Watching VH1

After I got done talking to Jeff Timmons, my phone rang again and this time it was Chris Kirkpatrick on the other end. Interviewing Chris was such a huge thrill for me, because as you listen to the interview or read the transcript, you will see I have seen NSync in concert 5 times. It was an honor to be able to spend 20 minutes talking to someone I’ve admired from afar for years.

You can listen to the interview in the podcast below (it’s in both .m4a and .mp3 formats–they are both large files, so beware if you have a slow connection!) or read the transcript after the jump.

 

 Interview with Chris Kirkpatrick of Mission: Man Band (.m4a file format) [19:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Interview with Chris Kirkpatrick of Mission: Man Band (.mp3 file format) [19:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Note: Heather’s dialog will be in bold, Chris’s will be plain type.

Hey, Chris!

Hi, Heather.

How’s it going?

Good, how are you doing?

I’m doing just excellent. I’m getting to interview boy band legends as you’re called on VH1. So this is like my ultimate dream.

Yeah.

I used to have your NSync marionette doll propped up in my room.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I had a whole sick, kind of twisted, obsessive looking shrine to NSync, but you know…I’m normal, I promise.

That’s awesome.

Alright, so this new project here with Sureshot, what do you think its chances are? What are you guys going to do after the show finishes airing?

Um, I think its chances are depending on the show. You know, if the show does really well, I’m sure we’ll continue the group. But if not, we’ll probably just end up doing other stuff and working together or whatever.

Well, the numbers from the first episode looked pretty good, so it looks pretty promising, I think.

Oh, really? Cool.

Yeah, so I’m hoping…I’ve been keeping my fingers crossed because I want to see a cheesy mall tour. I was just talking about that with Jeff about how you guys can hook up with Brooke Hogan and go out on a cheesy mall VH1 show tour.

That would be great. Just like back in the old days.

Exactly. That’s what I was hoping for. So, living in your house with three other guys—what was that like?

What was it like?

Yeah, what was it like? Your house—three other guys randomly come and live there. What was it like for you?

Well, I always have people here. There are always tons of people around my house anyway, so it’s just kind of…the coolest part for me was the fact that the other guys were like big time. They were all famous in their own right, so that was pretty cool.

Yeah. How did you come up with the idea for the comforters, the bed spreads, with their pictures on it because that was genius.

Well, we just wanted to do something really funny because the whole show, you know, is basically poking fun at the whole boy band thing and you know it’s us not taking ourselves seriously at all and I thought a great way to start it off is to just throw it in their faces right away.

Yeah, that was great. I was just telling Jeff you should auction them off on Ebay and then give all the proceeds to Rich’s foundation.

That’s a great idea, actually.

Yeah, I think it would be really cool. I’d definitely bid.

There’s a lot of stuff that they can use and take from here about the house and everything we’ve done that they could use to auction off or something to raise money for Rich’s thing because a lot of us, the reason we did it was for Rich.

Yeah, that’s very cool and very nice that you guys did that. I think that’s great and I can’t wait to finish watching the show, obviously. I’m going to kind of go a different direction with you because I know you’re kind of goofy in your own right, so I’m not going to ask you most of the same old boring questions you’ve probably been getting everywhere else.

Okay.

So, my first question for you is that boy bands typically have “roles”. What’s your grown up man band role?

You know what? That’s a tough one because I don’t think we’ve been together long enough to figure out what our tough grown up role is. I guess in our band there’s like the alcoholic, there’s the recovering alcoholic, there’s the leukemia patient, there’s spazoid…everything for my kids and wife. I don’t know. It definitely changes.

Yeah, except for maybe the spazoid. That’s kind of maybe the same.

Was there always a spazoid in the bands?

No. There was always like the “goofy one” or the “cute one” or the “big brother type” or whatever.

I guess high-strung. How’s that?

High-strung, that works, okay great.

Jeff is definitely the high-strung one.

Alright, how about groupies—now vs. then?

Well, they’re definitely older.

