Speaker 1: I've always been curious about what massive fame does to
Speaker 1: the frontal lobe that is still being formed. And I
Speaker 1: don't I mean, I don't even know if that is
Speaker 1: a thing that you can pull yourself outside of yourself
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 2: You know, you're in a candy store, so you want
Speaker 2: more candy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: This is a very special episode of Waiting for Impact,
Speaker 1: because that is Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the Block.
Speaker 1: If we're talking about boy band pop stars of the
Speaker 1: early nineties, there is no bigger get. He was at
Speaker 1: the pinnacle, the absolute best case scenario for the kind
Speaker 1: of fame Sudden Impact we're preparing themselves for for a
Speaker 1: few years, peeking it. Right around the time Sudden Impact
Speaker 1: was pointing, Atcha and Hayden and Vette Nicole Brown were
Speaker 1: singing for Michael Bivens and his Sheraton Hotel lobby. New
Speaker 1: Kids on the Block were something more than just popular.
Speaker 1: They were like multi platinum album stad h tour, deafening
Speaker 1: screams of girls in the throes of puberty, huge massive
Speaker 1: until they weren't. So then what happens.
Speaker 2: You're spiritually, physically, mentally handed cupcakes all day long, so
Speaker 2: you think that's what's feeding you. So how else am
Speaker 2: I what's the biggest cupcake?
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety one, Joey was on top of the world.
Speaker 1: But when you're on top of the world, there's really
Speaker 1: only one direction you can go.
Speaker 2: When you're so high and you're at the top, any
Speaker 2: little slip feels like it's it's over, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean? And yeah, so and that's how it's almost
Speaker 2: like it was like a party, you know. So for
Speaker 2: for me as like a kid, you know, a young kid,
Speaker 2: I was like.
Speaker 3: Oh man, the party's over. But wait, why what what?
Speaker 2: And my my buddies are like, yeah, man, I'm not
Speaker 2: feeling it. Man, I'm going home, and I'm like.
Speaker 3: But but it was still what do you mean? Like
Speaker 3: people are here and music, you know, and they're.
Speaker 1: Like, Joey got the fame and fortune that sudden impact
Speaker 1: were after. So while I wait to find out if
Speaker 1: Aaron King is going to get back to me, if
Speaker 1: I can stop myself from screaming at Joey McIntyre, I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk to Joey McIntyre about it, find out
Speaker 1: if life as a teen idol was all that it
Speaker 1: was made out to be and find out what it
Speaker 1: did to him and what you do when the party's
Speaker 1: over and you're twenty one.
Speaker 2: When you're fed a certain thing that's what you think
Speaker 2: is going to sustain you, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: until you figure something else out.
Speaker 1: This is waiting for impact. A Dave Holmes Passion project.
Speaker 2: I join New Kids on the Block at twelve. And
Speaker 2: by the way, is that you're a dog because that
Speaker 2: was on the list. That is my that was on
Speaker 2: the list that was Yeah, make sure we love you guys.
Speaker 1: Joey McIntyre is busting my chops because when we book
Speaker 1: a guest, we send an email telling them to record
Speaker 1: from a quiet place in their house, maybe put their
Speaker 1: dogs in a crate. And I didn't put my dog
Speaker 1: in a crate, and now my dog is barking. Joey
Speaker 1: is also busting my chops because he's from Boston and
Speaker 1: as we have established, that is what they do there.
Speaker 1: But in my place in Los Angeles it is very noisy.
Speaker 1: There's also there are people I think building a home
Speaker 1: from scratch, like ten feet from my backyard. This is
Speaker 1: an absolute sonic nightmare of a day. We'll fix it.
Speaker 1: We'll fix it.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I'll fix it in post. Joey's in a parked car
Speaker 1: outside his New York City apartment because he's got kids
Speaker 1: and that's as quiet a place as he can find.
Speaker 1: The idea of Joey McIntyre just being out there in public,
Speaker 1: unguarded is crazy to me because I'm old enough to
Speaker 1: remember when he was a teen idol back in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one. The site of Joey McIntyre would make girls
Speaker 1: look use their minds. It all started with a ballad
Speaker 1: called Please Don't Go Girl in nineteen eighty eight, and
Speaker 1: as Joey notices a framed photograph of a New York
Speaker 1: City landmark behind me in my office, I learned something
Speaker 1: I did not know about the video for that song.
Speaker 3: Oh my God. Now I'm saying is that CBGB's.
Speaker 1: CBGB in the Bowery in New York City was ground
Speaker 1: zero for New York City punk music in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: It was full of noise and heroin and vomit. If
Speaker 1: you think about the CBGB bathroom too hard, you get hepatitis.
Speaker 3: Fun fact, that's where we did our first video, CBGB's
Speaker 3: Yes a Pop boy Band at CBGB's Please don't go, girl.
Speaker 1: Stop this. Swear to God, you stop that.
Speaker 3: I know, isn't that wild?
Speaker 1: In CBG Nobb's.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so the next time you see that, you'll know
Speaker 2: and you might recognize it.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's funnier the fact that Joey McIntyre
Speaker 1: thinks I watch New Kids on the Block videos regularly
Speaker 1: or the fact that he's right. But there you go.
Speaker 1: The tender ballad that launched the great American boy band
Speaker 1: of the eighties and nineties was filmed on the stage
Speaker 1: that gave us the Ramones and television Now it's a
Speaker 1: John Varvados and now so weird. What's actually weird is
Speaker 1: that I have a framed photograph of CVGB hanging in
Speaker 1: my office because I used to live very close to
Speaker 1: it in New York City and I never went even
Speaker 1: once because I was scared. But Please don't Go, Girl
Speaker 1: blew up and the hits kept coming for about three years.
