It’s make or break time for *NSYNC. With the release of their third album Celebrity just weeks away, and the first single from it, Pop, currently on the radio, these five lads are perched at the crossroads of their careers.
If the new material is the smash hit it deserves to be, *NSYNC stands poised to be one of the most successful acts in the history of popular music. But if they fail, more than one critic will be rubbing their hands with glee.
In many ways, *NSYNC it its own greatest enemy. The last album, No Strings Attached, sold 2.44 million copies in its first week of sale, a record that still stands. If the band fails to break it – however unfair – the knives will be out.
So the pressure is definitely cranked to bursting point for Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick and Joey Fatone.
The big question is, have they delivered?
Well, if Pop is indicative of the quality of the album, Celebrity is set to become one of the greatest pop albums ever. At the very least, it blows bands like Backstreet Boys out of the water. It will be a defining moment in pop.
Drawing inspiration from the best pop artists of the 80s, Michael Jackson and Prince – Pop updates them for the noughties with the help of the millennium’s hottest producer, BT. As inventive as it is infectious, Pop is hands down the best single since, well, Bye Bye Bye.
Part hip-hop, part R&B and part dance, Pop is the sound of a band intent on breaking down the barriers of what’s cool and what’s not.
Not just another boy band, *NSYNC is dangerously close to being known as the best band in the world.
TV HITS caught up with the band during a rehearsal break on their incredible PopOdyssey tour in the US…
Hey guys, it’s great to see you all again. Let’s start with the big questions. How much pressure are you under to top the success of No Strings Attached?
JUSTIN: There’s no pressure. I think we all sat around and added up like, 112 family members. So if we don’t sell 112 records we’re going to be disappointed. But if we sell 113 we’ll be happy!
JC: We’re not trying to copy what we did last time, I mean, all that we can do is put out another record and hit the road. We’re not trying to emulate out last album. We’re trying to create something new and kind of be re-born, I guess. We feel that this album is definitely a step in the right direction. It’s a great record that we put together.
What’s the story behind the album title – Celebrity?
JUSTIN: There are two reasons we picked the title. One, we had a song written that was called Celebrity. But we also thought, “How ironic!” ‘cause we totally do not look at ourselves as celebrities.
LANCE: It pokes fun at ourselves.
JUSTIN: We just think it’s funny that this whole business is looked at as a glamorous thing, because this never ends for us. I mean, people watch us on television and then they go to sleep. But after that, we’re rehearsing and doing interview. We’re kind of poking fun at the whole idea of celebrity, that’s why we picked the title.
How do you cope with fame?
CHRIS: We have our own trailers sitting around here with our own stuff and personal assistants.
JUSTIN: We always have each other to go through that with.
LANCE: We’re very grounded, we have great families that ground us and we surround ourselves with great people.
We noticed you’ve also stopped talking to a lot of press about your personal lives. Is that because fame has become too intrusive?
LANCE: No, it’s because we have so many things to talk about besides out personal lives right now. We don’t have time to fit it in.
JUSTIN: Another thing is that so many things get misconstrued. We’d rather worry about business things and interviews than what someone is saying about our personal lives.
CHRIS: I think the trick about that is the fact that we really don’t have personal lives! [laughs] If you asked us a personal question, you’d stump us!
Justin, has it been hard to have a normal relationship with Britney when you’re both so famous?
JUSTIN: Um, sort of, yeah. But I think for the most part when we get together, it’s just important that we do normal things that people our age in a relationship would do. We try to make things as normal as we can – go to the coffee shop, go to the basketball game together, do normal things.
Would you say you lead normal lives when you’re not performing?
ALL: Yeah!
CHRIS: [Joking] No, we actually have… I think my house is, like, a $30.60million dollar house…
JC: There’s a stage in the living room…
CHRIS: And there’s a crowd of people that follows us everywhere we go. We also have gold ceramic toilets!
JUSTIN: Really, we do lead normal lives. I mean, we try to go to the movies as much as we can, when we do get the chance to. We go to clubs and we clean our rooms.
You’ve made millions and millions of dollars. How do you spend it all?
CHRIS: You want to know where all our money went? [points to the stage] There it is! Let’s see, those speakers over there are the first two years of Joey’s life, and that one right there is a year and a half of Justin’s hard work!
JC: Actually, what we get out of things, we put right back into things. Just because, believe it or not, we’re not about the money, we’re more about out art and things like that. That’s why we’ve always stepped up to the plate and kind of put our money where out mouths are.
Can you tell us what we can expect from the album?
JUSTIN: Well, the first single Pop is a totally different sound. It’s something we’ve never done before. The sound is kind of like The Matrix meets *NSYNC. I mean, it’s a visual sound. We just took the style of our sound and twisted it a little bit.
JC: It’s a high-energy record, that’s for sure. It’s a lot of fun, it’s an eclectic listen – it’s got a little bot of everything in it.
It sounds like nothing we’ve ever heard before! You’ve called your sound Dirty Pop – what does that actually mean?
JUSTIN: I think pop is obviously the style of our sound, and the edginess of our sounds and the grip of the beats and how it almost sounds like it can be used for hip-hop kind of makes it dirty.
Would you describe this album as experimental?
JUSTIN: I think our sound is like the Beach Boys and the Beatles. Their vocal sound stayed the same and I think we want to keep that, because we like our vocal sound. But we want to do different things, we want to experiment now.
What we love about you guys is that you don’t seem to take yourselves as seriously as say, the Backstreet Boys.
JC: Man, we make fun of ourselves!
CHRIS: [laugh] We love it, bring it on, look at us! If you can’t make fun of this, you’ve got problems!
Do you ever think of life beyond *NSYNC?
JC: We’re looking at this as if it’s a long-term goal. I mean, we want music to be our careers. Everybody has their day to day jobs, they go to work and they do it for a long time and that’s what we hope we are going to do with this. We want to look at this as our jobs, and we do have long-term goals.
You’re five very different people. What’s the glue that keeps you together?
JC: Actually, what’s good about us five is that we each have our own part. You know, it’s weird how it works. Vocally, it fits the bill and it definitely accents us when we perform live as well. Everybody has got their own style and it fits them and makes the jigsaw puzzle work.
Can you tell us which rock legends come and bring their kids to your concerts and then come backstage?
JC: Some of the rock stars don’t want us to say who they are.
Why?
ALL: Because it will ruin their image.
JUSTIN: Janet [Jackson].
JC: Janet
JUSTIN: We get autographs the whole time.
CHRIS: We’re worse than little kids in front of them. We stutter and say, “You’re the coolest!”
Your concert looks amazing. Lasers, moving stages… it’s like a motion picture onstage!
CHRIS: It’s the biggest production ever, that’s what we’ve been told.
JC: The stage behind us is another dream that we’ve had and we’re always trying to create good visuals with our music. We’ve always been proud of our stage performances and we always try to take it to the next level because even when we’re making the music, we actually see it at the same time. We’re very visual people.
What music are you listening to at the moment?
JC: I’m listening to Janet’s greatest hits, Design of a Decade
JUSTIN: Journey and the Black Eyed Peas. And I just got Destiny’s Child new CD.
LANCE: Oh yeah that’s what I have been listening to!
CHRIS: Oh yeah, good answer. I’ll take that too!
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