Actually, it’s probably the same ones, it’s just that they got older, too.

That’s the thing. It’s cool because we’ve seen some of these kids who were like you know 13, 14, 15 up to 25 years old and now they’re like 25-35 and they’re still real supportive and it’s cool because before you had these kids who were just…they wanted to help support the band anyway they could and now when they’re grown up, they still want to support the band, but they’ve actually got means to do it. A lot of them are professionals, so they’re like “I’m going to use my website and help support the band” and stuff like that.

That’s where I’m sitting right now. I’ve seen NSync in concert 5 times, so…

Yeah?

Yeah. 5 times, I’ve seen you in concert, and one of the concerts I was at, a little girl next to me asked us what grade we were in, and I was like “Oh, I’m out of college”.

Oh, yeah? That’s awesome.

Yeah, it was pretty funny.

But that’s flattering. I mean if you still looked like you’re in high school.

Yeah, there’s a long story behind that, but I got served a kids’ menu the other day at a restaurant for like kids 12 and under and I had my 4 year old son with me, so I don’t know what they were thinking, but anyway…

“Is your little brother going to eat, too?”

Exactly. I was like, “Are you kidding me? You’re ridiculous”. Alright. So, in honor of this interview, I dug out my old NSync Backstage Pass board game.

Oh you did?

Yes, I did. And I have questions on you that I want to know if you can answer.

I’m not going to get them right. I’ve never even played the game.

Yeah, I don’t know where they got these. How about “What sort of underwear does Chris like the best?”

Ummmm…none?

No, that wasn’t one of the options. This is for, you know, kids.

Boxer briefs?

Boxer briefs! Yeah, that’s right! Very good!

Yeah, move ahead 5 spaces.

Yeah, but you’ve got to watch out for the bouncer. He’ll take away your backstage pass.

Are you serious?

Yeah. You’ve never played this game?

Those mean bouncers.

Yeah, I know. They’re just mean. Okay, “What’s Chris’s favorite time of the day?”

Oh, geez. My favorite time of the day?

Yeah.

Ummmm…Night time?

Night time! Very good!

Is that right?

Yeah, you’re doing good!

Yeah! I’m doing better than I thought I would.

Yeah. Okay, here’s one that I’m sure all of my readers would like to know. “Chris is attracted to what kind of girl? Exotic looking. Blonde. Or Tall?”

Exotic looking.

That’s right. Very good, wow.

But I always end up dating tall blondes. That sucks.

That sucks, especially if you’re attracted to exotic looks. Maybe you should be on The Pickup Artist instead of Mission: Man Band.

Exactly. Figure out how to get exactly what I want instead of settling for these tall blondes.

Yeah, well, I’m a short brunette, but I’m also married, so…

Well, short brunettes are better anyways.

That’s right. Alright, one more. “What cologne does Chris wear?” And this was back in 1999 or 2000.

Uh, ’99? Uhhh…what the heck did I wear?

I don’t know how anybody would ever know these answers if you don’t.

Yeah, I don’t.

Well, apparently it was Abercrombie Woods.

Oh, that’s a lie! I don’t think I’ve ever even worn that!

I’m writing the company. I want my money back!

Yeah, that’s a trick. You totally have gotten scammed. Go directly to jail.

Man, that stinks that they lied to me like that. Now all of my dreams are broken because you didn’t wear Abercrombie Woods.

Because you had cases of Abercrombie Woods just waiting.

Yep, there you go. So, I’m sure everybody’s been asking you about the struggles you guys have had with this experience, but what was the BEST part of shooting this show. Like what was the best moment?

The best part of the show? I think it was the recording. We definitely got some great music and it was fun being back in the studio, even if it wasn’t with the other four guys, it was still with three other professionals. These guys…I always like to learn and when I was in the studio with the other guys, I learned a ton. But there is only so much you can learn from them, so it was like now it was like starting all over again and learning from three other guys.

Right. That’s pretty cool. Okay, so you lived with these three other guys…tell me a secret about one of them. Like does somebody drool, or sleep with a teddy bear or anything like that?

