An *N Side Look At The *NSYNC Phenomenon -- *N The Loop

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Date Posted: 21:55:57 07/30/01 Mon
Author: Gina
Subject: An *N Side Look At The *NSYNC Phenomenon

An *N Side Look At The *NSYNC Phenomenon
From reuters.com:

When you have music journalists from across the nation salivating over a puffy telephone news conference, you can safely be called a pop star. That is what J.C. Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick and Lance Bass of *NSYNC pulled off recently, as they hosted a 90-minute teleconference with rock scribes ranging from MTV and Spin to a host of daily newspapers, including The Buffalo News. It was held to help promote one of the summer's most eagerly awaited CD releases, "Celebrity," which is in stores today, the follow-up to last year's blockbuster, "No Strings Attached." Here is a round-up of what the quick-witted trio had to say to the journalists at the other end of the telephone lines:

J.C.: (opening statement) I would like to welcome everyone to the Jerry Lewis telethon and your donations are greatly appreciated.

What is happening with ticket prices and did you guys have any input into the prices for the Pop Odyssey Tour?
J.C.: We want to keep our ticket prices pretty reasonable. I think the most expensive one is like 50 bucks.
Lance: I think $65, actually.
J.C.: Well, the prices of tickets depend on the size of the stage and everything like that. The cost of the ticket compared to what it costs to run the show is definitely reasonable. That and it has to do a bit with inflation.

Can you talk about how you are dealing with the expectations for the new CD, not only artistically but sale wise?
Chris: All we can deal with is artistically.
J.C.: Right now we are just hoping it goes well. We are getting the audience reactions because we are playing half of the album on the tour before it came out. So far we like the reaction we are getting. As far as breaking the record ("No Strings Attached" holds the biggest first week sales record at 2.4 million), I don't know if we are going to break it. But then again it is a nice position to be in that you don't have to break your own record.

To what extent do you feel limited by the genre you are in?
J.C.: Actually, I think we do just the opposite. I don't think we are limited at all. We've done songs with so many different styles of artists - Phil Collins, Gloria Estefan, Brian McKnight to Stevie Wonder to Richard Marx. We are actually very, very lucky that we get to play pop, because pop crosses over into R&B, pop-rock, dance-pop, everything. So we are actually in the driver's seat as far as stretching out musically.
Chris: We are trying to keep the sound innovative, too. And keep it interesting. We don't want to be stuck with the sound that we had five years ago, or two years ago.
Lance: Yeah, we don't want to release "Bye, Bye, Bye" part two (laughing).
Chris: We want to keep changing our sound and what the album sounds like so people are interested in coming out and buying it again - or moving on with us. And hopefully a lot of other people will start to go in our direction.
Lance: And we also know that (with) our core audience out there, we wouldn't do songs with explicit lyrics and that type of stuff. We do feel we have that obligation to at least make the parents happy so they will let their kids listen to our music.

What are your thoughts on what's going on with A.J. (McLean of Backstreet Boys who is in rehab for alcohol abuse and depression)?
J.C.: I really don't know what to say about that, except for I hope he gets better. It's kinda sad he has a problem like that and I wish the guy the best. I hope he pulls it together. At least he's admitted to himself that he has a problem and that's the first step.
Lance: Our prayers are with him, you know.

You guys outdid yourselves even beyond "No Strings Attached" (with this tour). Do you think you have reached the limit of what you can do on stage live and isn't the next step going back to a bare stage and having five guys sing a capella?
J.C.: We have definitely thrown around a bunch of ideas of what we are even going to do next because this is the largest stage production of all time. So, we are going to have to downsize. I don't think that's going to limit the show at all. Right now, the stadiums are big, so we have more space to run around, but I still think we can always have the gags and everything like that ... We are just going to have to be creative. And instead of playing one or two nights in a stadium, maybe we will play three or four nights in an arena. As far as playing raw shows, there's definitely going to be some of that in the future.

Could you compare what commercial vs. critical success means to you?
Chris: The commercial success is awesome and that comes mostly from our fans and their willingness to go out and buy things like T-shirts and posters, and come out to the shows. From the press, we have just been laughing at (negative reviews) all along. We take everything that people say about us with a grain of salt, whether it's good or bad. We will read all of the reviews, but we say we never listen to it when they tell us we're doing good and we never listen to it when they tell us we're doing bad. We are just out here to perform, have a good time, and when people realize that we are musicians first, I think that's when a lot of people will stop hating us just for the fact that we have had such great commercial success. Like J.C. was talking about with the venues, if we move back to just do a theater tour it would be great for us because then we can say, "Look, we are musicians. This is why we are doing it. This is what we love to do.'

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