And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 99: Lance Bass

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

Today’s guest hails from Mississippi and is the quintessential illustration of a highly successful and driven jack-of-all-trades: singer, writer, host, actor, producer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and cosmonaut. Beyond his fame as a member of the phenomenally successful group *NSYNC, where the group sold an impressive 80 million-plus records worldwide, he has since made himself a household name. With countless career highlights in music including multiple Grammy nominations, two diamond RIAA awards, MTV Video Music Awards, American Music Awards, People’s Choice Awards to name just a few. Other career highlights include: being the youngest person ever inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame, starring as Corny Collins in the Broadway hit, “Hairspray,” publishing his best-selling memoir, “Out of Sync,” making it to the finals on ABC’s hit show, “Dancing with the Stars,” and most recently producing a documentary, “The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story,” which debuted at the SXSW film festival in March 2019. On his podcast, ‘The Daily Popcast with Lance Bass’ he breaks down the biggest stories in Hollywood each day. The show takes a journalistic approach to entertainment with unprecedented access to the biggest names in the industry. Philanthropically, he remains active in various charitable organizations. In addition to being on the Board of Trustees for onePULSE, he also serves as an executive board director of the Environmental Media Association and has been serving on the board for nearly a decade. In being with the EMA, he has helped educate both children and adults on environmental issues. He’s the national youth spokesperson for World Space Week and is a certified cosmonaut. He is a strong advocate for animals and supports numerous causes and charities like The Trevor Project, Thirst Project, HRC, Vanderpump Dog Foundation, and St. Jude’s hospital. And The Writer Is...Lance Bass!This episode is sponsored by Bandzoogle.Art: Michael Richey White Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, welcome to Ann the writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs.

I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, big deal music publishing, and mega house music management. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special live events, or buy that merch, aka that hat I always wear. Go to our website www. And The Writer is.com. For a little bit of context, we just wanted you to know that a lot of these were recorded before quarantine.

And as we know, a lot has changed in 2020. So again, please stay safe out there. and enjoy the new episodes of And The Writer is. Today's podcast is brought to you by Ban Zougal. Built for musicians, buy musicians. Band Zougal makes it easy to build a professional website and EPK for your music. Whether you're looking to book more gigs or need an affordable solution to manage your direct-to-fan sales and mailing list, you can use Ban Zougal's simple tools to design a website and store that both you and

and your fans will love. Go to banzugal.com to try it free for 30 days and use the promo code ATWI to get 15% off the first year of any subscription. That's ATWI to get 15% off the first year of any subscription. Welcome to And The Writer is, I am your host, Ross Golan. Today's iconic singer-dancer, X, produces film, host radio programs, and podcasts, is a New York Times best-selling author, activist philanthropist,

diamond-selling band member and literal astronaut. You may know his group as one of the top boy bands in the history of recorded music selling over 70 million albums. Setting music industry records by selling records, in-sinks achievements are still the gold standard for popular music. But even more importantly,

his legendary advocacy in the LGBTQ community has become the platinum standard for philanthropy. From Laurel, Mississippi, you could accurately call this guy a space cowboy with his dedicated contribution to the space community. And the writer is, from moon men to cosmonaut, Lance Bass. I need to really edit my resume. I mean, you have... Can I use that going forward?

Oh, yeah. Anywhere I'm going to get introduced, I'm just going to play that. Absolutely. You should just implant that in your podcast. That's going to be the opening. Screw our theme song. It's going to be the opening now. You have so many hyphens.

You are clearly like a, you know, when you were little, did you have, did you know, did you know you want to be a musician or did you want to be an astronaut or did you want to be an author? I mean, from the outset, were you just constantly doing everything? Yeah, I was, I always was and am interested in everything. And as a kid, I wanted to be either a comedian or an astronaut. Well, I didn't even think I wanted to be a comedian, but my friends were like, you need to be a comedian. And I was just like, I just want to be an astronaut.

It's all I wanted to do. Well, where is Laurel, Mississippi? It is South Mississippi. I don't know if you know where Hattisburg is. Usually, because I actually lived in Ellisville, Mississippi, which no one never heard of. So I always say Laurel, which is the town next to it where I was born. Then no one knows where that is. So Haddysburg, which is where Brett Fav is from, is where usually people know where I'm from.

Why there? Why did your parents live there? I'm like fifth generation there. I don't know who. I don't know my great-great-grandparents. And I don't know where they came from, but all I know is we're just from Laurel, Mississippi. I don't know any other family member that wasn't born. Do you have brothers and sisters? I have a sister. Yeah, she's three years older. What was music like in your family, Graham? Who did music? Did your parents play?

No, none of my parents played, but my uncle. My uncle was the big musician in our family. So he played guitar. He loved singing. He was known in our town as the singer, so they'd always pick him to do all kinds of fun stuff and all the commercials. Oh, really?

Oh, yeah. All the local commercials? All the local commercials, yes. Did you sing on? Did you end up in local commercials? No, because at that point, I didn't know I even could sing. You know, singing kind of fell into my lap. When I moved away from that town, I went to Clinton, Mississippi.

And that's where the town there was so musical. It had the number one show choir in the world. And so I went from, you know, playing sports to now I'm going to show choir with all my friends. Because that was the cool thing to do. What kind of music was the show choir? All kinds of stuff. We would, you know, do your Broadway type stuff. But then in competitions, you would do, you know,

the new stuff that's on the radio and just your version of it. Right. I definitely remember being in Coraliers which was our show choir and having the sequins, cummer bun and bow tie and just like... I have so many sequin vests. It's ridiculous. They don't do that anymore. They kind of took that

away and now it's a little more cool. Yeah. I mean, I just... I mean, yeah, none of what it was was cool, but the pot of burrays and kickball changes and while you're singing some sort of some that you might know, but I feel like our choir teacher, whatever. Yeah. But it really helped. I mean, my director there, David Fair, he's the reason I have such

discipline in this industry. Really? I mean, he was just one of those, you always hear of those crazy directors. But how old were you at that point? I was 14 when I joined out of show. Yeah. And, I mean, but he would scare the crap out of you. Whoa. Just berate you. And would that work now? That kind of? I think so. Oh, yeah. I mean, I still see it. I mean, look at Abby Lee Miller and people like that. I mean, it's just this tough love. And it really, did and still major disciplinary. So I'm very, I hated him then, but I love him now. Were you a bass then? Yes, since I was 14, yeah.

Crazy. Yeah, I went from very high, because I had like a very high voice when I was singing in choir to immediately the next year. It was bass. That's insane. Obviously, you know, so much of the early years of you is something that I feel like we can find in Wikipedia and whatnot. Because Wikipedia is so true.

Yeah, exactly. But something takes you from doing show choirs at 14 and it's only a couple years later that you end up becoming a professional performer. Who says to you, you need to get

out of this town and you need to start auditioning? No one. I never have auditioning. before. How did you get selected? We all knew each other through different ways. It was strange. It was very kismet how we all formed. But two of the guys worked at Universal Studios

and two of the guys worked at Disney. So, J.C. and Jess were in the Mickey Mouse Club. And Chris and Joey were working at Universal. And Chris was upset. He didn't get to even audition for the Backstreet Boys in Orlando because his friend, Howie DeRode, you know, went to school with, got in. And he's like, well,

And he was a soprano type voice. He was like, well, I could out sing him? Why didn't I get to audition? So he went to Lou Perlman. This is how big of balls Chris Carpatrick has. Went to Lou Perlman and said, hey, you know, I know you put this group together, but he goes, but if I put a group together, would you fund us? And Lou was like, sure.