Speaker 1: New Kids were the pop group. Joey's a good example
Speaker 1: of someone whose plans for pop music success did pan out.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to talk to him about the whole
Speaker 1: ride and whether he's glad he took it and my
Speaker 1: friends Joey gets real.
Speaker 2: I joined New Kids on the Block when I was twelve. Okay,
Speaker 2: it wasn't a cattle call. It wasn't a big American
Speaker 2: idol search. I think a total of eight people auditioned,
Speaker 2: so it wasn't a huge deal at the time. And
Speaker 2: you know, for the first three years, we really although
Speaker 2: we got to go into a studio and record, we
Speaker 2: were really just you know, as an after school thing.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty four, after New Edition came back home
Speaker 1: from their first world tour and were mailed to check
Speaker 1: in the amount of one dollar and eighty seven cents
Speaker 1: for their work, the group fired their manager, Maurice Starr.
Speaker 1: Starr responded by holding auditions for a new vocal group
Speaker 1: five members, just like New Audition, but white. He found
Speaker 1: five guys. Joey was the last to join. They called
Speaker 1: themselves Nanook at first, and they got signed to Columbia Records,
Speaker 1: and Columbia Records said change that name. Track one on
Speaker 1: side two of their debut album became their new name,
Speaker 1: New Kids on the Block. That first album came out
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six. It was marketed to R and
Speaker 1: B radio stations and it tanked.
Speaker 2: I mean that being said, when I was fifteen, we
Speaker 2: got a break and we were gone.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, they released a second album, Hanging Tough.
Speaker 1: It too was pushed to black audiences and it two tanked.
Speaker 1: At least at first Columbia Records was getting ready to them,
Speaker 1: and then Q one o five, a top forty station
Speaker 1: in Tampa, Florida, began playing Please Don't Go Girl, and
Speaker 1: their listeners began requesting it, so Q one o five
Speaker 1: now started playing it a lot. Columbia changed their marketing
Speaker 1: strategy and began to push the record at top forty stations.
Speaker 1: It worked. The album Hanging Tough went on to sell
Speaker 1: fourteen million copies. That, of course, is the title track
Speaker 1: from Hanging Tough. And if you were alive and under
Speaker 1: twenty years old in nineteen eighty nine, your arms are
Speaker 1: up over your head right now. You're waving them back
Speaker 1: and forth. You can't help it. It's a reflex action.
Speaker 1: The album Hanging Tough put five singles into the top ten.
Speaker 1: In a flash. New Kids on the Block became huge.
Speaker 1: How huge Christmas album?
Speaker 2: We know what?
Speaker 4: Millions of girls all over the world want Santa to bring.
Speaker 1: Them for Christmas.
Speaker 4: My next guest performing the hit single Funky Funky.
Speaker 1: Christmas from their platinum Albune Marry Merry Christmas, Please Welcome
Speaker 1: the New Kids of the Life. Yep, that was Arsenio Hall.
Speaker 1: I just really wanted you to know about Funky Funky Christmas.
Speaker 1: But New Kids' popularity was a very specific kind of popularity,
Speaker 1: and so then for those next several years, it was
Speaker 1: just adoration for you. I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 5: Yes, you know what comes into my mind is like, yes,
Speaker 5: of course, of course you know it was adoration, but
Speaker 5: you're also it's also us against the world, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's like when you're coming up and I want to say,
Speaker 2: it seems more so back then because it feels more romantic.
Speaker 3: It's almost like a movie, like we're going to show
Speaker 3: the world. You know. I don't mean this in.
Speaker 2: A heartless way, because we were defending ourselves back then
Speaker 2: a lot, some of us more than others, you know,
Speaker 2: But like it's called life, you know, it's called life
Speaker 2: where humans on the earth, we're not perfect. We give
Speaker 2: each other a hard time, like you know, back then,
Speaker 2: we didn't have any.
Speaker 3: Critics on our side, you know what I mean? But
Speaker 3: we had the greatest fans in the world.
Speaker 1: Those fans, mostly very young girls, would go on to
Speaker 1: buy over seventy million New Kids records in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: New Kids were on top. So where personally was Joey?
Speaker 1: Who was Joey McIntyre in nineteen ninety one?
Speaker 2: Oh boy, You know, I hesitate because of course you
Speaker 2: want the truth and you just want whatever it feels genuine.
Speaker 3: You know, I want to say something perfect.
Speaker 2: I want to say that I was X in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety one, and it fits in perfect with the fact
Speaker 2: that I was in one of the biggest pop bands
Speaker 2: in the world at the time, and you know, really
Speaker 2: at the height and playing stadiums, and you know, certainly
Speaker 2: before we kind of like imploded in our beautiful way.
Speaker 2: But ninety one, you know, I was eighteen. I was
Speaker 2: a little bird man, you know. I there is definitely
Speaker 2: some arrested development as far as I am concerned, and
Speaker 2: I think that has a lot to do with being
Speaker 2: very busy and famous as a teenager.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said there was some arrested development.
Speaker 3: What do you mean, Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I say that in comparison to
Speaker 2: what I see kids now and how full they are
Speaker 2: as people at such a young age.
Speaker 3: I don't see myself that way.
Speaker 2: I think again, maybe that was just because I didn't
Speaker 2: go to high school and I didn't have the normal
Speaker 2: teenage angsty journey of figuring things out at the same time.
Speaker 2: Every time we hear about high school, everyone refers to
Speaker 2: it as the worst time in their lives.
Speaker 3: So I mean, I don't Maybe I.
Speaker 1: Dodged a bullet there, but I.
Speaker 3: Don't know it. Just a lot happened to me at
Speaker 3: that age.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I know you now, and you are well
Speaker 1: adjusted and put together as far as I can tell.
Speaker 1: You're laughing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: New Kids' third album, step by Step, came out in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, and it sold three million copies. Still a
Speaker 1: big hit, just a lot fewer millions than Hanging Tough.