Bryan snores really loud.

Alright, that’s pretty good. Yeah, I do too, though, so I can’t make fun of that much. What are you guys hoping to get out of this TV show. You know CelebReality on VH1 isn’t exactly known for launching careers unless you want to have another VH1 show like Flava Flav or something. So what are you hoping to get out of the show?

I think…I think with me personally, I can’t speak for the other guys, but with me personally, this show was kind of like a kick in the ass to kind of tell myself that, you know because I was just basically sitting at home in my studio and just writing music. I had this like long term goal that I would never reach because it was always a long term goal. I never had a destination. It was like “Oh I’m going to release these songs someday. I’m going to do this”, but this was like a wake up call. I looked at myself on the show and how big I was and I just felt really bad about myself personally. I took away from it…I lost my weight back again, I started getting serious back in the studio with my other band, and it was really just a giant wakeup call.

Yeah, your other band, Nigels 11, are you guys doing anything new now that this project is underway?

Yeah, actually, we’re just finishing up a record. We’re done with the writing process, and we’re now going into the studios to record the whole thing.

Very cool. It sounds like all of you guys individually have projects on the side, too, so if Sureshot makes it huge, are you guys going to have to decide or are you going to try to keep doing everything?

I think if Sureshot blows up and like we do some tours or something then I think it would be cool if we would do just one long show where we’d start out each one of us comes in with our other projects and then we end up doing the end of the show with Sureshot.

That would be a great idea! I’d definitely be there. I’d be there anyway, but…I would definitely be there anyway because I’m just such a huge fan and everything.

Thank you.

Yeah, so you guys have got to come to Iowa so I can come see you.

We’d love to come to Iowa.

Alright, cool. I asked this of Jeff, too, but I know you’re fashion sense, I even have a Fumanskeeto jersey. If you had to wear matching outfits like Boyz II Men, what would they look like?

Umm…that’s tough because like we all have such different styles. I think it would be color coordinated more than it would be a type of outfit. I think we’d be color coordinated with each one of our styles.

Okay, like the same color, or a rainbow type effect?

Yeah, a rainbow is not exactly what we’re going for…

Well, you’ve got to appeal to the masses.

Exactly. I think it would be more like we’d pick a color and maybe a theme or something and then each one of us you know, dress in our style.

Okay, I can see that. You guys do have kind of different styles, but NSync always wore the shiny futuristic looking stuff on stage all the time on stage together.

Yeah, we wore some really bad stuff. I was looking back at some old European tour pictures and we had some bad outfits.

Yeah, I love the dreads that you had going on with the beads in them. Those were the good old days.

I went a little bit crazy there.

I was just prepping for the interview and I happened to be watching an old video of NSync for Digital Getdown and your aluminum foil and light blue jogging suits.

We had glowsticks and it was craziness.

I remember your first tour that I saw back in ’98 when you came out as one big like robot thing and then broke off…

Yeah, the spacesuit.

Yeah, that was interesting.

You’re definitely from the beginning because that was like our first US tour.

Yeah, it was. I saw you in Des Moines, it was me and a friend of mine from college and she had won tickets and I freaked out and made her take me and we were the oldest ones there, I think, that time, but then…

You know what, though? I hear that a lot and then I keep saying to myself, well, if everyone thinks they were the oldest ones there, there were probably a lot of older people, you just didn’t see them you just saw a lot of kids.

Well, in ’98 I think we were at the top level of the people the ages that were there, but as time went on and I went to more and more concerts, there were the older girls with the short skirts in the front row, and then I didn’t feel as bad anymore because I’m not them.

Yeah.

Okay, so what are you going to do for the show? Like what direction is the show going to take now. I mean, we’ve gotten all of the serious like introduction stuff out of the way in the first episode, what can we expect to see?