So Chris, I don't know how he knew Justin. But I was the first person he called. He called Justin Timberlake. He was up in Tennessee. He was recording with J.C. They were doing a duo type thing. and Justin said, yeah, that sounds fun, but can I, can J.C. join the group with us? And he was like, sure. So it was those three. And then they were all at Planet Hollywood, not Planet Hollywood, Pleasure Island in Disney.

And they were at this club called Eight Tracks, saw Joey on the dance floor. And Jason, he's like, oh, I went to high school with that guy. They're like, he's a great dancer. I wonder if he can sing. Let's put him in the group. So they put him in the group as the bass singer. Didn't realize he can't sing bass. That's when they called me, because I knew Justin through a vocal coach. So they would have been a quartet if they didn't have. Oh yeah, they were going as a quartet. And then they had, before me, Joey's friend Jason came on, but then he didn't want to do like child music is what he called it.

Yeah, he didn't want to do pop music. So he left the group and that's when they called me. And I flew down and sang with him and it was all over. Have you ever come in contact with that guy that you replaced? No, I have not. Although he did, he was delivering pizzas at the time. I know when we got our record deal, we did order pizza, and he delivered the pizza to the house.

So I was like, oh, shit, yeah. That's so crazy. The Lou Pearlman story is starting to come out, partly because of the work you've done with your documentary and whatnot. I don't think people outside of the industry really know too much about it unless they've really seeked it out. Explain who Lou Pearlman is at the time and what it's like to be a,

at this point, 15, 16-year-old, I would assume, right? Yeah, so 16-year-old around Lou Perlman and these boy bands and the pop stars and the business he was creating. Since you've worked on a documentary, how I explain who Lou Proman is Yeah well at the time

I really didn't know who Lou was but he did show this Larger Than Life character I didn't know at this point that there was a Backstreet Boys And at this point in 1995 There was no such thing as a boy band So I didn't know what world

I was about to enter When we got together All we had to look up to was boys to men And as yet you know these a cappella groups and that's what we were we were just an

acapella group and Lou I mean I knew he had a record label but as all I knew was that we were the only artist that he had

I would later find out of course he had Backstreet Boys and then he kept us from that you know he kept us a secret at the label

he named us B5 on all the records he didn't want the boys to find out he had another group just like him which was kind of I mean that was crazy

that he would I guess I didn't know this part. I didn't know that he hid you guys from each other. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he did not want the backshed boys to know that we were together. How did you guys find out about it? Was it just sort of once it hit that you guys realized how weight we're on the same? Yeah.

I mean, it hit quickly that next year because we went to Germany. The Backshed Boys were over in Germany a year before we were and they blew up quickly. Yeah, so big. And that's where everyone learned this boy band term and there was about 50 boy band. in Europe, all huge. And so it was this crazy world of just boy band. So we tried to get our deal here in America, but no one would sign us.

I mean, Tommy Mottola, everyone was like, no, this will never work here in America. So BMG, Arial, and Munich signed us. And I was packing up my bags to go finish my senior year in high school because we couldn't get a deal. I mean, we were working, I mean, for a year, and no one would pay any attention to us. And I said, okay, guys, let me go finish.

finished my senior year. And then I'll just come on the weekends and we'll sing on the weekend in practice. And it was when I was packing my bags to go back to Mississippi that we get the call that we got signed to Munich. And I was now heading to Germany the next day. And then we lived there for about two years. Did you ever finish school? I did. Yeah. University of Nebraska is who does our schooling. So me and Justin and everyone that was underage finished with them. Oh wow. So while you were on tour, you had a tutor? I actually finished before I got on tour. Because it only took about six months to finish my schooling.

And then that's when we got signed. So I was out of school. But Justin had to continue. His took a little longer just because the first album released and he had no time to study. So he was delayed a little bit. Crazy. When you're in Germany and you see how big Backstreet Boys are, what is the step from

you know seeing that did you want to be as big as they were did you want to be different than they were were you guys emulating that you guys end up going to a lot of the same songwriters which I don't know if that was the same you know

if that was a choice or who is choosing these songs but being that this is primarily a songwriting podcast how did you guys feel about the songs that were being presented to you? Did you have a choice? Did you care? There's

so much happening so fast. It is. So much happening. And you're 16 years old. How do you guys deal with life in this world? Explain what it's like. We were kids. And as budding musicians, we still didn't even know what our sound was. Because like I said

when we first started, you know, we couldn't afford music, so we were just an archipelic. And, you know, I loved what we did there. And really I thought the biggest we could get was just getting hired at Disney and be the local Disney Acapella group. Of course. That was my dreams.

And it just got a little bigger. So when we went over to Europe, it was, we definitely had a identity crisis because we didn't know what our group was just yet. Because we played around with playing instruments. No one liked that. What instrument did you play? A piano. Yeah.

And so everyone had their own, you know, their own instrument that, you know, we played. but no one liked that. So people wanted to see this performance. Yeah, I didn't like it. I mean, it was just too boring to me. I like performing. I like to be on stage. I like dancing.

And I knew all those guys loved dancing. So we knew we wanted to be more of a performance act than getting behind instruments. So we were torn around with that. We go to Europe and then, of course, techno is huge. So then we were throwing a lot of techno things and it's just not us at all. but the record label forced us to put a couple of those on our first album

because we were a European band now. Horrible, horrible choices. But we were very lucky early on in our first album to find Dennis Pop. And that was because of our manager, Johnny Wright, who also managed the Backstreet Boys. Their relationship with Dennis Pop was great and Max Martin, of course. So our very first single that we recorded was over in Stockholm with Dennis Pop with his protege Max Martin.

Yeah, that's crazy. Crazy. I want you back. How soon after recording that, because that kind of helps really define how everyone else viewed you guys, because it's the first single that really came out. Did you guys feel once you recorded that, oh, that's our sound? And then you emulate that by getting as many songs as you can. Is that sort of the idea? Yeah. Well, when I want you back came around, I immediately loved it. I just love that. You know, just that, do, dun, too, I mean, it's that Dennis Pop beat. and I knew once we recorded that I was like this this is definitely us it just felt right and then the follow up with that

with tearing out of my heart was very similar and so we really solidified us as kind of the uptempo pop dance group and that's what we I mean we did a lot of ballads and all that but I think when you think about our music you think mainly kind of aggressive dance

fun pop music when those start coming out and Backstreet's already established in Europe and was there any competition as far as in your head or in their head in any way as far as who gets these songs or was it just sort of look we are our band you're your band we got these songs first

yeah we never really we never cared about you know what they were doing we were just so hyper-focused on trying to do what we needed to do and I mean every day was every hour was booked. So you didn't have time to think about what's going on in any other person's life.

But I loved the competition we had with the backstreet boys, especially in the beginning because it's what made us get better and better and better. And we worked so hard because we were the red-headed stepchild, I mean, our whole entire career. And so we always felt second best, second best, always second best. And so it just kept us working harder and harder and harder.

And then you turn around one day, you're like, oh wait, we're actually doing better right now. Like, somehow we've, like, caught up to them. In the United States, it's just, I feel like when you guys came into the United States, which is weird because you guys are American, but, you know, if that's the case where once those songs are released here, there was no bigger band. It blew up a lot quicker here, that's for sure. It was interesting because I remember talking to Lou Proman many times about this.