Speaker 1: It was a precarious time for the band, and they
Speaker 1: got offered a huge and risky gig. Tell me about
Speaker 1: the super Bowl halftime show.
Speaker 3: Oh geez.
Speaker 1: From today's perspective, the super Bowl halftime show seems like
Speaker 1: a real coup, a spot for a Springsteen or a
Speaker 1: U two or a Katie Perran Left Shark. Now it's
Speaker 1: a gig that puts an official stamp on you, says
Speaker 1: you are iconic. But up until nineteen ninety one, no
Speaker 1: current pop stars had ever played the halftime show. Pre
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, it was still up with People or
Speaker 1: the Grambling State Marching Band or I'm serious here Carol Channing.
Speaker 1: The nineteen ninety halftime show featured Master of Presta digitation
Speaker 1: Elvis Presto, doing a three D card trick. Sponsored by
Speaker 1: diet Coke. The super Bowl is the biggest television event
Speaker 1: of the year, more than one hundred million pairs of
Speaker 1: eyes on you. I mean, that's the peak.
Speaker 3: No, that was the cliff.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety one, New Kids had just come off
Speaker 1: their Magic Summer Tour sponsored by Coke, one of the
Speaker 1: biggest selling tours of the decade. There were New Kids
Speaker 1: on the Block t shirts, there were New Kids on
Speaker 1: the Block lunchboxes, there were New Kids on the Block dolls.
Speaker 1: There was a New Kids on the Block Saturday Morning
Speaker 1: cartoon for God's Sake, and then my favorite, there was
Speaker 1: a New Kids on the Block hotline nine hundred nine
Speaker 1: oh nine five Kids are New Kids on the Block.
Speaker 1: Fans could call and listen to a recording two dollars
Speaker 1: for the first minute, forty five cents each additional minute
Speaker 1: under eighteen, ask your parents for permission call, And just
Speaker 1: to give you a sense of how this thing was
Speaker 1: being marketed, I need you to hear this line from
Speaker 1: Joey McIntyre. You know, we're not too young to fall
Speaker 1: in love.
Speaker 2: And if you don't wanted the special callers, you get
Speaker 2: to talk to us live.
Speaker 1: Hang on the line at forty five cents each additional minute,
Speaker 1: and eventually I might come on and fall in love
Speaker 1: with you. New kids were raking it in, but all
Speaker 1: that money wasn't free.
Speaker 2: Everything happened so fast, you know, so when we talk
Speaker 2: about you know, we started talking about us at CBGB's
Speaker 2: and you think, what are new kids on the block
Speaker 2: filming a video and one of the most hallowed rock
Speaker 2: and roll clubs of all time.
Speaker 3: But like we were city kids, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: We were a black and white movie, you know.
Speaker 2: And you look at those first four videos and they're
Speaker 2: completely genuine, and they they that's.
Speaker 3: What drew people to us.
Speaker 2: And then you know, the business said, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: your fans are five years old. Your colors should be fluorescent,
Speaker 2: pink and green, and yellow, not black and white. And
Speaker 2: then by the six months later, we said, why are
Speaker 2: their slippers with our face on them?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? Like?
Speaker 2: And we was still at any era in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety that like, it just got away from us.
Speaker 2: And it didn't mean that the managers were bad people.
Speaker 2: They weren't trying to steal from us. It just got
Speaker 2: away from us and happened too fast.
Speaker 1: New kids on the Block wanted to grow up. The
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one Super Bowl halftime show was marketed as
Speaker 1: the first all Kids Halftime show, A small world salute
Speaker 1: to twenty five years of the Super Bowl, brought to
Speaker 1: you by Walt Disney World, and it is something else.
Speaker 1: A cast of actual children, small children playing cheerleaders, referees,
Speaker 1: and players in a choreographed SLA appstick football game coached
Speaker 1: by Roger Rabbit and Goofy people in Chippendale Rescue Rangers
Speaker 1: costumes do the Running Man to MC hammers, you can't
Speaker 1: touch this. A five year old boy with a bowl
Speaker 1: cut sings win Beneath My Wings to the men and
Speaker 1: women of the Armed Forces. And then new Kids on
Speaker 1: the Block come out and literally two thousand children in
Speaker 1: the costumes of our small world run at them. As
Speaker 1: I watch this, I realize this halftime show is why
Speaker 1: we now have halftime shows with Springsteen and YouTube and
Speaker 1: Katy Perry and Left Shark. This one is corny. This
Speaker 1: is the one that makes the NFL say, how about
Speaker 1: we change course? Here? New Kids on the Block had
Speaker 1: the same discussion.
Speaker 2: We didn't want to be performing with Mickey Mouse, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. I had just turned eighteen. The
Speaker 2: rest of the guys were twenty one, twenty two.
Speaker 1: That's a big difference.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they were ready to move on in a lot
Speaker 6: of ways and you know, not be seen in that way,
Speaker 6: and so, you know, in many ways, it was that
Speaker 6: classic thing of.
Speaker 2: You know, the stress of the outer world was coming
Speaker 2: in and it was really nothing personal. We stuck together
Speaker 2: and we've certainly obviously over the years, have respected and
Speaker 2: loved one another.
Speaker 3: I mean, we just kind of lucked out. But you know,
Speaker 3: we didn't want to be there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: We didn't want to be in you know, white and
Speaker 2: Gold and have Mickey Mouse and thousand and five year
Speaker 2: olds running behind us, like we wanted to maybe not
Speaker 2: rock out, but like do it a little differently so,
Speaker 2: but the wave had already showed up.
Speaker 3: And do you say no to the Super Bowl halftime show?
Speaker 1: This was the Super Bowl when Whitney Houston sang the
Speaker 1: national anthem and it went to number one. It was
Speaker 1: at the height of Operation Desert Storm, the original Iraq War.
