This Idol Volunteered For His Boy Group To Be Disbanded

A famous singer-songwriter from South Korea got candid about the earlier years of his career, revealing that he bravely volunteered for his former group to disband due to an unfortunate circumstance.

Lim Han-byul — professionally known as Onestar — was joined by KARA's Heo Young-ji in the latest episode of his first-ever music talk show, uploaded last Friday on Heyday's YouTube channel. There, the duo talked about their careers as music artists and reminisced on their years as trainees and newly debuted K-Pop stars.

Interestingly, the 34-year-old all-around musician revealed that he was once a member of an all-male K-Pop group that debuted under DSP Media in 2008, called A'ST1. The label was also the home to Young-ji's former group before it disbanded in 2016.

"I'll take a bit more about DSP, and we'll move on," Onestar told Young-ji, to which the latter responded, "It seems like you have a lot of dead weight inside you."

The "When Autumn Comes" singer then cooly responded that there was none before revealing what transpired between him and DSP. He shared, "We made a 7-year contract. But they told us in our second year that we might disband. So, I was the one to raise my hand [and say], 'Let's break the contract then,' then they did."

A'ST1, which stands for Asia Star Number 1, debuted with six members in 2008 with the single "1234 Back." At the time, it was labeled as a multi-national boy group whose members consisted of individuals from different nationalities, such as Korea, Japan and China. A year later, however, the group disbanded. Members included Onestar, Jungjin, Tomo, Haiming, Jangmoon and Inkyu.

Despite the disbandment, Onestar continued to pursue a career as a singer and ended up joining Monday Kiz. Originally a pop-vocal duo — consisting of Lee Jin-sung and Kim Min-soo, he became a vocalist for the group in 2010. Four years later, however, he left the group.

In 2018, he finally debuted as a solo artist and has become one of the most famous singers in the industry, thanks to his killer vocals. He has also worked behind the scenes, producing and composing music under Most Works Entertainment. He has worked with some of the biggest names in K-Pop, including EXO-CBX, Super Junior, Oh My Girl and NCT 127, among others.