We wanted to make sure that we released in America first, because we knew. knew America's not like Europe. You're only going to get one band like this. You're going to get your one Spice Girls, your one Destiny's Child, you're one in sync, you know, that's it. You can't have multiple of the same type of bands. America won't handle that. So we knew we had to be first out

or our career was over. And of course, Lou lied to us and ended up releasing Backstreet months before us and they blew up. And of course, we were the Red Head of Stepchild again. And so we had to do the whole European thing again of, you know, defending ourselves on why we, you know, belong

to be in this industry when there's a backstreet boys. Right. So, you know, that sucked. But then quickly, we did this Disney Channel special. And ironically, backstreet boys turned down because I don't know if they didn't want to be on Disney or they just wanted a break. I'm sure they just wanted

to break. And so we took it and that's what blew us up in America. Within a month, we went from, I think our song was probably, 40 something and it just went top 10 immediately and it didn't stop for years it's weird the the stereotype with you know the avoiding being this kind of boy band or that kind of boy band and the word boy band has a connotation to it that's just not true it's like the people I know who have come from

boy bands are the best musicians that you know they're you know certainly of the era that you guys were not only were you guys good singers and good curators, but you guys also could dance. How do you keep up with the physical demands of being in a boy band at that age? Or is it just like, I'm that age, I just can do anything? Yeah, I mean, you do feel... Because if I try to dance at all now,

I'm like, I'm on the floor for a month, you know? And I was a horrible dancer. They had to teach me how to dance. It took me a while to really learn how to... I mean, I did show choir, and I thought that was dancing. It's not. Jazz hands are not, you know, the real dancing you need to do. So, yeah, I mean, it was, I was young.

You know, you had all this energy, so you felt like you were invincible. Everyone told you you were invincible. You're like, you know, enjoy why you're young. Oh, you're young. You know, you don't need to sleep. We would get maybe an average of three hours of sleep a night, which is not good for a kid, you know, definitely the rest. And I think that's what really, it really, I don't know, it burned me out a lot towards the end, especially. Yeah.

Were you burned out after, I mean, throughout the project? I mean, because it's a gradual thing to get burned out. Yeah. How soon after you guys have number one hits, you know, then you have to, the album cycle's done, you have to get back? You had seven singles, I think, on the first album or something like that. Are you recording already the next album We're doing, I mean, just non-stop. And the thing is, right after the first album, you know, we had that,

Europe was our first time to release, but so we took half of those songs and redid it for the America release. So we were always in the studio, and then in between the first, well, that album, No Strings Attached, we decided to do a Christmas album. Yeah. So we kind of threw that in the middle when we had zero time to do it, but ended up being my favorite album we ever recorded. We threw that one together so quickly.

I mean, it's amazing over Christmas. We're still like, you just hear it constantly. Oh, God, yeah. I mean, look, if you want to live forever, do a Christmas album. It is amazing. But yeah, every year, you know, those songs come back up. Coming from Mississippi, were you guys a religious family? Oh, yeah.

Southern Baptist, very, very strict. So the Christmas album, did they have, were they excited because you did a Christmas album? Or as being strictly religious, did they look at the kind of music you did as? secular and do they have issues with it? It wasn't like that. No, not at all. I mean, they loved it at the Christmas out. It is my family's favorite because they are very Christian, but no, they, you know, Southern Baptist, even Southern Baptist, you can't dance. Like, you go to hell if you, if you dance. Wow. You know that? Oh, yeah. I didn't know that. It's one of the rules. Yeah. I feel like the image is, is more like a Southern Baptist, like a black church of people.

Right. No, like, you cannot dance. It is the devil inside of you. But we were never that family. And even the church I went to, that was just such a weird role that no one ever... Were there people who looked... When you become successful, people at home know about you. When you become worldwide famous, I imagine that people had all kinds of opinions about how you're living your life and who you are. Was it hard to go back home to a small town, or was it enjoyable to go back home? It was enjoyable, and it still is to this day.

My best friends still live back home. I see them all the time. We do trips together. So going back home to Mississippi really grounds me. It takes a couple of days to figure out how to relax because it's such a different speed. But I love it. It really is what I can always just go home to

and feel like I'm at home. You said earlier when Lou Proman released Backstreet First, you said, and of course he lied. When did you realize that he was lying? I always knew Lou like to embellish. I mean, you could just tell his stories were probably true, but just not the way he was saying it. It was just always so grand.

So I knew he embellished a lot, but I didn't know he was just a strict liar. And that only dawned to me later when, you know, before we did No Strings Attached and the whole lawsuit happened, when he gave us our check presentation, That's when I knew, okay, this guy just is shab-st-y. Explain what the lawsuit situation and the, you know, explain that situation.

Yeah, so, you know, we had been working for, I think, three years at this point, and we still were just living off of our prudium, which was $35 a day. And, you know, we had sold, you know, 14 million records at this point, and number one tours, biggest merchandise sales in the world. I mean, it was, I mean, we were making millions and millions. and millions and millions of dollars. Well, someone was. But we were just getting $35 a day.

And because we were just these kids that didn't really know about the industry and we were so busy, didn't have a day off, we didn't think about the business part. We just thought, okay, well, eventually, we're all going to get this big check, right? We're all going to be made

and all, it all is presented to you at one time. But it takes a while to get there because the record label has to spend this money, blah, blah, blah. But not knowing that we had the worst contract music history was the reason that we weren't seeing a dime. So then I think Lou got wind of us kind of talking about, well, when are we going to get paid? Like, when am I going to be able to afford an apartment or buy a car?

Like, I didn't have anything. I didn't own anything. I had no money. But yeah, I was in the biggest band in the world. And so he flew everywhere out from Germany, the record label, all our families, all to Los Angeles, to Lowry's State. house here and he had all these checks in front of us in an envelope and we were having this great family dinner because he always had these great family dinners you know lou is all about food and yeah we open up the checks and we were you know expecting a lot and it was 10,000 dollars each

and that's when I knew there was definitely something wrong who is who is the whistleblower as far as saying hey this contract's messed up what did you have a lawyer were you being kept from talking attorneys? We were, yeah. Because a lot of people don't understand this, but Lou Pearlman was actually the six member of Insink. So there were six members of the group. And the whole reasoning for that, and he was explaining to us, trust me, this is the way you want to do it. Because if you just pay me as a six member, I'm in the group. So you don't have to pay lawyers. You don't have to pay me as a record label. You don't have to pay me as a manager. I'm taking care of all that. That's my part as a member of this group. I'm taking care of all that. So he took care of all the law stuff. Wow. Yeah. So when he said, here's the contract, you signed this.

You just said, sure. Yeah, this is the exact same contract. Backstreet boys signed. You know, the lawyers looked at it and said, yeah, it's a contract. But it was his lawyers. And we never had our entertainment lawyers look at it. So who's the first person to say, when you got that check? That's when you said, I kind of want to find another lawyer.

Yeah, me and JC. We were the ones that, you know, were just pissed. Do you remember the conversation when one of you said, we need to get a lawyer? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, immediately right after this dinner, we all were just so numb and thanked him for the check, but we were numb. And so I took J.C. decided I said, we have to figure something out. And he said, well, my uncle's a lawyer.

Let's start with him. So we called his uncle, and he had someone look at an entertainment lawyer. And that's when we first realized it was the worst contract in music history. Yeah. How did you get out of this? we were very lucky, you know, because Backstreet Boys had the same contract and they wanted to go through the same, you know, they sued Lou to get out of it. But they, they had, we had an out that they didn't have. What was that? They got signed to Jive in New York City. We got signed with Munich, Germany. Lou had to finance an American record deal within a year or were free. So we had a little out because we weren't signed to an American label. Wow, so all you had to say is, well, we're not going to sign. Yeah, and so we told them that, we're like, look, we're not signed.

