Hi Jacob! So basically all I know about
O-Town is that your biggest hit single back in the day was 'Liquid
Dreams'. I've been reading the lyrics, and they go'Waterfalls and
streams, these liquid dreams,' so I just wondered if you were
fans of water, or the outdoors, or what that's to do with?
„No, it's about nocturnal
emissions, to be honest. It was a cheeky way for Clive Davis to pick
a song and, in the mix of a lot of boybands and a lot of glossed over
pop tracks, he thought this way a way for us to make our mark
separate: we were a lot more dirty, a lot more edgy than the others.“
So you were the edgy, dirty boyband.
„Yeah. We got labeled the 'dirtiest
boyband of all time'.“
That's lovely... but like, if I
listened to that when I was eleven I'd have had no idea.
„That's exactly what's happened
now. A lot of fans have come up to us laughing that they were singing
this song- and their mum let them sing this song in the car- and they
didn't know what it was about until recently. I was like yeah, sorry
girls! They just didn't know what they were singing.“
It was like Spice Girls' 'Two Become
One'. Only in recent years did I spot what that was really about!
„Right.“
So you described your 'liquid dream
girl'- or you don't, whoever wrote the song- as having 'Madonna's
wild style' and Janet Jackson's smile. Does that still stand?
„Ooh, I don't know. I do think
that Emily Ratajkowski is probably one of the most beautiful women
I've ever seen in my life. But I don't know about personalities. I
think if you mix her with like a Katy Perry, that would be ideal. But
either one of them. I think Katy Perry's got a personality that would
be fun.“
Hang on, didn't there used to be more
of you?
„It's all original members minus
one.“
What happened to him?
„He actually never joined us. And
I've got to say, the problems we had trying to get together last time
were all logistic- I was in Nashville, or with Dan it was personal or
family life. And I finally moved back to California and the talks
started again. When we brought up the offer, Ashley said he had a
different idea for where he wanted to go with his career. And he's
modeling now.“
So, you were put together in the Making
The Band show on MTV. How was THAT?
„It was the best and the worst, it
really was. We wouldn't change it for the world. At the time we were
frustrated with the lack of control, when you're in the heat of the
moment…I mean, we're passionate people, we are artists, we really
wanted to be our own artists. Looking back, we get it that we were
privileged by the fact we got to get hooked up. People like Leona
Murray and Clive Davis would then kind of teach us the way people did
things in this business. We would never be able to do things now
without that experience.“
If you were putting a band together
now, would you go on the X Factor?
„No, I don't think so. I mean I
wasn't like an audition kinda guy, anyway. O-Town was the first
audition I ever went to, and I didn't even know that it was an
audition.“
So what triggered the reunion?
„Our agent called us. He hit us up
for what was the tenth time- not just him, but different people- in a
matter of 3-4 years to try and get us to reunite. But they all wanted
us to do an album and big tours and everything was just too big.
Dan's got a wife and kids who are his first priority. Then the offer
was 'just do one song', but after we did one song everyone kind of
stepped back and said 'yeah do an album'. Three months later we got
an album and that was the quickest we've ever worked.“
Who do you think your biggest rivals
are in the boyband world at the moment?
„You know what, I really don't know.
I don't think we have anybody we're going up against. Backstreet
[Boys], The New Kids and the ones doing the new songs sound like the
record they used to put on. And we're not kids- we're not One
Direction in any way, we're not competing with 20 year olds. So I
think we're in a place where we're one of the only reuniting boybands
that are trying to do a new sound. When you hear the rest of the
album, you'll understand - it's definitely a direction we've never
gone in, it's still pop but it sounds different. Not like Liquid
Dreams.“
If you had to arm wrestle One
Direction, who would it be? Who do you reckon you could take?
„Geez, I'd like to think I could take
all of them. I don't know their names. They're kids. I was just in
Nashville recently and One Direction played the stadium there, and
they shut the freeway down. No one was going anywhere. It was
unbelievable to watch.“
So have you guys changed into a
man-band now?
„The jeans have definitely got a lot
tighter. I think we're just where we're at. We're not trying to be
anything. We're 30 year old men, three of us are single, but we're
not a boy band I guess.“
So you don't want to go under the
man-band title?
„No. I mean we're not old or
anything. I'm not about to start wearing my grandpa's suits, not just
yet.“