Speaker 1: Before they rebooted the franchise in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: America had war fever. In nineteen ninety one, newscasters like
Speaker 1: Arthur Kent and I Swear to God Wolf Blitzer became
Speaker 1: heart throbs and in wartime, if you're lucky, sometimes you
Speaker 1: dodge a bullet. ABC, who aired the Super Bowl that year,
Speaker 1: knew how good war is for ratings, so at the
Speaker 1: end of the first half they cut away to a
Speaker 1: news package about Operation Desert Storm. They didn't air the
Speaker 1: halftime show. Some ABC affiliates did air the halftime show
Speaker 1: after the game, but most didn't. Most just went to
Speaker 1: the premiere of the big new comedy that the network
Speaker 1: was so proud of they gave it the plumb post
Speaker 1: super Bowl spot, Davis Rules, starring Randy Quaid and Jonathan Winters.
Speaker 1: New Kids on the Block got the biggest stage in
Speaker 1: the world, on the highest rated television event of the year,
Speaker 1: in a show that was extremely corny and almost nobody
Speaker 1: saw it. But the tension in the group was growing
Speaker 1: and the culture was changing. As Chris Malanfei told us
Speaker 1: in the last episode, the pop charts were beginning to
Speaker 1: more accurately reflect America's tastes in music. We were starting
Speaker 1: to want something darker, more experimental. The alternative radio format
Speaker 1: artists like Nirvana, Pearl Jams, Soundgarden was blowing up. Hip
Speaker 1: hop was going mainstream, and the music New Kids on
Speaker 1: the Block was releasing wasn't cutting it.
Speaker 3: MTV just almost changed, like you know, overnight.
Speaker 1: It really did. It really did, And I'm wondering what
Speaker 1: that feels like to a massive pop act. Did you
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, oh boy, we might not be a
Speaker 1: part of what's next.
Speaker 2: No, I think, you know, I think it's more specific.
Speaker 2: I think I think our journey is just more personal.
Speaker 2: When you talk about the music and you think of
Speaker 2: the Hanging Tough album and the way we recorded that record,
Speaker 2: with the soul and the integrity and the time and
Speaker 2: the fun and the work it, you know, we never
Speaker 2: felt like, wow, how did that happen? Like we knew
Speaker 2: that we put the work in and then, you know,
Speaker 2: because it was like everything else, because we were so popular,
Speaker 2: you got to rush out the next album. You know,
Speaker 2: ours do that all the time, and they still do.
Speaker 2: They still do, you know, and they swear it's a
Speaker 2: good album, but everyone's everybody and everyone plays along with it,
Speaker 2: but it's not.
Speaker 3: Really as good as the one that really took off.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's like you get a freeze in, like Billy listen, listen,
Speaker 2: let me, let me get whatever, because no one cares anyways.
Speaker 2: But Billie Eilish, you know that that single, I can't
Speaker 2: even name it. You know, I'm not a friend that
Speaker 2: than anyone. You know, that's an album cut from the
Speaker 2: album before. That's not the next hit record. But everybody's
Speaker 2: gonna play it, yeah, you know, because they love her.
Speaker 3: The record's not as good, you know. So it's that
Speaker 3: that's just the way it works, you know.
Speaker 2: Shots fired against Billy Iowa, shots fired.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know she's yeah, nobody cares, thank god, so
Speaker 1: so you know.
Speaker 2: But my point is is, obviously, you know, our second
Speaker 2: album on the third album, but our album have to
Speaker 2: hang it tough.
Speaker 3: Step By step was a massive record, that was a
Speaker 3: great hit record. Jordan's saying an amazing lead.
Speaker 2: It was awesome, But the album didn't have the thing
Speaker 2: because we were rushing it.
Speaker 3: We were recording it in the hotels. We weren't on the.
Speaker 2: Same page creatively, you know. So it wasn't Nirvana that
Speaker 2: did it, it was us that did it. So I
Speaker 2: felt I never connected our fall if you will, with
Speaker 2: Nirvana and grunge.
Speaker 1: New Kids on the Block had stuck together through the
Speaker 1: struggle for success, through NonStop touring, through being adored by
Speaker 1: young girls and vilified by critics, through that hotline. But
Speaker 1: the dress of trying to decide what to do next
Speaker 1: while they were on the mountaintop and any tiny misstep
Speaker 1: could send them tumbling down was tearing them apart. At
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety American Music Awards, New Kids on the
Speaker 1: Block won Best Duo or Group and Best Album for
Speaker 1: Hanging Tough. They performed a big medley of their hits
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety one American Music Awards, first of All,
Speaker 1: were hosted by Keenan, Ivory Wallians and Bart Simpson.
Speaker 3: I'm really confused, man, where's the host of this sting?
Speaker 2: Honey? Where's that Keen and Ivory Wayans, where is he?
Speaker 2: I'm not supposed to do the host here, William? Then
Speaker 2: I throw that top.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the show. That is Nancy Cartwright, the woman
Speaker 1: who does the voice for Bart Simpson, saying words that
Speaker 1: are being acted out by someone in a Bart Simpson's suit.
Speaker 1: It is terrifying. But at those nineteen ninety one American
Speaker 1: Music Awards, New Kids wanted to go a little harder in.
Speaker 3: Our performance that year. You talk about change.
Speaker 2: If you go from our performance at the America Music
Speaker 2: Awards in nineteen ninety to our performance in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: talk about a sea change. Because we were into hip hop,
Speaker 2: we were into different music, so we wanted we wanted
Speaker 2: a different look and vibe as well, you know.
Speaker 1: So they performed Games, a hip hoppy single from their
Speaker 1: No More Games remix album. Flavor. Flav made an appearance.