And we told RCA was our label now at this point. And we said, guys, we're not signed with Transcontinental Records anymore. We haven't out. And no one believed us. That's when Lou Perlman sued us. And a lot of people don't understand that, too. Lou sued us. We never sued Lou.

And it was only for the name. Like, all we want to do was renegotiate. even to the, I mean, when it got so bad, all we want to do is get a fair contract. We never wanted to get rid of Lou. We just wanted to renegotiate a normal contract. And he just was not going for it. And I remember we sat there and we tried to mediate. Strauss Zelnick was our, you know, boss, you know, BMG.

And he sat there in the mediation room and he heard Lou's story. He heard our story. And he just looked at us and said, guys, I think you might have one album in you. I'm signed with Lou. And he just walked out of the room. So we knew our career was just over then. We didn't have our name. Lou owned the name in sync.

So we were no longer allowed to use in sync. And then that's when Lou took us to court over our name because he sued to make sure we could not use the name in sync. And by the way, he's still making about 85% of everything we do. So it's, you know, I don't know why you're trying to stop this. Right, yeah. So, you know, we were in court and the judge just looks at Lou and says, so you're saying you are in sync.

but these five guys over here that my daughter has their picture on their wall is not insane. Were you actually in the courtroom during this? Oh yeah. And it was amazing. She's like, no, she's like that's ridiculous. So she gave us our name and that was the only lawsuit we had to go through and we did get our name back.

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Through the lens of the Me Too movement, also there are some other things that have percolated around Lou Pearlman. I feel like he would have been, you know, a prime candidate for cancel culture kind of thing. Yeah. Lou was a different character. You know, I would not put him up there with the Harvey Weinstein's of the world. Lou was very jovial, but shy when it came to, I think, sexuality. If I were a betting man, yeah, I would say that he was probably a closeted homosexual,

something that I knew a lot about. So I always had a soft spot for him in that realm because I was like, oh, this poor guy is obviously into guys, but he can't say it. And he's pretending to date this nurse over here, but like I can totally see right through this because even though I'm 17, I know what it's like to be in the closet because I knew since I was five years old. So I always had this soft spot for him. But Lou was, you know, he was very touchy-feely with everyone.

So I could see that being part of the whole like Me Too, like, okay, you know, you hear that all the time with women at work and their bosses come up and start massaging their shoulders and it's just not a comfortable feeling. He was like that, but he was like that with everyone, even our moms. And that, you know, so it was, it wasn't just on guys. But I think he, I just, I've never heard of him doing anything. You know, you hear all this pedophilia, you know, talk, but I've not had any proof that he ever did anything. Maybe he was into that or wanted to, you know, whatever, but I don't, I don't, I've never known him to act on anything.

So that's what I'm saying, to me, I can't put him over to the Harvey Weinsteins where you just hear these horrible, horrible, horrible stories. I haven't heard one on Lou. Yeah. So I don't know what was going on in that head. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard a few stories, but we'll talk about that later. I would love for someone.

I don't know if they're, yeah. I mean, who know? I mean. It's also, it's 25 years ago, so it gets complicated, I think, on. Also, because he was such a, he was such a consistent liar, you know, that, whatever, that's a whole other. thing. I mean, it's crazy. And, you know, after doing the documentary, I learned a lot more. And, you know, we, we tried interviewing so many people. Explain the documentary, because it's just, is it, it hasn't been distributed yet outside of the festival circus.

No, it's a YouTube. It is on, yeah. It was, we didn't, we, we, we premiered it South by Southwest, but it was already bought by YouTube. I got it. Which, I wish it was a Netflix, HBO film, because I think more people would have seen it. But it is now free on YouTube. It took me forever to get them to, get them to, get it for free. So you can watch it free. It's called the Boy BandCon. But I just wanted to take a look at Lou Proman from not just the backstreet in sync angle, but from his birth to death.

And who is this guy? And I was just fascinated with everything I was uncovering all these crazy stories that he always told us. And then we realized they were just all bullshit. Yeah. Every single one of them. Well, I mean, just to put a close on Lou Promen, so it's not all about Lou Promen. But, you know, he ends up getting caught for this whole Ponzi scheme around an airlines,

and he's leveraging in sync and backstreet in order to get people to invest. Did any of that Ponzi scheme end up affecting you personally in your wallet? It did not. This Ponzi scheme was just horrible. He took advantage of so many, especially elderly people in Orlando. took their whole life savings. And in order to get all this investment from them, he dangled us in the backstreet boys and whoever else he had,

and even Britney Spears, who he didn't even represent, he would dangle that in front of all these investors. And of course, they were like, well, yeah, you're in a billion dollar business over here. Of course I'm going to invest in you. And all this return you're saying we're going to get. So it sucked that he would use our name in order to take people's life savings.

That's crazy. You mentioned that you knew when you were five, that you were gay, and here you're in Mississippi in a Southern Baptist area, I cannot imagine how complicated that is. Because what you're learning in church is clearly not what you're feeling as a human. I was very confused. I mean, it was a very lonely time because on one hand, I knew I was gay since I was five, and I knew inside that

this can't be wrong like I just I mean how can this feeling be wrong so I knew that everything I was being told about being gay and how it was wrong and the whole religion side of it that they were wrong but then how am I supposed to tell my own religion

that I've been grown up and that you're wrong so I was so confused and especially at the beginning of Insink when I was a teenager I was very religious and you know because I still thought that I could pray the gay away like I was always you know it's like I would pray every night just can I please wake up straight

can I please wake up straight and of course that never went away so it was you know did anybody know no I never told anyone man anyone no because I knew if I even told one person it was over and it wasn't

what about the guys in the band no I even knew them they couldn't even keep a secret yeah I didn't want anyone to know anything I just didn't want to even talk about it I put all my focus into work even if we had one day off I was still working on something I was way too busy to have a girlfriend

way too busy to do anything I just didn't want to even think about it When did you first have a boyfriend? After in sync it was yeah it was right after I did that whole space thing and it was about a few months

after I got back from Russia and we were supposed to start recording the new album it was going to be November 1st I had to be back from Russia November 1st so I got back and we didn't end up

recording this album. And they just kept saying, oh, we need three more months. Okay, we now we need three more months. And so during this time off, which I didn't know I was going to have time off, I met someone, you know, and that's when I started really focusing on my personal life. And because at this point, we didn't, we didn't have many friends, you know. I mean, we, that's all we did was work. So we didn't know many people.

So now getting out there and meeting people and especially like gay people, and falling in love for the first time, it really, you know, it changed my life. I moved to California where it was a lot easier, you know, to be out because, again, in the early 2000s, it was still very taboo to be gay. It's crazy how far we've come just in the last 20 years. But in 2000, I mean, it was a death sentence, you know, for your career.

If anyone found out, you mean, look at Ellen. And just, it was just a horrible, and all, and those are the only examples I had was like, holy crap, I will never tell, and for the rest of my life, I will never tell anyone. I will marry a girl, I'm sure. You just kept tricking yourself into thinking of the life you could possibly have. But then once you finally meet that first love of your life, that's when I knew, oh, my God, this is it.

