The Viall Files - E1109 - Joey Fatone - *NSYNC & Boyband Confidential

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Welcome back to a very special episode of The Viall Files!  You won't be saying "Bye Bye Bye" to this episode, because we're joined by true boy band royalty, Joey Fatone of NSYNC!!! Joey stops by to talk all about his new documentary, Boy Band Confidential, diving into everything from his complicated history with NSYNC to his relationship with Lou Pearlman, the man who gave him his start… and nearly cost him everything. He also opens up about life as a dad and watching his daughters swoon over today's boy bands like One Direction and Jonas Brothers. So go ahead and put down your Tiger Beat because Joey Fatone is on The Viall Files! "There are a lot of surreal moments…" The Viall Files is going LIVE with the new cast of Temptation Island on May 4th! Tickets are on sale NOW! For more information, please visit netflixisajokefest.com.  Want ad free episodes and incredible bonus content?  Start your 7 Day Free Trial of Viall Files + here: https://viallfiles.supportingcast.fm/  HEY! YOU! DO YOU NEED DATING AND RELATIONSHIP ADVICE?  Email [e-mail] and be a part of future Ask Nick episodes! Subscribe to The ENVY Media Newsletter Today: https://www.viallfiles.com/newsletter  Listen to Humble Brag with Cynthia Bailey and Crystal Kung Minkoff now!  Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humble-brag-with-crystal-and-cynthia/id1774298881  Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4NWA8LBk15l2u5tNQqDcOO?si=3b868996930347e8  Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@humblebragpod Listen To Disrespectfully with Katie Maloney and Dayna Kathan now! Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disrespectfully/id1516710301 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0J6DW1KeDX6SpoVEuQpl7z?si=c35995a56b8d4038 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCh8MqSsiGkfJcWhkan0D0w To Order Nick's Book and/or learn more about the show, go to: https://viallfiles.com To advertise on this podcast please email: [e-mail] or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/theviallfiles   Episode Socials: @viallfiles @nickviall @realjoeyfatone @theemilydbaker @the_mare_bare @justinkaphillips @leahgsilberstein @izeweaver

You look sharp, man. I'm trying, you know. I don't even dress up that much, but today I felt like cleaning up today. So that was really it. This is a good suit. I like it a lot. I like the color. The gray beard really goes with the suit.

It's like really good. Thank you. I got a couple of grays coming in my beard. Oh, dude. It starts and a couple of months or it feels like a couple of months, but a couple of years, all of a sudden it's like this. But it's okay. You're rocking it.

I learn to be okay with it. And I can even sometimes I'll die and people like, you die. I'm like, yes, because it's fun. I know it's not real. It's okay. Are you going to bring the red back? Yeah, maybe. You know what?

I did the one time where when I did the trolls, I did the hair and the eyebrow, actually. Oh, that's a cool. It was a red stripe. That's a cool. It was kind of cool. It's fun. Have you donned a Santa outfit since you've gone, Gray? Not yet, but you know that that's coming in.

I think it's fortuitive. You know, the more I grow this out, it's definitely going to be, I'm definitely going to have to do that at some point. Or do a role like that, I think. I think it would be kind of fun to play a Santa role for something. Oh, hell yeah. Like a musical. Yeah, whatever.

Or anything. Anything. I don't know. You know, killer Santa or something. Who knows? Ooh, that'd be good. Right? Oh, I would do that. Joy Faton, welcome to this show, man. I'm so excited to have you. Hey, man, thank you.

Very, very happy to be here. Very excited to be here. My girl listens to you guys, actually, so, thanks. It's great. She's like, oh, my God, you are going to be on there? Really? Okay, good. Because I can't wait to listen to it.

I'm okay, good. I have complicated feelings about in sync. Okay. Well, I mean, I'm joking. Why are you complicated? Tell me. Tell me. I'm going to...

Well, my first girlfriend, my first love of my life, was deeply, deeply obsessed with you guys. Gotcha. I got you now. Okay, now we know where this is going. First of all, congratulations on the documentary. Thank you very much. It's really, really good.

Thank you. It really draws you in. I was locked in. And there's that part in the dock where you guys are talking about the scary elements of obviously the success. And then there's some story about, you know, someone got arrested because they were threatening to take that. I don't know if it was in sync that you guys were talking.

about? No, I'm trying to got arrested. It probably would have been either boys to men or. It was basically someone, like a fan was like deeply upset with how obsessed women were with all these boy banks to the point that it like frustrated this kind of crazy person. I got in fights with my first girlfriend because of how obsessed she was with you guys. Wow, got that deep. I'm sorry. I apologize. Didn't mean for it to go that crazy. She was a JC guy. So I, I really have. Gotcha. Good.

Nobody was me anyway at the young age. The older, now I think now that I'm older for some reason, it's like it's cool to look older, I guess, with the white beard and everything.

So back then, I was not cool. But for the young, it was definitely Justin. It was Lance, you know, that group of people. It's understandable.

It's okay. And the JC, yeah, we understand. But either, I mean, she, listen, the truth is she loved all of you guys. But it's an incredible doc man.

And for anyone who grew up being fans of you guys with a boy band era, like, you know, also nostalgic because, you know, you get into boys to men and... The cool thing about the whole story, too, is it takes on journeys on different guys and different aspects.

And the interesting thing is how parallel everybody's life in some way, shape, or form has been because of being in a boy band. And I can explain to you how it feels to be in a boy band 80 million times. You've never done it. You would never know what I'm saying? I don't know. I'm never been in your shoes. You never been in my shoes.

So you can never really relate. But if you've been on a, you know, again, the only time you can really say is like, you've been on a football team and that camaraderie of that team. It's the same kind of feeling. But then it's like you have the ups and downs like everything. You've got the pressures of, you know, for, you know, the artist and being a musician and a boy band, you know, how do you fit in? Do you fit into that?