Speaker 1: Donny Wohlberg wore a War Sucks tank top and sent
Speaker 1: the performance out to no good enough away, But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you what. We are going out like that,
Speaker 1: and it felt a little defensive, and on the inside,
Speaker 1: Joey was beginning to panic. They were up for Best
Speaker 1: Duo or group again. But unlike last year, when winning
Speaker 1: had been an honor, winning this year felt like a
Speaker 1: matter of life and death.
Speaker 2: It was us and Arosmith and someone else, you know.
Speaker 2: And I just remember, like Danny was next to me,
Speaker 2: and I was like, man, you know, I just had
Speaker 2: the idea that like, if we won, then it would
Speaker 2: give us another year, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I think Aerosmith won. We didn't win, you know, but
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's over if we don't win, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean.
Speaker 1: Aerosmith did win. The other nominee in the category, by
Speaker 1: the way, was Bell BIV Devo. In nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: New Kids on the Block shortened their name to NKOTB,
Speaker 1: which I'm going to be a dick and point out
Speaker 1: is the same number of syllables, and released the album
Speaker 1: Face the Music. Face the Music sold one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty six thousand copies in the States, total, about what
Speaker 1: Hanging Tough would have sold in a single week three
Speaker 1: years earlier, and the single Dirty Dog Dawg didn't make
Speaker 1: the top forty. Jonathan Knight left the band due to
Speaker 1: extreme stage fright. The remaining four soldiered on for a
Speaker 1: few months and then decided to call it a day themselves.
Speaker 1: The New Kids on the Block party was over. Joey
Speaker 1: was twenty one, a young man raised on cupcakes.
Speaker 2: I think of often I had. It was just when
Speaker 2: The New Kids broke up and I jumped right into
Speaker 2: a movie. It was called The Fantastic because it was
Speaker 2: based off the Off Broadway longest off probably running show.
Speaker 3: And I didn't think much of it.
Speaker 2: And I had a publicist at the time, and I
Speaker 2: think it was like with ET or something, they were
Speaker 2: going to be like the ten hottest you know, young
Speaker 2: actors or whatever, you know, potentially, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Do an interview with this guy and I remember like
Speaker 2: what he said, what do you want? And my answer
Speaker 2: was incredibly superficial. It was incredibly sugary and like a cupcake.
Speaker 2: I said, I want to billboard on Sunset Boulevard, I
Speaker 2: want to be on the coverage EQ, and I want
Speaker 2: to be on David Letterman.
Speaker 3: And I could in retrospect I heard it.
Speaker 2: It was like I heard the silence on the end
Speaker 2: of the phone from the decent guy. But he was
Speaker 2: a journalist, you know what I mean, And it wasn't
Speaker 2: it was it was not the deep answer he looked for,
Speaker 2: and you know, he went back to his editor and said,
Speaker 2: he's not a guy.
Speaker 1: Joey didn't know what he wanted and he didn't know
Speaker 1: how to relax.
Speaker 3: It's like a breakup.
Speaker 2: They say it takes half as long of the relationship
Speaker 2: to get over it.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: So if we were together, if we had like, you know,
Speaker 2: six or seven strong years, you know, we needed a
Speaker 2: few years to just zone out and you know, have
Speaker 2: a lost weekend. And you know, I remember talking to Donnie.
Speaker 2: It's like along the way and we share a work
Speaker 2: ethic too, and you know, we just come from working
Speaker 2: class families. And he basically said, like there were times
Speaker 2: where you you would have to defend playing around a
Speaker 2: golf you know, because like, am I doing enough? Am
Speaker 2: I retired at twenty one? And it felt slothy, It
Speaker 2: felt you know, there were moments of like.
Speaker 3: What am I doing?
Speaker 2: Sometimes the perfect thing to do is to buy the
Speaker 2: farm for a few years.
Speaker 1: You know, I know what you said you thought you
Speaker 1: wanted in nineteen ninety one. Do you what do you
Speaker 1: think you wanted for real in nineteen ninety one? Or
Speaker 1: was the public answer also the private answer?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I didn't.
Speaker 2: Want much, you know what I mean, And maybe that's
Speaker 2: that's why I was like, you know, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: very clear what Donnie Wahlberg wanted, right, I mean, he
Speaker 2: wanted to make a rap album and he did and
Speaker 2: it was some massive hit. And now the world has
Speaker 2: Mark Wahlberg, you know what I'm saying. So he was
Speaker 2: just in a different place and I, I'm cut from
Speaker 2: a different cloth, you know. I came up in the theater,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So I wanted the next show.
Speaker 2: I wanted the next show. I wanted the next song.
Speaker 2: I wanted the next performance. I wanted the next stage.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 3: You know. I love being on stage.
Speaker 2: I love to perform, so you know, and that kind
Speaker 2: of hooked up into like, what's the party's over?
Speaker 3: What do you mean? Like, what come on? Man?
Speaker 2: Let's you know, and uh so that's it was. It
Speaker 2: was simple. It was simple what I wanted, you know.
Speaker 2: It wasn't wasn't a big I didn't have a lot
Speaker 2: of big dreams in ninety one.
Speaker 1: My dreams in nineteen ninety one didn't necessarily include working
Speaker 1: with Joey McIntyre on MTV in nineteen ninety nine or
Speaker 1: seeing the New Kids on the Block Stadium tour at
Speaker 1: least twice, and screaming my head off. But all of
Speaker 1: those things happened, So maybe I just don't know how
Speaker 1: to dream big enough. We'll get into all of that
Speaker 1: in a bit. I feel like I need another viewpoint
Speaker 1: on the Sudden Impact moment. I know how I reacted
Speaker 1: to the Motown Philly video as a twenty year old guy,
Speaker 1: but I want to know how it played for the
Speaker 1: younger women who also comprised a big part of the
Speaker 1: MTV VH one be Et audience. Really, more than anything,
Speaker 1: what I want is an excuse used to talk to
Speaker 1: Winter Mitchell. She's a digital branding expert, a journalist, a
Speaker 1: cultural omnivore like me, and she's the co host of
Speaker 1: the excellent podcast Waiting to Exhale. Winter Mitchell, can you
Speaker 1: tell me what you're seeing?