Like, are you kidding me? And I wasn't ashamed of it anymore. I was like, screw anyone that's against this. Like, I've got to live my life. Do you know of artists now that are still afraid to come out? Yeah, come out. Several. And is there

How does that change? What is the different Why does it have to be when someone's finished? You know, you see that with athletes all the time So always when they retire When they come out You know, why? But it feels like as artists

This is an era Where people would be more accepting Was accepting but it's not Music industry is probably one of the most homophobic industries No Oh yeah Especially radio That's what I've found out

Wow is so homophobic. And the heads of the labels. I mean, there's still this old school, you know, mentality. And it's still to this day. I mean, it's very homophobic. Yeah. Well, I mean, I know of a few people who are obviously, you know,

really pushing to have their labels and their writers, you know, for their publishing companies, be only people who are part of the community. and you know it's interesting seeing I feel like I mean I guess we always feel like our generation's the one that's pushing it along you know but I would assume that if you're 10 now and you're 15 now or you're about to be in the in sync of tomorrow that that person will have it easier I hope so God I hope

I mean I couldn't imagine another like group coming out without a gay member in it you know I think if there was another in sync, I would think that they would purposely make sure that there was someone gay in this group. And I love that that's the times we're living right now. That would be the possibility.

I love it. So let's go back, you were saying going to no strings attached. You had already done the first album in sync, the self-titled album. It's just massive. Sells 10, 15 million albums, which is so hard to

comprehend. You're credit as a in sync is credit as a writer on a song in in sync. That begins the, in a way that's that begins your career as a songwriter and as a publisher.

As the next two albums you start seeing JC's name and Justin's name on it. Did you want to get involved in writing? Were you writing for the band? I did want to get more involved. I never was confident

in my writing because again, I was 17, so I didn't know what writing was, but when we would, at the beginning of our career, we would be able to get together and write. And so as a group, we always wrote. And here's the reason that we stopped writing as a group. Again, Lou Proman was the sixth member of Insync. And Lou kept encouraging us, guys, you have to write together.

And even if just two of you write, you have to credit it under Insync, because that's just the way it should be. Only because he got a sixth of it in the publishing, because he was the sixth member of Insync. So whatever we wrote as in sync, Lou got the six of. So that's why Jason and Justin were like,

screw that. I'm going to do my own. I'm not going to give money to Lou, especially after we found out he was screwing us. So that's why you never saw any more in sync written stuff. Wow. No strings attached. Is that the first album that comes out then after the lawsuit?

Or is that happening with the lawsuit happening? It was right after. Right after we got rid of Lou, which again, we didn't get rid of Lou. We just renegotiated a better contract. But that's when you finally get paid for the first time. Yes, we finally got a first paycheck right after that whole thing. And right before No Strings Attached.

And No Strings Attached was going to be our first album that we really controlled. I mean, this was our baby. And, you know, it was all about us leaving Lou Perlman. I mean, it's what inspired us to do the whole Marionette thing and No Strings Attached. I mean, bye, bye, bye. Yeah. it was all part of a theme. Yeah.

And we were scared because we didn't think that, you know, we didn't think the fans would support us if we were gone for too long. And we had already been gone for so long. We're like, well, we have no idea if this album's even going to be successful. And then we released by, bye, bye, and it just kind of took us to the next level. 2.4 million songs in the first, or sorry, 2.4 million albums in the first week set the record for 15 years. Damn you, Adele.

Yeah, exactly. The recorded music's only really, as an industry, really hits when Elvis becomes the first pop star. Previous to that, there were projects that sold significant amounts, but it's not until Elvis that it really blows up. So 15 years of, you know, 70 years of a music industry is a massive chunk to own records. Did you have any idea the significance?

Was everyone telling you that? Or was this sort of, you know, were you appreciating it? Do you appreciate it differently now? We completely appreciated everyone. We knew what was going on because, of course, I mean, we would do an interview every hour. And it was all, you know, oh, y'all did this. And it was always breaking a record, breaking your record. And it was incredible because we knew we were in a moment in music, you know, history.

that would never happen again. Like we just knew there was something going on with Brittany and Destiny's Child and us and Bashian Christina. It was this explosion. And the people were selling records like no other. And the only people we could compare it to were the Beatles or new kids on the block.

And we just knew something was special. So we were just so appreciative and just we couldn't believe it. Every time that we would do something fun and like break a record, we're like, wow, I cannot believe this is happening. Did you know to save your money when you guys finally got it? No.

There's such a difference between, oh, we're not, we're not seeing money to seeing money from being in the biggest band. Yeah. You know, to go from one to the other within one album is no human can understand that swing. And no one can really handle it, especially because, you know, we all came from no money. Like, we were all pretty poor, you know, growing up. you know when you go from having zero money to having a lot of money overnight well it seems like overnight a lot of people can't handle that they don't know how to you don't know how to save because you never learned how to save you spend everything that you've ever you know made so that was that was definitely

a learning curve for sure because you get you know you're up in this you know level you know the biggest band in the world you're making all this money then you don't realize that that's going to stop one day you know as a kid you're thinking well i'm set for life like how could i i mean we're going to be making this money the rest of our life right not knowing that yes there's a finite time for your group and you should be saving this and uh and i had to learn that the hard way especially when we went to the whole lu proman thing and didn't make money off our first album first two albums um you know i i i definitely you know should have left with a lot more and you know it sucks it sucks that i wasn't able to set my life up as much as it should have been set up.

How was the relationship between the members at this point? You know, you've released a few albums, you've gone through lawsuits together. Some people are getting publishing. Some people aren't. Some people are, you know, there's starting to be a pay

discrepancy, I'm sure, between the members. Because when you have a publisher, or when you have a songwriter on an album that's selling 15 million albums, somebody's getting paid a little bit more. And we never really even thought about that. Oh, that's good.

Yeah, we never really talked about it. You know, we all knew, yeah, if you write a song, you're going to be making a lot of money. But none of us really cared because we were all making a lot of money. Did any of you care either who presented the song or was there ever weirdness with, I don't really want to sing this song that you just said in? No, we were very honest with any song I'd write and I'd like hear Jaycey this and he would be like, that's crap. So, we were very honest with each other,

but very supportive of trying to get the songs written by us on the album. Now, we didn't want to be one of those groups like, well, we're putting this song on because we wrote it. No, you want to earn it. We wanted great music. And it just so happens that there was a lot of songs Justin and J.C. wrote that were just really great.

And, I mean, they turned out to be incredible songwriters. And there was one time, I think it was no strings attached. There was one song Chris Kirkpatrick wrote that was really it was a ballad and it was between these two ballads and we were all in you know the jive um the meeting room going over different songs we were picking we were picking the tracks and it came down to these two ballads that we wanted to put on i think one was diane warren one was chris or patrick and we were all honestly like god you know if it comes down to it like the diane warren's just like this much better so we chose that one and i still to this day

and pissed at myself for not standing up for chris being like well it was just as good. We should have given, we should have definitely given that track for him on that album. So looking back, I think we were a little too honest. And situations like that,

I think I should have definitely had a better decision. When you guys, not to skip ahead, but you have a whole life after and sing, so. 2001 happens, celebrity ends up being

this second fastest-selling album. Oh, I didn't even know. that. At least this is the note I have. I have the second fastest selling album and sound scan history at the time only behind no strings attached. Cool.

I mean it's crazy because celebrity you know after no strings attached being so big, you know the next album you were so afraid of because it has to be as big or you look like a failure. And Celebrity didn't sell as many. It only sold like 8 million records and to a lot of people that look like a failure.

That's so stupid. and I think it looked like a failure to our record label and our management because I think that's when they started saying okay we need to get Justin to break out of this because it looks like it's going downhill. Wow. What was that like? I mean... What was that conversation? About what, leaving the group?