Are you the lead singer? Who are you? And then it's the how much money financially? What's going on mentally? So for this, for the doc, you know, I always, you know, me and my manager, Joe, well, we both co-produced it and directed it. It's kind of those things where we wanted to kind of go, what makes everybody take from day what happened and let's tell this story individually and what goes on and it's pretty fascinating to see a lot of these individual stories and there's a lot of guys from different groups i have you know myself and lances in it you know from in sync you have jeff timmons and nicholas she from 98 degrees you have sean and juan yane from boys of men so a lot of two the guys are almost from each group and you hear these stories and some of them are good and some of them are bad and obviously you know a lot of documents go down those deep dark tunnels and holes and we are definitely touching that surface but yeah we're not trying to beat a dead horse here it is

what it is, but you understand that, you know, there is, you know, whether there's mental, financial, physical struggles or abuse or whatever the case may be, it's amazing to see what they've come out of. You know, you got LFO, one of the guys from LFO, the group, you know, new kids on the black had a bunch of hits. Chinese school makes me sick. Exactly. Wow. Look at you. It's on my playlist right now. I love that song. And the sad part about him is it wasn't like a downfall of depression. He wasn't into drugs. He had three, each band member passed away in different times for different reasons and some due to cancer. But it was a lot of It was unreal and you know the struggles and thinking about, you know, after that the depression he went through, you know, and it's almost like this kind of curse he had. It was, it's just, it's bizarre. But again, it's amazing to see how that art comes about with everybody comes out a different way. But it's great to see that majority of the guys in groups have come out. I mean, not to everybody, but majority. And there's always people to reach out to and talk to. I think that's the most, you know, people always say, you know, well, mental health is important. And it is important. Back in the day, it was.

like, you know, you could talk to somebody. It was like, yeah, just suck it up. Right. I think Nick brought that up in the dock where he was saying, like, now Justin Bieber, he could just cancel a whole tour. Yeah. But, okay, cool. Back then it was like you just bottle it up.

You let it out when you're alone. And like, you just keep going. Yeah, because it was like what happened. Because, you know, it was the, you know, you didn't want to let the other guys in the band down or, God forbid, if you did take that break, were you going to be irrelevant or not? Because there was always another group behind you, ready to take your spot. Yeah.

That was really interesting hearing about, like, just the interesting. industry in this machine of boy bands and kind of the way, I mean, you talked about it in the documentary with like when Justin was going solo and it was just like a lack of communication, right? Of just like making you guys, you know, just feel like not valued. Yeah. Just let us know what's going on. Just give us the input and then, you know, let us process it. But then again, you also take into consideration we're young. Yeah. We're hungry for performing. You know, we're this and that. So I get it because a lot of times and you always hear people where at a younger age, they go, you know what? I'm doing this way. and then years later they come back and they go, God, what was they thinking? Or, you know, now that I've known or experienced certain things, I would have never said that then that I said now. You know, it's a learning lesson. We all learn from our mistakes.

And I think I even say in the doc, you know, where even through these trials and tribulations and things that I've gone through, I am now a better person out of it. I'm definitely a lot wiser, you know, keep my eyes and ears open a lot more on different things. Because then I think if I didn't get that and I wasn't, not to say take advantage of or learn those ins and out, it would have happened to me later on. It might have been too late later on. You know what I mean? It might have been even a bigger or huger loss or something. So, you know, and the same thing when I was younger,

learning that whole process of money where, you know, almost going bankrupt. You go, okay, well, crap, what the hell am I going to do? Right. You know, so, and it's learning that, figuring it out. So that's the reason why I'm like, you know, I would never change anything because with those mistakes, you come out and they might come out stronger.

So it's great, like I said, and the doc, all these other artists have done the same thing as well. Can we talk about Jason for a second? Is that common knowledge with the average instinct diehard fan? Yeah, it is. It is knowledge. I mean, we never really speak big about it. And I think there was only two times Jason has ever been out or done anything.

And he's not like, and it's funny. You know what? I give him a lot of respect and I commend him, you know, because you could take this so many different ways. He could have tried to even cash it to the bank of some way, shape, or form. That has nothing to do with it. It was not his, just his bag with his music. he just did not want to do pop music

and he even said the the contract was really, really thick and he goes, I had somebody look at it, I was 18 and he goes, they just said it's probably not a good idea. But if it did become successful, everybody would have won. But it would have been very big

in Lou Parman's favorite, which it was. No, it's crazy. And for anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, Jason, was an original member of InSync, a la you referenced in like the Beatles, you know, the infamous, the guy who Ringo,

took over. It's crazy because, yeah, he was in high school with me. We sang in high school and I brought him in. And it was, there was that moment in the doc. Jason's sitting and kind of saying, you know, it is what it is. You have this shot on him. He's like reflecting. Yeah. And he's kind of... Yep. His face, you could see the thought.

He's thinking about that fork in the road. And it sounds like, you know, he talked about he went to college and it sounds like he's been successful in his career and doing just fine, doing real estate, great industry to be him. And you just kind of saw him having this just wonder, you know? And like, it made me think about, I wonder what the thing he was wondering

about. And I think it's like, no matter what happens in your life, right? And obviously this doc, you peel back some of the darkness of the boy bad and the trials and tribulations that you went through. But like, no one will take away from you and the rest of the group that you guys did something extraordinary with your life. And not to take anything away from, I mean, being a parent, I think is extraordinary. But, right, no, understood. Very few people. get to perform in a stadium. Very few people get to be what in sync was. And that is...

It's surreal. It's like another life. It really... Truly. You know? And that is so fucking cool. But you did it. It's...