Speaker 4: I'm looking at the Boys to Men Boys to Men
Speaker 4: Motown Philly official video, and a white a group of
Speaker 4: white males called Sudden Impact just flashed across the screen.
Speaker 1: Yes they did, Yes they did. Do you remember seeing
Speaker 1: this video in nineteen ninety one oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: I was a very very big Boys to Men fan,
Speaker 4: I rooted for them. If I want to talk about
Speaker 4: like the black you know, harmonizing group universe that sort
Speaker 4: of like that Motown Philly what do you call that
Speaker 4: new Jack swing that came out? But I also want
Speaker 4: to talk about the universe of R and B like
Speaker 4: guys singing groups that look like bank tellers, and I
Speaker 4: feel like they were like the top of that with
Speaker 4: the ones at the very bottom, the ones that saying
Speaker 4: I want to sex you have color me bad. So
Speaker 4: they were like of the black of the not the
Speaker 4: black of the bank teller singing harmonizing group.
Speaker 7: They were like the kings and champions of that. I love.
Speaker 1: They were fully in the Alex Vanderpool era. Yes, as
Speaker 1: the crawl in the video tells you, Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: all turned out in sport coats and shorts right right,
Speaker 1: fresh summer idea. There's a lot of visual information in
Speaker 1: the Motown Philly video. There's all the East Coast family stuff.
Speaker 1: There are references to Temple University and to the Performing
Speaker 1: Arts High school where boys and men came together. There's
Speaker 1: a scene at Geno's Stakes, and at a couple of
Speaker 1: different moments, words across the bottom of the screen say
Speaker 1: coming soon, the Alex Vanderpool era. This is a reference
Speaker 1: to a character on All My Children at the time,
Speaker 1: a preppy nerd named Alfred Vanderpool. In the liner for
Speaker 1: Boys to Men's debut album, the guys are listed by
Speaker 1: their names and by the nicknames Michael Bivens wanted them
Speaker 1: to be known by. So wan Ye was squirt, Sean
Speaker 1: was Slim bass voice, Mike was just bass, and Nathan,
Speaker 1: the preppiest member of the group was Alex Vanderpool. The
Speaker 1: nicknames didn't really stick and nobody seemed to press the issue,
Speaker 1: but it speaks to Michael Bivens' ambition in the world
Speaker 1: of marketing. He was always looking for a way for
Speaker 1: the listener to connect to the music and to the artist,
Speaker 1: a way to build buzz, which is what he was
Speaker 1: doing with Sudden Impact here. So did it work. Did
Speaker 1: Sudden Impact make an impact on you as a young viewer?
Speaker 4: Absolutely not, No, no, because I wasn't thinking. Here's what
Speaker 4: you need to understand, David. This era was coming in
Speaker 4: like a.
Speaker 7: Steamroller, so like this trying to.
Speaker 4: Sort of pick up where the new kids on the
Speaker 4: block were slowly fallen off. Era was just that era
Speaker 4: came to a fast like end that was just like
Speaker 4: like done, And so I don't think Sudden Impact had
Speaker 4: a chance.
Speaker 1: And help I tell Winter about my obsession with this story,
Speaker 1: what I've learned about Vet, Nicole Brown and Hayden, and
Speaker 1: what Michael Bivens was building with the East Coast family,
Speaker 1: and how weird it is to me that Sudden Impact
Speaker 1: never had their moment. But Winter was young in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one, so to her it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 7: As compelling as a story you told me was. There
Speaker 7: was never.
Speaker 4: Any moment that they were going to pop off. There
Speaker 4: was just when they pop up on the screen. Again,
Speaker 4: the bank Teller aesthetic works because it was like, we're
Speaker 4: not super sexy, but you can bring us home to
Speaker 4: your parents and they will be like, that's a nice guy.
Speaker 4: He's cute, he.
Speaker 7: Seems like a good guy for you.
Speaker 4: That aesthetic to me where like all of these sort
Speaker 4: of like it was like the this is of Jodasy,
Speaker 4: which is like, you don't want these guys coming near
Speaker 4: your daughters, but boys to men will take you to prom.
Speaker 7: And there was the whole Waanyi and Brandy of it.
Speaker 4: All these white guys don't offense, These white guys.
Speaker 7: But they're in that two second moment.
Speaker 4: While I remember it, it didn't create a sudden impact
Speaker 4: and it was never going to. They just didn't have
Speaker 4: the esthetics, no offense to them.
Speaker 1: The missing piece of the puzzle is what Michael Bivens
Speaker 1: was thinking signing them at this moment, as new kids
Speaker 1: on the Block were huge? Was there a moment of
Speaker 1: new kids on the block was coming for us? Now
Speaker 1: I'm coming for them?
Speaker 7: Of course.
Speaker 4: I mean in nineteen ninety they were the big new
Speaker 4: kids on the block, was the biggest group in town,
Speaker 4: in the world.
Speaker 1: They were huge.
Speaker 7: I mean, you couldn't get bigger than that.
Speaker 4: So seeing an opportunity for competition, and also from Michael
Speaker 4: Bibbins's perspective, I don't know him, I'm not speaking on
Speaker 4: his behalf, but considering that Bobby was on his way
Speaker 4: to you know by now what he was almost married
Speaker 4: to Whitney. He was a fantastic solo artist. At this point,
Speaker 4: they didn't know what their legacy was.
Speaker 1: Going to be.