Sure. It was such a slow role. We didn't really know what was happening. So like I said, I had to be back to start the album November 1st. it didn't happen, you know, three years later, they're still saying, oh, we got a, you know, we got three more months. I'm sorry, because his Justin's solo project blew up. No one knew, because we were going to take six months off,

and he was going to record an album, and he even did not trust that it would ever do anything. He's like, probably won't do, you know, anything. But he just wanted to try the solo thing, and it just blew up, and it hasn't stopped to this day. So after about three years of, you know, not being able to get in the studio, that's when Justin finally sat us down.

It's like, look, it is not slowing down, and there's no way I'm going to be able to come back to the group. So, you know, it was about three years after Celebrity that we knew we weren't recording anymore. Were you waiting during that three years? Oh, yes. Of waiting and writing. This was finally for this album,

and this was the first album that we were going to have that Lou Pearlman got zero on. So, you know, no strings he'd get half. Celebrity got like a third. And then this next one completely clear. of Lou Promen. So I was excited to, one, be able to write as a group again. And so

I went to Nashville and I just started writing, writing, writing. And I was super excited to start presenting this stuff but, you know, we never got to that point. Did you release music? I released a solo probably about four years ago. It was a song called Walking on Air

and that's what really solidified me, not really wanting to be in the music industry. anymore. Really? Well, I guess two questions. One is why did it take so long? I, my confidence, I had no confidence at all.

Because as a bass singer, you know, you never got leads or any of that kind of stuff, and no one even attempted to get me to sing leads. So I never thought I was a good enough singer. So when this song got presented to me a few years ago, I was like, okay, this will be fun. And I loved doing it. It was great. And, you know, they released it, but everywhere, right, the world, you know, it did well, but America wouldn't even play it.

But that's, if it did well everywhere in the world, I mean, there are artists that, you know, Robbie Williams and James Blunt and some of these artists who are just massive if you leave the States, like can't walk down the street kind of thing. But if they walk through West Hollywood, no one would even, you know, that's still successful, is it not? It is, but it's not. Are your expectations that? No, I just wasn't having fun. Oh, that's different. I realized I'm not a soul artist

and I'd never want to be a soul artist. It was, I mean, I enjoy singing. I love being on stage, but I enjoy singing and being on stage with those guys. Those guys in particular too. I loved being an in sync. That was my life. That's what I'm good at.

And that's where I'm the most creative. And then after that, I really got into TV and film and that's where I am today. and I realized I'm a much better writer for film and television. Like that's where my brain can go. Musically, I'm not as talented, but there's something about scripts that I was really good at. And that's when I decided, you know what?

I had a great run with music. Let's follow another passion of mine and something that I'm even more passionate about. And that's why I kind of went over to TV and film. But before that, and maybe as a writer, to be listed in the New York Times bestseller lists and you're a co-writer on that, what was the process of writing a book

coming out of, out of instinct and out of the closet? I mean, that's the point of the book in a lot of it. So what is it, you know, the process of, you know, it's all about hit songs. It's all about, you know, whatever it is, record sales. The book industry is totally different.

expectations must have been probably not anywhere near as big as it ended up being. Yeah, not at all. What is that process to go from being a musician to an author? Yeah. You know, writing a book is a lot harder than I ever thought it would be. You think you would be like, oh, yeah, it's going to. No, I just thought, okay, yeah, it'll take me like six months. I'll get with my co-writer and we'll get all the stories down and we'll put it in a great format.

and it'll sound great. Oh no. It was such a process. It took well over a year. And pouring your guts out like that because this was right after I came out. So this was my first time to, and I never really interviewed about me coming out. I just kind of, I disappeared for a while after that because I didn't know how people would react to it. I thought immediately people were just going to hate me. Did you get any negative? Of course. Yeah. I mean, you get a lot of negative, but majority was positive. And that's what surprised me.

I, you know, the Jay Leno's of the world, you know, doing the jokes, but in such a good positive way of kind of like, can you believe people actually care about this anymore? Yeah. And I was just so happy that people were just, who cares? And that was just like, oh my God, I can't believe, you know, people are actually positive about this situation. But of course, you got a lot of negative stuff too and you lose some friends. But, you know, that's their own ignorance. And what can you do? Right.

But with this book, I wanted to. tell my story and it was very raw. Looking back, there's a lot of things that were incorrect that were just did not, that we missed an edit, like just different dates wrong and that type of stuff. And even looking back now, there's my feelings have changed a lot on different situations. Like what? I mean, the whole space thing was fresh. So, you know, and I never, I wasn't allowed to talk about that until this book. So, you know, getting that off my chest and telling everyone how that went down because everyone was confused about that whole thing.

They thought it was all about a big publicity stunt. So being able to share that and the craziness that I went through over in Russia was a lot. And everyone knew the music side. So yes, that's in the book, but everyone kind of knew that part. What I was interested in was telling my coming out story and the space story. How did the band feel?

I assume that this is years after, but you guys are you guys all close still to this day? Oh yeah. We pretty much talk daily. On a text chain? Yeah, we all text with each other. I mean, it's pretty funny. I mean, we were virtually being 16.

We're always going to be 16-year-olds around each other. Right, of course. How did they feel about, I mean, they must have been super supportive about the book. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, they're all supportive of me being able to tell my truth finally, yeah. And I knew it was important to have a coming out. story, especially at this time, this was 2008, I think.

It was so important for me to get this coming out story out because I knew as a kid, I would have loved to have read a story like that so I could relate to someone, because I didn't have anyone I could relate to growing up as a gay kid. Were you prepared to be, you know, not just somebody who's telling their story, but to become an advocate was the assumption that this was going to launch you into, I mean,

it ends of changing your career path in a lot of ways. Completely changed my career. Because people, you know, it ended up opening up as many doors as, it did. It changed. Yeah, I mean, it changed completely everything about, you know, my career.

You can't predict that. No. And, you know, you always hear, yeah, if you come out, your career is over. And yes, my career was over, the way that I knew it. But I had to figure out how to switch, you know, switch it and figure out what am I supposed?

But where do I belong in this industry? And so when you come out so publicly... This industry being the entertainment industry. Yeah. And when you come out that publicly on the cover of People magazine, you're now known as one thing. You know, you were Lance from Insync. Now you're Lance the gay guy from Insink. So that label was always going to be put on me. I knew I didn't...

I knew I couldn't be an advocate at that point because I knew nothing about the gay community. I even said that public, I'm like, look, I'm not going to be the one. leading all the gay parades right now because I don't deserve that. I don't know anything about this industry yet. I'm an industry. Community yet. So I knew I needed to be an out gay man

and learn about what the struggles are in the community before I could even speak out about it. How did your family, I mean, they've obviously been pretty supportive. Yeah. Yeah, they're great. Yeah, they, when I've, because when I came out, I was actually on my third boyfriend.

So to my friends, I was already out. And I just didn't think people cared because it's been three years now and no one's really written about it so I guess no one cares. So I was being a little free with my relationships.

Again, in the closet because I would go in one door, they'd go out another, that type of stuff. We didn't want any pictures together because again, I thought we were going to do another in sync album. So I didn't want to ruin

our next album by being outed. But the band knew. No, the band did not know. still didn't know. So when you say your friends, is a different. No, again, I didn't want in sync to know about it. Yeah.

Because I knew we were getting back together. So I'm like, all right. But with this, the boyfriend that I had when I came out, that was, I think, the first time I was, like, truly in love and I didn't want to hide it anymore. And that's why I decided, you know what? I'm happy to, you know, I'm happy to, you know, show off this relationship because I'm super happy.

