BTS’s band members—who include RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook—announced they are taking a hiatus in a video posted to social media on June 14.

“We’re each going to take some time to have fun and experience lots of things,” Jungkook said. “We promise we will return someday, even more mature than we are now.” As they celebrated their nine-year long journey, the music band shared with their fans that they are planning to take a break to focus on their individual interests.

Band leader RM or Namjoon said that the whole K-Pop Idol thing is a constant work, which doesn’t really give artistes time to focus on their own careers as solo performers, which is what they now intend to do with their break.“I always thought that BTS was different from other groups, but the problem with K-pop and the whole idol system is that they don’t give you time to mature. You have to keep producing music and keep doing something,” said the rapper. Meanwhile, Jimin said that this was a tough decision to take as they feel bad for letting down their fans in some respect. “We can’t help but think of our fans no matter what. We want to be the kind of artistes that are remembered by our fans. I think that’s why we are going through a rough patch right now. We are trying to find our identity and that’s an exhausting and long process.” Suga noted that the “hardest thing” lately has been writing lyrics and that “we need something to say … you can’t force it. I have to talk about something that I really feel, but right now I’m just squeezing it out because we have to satisfy people’s wants and the listeners … it’s so painful.”