And a lot of people don't understand that. Like, you know, I'm glad that you kind of point that out because it is true. And that's the reason why doing this, I can talk to these other guys. Not to say that everybody has done stadiums, but 100% they all have been there before. Whether it's been opening, closing act, or doing... know their stadium themselves they've been there they've seen the feeling they know that rush they know you know and again not not a lot of people like you said can do that or say that and it's just it's it's a blessing it's fun you know it's a job that's the other thing you take

consideration you got to really think about it it is a business let's be real i mean a lot of times it consumes people's lives i think way too much which again i i can respect it in the sense of if that's their artistry you know but for me i'm like i've learned and figure out okay I like doing that but I don't want to overkill myself on that because I want to beat myself silly but however I like doing this so entertaining and performing really came you know fun for me and and and just I think just a form of just of just doing things like storytelling and Broadway and stuff like that you know going back to Broadway and doing stuff like that it's been great you know I've been I've been loving it now where

now I'm not like trying to be I think that's what's interesting about this time and age and day age for me it's not i'm not trying to be number one i'm not trying to sell records i'm not trying to be like ooh i just want to be irrelevant in a sense of come and see this the stuff that i'm doing enjoy it if you like it great come see more stuff that i don't like it tell me let's figure out and pivot something else that may not work or if it's not your cup of tea it's not your cup of tea you don't got to yuck you're yum you don't got to you can do mine yeah don't forget vile files plus now offers ad free episodes for all Vile Files episodes, including Ask Nick, Reality Recap, and Going Deeper. Plus, if you love Ask Nick, you will absolutely love our Ask Nick updates, where you get updates of your

favorite calls, our deep dive on all your favorite reality recap TV shows, and our pop culture roundups where we talk about all your favorite pop culture topics that we didn't get to in this week's episode, plus deep dives on our going deeper guest and so much more. All you have to do go to Val Fow's Plus, and you will be lucky you did. This one's for all my TV lovers. My Entertainment from DirecTV gets you 60-plus channels and Disney Plus Hulu and HBO Max, all in one pack. But here's the thing with so much great TV in My Entertainment, you're going to want to talk about everything you've been watching. Just remember that your friends might not be as well watched as you.

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There are just too many surreal. Okay. Yeah, I mean, there's just, there's a lot of sense. serial moments. I mean, one of them was the Rock and Rio. We did a perform for Rock and Rio and it was like over, I couldn't remember. It was like five or 700,000 people and it just was just an open field. And we were like, all right. And we had this little in the stage, one of our tours where the stage would lift up, turn and go into the crowd, basically. So it was kind of roped off, obviously, so people weren't underneath it. So we'd roll over and then all of a sudden we're doing,

I think it was this, I promise you were like, everybody put your hands in the air and everybody was doing it. And it was probably one of the most craziest emotional feelings. were just like, what the fuck is going on? And it was just, and you could feel that energy. That was a weird and surreal moment. Being up there with the Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson when we did dance machine for the thing that he did for his icon anniversary thing.

It was, that was a real surreal moment. You know, getting to work with Phil Collins' Tarzan soundtrack. It was really cool. That's so cool. So it's like these random cool things. My daughter's obsessed with that movie. That's an incredible sound. It was really cool because they were like,

we can do this song they want you to do it for the soundtrack. Rosie Donald did for the album, but she's the character, but they want you to do this adaptation for it. Okay, cool. What is it? What's the words? It's like, no, no words.

It's like, just banging and noise and beatbox and stuff. And I was like, okay, we go to the studio. I'm not even knowing that Phil Collins was going to be there. Not only Phil Collins was there. He was coming in the studio. And we got the studio. He was like, yeah, we're going to sing it with you. We're going to do it all together.

I was like, heck yeah. I was like, this awesome. Not knowing, you know, what it came to be. Sometimes it's always interesting when you see those projects. Even if it's Disney, you kind of go, is this going to be big or is it going to be a flop? You don't know. You do these songs or these soundtracks. And you do these songs, you're like, okay, we'll see what happens.

And then it blows up. You know, even just the same thing of even having bye-bye-bye on the Deadpool soundtrack, how a whole new generation that has never even really either knew what Insink was got this new surge of it because of the movie, which is pretty amazing to say. What do you miss the most about that period of your life? Oh gosh. Now that I'm 49, not much. In a good way. You don't miss the tours? You know what? Because I do perform now. I don't have to miss the tours. So like I've done shows with AJ where we did a show at Legendary Night, we called it.

And AJ was doing, it's great because he's doing even though he's doing the sphere. And once in a while he's like, you know, we're doing some more shows if we're doing, I love to do more. And we've done these concerts where we sing each other's songs. It's like a theater. It's like a depending. on where we are. It could be from 2,500 to almost 5,000 Cedar. We do a show. We get our fix because me and him are hands. We love to performance fun. It's a great thing.

And that's the thing. I don't it can be 5 people, 5,000 people. I just love performing. And I think that's why I don't have to do the tour because I can always do it a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I can go home. Right, like you get to decide now what you do and what you don't do. Usually it was, you're going to do this.

Exactly. Nobody called me up honestly and said, hey, I want you to do a doc. Seriously, nobody called me up to do that. Me and I imagine we're like, you know what, we've heard about people doing docs and let's like, you know what, let's do it ourselves. And we know enough people. And also I didn't want them to, that was the other thing with a lot of times when you have the interviewers, it does put people in a position. And sometimes they get defensive or they get shy or they shut down. So for me, it's like, listen, I am one of your peers. I'm not going to try to

screw you over. And this is something that I'm not trying to do. I'm not trying to manipulate anything. When you tell your story, this is your story. When you watch the doc, you'll see exactly. We're not going to manipulate anything. We're not editing what your thought was like when Jason, we literally asked him that question and he thought about it. It wasn't like we took a splicer and put it over there and to make them think. We didn't do any of that crap.

We literally just kept the camera rolling. We did about four or five hours. It was grueling on each person. Everybody always doesn't necessarily see the behind the scenes. I think it's just sitting there for 30 minutes. We sat there four or five hours every day interviewing everyone. And just basically just, hey, tell us your story. And it was just amazing to see.

I heard some of the stories obviously, but then some other ones, I never heard. I didn't know. But again, it just makes them open up, I think, especially if someone that can relate to them, can date. Hearing you talk about performing that energy, one time when I was The Bachelor, we went to my hometown,

and they had a country musical, Chris Lang, shout out, Chris Lang. They brought me in with my date at the time. And I'll never forget it because the, like, people screamed like it, I was like a member of a boy band. And I just remember, like, I'll never forget that moment because like very few people get to have like an entire.