There’s still a lot of seriousness. All of these problems that we have keep kind of recurring. You know there’s really…we focus on the music and it’s kind of cool because you see us, each one, when we do the music you can kind of see us pulling in our old influences, our old bands into the music. It’s really kind of cool. To me, if you’re really into the nostalgic part of the whole boy band thing, it works out great because you know, there’s a lot of parts where we’ll be doing stuff and we’ll be singing songs or we’ll be working on our music and you’ll hear the Color Me Badd, you’ll hear the LFO, you hear the 98 Degrees, and they all just kind of like form into this Voltron like character.

Cool. Alright, well what can you guys offer to like the non-boy band fans like people who will be discovering you now for the first time?

I think for the non-boy band fans, you see the perception of what they thought boy bands were…a lot of it is true. A lot of guys…but the four guys they got for this show are definitely not in that stereotype. You know there’s not…Jeff a little bit because he works out a lot, and they always did stuff in tank tops, but when you really see it, you see that we’re all just normal guys. We’re all blue collar kids from blue collar towns that just happened to be that the type of music they were playing was this pop stuff and we got categorized in boy bands. So hopefully a lot of guys will watch and be like, “You know, I thought that they were gay, but now that I watch it, it’s kind of cool because they were a person just like me who just happened to be doing that music.”

Right. You’ve got to go with what’s big at the time, and if your voice suits it, you might as well capitalize on it, right?

Yeah, well we just did pop music…it was really poppy. And I think our sound was a little different because we were trying to, you know, we were kind of cutting edge with all of the music that we did we came out with a song that was a lot different than the last record, but it was still really poppy. Poppy enough that kids could still buy it like and parents would let their kids listen to it.

So, Sureshot. Are you guys pop or are you going to be more R&B or are you going to be Punk Rock? What’s your sound?

Well, it’s pop. You can’t get away from the pop. I mean, you’re talking about 4 ex-boy band guys, so it’s definitely pop, but at the same time, there’s still kind of a little bit, you know Bryan’s got that real hard R&B sound to him. And I was kind of like rock stuff, so I’ve got a little bit of a rock sound, but it all circles around to pop. You know, like the solar system.

Right. Okay, one last really crazy question for you. I asked Jeff, too, and his answer was a good one, let’s hear yours. Lou Perlman and Maurice Starr get into an Ultimate Fighter cage match. Who’s going to win?

Well…I think…I don’t know Maurice Starr. I know of him—I think I met him once. I don’t really know Maurice Starr, but I knew Lou Perlman, and uh…I have a feeling Lou would probably win because he would have his little cronies douse him in barbecue sauce and then he’d eat him.

Alright, that’s a good answer! So Jeff said Maurice would win because he wants him to kick Lou’s ass, and you think Lou will win because he’ll eat him. Alright. Good answer! Is there anything else you want the fans to know about this project or you’re doing in the future? Now’s the time to plug whatever you want.

Nah, I’ve just got the Nigels 11 project and we’re going to be in the studio. I know a lot of people, I have a lot of fans from the NSync days that have been hanging on every little thing I do, waiting for something to come out, and that’s the coolest thing on the planet. I mean, these kids…I’ve got so many people now that were like…I’ll do a TV show or I’ll do a red carpet somewhere and they’ll like blog it and talk about it like weeks. Like, “Oh I saw Chris,” because I kind of disappeared. But it’s really nice to have, you know, gone away for a minute and when I come back they’re all chomping at the bit just waiting to support anything I do.

Well, you’re on at my house at least twice a day in old Fairly Odd Parents reruns as Chip Skylark. My son goes around singing Icky Vicky.

Oh, cool.

So you’re like his hero. I told him I was going to talk to Chip Skylark and he got all excited.

That’s awesome. Oh, cool.

So you have a whole new generation of fans that’s coming up, I think, so don’t forget to tap into that.

That’s great.

Okay, well, I’ll go ahead and let you go. It’s been 20 minutes you spent talking to me and I really appreciate it and it totally made my day to be able to interview you guys.

Awesome. Thanks for the interview.

You’re welcome.

Bye.

Bye.