And I want people to see that I'm happy. Yeah. Not to you, I don't want to gloss over the astronaut thing because of all the things that we've had on this podcast, I don't think we've ever had an actual astronaut. And being interested in astronomy or space aeronautics or all of that is, that would make sense. But to pursue being an astronaut, a cosmonaut, having to learn Russian, all of the things. is particularly unique on this planet. I mean, there can't be 100 people who have been in your position

in the history of humanity. So that said, how did going from being a band member to being an astronaut, how did that happen in a, in I want to do this to actually doing it phase? Yeah, I mean, again, it's kind of like in sync, it just landed in my lap. You know, something I always was interested in, and I wanted to be a space engineer.

Actually, it was the Mickey Mouse Club that made me want to be an astronaut. Because I watched the Mickey Mouse Club in sixth grade, and on Fridays, they have a career day, and they had a space engineer on that. He said, if you want to be an astronaut, you know, basically start as a space engineer, because space engineers, you know, can graduate to become astronauts and fly to space. I'm like, okay, I'm going to be a space engineer. And so that was my path until, you know, in sync landed in my lap. and then it was we had already decided to go on a six-month hiatus

because Justin wanted to do that solo album and I was so happy because we had not had a day off in years and I was excited for six months of I don't know what I was going to do you know I was going to maybe shoot a movie here you know relax just enjoy you know time off but it was about two months after that that I got a call and they were like look We want you to fly to space, and we want to do this whole TV show,

and it's all about the youngest person to ever fly to space. And I thought it was Ashton Coochard punking me. So I'm like, this is not real. And so it took a week for them to convince me that this was real. How did they know you wanted to do this? An AOL chat room. Yeah, they were this company, I forget some space, whatever, space adventures, whatever. They were going to be the ones to put the next person in space.

they were in an AOL chat room and they were asking just people out there, hey, if there was a celebrity you would like to see to go to space, who would it be? And an in sync fan spoke up and said, oh, Lance Bass, he's always wanted to be an astronaut. And they wanted someone that would take it seriously and I was of the age.

They wanted the youngest person. And so that's how I got it. Some fan just recommended me to be the one to go. When somebody thinks, oh, I'm going to be an astronaut, I think they would assume that that means that they put you on a rocket and they send you to space. But the amount of work it takes to become an astronaut and the pressure, were you scared about it? Was the physical shape you must have had to be in?

All of the science you had to learn about it, that's a lot longer than six months of training. Well, it was crazy because it was a three-year program condensed. 10 to six months. So it was intense. I still have PTSD from this whole experience. Really? For sure. What is the PTSD from it?

Many things. They were always challenging you and trying to scare you because they wanted to see how you would react to certain situations. Most of space training is emergency training. So you have to know every second of your mission. If this happens, what do you do?

And you have to react in split seconds. So most of the training besides, you know, learning the whole rocket science behind everything. And for some reason, we had to learn every nut and bolt of every, you know, soya's and all that. Things you didn't really have to know. But you have to learn it, I guess, as an astronaut. Oh, and all in Russian.

But there were times where, you know, I'd find tracking devices in my head, you know, and I'd have to pull out tracking devices that they'd, like, slip into my head somehow. They would bring me out because... What does a tracking device in your head look like? It's like a little metal rod. tiny metal rod yeah and they put it one in me the first time i went over there for uh the medical testing because you have to pass medical testing before you can go into training and i failed it the first time because i had an irregular heartbeat so i was and we were still on tour the celebrity tour

so i went back and i finished those shows and i remember i was in my office and my assistant and it was behind me and i'm like and i kept feeling a splinter i'm like what is this thing and so she took tweezers and pulled it out and it was this metal rod That was the first time I knew they were tracking me. And so I just knew, oh, and by the way, I was gay. I definitely had met someone at this point who went to Russia with me and was my quote-unquote assistant. And they had no idea. So I was so nervous.

I mean, nothing ever happened between me and this guy because I thought there was a camera on me at all times. Like they were just spying on me the whole time. And, you know, Hollywood negotiating with Russia, not a good thing. They've never done an entertainment contract. And Russia, you know, I do respect the way they do contracts because it's, you know, it's all about the contract. If you say, I'm going to pay you $50,000 in the contract, but then you say, you know what, we earned a lot more. We're going to give you a million dollars. Like, no, the contract's $50,000.

Like, they are strict. And Hollywood, they've never done anything like this before. So it was not a fun negotiation between them. So as I was training in good faith, they were still negotiating this flight. And it was going to be a TV show on CBS. Then that, Les MoonVez screwed that one up. And now MTV took over as a documentary. But because of this crazy fighting with contracts and they were all about when's the money coming?

They had to get paid like every certain amount of weeks. And I was on the hook for that. It wasn't my agents and everything that were there. So during class, I would be. the one taken out with a gun to my head saying where's the fucking money, where's the fucking money. So that's the shit I had to deal with as I'm trying

to learn how to fly to space in Russia. I would have people with guns to my head begging for money. So it was all living on a military base that was still set in the 70s and no air conditioning. So it was a rough

to go from that to because if you're still on tour during some of that, that you have to come back and perform in arenas in front of fans. What is the, what a mind fuck. I mean, you can't imagine just that the solitude of one of it to be in front of 28,000 adoring fans. Yeah, it was definitely different because, yeah,

I went from years of 500 people around you at all times and every little detail of your day is planned out. and you just work to yeah you're by yourself you have no one and you're in class from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day. Did you speak Russian before this? No. Not at all. It's a hard freaking language.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know it had a whole different alphabet. That's what screwed me at first. I'm like, really? I have to learn a whole different alphabet first. Yeah. And then, of course, my Russian teacher only spoke French and Russian.

and they thought that that would be a better way to teach me. And it wasn't. It wasn't at all. And so it took me a good couple months to really get the hang of Russian. I mean, it's so crazy. You didn't end up going to space. How do you feel about that part? I mean, it sucks.

You know, on one hand, it was an incredible experience to train like that. And my crew was amazing. And I did so many mock missions that I feel like I did my mission. Because a lot of people think, oh, he's just going to fly up to space float around and come back. But no, I was going to live on the ISS for 10 days. I had my experiments that I was doing that I was in charge of. I mean, you go up there, you work. You know, it's not just a free ride.

If it's available now for people to go to space tourism, would you be on the first flight up there or are you done with this part? No, I would definitely go. It would be a roller coaster for sure. think it would be great. You know, when Virgin starts going, I'll definitely, you know, pop on one of those flights. I definitely don't want to be on the first one. Yeah. I want to get them to do a few flights before I get on that. But, uh, but my dream is still to get on that soyas and, uh, and finish my experiments that I wanted to do on ISS. Over the last 10 years, you've gotten further

into, you know, film, television, making documentaries, doing all kinds of dancing on TV. You've got all kinds of hosting. For someone that's a horrible dancer, I sure made a career Exactly. Hosting shows on serious, doing podcasts, what haven't you done that you're supposed to be doing? I, you know what, being a dad, I think that's my next adventure. You know, I want to have kids and I want to know what it's like to, you know, raise a family. You know, my family was so incredible and I want to be able to give that to, you know, my kids. Are you going to adopt?

Maybe. We're trying to have our own right now. It's been a long process. The IVF, and I know a lot of people listening have gone through this. And thank God it's not taboo to talk about anymore because so many women out there thought it was so taboo to talk about IVF, you know. But now it's such a normal, you know, thing.