And it was like I think maybe a thousand, 500 somewhere between that, like small local or like a Milwaukee auditorium, whatever. But I just remember thinking, oh my God, this is a drug for like a rock star. You know, like how do you? Oh yeah. A hundred percent. But people have a hard time with that. Certain artists have a hard time where they need that adrenaline. Like you said, it's like a drug.

So that's why some of them do go down that dark hole of depression or something else. And it's like, how do I get my, I was once on top. How do I get back up there? Sorry to break the news to you. You may never get back on top again. You may not be number one, but it's okay. That's the thing that I don't know and understand people. Oh, no, you don't need to be number one anymore.

What's wrong with doing? I always tell people when they're like, well, I want to be famous or what do you want to be famous for? Yeah. Like you want the money? Is it the famous? Right. You can go do local theater in your local town and be famous there and people will love you and they'll come to your shows. You could do a broader.

regional you could do something like that you do state with i mean like it can branch out bigger but start small first and see what happens you know yeah yeah it's a very interesting point what is because you talk about performing now of like what is that kind of like mean to you of kind of like performing more in your own terms now in your career versus like when you were in insing no stress fun uh i'm not really worried about in a sense of like a financial thing like i'm not in any kind of debt you know but i'm not like who i can rich and i can just throw money everywhere but but it's those things where I'm like, I'm good, I'm comfortable to where I can do things and go, you know what? I can make the decision.

Somebody's going to call you up and go, hey, we got this offer to do this thing. Do you want to do it or not? I'm like, no, I don't want to do it. Why not? Well, here's A, B, and C. Y. But also now a lot of the things that we do do is, does it fit what I'm doing? Does it make sense? Yeah, you get to make those decisions now where I was telling you this before.

My husband's a musician and I was kind of asking him these questions where I was like, do you have to be famous to make money? Like, in this industry, like, how does that? that work. Like if you don't want that kind of like huge fame like it was for you guys. You could be a writer or writer. You know, right. You can do that in a sense. But yeah, it's, if you want to be an artist. Yeah, it's tough. No, you can't, you have to be out there. Right. Does it still like hit the same way when you get that crowd cheering for you at the end? It must be still exhilarating. Just to even perform in general, it's just, it's just a fun thing.

Like I said, I don't know. Maybe that's the adrenaline. That's the, that's the, the, uh, the fix I get, I guess, from from performing. I don't know. And it, and it, and it, and it, and, it, And it's different things, though. Like, for instance, when I'm with AJ doing stuff or doing my own show, for instance, it's just me just actually having a good time singing songs and you guys singing songs with me. That's what it's all about. Then, for instance, doing Ann Juliet on Broadway, you know, I'm playing a character. I'm telling the story.

That's what I'm doing. It's not me on stage. And obviously for this show, that show calls for more comedic stuff. So I'm going to, you know, try my best to improve on stuff what I'm doing. So, again, for me, when I'm doing these stuff as well, I'm always trying to improve, you know, maybe correct things or, or make it just perfection, which it's never going to happen, but I'll try to get as close as I can. At the height of the rivalry,

how deep was the rivalry between you and the Backstreet Boys? For the fans, it was ridiculous. It was like, you know, they're about to like, you know, West Side Story starts stabbing people and stuff. Yeah, no, I know that. Because I remember arguing with, I was team in sync and I would argue with people. I was in the fight, Joey.

No, but I mean, for you guys as a member, was it really more the fan? Did you guys ever actually find yourselves competing in a nasty way? Well, and even in a dock, I think it touches it a little bit as well, where it does say, you know, where Lou was more or less of going, well, you know what? Those guys, you know, I heard that Backsheet boy said that, you know, in sync really can't sing or they don't look really good.

Oh, he was instigating. He was the one instigating things or just sending those little rumors just to go back and forth. But it was smart because he was like, you know what? Obviously people, same thing like if people love Coca-Cola, other people love Pepsi. but people do love both or they love you know you can have one or the other but there's always going to be that rivalry but it's always that why not make it that friendlier rivalry which it should have been but he kind of kept us away from each other not to say anything and I think though it was

because of he was assigned to one six member he was you know so he didn't want us talking business is what I think it really was right yeah when when was the moment when you guys kind of finally started talking about oh when we were there was money coming in and like one of the head guys of the record company goes, listen, we're giving checks, you know, $5 million, and I'm here you get like 10 grand or 20 grand and this and that and you go, yeah, that doesn't sound like it's adding up, right? And we're selling T-shirts

and we're, well, how can we never seen anything or seen a report or a number? And then it starts to go, wait a minute. And we were very busy because we were hungry, we wanted to do, and we were constantly, we were in Germany for about two and a half years where we first started doing stuff, just constantly working, doing the shows, tours, this, this, this, and not

thinking about it because, you know, Lou was taken care of everything. Yeah, and you were young and you trusted it. Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of where later on they were like, wait a minute, this money's going out and you're not getting any of that money or percentage. I don't know what kind of contract. They even said you guys signed, but maybe you should look into it. And that's when we looked into it and it was like, okay, we definitely need to do something about this. Yeah. And you did. Oh, goodness. I imagine you get kind of tired about asking about reunions. All good. Yeah. And I'm not, I mean, you've already asked, it's been asked and answered. It's out now that I've been doing a couple of these interviews, to be honest.

People are like, well, what did you say? Because there was a Zoom call. And I got to be honest. The hard part is, is getting five guys together. For sure. And I guess the best way to describe it for me, too, is because people are like, well, it's just easy. It's easy. It's easy.

It sounds easy. But you got five individuals. I have already had my children, like I said, one is 25, the other one's 16. The only one's almost halfway out the door. I have a lot more freedom in the sense of the choices. Like I said, I can make. Lately, things have been just a lot more easier. Obviously, I just take one kid to school instead of two kids, you know?

And it's a lot, that kind of stuff. Everybody else has young kids. They're one, two, six, and seven or something like that around those ages. Chase, he's the only one, which is the smartest person, doesn't have any children. So he's living chill free and he's doing his thing. And I think that's, again, it's hard to go back to something to where, you know, you've been the boss all the time. And then it's probably a little bit different for everybody individually or how they feel. to where now you have four other guys

that are your colleagues that now they have an importance just like you. So you're not the main person to say this is what goes. Or you feel that way. You know what I'm saying? You feel like maybe my voice needs to be heard. So I think that's the other thing.