Speaker 4: He was taking a chance on anything, and I think
Speaker 4: he was trying to capture wherever.
Speaker 7: It was going to be.
Speaker 4: So like young boys that are like street boys who
Speaker 4: can harmonize these you know good like college going, you
Speaker 4: know young adult men who can harmonize. Like he was
Speaker 4: just trying to capture whatever it is on top of
Speaker 4: what was he was creating with BBD.
Speaker 1: While I was working on this show, Waiting for Impact,
Speaker 1: a Dave Holmes passion project, a docu series called This
Speaker 1: Is Pop came out on Netflix, a bunch of one
Speaker 1: hour episodes, each one featuring a different pop act. There's
Speaker 1: a Boys to Men episode that I watched, and something
Speaker 1: that really jumps out at me is how much work
Speaker 1: Boys to Men had to do to get ready for
Speaker 1: their big break. They didn't even meet Michael Bivens. They
Speaker 1: didn't even try to sing for him until they knew
Speaker 1: they were the best. We don't know whether Sudden Impact
Speaker 1: had to do the same amount of work, or whether
Speaker 1: they got a leg up because they were handsome white
Speaker 1: guys who looked a little like new kids on the block.
Speaker 1: We can't know for sure what Michael Bivens was thinking
Speaker 1: or to what degree race factored into his decision to
Speaker 1: work with them, But in twenty twenty one, we have
Speaker 1: to ask the question, mostly because we haven't heard them.
Speaker 7: The problem with this all is that I have no
Speaker 7: idea if they're good or not. I'm not Michael.
Speaker 4: Bivens, So I can't say from a industry perspective, as
Speaker 4: an industry like you know, taste maker, decision maker, if they.
Speaker 7: Would have gone on.
Speaker 4: To great success, you know what I mean, Like, there's
Speaker 4: no there's just no way to predict without really knowing.
Speaker 7: Second thing is, I feel really bad because.
Speaker 4: All America got was like two seconds of them, which
Speaker 4: is completely amazing marketing.
Speaker 7: By the way, like Michael Bivens, you know, he knew
Speaker 7: I have this, this group is going all the way.
Speaker 7: I gotta shove in all this other stuff that I got.
Speaker 3: I get it.
Speaker 4: It's like a total like Benny Medina puff Daddy, Like
Speaker 4: I get that sort of like ability to sort of
Speaker 4: like make it happen, make it work.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we've been calling it the the Michael Bivens
Speaker 1: extended cinematical.
Speaker 4: Exactly exactly, and so I get the whole point of it.
Speaker 7: But these guys have even had a chance. They didn't
Speaker 7: even have a chance, and that feels really shitty. I
Speaker 7: feel shitty for them.
Speaker 4: But I also, having worked in the industry this long now,
Speaker 4: I also them.
Speaker 7: The breaks dims, the breaks.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a lot of people we look at,
Speaker 4: we look back on, and we, you.
Speaker 7: Know, wonder what happened to them?
Speaker 4: Remember the brew haha over Gretchen Mall that was such
Speaker 4: a big deal and all.
Speaker 1: Cover of sanity fair out of nowhere.
Speaker 4: This is the one, This is the one. And I
Speaker 4: couldn't pick her out of a lineup now.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know, yeah, twenty plus years of Sienna Miller,
Speaker 1: I still don't know which one.
Speaker 7: She doesn't know she is. But there is there any
Speaker 7: way possible to redeem.
Speaker 4: These these these gentlemen, because I would love them to
Speaker 4: have some redemption.
Speaker 7: They should, They deserve a redemptive arc.
Speaker 1: You know by now that I agree with Winter. It's
Speaker 1: never too late for redemption or even just to meet
Speaker 1: sudden impact once and for all. And it is never
Speaker 1: the wrong time to reboot the Alex Vanderpoole era. So
Speaker 1: let's return to the block where Joey McIntyre wants a
Speaker 1: new kid, and one of those kinds of famous where
Speaker 1: you can't just go next door and not be famous,
Speaker 1: is now sitting in a parked car zooming with me
Speaker 1: on his smartphone. After initially just trying to stay super
Speaker 1: famous in the wake of New Kids on the Blocks breakup,
Speaker 1: he took some time off, took a step back, and
Speaker 1: regrouped breath. He returned in nineteen ninety nine with a
Speaker 1: solo album called Stay the Same. That album got a
Speaker 1: couple hit singles, couple videos on the TRL charts. That's
Speaker 1: where we met.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: We definitely did episodes of Total Request live together, but
Speaker 1: I cannot find any of them. What I could find
Speaker 1: on YouTube was this. I found a clip from a
Speaker 1: celebrity episode of Say What Karaoke, which I am co
Speaker 1: hosting with Jerry Springer and Joey McIntyre duets with Jamie
Speaker 1: Lynn Sigler, Medo from the Sopranos on Aerosmith, and run
Speaker 1: DMC's Walk This Way. Okay, Yeah, I typed those words.
Speaker 1: I said them out loud. I am now looking at
Speaker 1: them and they still don't make any sense to me.
Speaker 1: Joey got back into theater, playing the lead in Jonathan
Speaker 1: Larson's Tick Tick Boom off Broadway, which I went to
Speaker 1: see and his performance made me cry so hard. People
Speaker 1: turned and looked. That is not a joke. He started
Speaker 1: touring again theaters, this time instead of arenas, different more
Speaker 1: intimate experiences. He got back on track, back to doing
Speaker 1: the things he loved, except this time with a feeling
Speaker 1: of gratitude for them. Did you have a sense for
Speaker 1: what twenty twenty one would look like for you in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety Nah?
Speaker 3: No, No, I mean you know I love live performance, man.
Speaker 3: I mean I love to make records too.
