revealed that they initially planned to call their fanbase a completely different name.
“When you say BTS, it stands for ‘bangtan’ in Korean, not ‘behind-the scenes.’ I mean, for your information,” RM explained. “It stands for ‘bangtan,’ and when you say ‘bell’ in Korean, it sounds like ‘bang wool.’ It starts with the same word, ‘bang.'”
“So when we think of the fan name, someone brings up the idea, like, ‘What about the bell thing?’ Everybody rings their bells and [we’re] like, ‘Make some noise!’ and the Bells are like ‘ring-a-ling-a-ling,'” he continued. “But thank God that [it changed], ARMY is so much better.”
But that’s not the only piece of trivia they revealed. The boys shared one secret after another – like how V didn’t really plan on joining the K-Pop group at first. He actually went to the auditions to support a friend, but his friend didn’t get in. Also, he sleeps with his eye open.
And Jimin might have had a totally different stage name.
“So I had Baby J and Baby G as an option, but when I thought about saying, ‘Hi, I’m Baby J,’ that sounded really weird,” Jimin recalled. “So I just decided to go on with my real name.”
He also joked with host Jimmy Fallon about considering calling himself “Jimin Fallon.”
They also gave Ed Sheeran some “big love” for co-writing their latest single “Permission To Dance.”
“This is actually a gift of Ed Sheeran, of course, one of our friends. Mad respect, big love to Ed,” RM said. “… We can’t believe that we haven’t met him yet, and this is the second project with him.”
Jin thanked their fans for all their support. “It makes us obviously feel really good,” he said. “It means that a lot of people are listening to our music and they want us to keep working harder so they can give back a lot of this love that we’re receiving.”
As for when they’ll go on tour, Suga hopes it’ll be soon.
“We are not able to tour now, but we are looking forward to touring as much as our fans are looking forward to it. So when things do improve, we plan to go on tour and go on the road as soon as possible,” Suga said. “… We’ll be able to enjoy meeting our fans again just as much as our fans will enjoy meeting us again.”