So the hardest part about that is is how do we get these five guys to get our heads together and the same thing? That being said for that, but then you also have guys that are still working and still doing things. Yeah, Justin, that just finished a tour. Why would he want to go back on tour again?

If people are like, oh, it's easy. Just go back on on tour again. And we explain what a pain the ass that is. Kind of what I was alluding to. I mean, you all seem like you're thriving, you're happy, you're in the time of your life where you seem like you have great perspective.

But I imagine, was there ever a time where it was difficult for the rest of in sync to see the extraordinary success that Justin had post in sync? And was that, you know, were there moments where that was, you know, it's like when your friend has success, you want to root for him.

but then it's like, why is that not me? Was that a challenge? I think everybody has that feeling in the sense of like, man, you know, it's not, it's weird because it's not like a jealousy of like, you know, you son of a bitch. It's more like of a dude, and I was 100% I was like, yo, tell me the shows, tell me where you're going, tell me what's going on. I want to see what you're doing. I love it.

I think it's freaking great. Yeah. And I've always been that team player that way. So I've never been the bitter person to be like, oh, man, no, I mean, yeah, of course it hurt in a sense of we could have or should have done things, you know, more and why didn't we? But again, it's life. It's like a relationship. You know, sometimes the relationships work, and sometimes I know, and it's not because of one person hates the other. It's just there's little, you know, reconcilable differences, you know, in certain things. Who the hell knows?

But the only thing I can't say and speak for myself is, is I would still want to do, obviously, something within sync, of course. That would be, for me, it's more of the icing on the cake, the fun thing to do. If it was a one-o-show-off deal, put a button on it, so be it. Because the problem is, is if you do one show, people are going to go, why don't you do a tour? Then it just trickles down. So that's why, and that's another reason why sometimes we're kind of like, do we do it or do we not?

Do we just leave it as a legacy or do, you know, not to say it's going to damage anything, but sometimes things are, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's not as simple as it sounds. Yeah. There's a lot of. But funny enough, and in ways it is simple if we just did something very simplistic, but nobody knows or how what that is or what that would be like.

So again, it's very hard. to your point, you know, everyone has lives and kids and, you know, like you said, ongoing careers. And it's just, it's complicated. I mean, I imagine Justin has a team of people in his year giving him feedback on whether they think he could or should or not, you know. But also Chris has a team of people in his ear. J.C. has a team of, I have a team of people in soon as lance. So it's always interesting to me that everybody always pince points Justin because his career went further. But who other guys in any other group besides probably maybe one direction in the sense of celebrity or Michael Jackson has gone to where Justin has out of any other boy band group. Anybody else?

Anyone? No, I honestly. Bueller. I mean, like, besides Michael and you know what I'm saying, though? Yeah, but you're like, and that's the other thing. No one has ever been there. But that's what I'm saying, no one's ever been there. So that's why it's always interesting to me where they're like, well, Justin has, and respectfully so. But you got to think there's four other guys and not only is it Justin and people always I hate that whenever everybody's always digging them like it's his fault and people always like but no you got to look at it from everybody else's standpoint too you know and I even said early in another interview I'm like well or I said it to even the guys what if I don't like you guys like I've hung out with you but I've never hung out with you

solid and if we're going to tour or be together for a couple of months what if I really don't like you anymore you all also have to get on the same page and agree on what that thing is that makes the most sense to do because it's like one of you might be like let's do a whole tour one of you might be like no we should just do one show and one of you might be like oh no maybe like a podcast conversation it's a relationship what do you want for dinner i don't know what do you want chicken steak i don't know what do you want just fucking tell me what you want it's like and then you go to bed and you don't eat anything yeah yeah you know how we feel everybody that's the easiest way i can explain as a father of daughters uh did you take any of

daughters to like see one direction or have you like seen harry styles in concert well no my daughter my my oldest now she was uh gosh what kind of fan was she she was jonas brothers okay oh yeah um and uh what else gosh rosy really jonas brother she was a huge fan i'm trying to think of other boy bands camp rock one direction oh what's the one oh gosh five seconds of summer no nickel Nickelodeon oh my gosh big time rush thank you oh my goodness i just i just read a big old blank yeah oh my goodness i just I just read a big old blank. What was that like? I mean, like, I used to play sports, you know, and then you stopped playing sports and you go back and you like see the kids now.

Like, was that kind of, like, again, very few people can relate to what you experience and you're taking your daughter to see these big stars. Oh, yeah. My daughter would always want me to meet or introduce me to people. And I'm like, I'm not that person. I'm not that guy. Yes, if I know them or something like that, yes. So obviously, I knew that Jonas Brothers. And she's like, I want to have a birthday.

party. I'm like, okay, what do you mean by this? Oh my goodness. And she's like, well, I want to have like a Jonas Brothers birthday party. I said, okay. Like, so theme like place. Like their faces on plates. She wanted theme and she wanted like tickets to the concert and bring their friends. I went, okay. And of course, what I dumb mind I do, I go, let me take it a step further. So I go, okay, we're just going to get pizza and cake and that's all you're getting. And she's like, uh, okay. Like in a sense of like nothing like, you know, whatever. I said, we're going to have the party at the venue at the Jonas Brothers concert. You're going to

have it. Jonas Brothers came into the party, took pictures with all the kids, and then my daughter went on stage and introduced them before they went on. Oh my God. So it was like, you know, it's like that one-up dad thing. I got, you know, I got to do those things, you know, but those are, those are the fun proud moments. That's cool that you get to do those things. Yeah. But it's always funny when my kid always once in a while when I'm like, she's like, hey, I want to meet Tom Holland. I'm like, good luck. I'm like, I'm like, I'm not even doing that. I'm like, no shot. I'm like, he's over there with a bunch of security. We're at the Spider-Man for me. I'm like, I'm not doing that. So there's certain things I'm like, I am not, I know exactly how that dude feels and I know exactly what

he's going through. I don't need another kid jumping on top of like that kind of stuff. I'm like, and she understands obviously as she gets older, but it was very funny where one time and all the time she was like, I can't remember what group it was, but she was like, oh, we're going down there and watching this band. We're going down there. I'm like, okay, fine. A writer, uh, writer. Oh gosh, she did dance with stories. I'm drawing blanks of all these groups now. He has a brother. Oh, my gosh. Anyway, another group. Oh, I need to know. But it was the most, I'm going to get it.