Speaker 2: I mean I do love to sing in a studio
Speaker 2: and write music and that that electricity that you get
Speaker 2: about songwriting, and oh man, this is good, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. And let me keep trying, and let
Speaker 2: me keep swinging at it and let me get the
Speaker 2: vocal and make some magic. But like if I'm doing
Speaker 2: Shakespeare in New Jersey, I mean, it's a beautiful theater.
Speaker 2: But like if I'm if I'm doing Shakespeare and it's
Speaker 2: paying seven hundred bucks a week, then I'm good, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 3: That's that's my journey. Like I've earned that. That's what
Speaker 3: i want to.
Speaker 2: Do, you know, and I'll always have it, Like I
Speaker 2: love an intimate setting and I and I'm lucky enough
Speaker 2: to play arenas too.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and two thousand and eight, New Kids on
Speaker 1: the Block got back together, and in the last few
Speaker 1: years they've played big summer package tours with Nelly and
Speaker 1: TLC or Tiffany, Debbie Gibson and Salt and Peppa. I
Speaker 1: have been to these summer shows and they are insane.
Speaker 1: Those five year old girls who rushed the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: stage in nineteen ninety one, they're thirty five now. They
Speaker 1: got a babysitter at home and a plastic tumbler of
Speaker 1: Pinogregio in their hands. They are ready to throw down.
Speaker 1: And I mean this from the bottom of my heart.
Speaker 1: If you get a chance to see New Kids live, go,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have thought in nineteen ninety one that, in
Speaker 1: you know, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, I'd go to Hollywood
Speaker 1: Bowl and see New Kids on the Block. Ye half
Speaker 1: the time of my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I did, Yeah, and we do. You know,
Speaker 2: I think the quick math is number one. Take fourteen
Speaker 2: years off, you know, as a group and as a band,
Speaker 2: because you know, so many bands could have to certain
Speaker 2: degrees similar experiences, but they don't because bands don't stay
Speaker 2: together for a lot of different reasons, you know. And
Speaker 2: we were able to move on.
Speaker 8: And have lives and then get back together fifteen years later,
Speaker 8: and you know, our fans were ready to, you know,
Speaker 8: and now we get to with time and a little maturity,
Speaker 8: you know, we get to look back and embrace those
Speaker 8: moments with a sense of humor, but with a lot
Speaker 8: of love and admiration for what we were able to share.
Speaker 2: And we benefit from this time. And now you know,
Speaker 2: we're like family with our fans, you know. And so
Speaker 2: you know we're not going anywhere. And you know, now
Speaker 2: it's a combination of our work and our intention and
Speaker 2: our connection with our fans and the right kind of
Speaker 2: management to you know, facilitate that, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: to keep the party going in a healthy way, in
Speaker 2: a fun way.
Speaker 1: Joey McIntyre got what he wanted from his life, and
Speaker 1: all it took was being grateful for what he already had. Joe,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Thank you Bunny for taking the time.
Speaker 3: I hope you get a nugget or side where it's warm.
Speaker 3: Sudden impact.
Speaker 1: Sudden impact. We're finding them. But the whole East Coast
Speaker 1: family story is really interesting. Like people would just go
Speaker 1: to where Bell Bivdevou was staying when they toured and
Speaker 1: just singing Michael Bivens's face, and then sometimes he would
Speaker 1: sign them ivette Nicole Brown, actress from Community and various
Speaker 1: other things. She was one of them. She was a singer,
Speaker 1: she was a solo act as part of the East
Speaker 1: Coast Family. Yeah, I'll send you a video.
Speaker 2: Those are fun times, man, I don't think it happens
Speaker 2: like it's almost like well Motown Philly, right, I mean
Speaker 2: it's that motown, you know, like just get me in
Speaker 2: front of her man, you know, and we came from.
Speaker 8: That, and.
Speaker 3: It's sweet. It's sweet.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're celebrating that and kind of going back
Speaker 2: into that world.
Speaker 3: So I look forward to seeing what you'll find.
Speaker 1: So Hayden has put in a good word for me
Speaker 1: to Aaron Kin. I have followed up with an email
Speaker 1: to the address that is on Aaron's YouTube channel. And
Speaker 1: after a few days, I check my email and there
Speaker 1: is a message from Aaron Kin. And I hesitate for
Speaker 1: a moment before I click on it, because what if
Speaker 1: he wants to leave this all behind him? What if
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to talk at all? What if I'm
Speaker 1: out of story and it's only episode four. It's like
Speaker 1: that certified mail notice back when I got kicked out
Speaker 1: of college. I know something important is in the post.
Speaker 1: I just don't know what it is until I open
Speaker 1: that message up. This email contains the future. I click
Speaker 1: it open and there they are ten short words and
Speaker 1: a lot of exclamation points. Hey Dave, yeah, that would
Speaker 1: be awesome. Let me know. Oh my god, we have
Speaker 1: made contact with Sudden Impact. We will talk to the
Speaker 1: legendary in Kane, the man in the middle, the guy
Speaker 1: in the bow tie. On Waiting for Impact, a Dave
Speaker 1: Holmes passion project. This has been an exactly Right production.
Speaker 1: Written by Me Dave Holmes, produced by Hannah Kyle Crichton, recorded,
Speaker 1: mixed and sound designed by Andrew Eapen. Additional engineering and
Speaker 1: assembly by Annalise Nelson. Music by Ben Wise, artwork by
Speaker 1: Garrett Ross. Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hart Starr
Speaker 1: and Danielle Kramer. Follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and
Speaker 1: Twitter at exactly right and follow me at Dave Holmes.
Speaker 1: For more information, go to exactly Rightmedia dot com. Binge
Speaker 1: the show add free on stitchr Premium for a free month.
Speaker 1: Head to stitcher Premium dot com, slash impact and enter
Speaker 1: promo code Impact when you select a monthly plan, send
Speaker 1: Subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.