New Kids - British Article

By JACQUI SWIFT

Published: 07 Aug 2008

REMEMBER 1989 when Madonna topped the singles charts with Like A Prayer, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade was a box-office smash, Liverpool beat Everton 3–2 in the FA Cup Final and the Berlin Wall came down?

Well for pre-pubescent girls, the year meant only one thing: the arrival of New Kids On The Block (cue hysterical screaming).

Brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Donnie Wahlberg, Joey McIntyre, and Danny Wood — five buff guys from Boston who had the Right Stuff with their shiny white teeth, falsetto vocals, street fashion and slinky dance moves.

Fast forward 19 years and SFTW are in Burbank, California, 12 miles outside West Hollywood, at a rehearsal studio where the five are gearing up for their forthcoming world tour and release of their comeback album, titled, well what else but The Block.

The New Kids are all now fathers in their mid to late thirties but still have their boyish good looks and blinding smiles.

Crush

Toned and fit, they arrive full of smiles, kisses and hugs apart from Jon, who is clearly in pain after a visit to his chiropractor.

One female journalist with me is giddy with excitement about meeting her old idols and arrives clutching an old NKOTB tour programme from yesteryear. I’m told other interviewers have brought old pillows, records and photos from the height of the New Kids hysteria to be signed.

However, not the right age to have a crush on them the first time around, I arrive empty handed. Keen to let the PR know that I won’t be fainting when I meet the band, I remind her for the third time I was never a fan. I am just curious to see what all the fuss is about.

And there has been a BIG fuss about their comeback.

Two weeks after announcing their first US arena tour in almost 15 years, additional shows were added, with tickets selling at a rate of 6,000 a day.

Their first New York date sold out in just six minutes, Toronto in four minutes and a string of home town gigs in Boston in under ten minutes. “Our shows will be nostalgia sprinkled with a joyous newness,” Donnie tells me.

“I would not be here if everyone didn’t agree to do the new album. No way.

“I was on a movie set working with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, things were going great.”

Like his younger brother Mark, Donnie ventured into acting after NKOTB finally split in 1994 as well as continuing to work as a producer.

He’s acted in films including The Sixth Sense and Ransom and TV series Band of Brothers. Attempts to reunite NKOTB were made long before comebacks became the new trend.

In 1999, MTV tried to get them back for the VMAs but Jonathan declined while in 2004, Joey, Danny and Donnie refused to reform for VH1’s Bands Reunited.

Jordan, who had solo success after the band split, explains: “It worked this time for all of us because it wasn’t a TV show or a fast-talking promoter trying to put us together. It was five guys, ready to do it, talking together from the ground up.”

Joey, who has starred in hit Broadway shows, adds: “We accomplished a lot as a pop group and we take pride in what we did. That’s why if we were going to do this again it had to be in a way we’d all be proud of.”

“It’s about respect,” adds Donnie. “We can go out and try to earn the respect of the world but at the end of the day we have to be able to respect ourselves.

“When we walk away from this, this time we’re going to be in our forties. There’ll be no comeback after that. We won’t be able to regret anything but be able to feel good about reforming and make an album we feel really good about.”

NKOTB saw collaborators queuing up to work with them. Akon, New Edition, Timbaland, The Pussycat Dolls and Ne-Yo all feature on The Block (but not Michael Jackson or Madonna as was rumoured). These famous friends have contributed to the reformed NKOTB’s fresher urban pop style. Tracks worth a mention include Summertime, with its breezy feel-good vibe, Sexify My Love — which is pure Justin Timberlake — and Single, which is full of attitude.

Storm

But the album’s best track is Click, Click, Click, a laid-back dreamy ballad penned by unknown singer–songwriter Nazeree.

Donnie explains: “That track really was the perfect storm. I was in such a bad place last summer as my marriage was breaking up and I heard that song and it inspired me. It felt perfect and gave me the incentive to go in another direction.

“Acting is great but I had a lot of energy and emotion going through me and music is a more rapid response than acting. It’s the song that got us back together.”

NKOTB were a massive phenomenon and set the scene for bands like Backstreet Boys, Take That, Boyzone and *NSYNC.

NKOTB sold more than 70million albums, won countless awards and at one point earned more than Madonna and Michael Jackson through tickets and merchandise which included NKOTB dolls, T-shirts, lunchboxes and even fluffy slippers.

“Aaah the pink fluffy slippers,” laughs Joey. “They were a little much. Did we wear them? Are you kidding?!”

The boys admit that the stratospheric level of fame they achieved had its downsides.

Danny, who stayed working in music and starred on reality TV after the split, reveals: “I remember the very first time we had thousands of fans show up to see us in Fresno, California. We are all still amazed by that. The fans were on the roof tops, everywhere, just to catch a glimpse.

“We were on the biggest tour of our career but the flip side to that was I was the most unhappy that I had been within the group.

“Everything that was happening, the whole machine, the merchandising, got out of control.

“We were so young and we didn’t know how to reel that all in. We did eventually and of course now we have everything under control but it was not fun like the other tours. The tours after that were more fun.”

Crazy

Donnie adds: “Yep, we had fans everywhere, outside our houses and it got a little crazy at times but sometimes when you feel like a bag of sh*t, you’d walk outside and they’d say hi and it would really fill your soul.”

So who do the band see as their fans today?

Jon, who also runs a successful real estate company, says: “It’s funny, I just got a text from one of my tenants and she said her four-year old and her friend heard us on the radio and both said they loved the song. So I guess we have fans new and old, the original ones plus those too young the first time who are discovering us for the first time.”

“I have this analogy about our shows before and after,” says Donnie. “For our old concerts they were like women who we had sex with like rabbits. Now our shows are women who we make love to.

It’s a controlled energy but there’s nothing that dancewise is challenging, everyone’s in great shape, everyone’s stayed healthy and it’s all looking good.”

There are no egos on show today from the New Kids and although I was never someone who screamed at the mere mention of their name, as they leave the studio for a quick game of basketball, I’m happy to have met the down-to-earth, friendly bunch.