It'll come to me in a little bit. But it was the funniest thing because she was like, oh, no, we're going down because we were like at a VIP suite thing and she's like, no, I want to go down. I'm like, gosh, come on. And she's like, no. And I'm thinking to myself, when I was a kid,

I would want the same thing. And if I was able to get access to that, if my dad was able to do that for me, I would want my, you know what I'm saying? So I'm like, you know what? All right, let's go down. And I was like, the dad standing in the pit like, okay, they're playing.

I'm like, here we are. I'm curious. I think for people who don't know the music industry, you don't realize just how many people kind of go into the machine and the writers and things like that. And it was, I think in the documentary, I think it was, I forget which band it was. But, you know, there was one song that was supposed to go to Boys to Men,

but it went to 98 degrees. Was there ever a song that the Backstreet Boys got that the guys in InSink were like, fuck, that's a good song. We would have crushed that. Well, there was the Disney thing. Well, the Disney, yeah, well, that was one thing. I mean, you know what?

I think even, was it not five, the group five, I think got supposedly by by, by, and they passed on it. We actually got offered Slam Dunk the Funk. It was the five song, I guess it's a five group. There's another group you've never heard them yet. It's a UK. They actually came back now, too, and they're doing stuff. They're from the UK, yeah. I'll track them out.

I think it was called Slam Dunk the Funk. It was a song. We were like, no, we're good on that. It's kind of funny that both switched and made them work in a sense. But yeah, we've had a times where like, you know, Backstreet Boys actually passed up the opportunity to do this Disney show. And they were just burnt out. They've been doing a lot of things. And we just started doing things in the States, very, very fresh and new into the States.

We were doing stuff over in Europe. And, you know, we picked up their scraps, basically. Was there a particular song, though, that you guys were ever like? No, but there was one or two songs that one song that definitely got passed around to us and Backstreet. And it was actually, Lou said it was an original song. but it was actually one of the songs from Take That. The group Take That was wacky. And it got past and passed and the words were changed.

And there was a, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, if you look up in YouTube and in sync, it's the very first performances we ever did at a place called Pleasure Island. One of those songs, it's one of those songs. And you can hear the same similarities of it. I think it's called I'll be back for more. But he changed the words to something. It's so crazy, so bizarre.

But that's happened. But nothing ever really, a lot of the songs towards, in the very beginning stages, though, were like a couple of obviously covers. And then there was some writing that Max Martin did, but it was like, bye, bye, or like, it's got to be me and the tearing out my heart. Those were actually songs that were pretty much written for us later on.

So we didn't really like, as it went on, it wasn't like, oh, this. But then again, you know, a lot of songs do get submitted to other people. We may never know that it might have been submitted to somebody and just maybe never even heard or listened to it, just got passed and somebody else from, you know, BMG or RCA, whatever, might have picked that disc up and said, oh, it sounds pretty good and let us listen to it and we might have liked it.

So again, it can get anywhere. How involved were the members of InSync into selecting that music, or was that more your management and Lou and those people? In the beginning was more the A&R and the record company, because obviously in a sense we're young, they kind of knew what they were talking about, but as we started to go and we started to learn later on, some of them didn't know, but then some of them were just kind of the, yes,

the people in the sense, or they were never really out there to listen to what kids liked. So we were in the clubs young. We were on tour. We were listening to what everybody our age was listening to. So we were going back to the record company as we were able to get momentum. And JC actually started getting certain writing and starting writing with collabing with other people. And then Justin started collabing with other people. I've never been a big writer.

Never was really a writer. So that just never was in my wheelhouse. I could do that. but I think if I wrote songs it would be dirty stuff and farting noises and shitting my pants and stuff like that. That's just me. So, I mean, I'm sure people could buy the album. So perfect.

I'm locked in. Was it kind of like one of those, what are we having for dinner moments ever with you guys, like picking songs? Or was it kind of like you agree? We agree. No, no, 100%. Like some of them, you know,

sometimes it was pushed by the record company because they may have had a deal with the writer or the producer. So in the beginning, early stages when you hear the very first in sync album. There's like two or three songs that are not anything you'd probably ever want to hear from us ever again. It's more like dance music, but it was like

what's the riddle of it? What's the real little on our mind? It's impossible to fight. And those are the lyrics. No joke. It's called Riddle. Then there was another one called I Need Love that was on the European album. And again, once we moved to America, it was more or less of, okay, Europe had dance music and that's why they loved it.

So we catered to that a little bit. course sometimes you've got to cater to their style, if you will, because that's sometimes, you know, with country music, sometimes a lot of people went to pop rock, then pop country, then country, and you know what I mean? Or vice versa. They went to country. They went to country pop and then straight over to pop. So there's that crossover.

And nowadays, which is nice, a lot of those genres are crossing over and it's accepted. Yeah. Or back in the day, it was it? I wonder with like you, in the documentary, they kind of talk about how with like the no strings attached album, right? that would post your contract with Lou with bye bye bye kind of like the thematic aspect of it I was wondering

like what like if that had hit for you at that time or if it's something kind of looking back maybe As far as like as a bye bye bye as far as leaving with Lou and all that stuff? Yeah like the themes of that album Weirdly enough yeah weirdly enough bye bye bye was just the song and it had nothing to really do what was going on with Lou

but it just happened to be in that sense of you know cutting our strings and one of our songs that we did was called no strings attached. Again, a lot of those songs kind of fell in the place and that's why we... Yeah, a few of them definitely were 100%. And there's one of the things that were,

by, bye, bye, okay, Taryn, okay. You know, certain things, it was like, this kind of interesting. It's just a happy accident. So yeah, exactly. So then we evolved around the whole album around, you know, the puppets and strings and, you know, that whole marionette thing

where, you know, the same idea was the same thing of going, you know, us being on a string and manipulated and not anymore, Minos Scott. Yeah, was turty pop on that album? No, it was on the celebrity. Do you have a favorite instinct song? Do I have a favorite instinct song? Definitely my all-time favorite is I Thought She Knew.

