LoudMouth

Circa '89-'91

Danny's Dancin' Days

It's hard to believe that Danny Wood ever thought of NOT joining NKOTB, but he did! Here's the LoudMouth scoop!

Believe it or not, Danny Wood almost didn't join New Kids on the Block way back! Why? Well, this sure-footed brunet really had his heart set on becoming a dancer!

"Back then, Danny was a breakdancer - a rapper," explains his mom,

Betty Wood. "He was in the group, Rock Against Racism and he felt that having both activities would be a big commitment. He was not sure if he could do the breakdancing after school and also do New Kids on the Block."

CHORUS KIDS

You see, Danny and his #1 pal, Donnie Wahlberg go back a long way, but for a while the guys didn't see much of each other. Danny was busy singing with the William Monroe Trotter School chorus, while Donnie was temporarily without a band. (The group he and Danny had started, The Kool Aid Bunch, had already folded.)

Meanwhile, Danny was getting really friendly with two brothers named Jonathan and Jordan Knight, who were also members of the chorus. In fact,

Danny and Jordan were so much into breakdancing that they taught it at summer camp one year.

"That seems so long ago," comments Danny when we ask him about that time. "We were group counselors who taught six to 10 year old kids how to dance. We taught them breakdancing and took them on trips. It was a lot of fun."

Right around that time, Maurice Starr (NKOTB's producer) met Donnie and knew that he was right for his new group. Did Donnie, perhaps, know any other guys from Boston interested in forming a group? Donnie, of course, did! He wanted all his friends - Jonathan, Jordan and Danny - to try out for the group, too. But Danny hesitated to join in at first.

"It was Donnie that finally convinced him," explains Betty Wood.

"Donnie's a good talker and he convinced Danny that he should at least try out, which he did."

The rest, as they say, is NKOTB history!