And the best way to have kids, the safest way, of course, is IVF. I mean, you have the healthiest kids ever. So for two years, we've been working on it, failed a couple of times and we're going to restart again this spring and if that fails again then we're going immediately to adopting because we were

going to adopt anyway but I just felt like let's just try to have our kids first before I get too old but yeah if it doesn't happen this year we're just going to go straight to adopting. Yeah I hope that happens for you. Me too. Are you ever going

to get involved again in performing music if obviously you did the solo album a couple years ago but is the is the desire to still ever is it still in there at all at all to do music it is within sync yeah without insink

it doesn't interest me really I as a performer now as a producer I would love to get involved with other groups I've always for the last few years I just haven't had time I've always wanted to be the anti-Lu Proman. I wanted to create a boy band or a girl band, since that is what I know, and do it right.

You know, have them own everything. And it's like a legit deal. And so I wanted to be able to give that back to another artist. And I did manage a few artists back in the day, country artists. But I never got into the pop world with that. And I really wanted to form a band that could be. the next in sync, but them actually get a good deal. Yeah. I hope you do that.

All right, so we're going to go to the next segment. I mean, there's five things, and you just say what comes to the top of your head. Okay. I mean, this feels so easy. So I was going to do a bunch of other things, but I feel like I have to do at least these first. So we'll go with Joey. Joey? Crazy.

Yeah, Joe, I mean, best friend. He's my boy. It's so funny, man. I went to school out here and moved here in 1998. Yeah. You know, that's my freshman year being in L.A. And I'm in a band. My house band for the fraternity I was in was EF6.

Oh, no way. So all of a sudden I was like opening for this band. And I was like, oh, this is really cool. Like there's so much fashion that came from what you guys were doing. Oh, God. Sorry about that. So I have like pleather pants. And I had the facial hair, the Joey Fatone facial hair.

The flavor saver. Yeah. And for sure, for sure, there was a Joey Fatone doll that somebody gave me. It was like, it looks just like you. And here I am in like a rock band. Oh, man. It's a. Yeah.

But Joey's crazy. I mean, I love Joey. We are definitely the odd couple. I mean, we could not be more opposite of people, but somehow we, we gel. Yeah. And you guys have similar paths after the, you know, after the group. You guys still have embraced the fame from it and have used it to leverage really cool opportunities. Yeah. And both of us definitely relate in the fact that we love talking. You know, we're, we love showing off. We love being, you know, having attention.

So, you know, it was natural for us to go into this hosting role that I always love. I mean, even as a kid, you know, I would always make my own radio show. I would have the tape player ready and I would call the DJ and they'd play the song I need but I'd have it on pause and I'd unpause it. So I'd make all these kind of my own makeshift radio shows because I wanted to be Wolfman Jack. So like I always wanted to be a talk show host even as like a little kid. So now that this opportunity came around and people were asking, oh, would you host this? I'm like, yeah, this is great.

And I honestly, if you look back at in sync and you see any interview with me, I'm the most boring person ever. because I didn't want people to hear me talk because I thought people would figure out I'm gay. So when you hear me, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, you do not, I mumble, I'm boring, no personality whatsoever. Do you think you sound gay now? I mean, no, I mean, I can, I mean,

yeah, I mean, there's some things that I hear myself saying, like, oh, yeah, I'm totally, that's very, like, man, I think that's, I think it's really projecting. It's like in this era, it feels like, artists are more in touch with their femininity no matter how straight or gay they are. Yeah, but it's nice, yeah.

And we went through it that in the 80s too. I mean, that was just as, you know, so weird that it became more conservative and then less, it did. It really goes to. And I remember people saying, oh, because, you know, being in the closet, you hear all the gay jokes, you know,

you hear all the negative things, which makes you stay in the closet even more. But yeah, it's, you know, it was scary, but there were things that people would say, oh, if you say the word so a lot, that means you're gay. So if you're talking and you say so, like, you're gay. So there was all these things that I just took out of my vocabulary to make sure no one could pinpoint that I was gay. That's crazy. Chris Carpatrick.

Another crazy one. Chris, I mean, he was the founding member of the group. So, you know, I owe everything to him. And, you know, he had this vision that was, you know, that was incredible. And super talented. Like one of, I mean, his voice, I think is just incredible. I'm very Frankie Valley, incredibly high voice. Justin Timberley.

Super talented. Even at 14 when I met him, I knew this kid had a lot going for him. And he just had this confidence, even at such an early age. you knew that he was just going to be excellent at what he did and I remember when I first met his voice hadn't any changed yet it was just changing

so yeah so it was nice to see his growth J.C. Chazet the most talented vocalist I've ever heard really? Yeah. Out of that whole group Oh God I mean J.C.'s voice is the best male vocalist I know of I mean I'm

comparing to Brian at night I mean the greats does he know you feel that way? Oh yeah, I've told him that many times. Oh, yeah. I think I just tweeted it last week. Yeah, it's great. Perfect.

But yeah, I'm such a fan of his because one, he's incredible dancer too. I mean, he's got it all. But man, that voice. I mean, I was, oh, I know what it was. It was an anniversary of this, I promise you. And, oh, my gosh, I wrote that. Oh, my gosh. What's his name?

Shit. Babyface? No, no, no. Oh, my gosh. Singer. guy. Richard Marx. Oh, my God.

I forget Richard Marks. Oh, okay. Richard Marks wrote that. So it was an anniversary. So he tweeted, you know, like, oh, this, you know, this promise you. And I listened to it again. And I just, I forgot how great J.C.'s vocal was. So that's why I tweeted.

I was like, this is the best J.C. vocal I think I've ever heard. Amazing. Finally, Michael, your husband. As cheesy as it is, he completes me. You know, I've dated a lot. of frogs in my life, especially when you first come out and you don't think you can find anyone, especially when you're in the closet, especially you don't think you can find anyone. So, you gravitate to the first person that shows you attention and that you can trust. And

then you get into these like bad relationships, which, you know, I learned a lot from. And I wrote a lot in my book. There was a lot of, I was basically Elizabeth Taylor in my book. I went through a lot of horrible relationships. But then I found this guy and it was just such a different relationship. We've never fought. I always thought fighting was how you showed passion in a relationship because I only dated Brazilians. So it was very passionate relationships.

And this was just so easy. Like so easy. And now it's been nine years and it's still the easiest thing I've ever had. I love that. Well, thank you for doing our podcast. Well, thanks for having me. We have, like I was saying, we've had, you know, 80 to 100 guests at this point and from all different eras and from different walks of life.

But there aren't that many people who are part of, you know, what you were saying, this magical era of albums selling, spreading the, you know, it was touching so many people, so many people. so many people can think of in sync as their first this kind of concert you know it's just so it's so influential it wasn't

we know of other people who were in other projects that were really successful but aren't considered as influential or weren't you know for whatever reason you were at the epicenter and then to leverage that a new career of you know pursuing entertainment.

And we keep trying to explain that the definition of a songwriter or a writer in general is really not just somebody sitting at a piano. It can be just somebody who's being creative with putting music to their life. It can be all kinds of things. And somebody who's writing books or working in documentaries or films or whatever it is, it's still, it's just as much writing as the person who's writing a musical. that's writing, you know, any other kind of music, long-form music. You're just writing the longest opera after being in this incredible group.

So, thanks for being part of this. Thank you. Yeah, there we go. All right. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer is. If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist or visit our website at anandtherwriter is.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us.

You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is, is produced by Joe London, edited by Miles Bergsmah, and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to David Silberstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. Until next time, this is Ross Golan.