It was an Acapulet song that we did on, I believe, the second album, if I'm not mistaken. But it was one of the first songs that actually we ever learned as a group. It was like the National Anthem, a couple, like two little, three little cover songs. And then the song, I thought she knew that this woman by the name of Robin Wiley, she passed away. But she was the most amazing vocal arranger. She was the one that basically created the in sync sound, if you will, the harmonies and how those intricate and, you know, kind of a little bit sometimes barbershop cluster chords. So she kind of came up with that sound and how we kind of weaved in and out and made that, you know, and it's amazing.

The song was called I Thought He Knew and then she switched it to I thought she knew and it was actually had music and everything. She's like, you know what, I'm going to rearrange just to make an acapella. And she gave us the notes and we sang it together. I was like, this sounds beautiful. It's amazing song. It's great. I don't know who listens to the radio these days, but I imagine you have moments. where one of your songs come on, or somewhere, some way.

Most of the time now it's probably at a supermarket, a Ralph's. Hey, and sing is bumping in my car. Yeah, you're in my playlist. Yeah. Are you turning it up? Are you, you know, are you hitting next, so to speak? Yeah, you know, it doesn't bother me. Yeah, I don't, I know, you know, there's always an appropriate time for everything, you know.

It's how long after you're an old, you're an old bye-bye. But, you know, like, it's always interesting, though, if, like, you're at a club or a bar and the bar and the DJs, they turn the song in because then all of a sudden, everybody's like, ha ha ha ha. And they all look at you and they're like,

what the hell you want to do? Get up and start singing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Joey, that's exactly what they want. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Dance.

It's like, okay. Do you have water, if you could, you're like top five, maybe other boy band songs not from Insane. Wow. Backstreet has,

the video is absolutely horrible, but the song's great when they're in the water. Even in my heart. That song I love. Quit playing games. That's the song. Gosh.

Wacky enough. It's not wacky, but new kids on the block. They had a song. Oh gosh, what's the title of it? But I guess there's a brand new day after all. I can't remember the name of the title of it, but all you blockhead, you know if you're listening. Every time you hear the carton call.

It's going to come up my head in the minute. Tonight. There we go. It's called Tonight. What other songs? gosh one direction had one and now i can't remember it i got to think of the chorus of how it it was yeah i got me mary and i can help here if you get it was one of the first ones though the of the first songs the first songs the first song i don't remember oh what makes you beautiful

yes well it makes you beautiful don't know what that's a great song all right we got two more gosh what else is there well obviously if we're going back further you get new edition for Candy Girl. And then if you want to go with, of course, boys to men, that's hard to say because I grew up listening to Boys and Men before they became my friend. So that whole first album, I mean, you got, uh, uh, you got, you know, symphony, I guess is another song.

It's a bunch of songs. The whole album, sorry, I can't, I can't choose. I swear. That's all for one. I swear. That was a bang of bad day. That was a bang. You can't do top five now.

Yeah, Summer Girls. Yeah, like Summer Girls is just, there's crack in that song. It's so good. It's cracking a lot of those songs. As a young man in the member of Insink, the world's most popular band, did you get to meet any of your celebrity crushes and who were they? Of course. Oh, my gosh.

Well, even funny enough, Rich Cronier who passed away, always asked me if I slept with her and I said no, and it's the truth. So I swear. I had a crush on Jennifer Love Hewitt, of course. was one of my crushes, but she's a friend, she's a sweetheart. I've known her now, and it's not like that anymore. Who else? Janet Jackson was another one I had a crush on and I met her. We opened up for her, which was another one. Salamoon Frye is another one who played Punky Brewster back in the day. But again, it's weird because as you get older, they become friends now.

They're not so much of a crush anymore. It's kind of like, oh my gosh, it's weird. I know you now. I used to drool all over you, but now I don't drooling over you because I'm just drooling because I'm old now. It has nothing to do with me being happy about you or anything. When you went out to everybody who was going to be participating in this, what was the reaction? No. Oh, really? Majority of the people said no. I actually even did a proof of concept, just kind of like a little snippet of it with other,

even other people, and they were a board to do the small one. But when I said, hey, we're doing this big one, some of them are like, yeah, I'm good. I don't want to do it. Why do you think that was? I think they thought I was trying to go down a dark path. Okay. They thought people were going to like, is this a setup? what's going on and honestly some other ones are actually doing their own documentaries so some of them are like listen

I'm saving my story and you can't blame them you can't knock them for that and do what they're gonna do so you know it won't be as great as ours but just saying this is gonna be hard to beat I will say it's very it's very good it opens things up man I mean again it came very organically in a sense because me and my manager Joe were talking about things like I said and we were thinking about you know what's it feel like and he has been through me like carrying my bags back in the day I call it's so funny he's not my manager but he literally was a tour manager a He knows probably the five of us of in sync more than most people in a sense of like knowing like he knew exactly like funny enough. He'd be like, okay, people would be like, what's your favorite color. He's like, yeah, but I know exactly their menu and what they want for McDonald's. I know exactly what time of this. The most important things. The more important things. So he knew the ins and out.

So again, we always would talk about certain things. And from his outside looking in and me going, ah, nobody wants to hear that. He goes, no, but that's actually really fascinating and interesting that you felt that way. but this person felt this way. And then it's interesting that, you know, this has this parallel line and this is connected to this, but then this other group has nothing to do with it, but still there's either mental issues or physical abuse or some sort of sexual abuse. And you find these weird lines of people and you go to look at these other guys and you go, especially with Lou, you know, even say in the doc, it's like, if I had a chance to talk to the guy, you go, why? What was the real?

Like, what possessed you to go down that path when you could have made it right? even though you were even wrong in the beginning, and you could have steered away and did something right. And you went just wackadoo school on Ponzi scheme and being a little wakadoo and people saying he's a petto and all stuff. So it's a crazy thing to think about that this guy wanted to be their friend, but also was it really their friend or what were the intentions? And was it money or was it more of a sexual?

And you don't, I'd love to pick somebody's brain that really dig in. You don't know. You'll never know. And he passed away, obviously, in jail. And it's crazy. And honestly, must be very complicated for you, too, because despite all that complication and darkness from Lou, he changed your life in a weird, crazy way. Oh, yeah.

We have a story where my manager and me and my manager were on a plane, and Lou happened to be on the planes before he went in jail and everything. And this is after we settled out of the court and everything, and I haven't seen him in a while. And Joe's like, yo, Lou's a couple rows by. I said, oh, no way. I got up, said hi, Lou, good to see you, me, doing all right, everything. great, good. Good to see you, man. Got back down, sat back down. Joe's like,

whoa. That was interesting. I was like, why? I go, he helped me with my career. He's a great businessman for himself. I mean, that's basically the way to put it. You could say what you want, yes, and he did a lot of wacky things, but if he didn't give me the opportunity, I don't know if I would have been as successful or not. And again, whether or not I want to be successful or not, but it just happened to take off

that way with the guys. and we just had that love for music. And he saw that vision of where he can create and do it again and again and again. And our bubble was, the five of us, we're here, we're as a team, and he thought on bigger things. But it was just crazy to think that.

And a lot of the guys in the dock, some of them even said, you know, they loved them. You know, they were his pop-up. But I think for some of those guys, they didn't have any father figures. So they had nobody to look to. And that's what happened.

And he kind of manipulated a little bit in the sense of going, yeah, going, hey, don't worry about it. I got it taken care of when, in reality, anything that you were buying was going to your expense and was getting paid off if you made money. But if you didn't make any money, again, that was the other thing.

He would have lost the money then. Right. So then how do you, God forbid, say, for instance, he put in $2 or $3 million in a, just like anything, you put money into a company. You're taking a risk. Now, if he loses that money, it happens. But if it goes big, he's got a big stake in it.

So he's going to take money. have a bigger stock in it. Just the same thing. But however, with the contracts and the way he went, obviously, it was legally not the right thing. He went above and beyond. Right path to go. Correct. He got greedy. And again, why? You go, why? So stupid. You know, it's life. But again, you know, I am where I am today. And now we are here talking about it and telling the story and understanding that there could be a lot of damage done in life, but there's always a brighter side to it and outcome to it. And I think that's what's good about, again, with the doc, because, you know, talking to these guys, and again, you know, we always talk about now mental health, you know, physical, mental, everything. Financial is so many different things. And how do we cope with it? How do we deal with it? Some artists, we've seen them go down the dark path and end their lives, you know, in a sense, and it's sad, you know. And I think that's why we do these documentaries to understand that we are like everybody else. And I don't mean that in a sense of, you know, we live this lavish lifestyle, but everything is just heightened.

That's all it really is. Everything is, there is adultery, there is, you know, things in the regular workforce every day that we deal with. It's the same thing. It's just in the eye of the public and it's more heightened. Yeah, and it's interesting because I would be interested to hear your opinion on like boy bands today, but it seems like they're dealing with the same things. That's the most amazing thing.

And we were talking about that. It's like, you know, not only does it just do, you know, the 90s were very special. and very interesting at that time, especially the craze of from grunge moving over to, you know, even had hip hop and stuff like that and then over to pop. So it was a very interesting time. And it,

but now, you know, it's got specifics, but however it's the same thing, whether the management's just screwing over or working them to the bones to where they're exhausted and are not getting their dues

or the pay or whatever the case. It's great. Well, yeah, I mean, part of this business, though, is like Hollywood and what makes it weird?

Well, part of the business is not to get fucked over. No, no, part of the business, but I mean, Hollywood, what makes it so ripe for this type of behavior, and I work in it, it often feels icky. But you realize this is an industry that makes people's dreams come true. And when you have this opportunity, it is this ripe for people to take advantage of these people who just like, you know, you're hanging this dream in front of them constantly.

Yeah. And so it makes it easier for the wrong kind of people to manipulate and take advantage because they're always hanging the stream. And for so many vulnerable people, it can put them in a tough and dark position. And that is an unfortunate reality of this town and this industry as all. My manager manages a young lady who's an artist right now

and doing a lot of great things. And he is ridiculously overly protective of her. First of all, he has three daughters. I have two daughters. We know kind of what influences girls and guys and what they do. And we even, you know, I've even talked to her many times and, hey, you know, keep your head on, you know, not in the clouds, but have the dream.

But know where you're, know your surrounding. Know what's going on. Make sure you see, is somebody taking advantage of not? How is that going? What's going on your finances? Make sure you, as you start to get older, do your own finances, not your family either. Make sure you can, you know, it's like just kind of hinting to certain things just to kind of guide her as she gets older because as they do get older, they're going to be on their own. And like you were saying, you know,

you never know someone's going to take advantage of that. And you don't want that to happen. It sucks. It's a sad story. And it happens time over time. Well, Joey, this has been so much fun. I know you have to get going. The show's Boy Band Confidential.

It premieres on Monday, April 13th. It's a two-part series. You can see it on ID. Also, it's available to stream on HBO Max, and you are absolutely going to love it. It's an absolutely incredible doc. I know many of you listening this grew up on in sync and Backstreet Boys and Boys and Boys to Men.

and you will be locked in. It'll be very nostalgic, and it's also just very fascinating. So congratulations, Joy. It's really well done. Really appreciate you taking time. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.

This has been so much fun to chat with you. And yeah, I really appreciate you. And it's been a ton of fun. Not a problem, man. Thank you guys. All right. Thank you.

Yeah. So nice. Thank you so much. Bye.