Watching VH1

*Insert Fangirl Shriek Here* Last week, I was lucky enough to talk to the guys from Sureshot on VH1’s Mission: Man Band in an exclusive interview for this blog. I’ll bring you one of my interviews each day this week in both podcast and transcript formats. I interviewed Jeff Timmons (98 Degrees), Chris Kirkpatrick (NSync), and Rich Cronin (LFO). Bryan Abrams was unavailable for an interview because his wife was having their baby, so congrats, Bryan!

We’re starting off with Jeff Timmons. It was great to talk to him and I hope you enjoy the interview! Click on the link below to download the podcast (about 22 minutes long in .m4a file format–beware people with slow connections!), or read the transcript after the jump.

 

 Interview with Jeff Timmons of Mission: Man Band (.m4a file format) [22:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Interview with Jeff Timmons of Mission: Man Band (.mp3 file format) [22:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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

Hi, Jeff! How are you doing?

I’m good!

Good! I’m so excited, thanks for doing the interview with me.

No problem, I’m happy you’re excited, that’s good!

So I just have a few questions, and some will probably be ones you’ve answered over and over again and others I’ve tried to come up with something a little bit different, so I hope you can come up with some good answers for me.

I’m more than happy to answer any questions for ya.

Okay, well the first question I have comes from a reader of mine. She wanted me to ask you where the name Sureshot came from. I know there’s a video of you writing on a whiteboard with a bunch of crazy names, so how did you decide on that name?

Well, as you know, the show was very condensed and we were pressed for time so it wasn’t like we got to spend a lot of time together as a group before we had to pick a name, so we were just throwing names out there that we thought were funny. Rich Cronin came up with the name Sureshot for 2 reasons. One because we a bunch of screwy, goofy, eccentric guys and we don’t take ourselves too seriously and Sureshot was a song the Beastie Boys sang and that would make us the Beastie Boys of boy bands maybe. And the other side of this was we’re getting a shot to do this and it just might be now that we’re getting a little older, the opportunities are few and far between for us as far as singing groups. This may be our one last sure shot to make it as a singing group.

Very nice! That makes much more sense than A Bowl of Fish which I saw up there on that whiteboard, so I’m glad you guys didn’t pick that one.

Trust me–there were ones that were a lot worse than that.

You did mention you guys only had a few weeks to put this all together. You had 3 weeks, right?

Yeah, three weeks, exactly.

That’s kind of crazy to put together a song and record and all of this stuff in three weeks. How did you guys survive the process?

Well, I think it was very intimidating. Seeing the first episode, I had a lot of things going on. I personally wanted to be home with my kids a lot. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be on the show because I thought the concept was a little goofy. But once I got into it with those guys, it was more like a challenge to see if we could. It was kind of like riding a bike for us. Our experiences in the past with our individual groups, we were thrown into the fire to do things quickly at different times. So I think it was just an accelerated version of that and we saw it as a challenge that we could do some of those things they asked us to do.

Right, so what did you learn from your past experience? I know in the first episode, most of you said you had all this fame and then it was instantly gone, so what have you learned from that to bring into this time?

Although the show is very serious, we didn’t take ourselves too seriously or expect too much from the show. We saw it as an opportunity to do something fun, get together with some friends we’ve seen from other groups and try it and the key to it all was not to take it too incredibly seriously.

Well, I hope they show more of that on the show because the first episode I understand it was kind of an introduction and what you’ve been through, but I’m looking for more of the behind the scenes footage like the bathroom humor that they showed on the VSPOT and stuff, so I’m hoping this comes out more.

They could have easily taken this show in that direction, because the show was just as funny, if not more funny than the serious version. But for the drama purposes and to keep people on edge and wanting to see what happens next, it was more advantageous to do a serious version. We were all screwing around as much as we were serious. You can probably see a ton of those clips online, they probably have them up there.

Oh, they do, and it’s hilarious. I love it. I like it more than the show, actually.

I think it’s more light-hearted, actually.

I think it’s more representative of you guys, from what I know from your past and being a huge fan growing up with you guys and I’m hoping to see more of that anyway.

A lot of the stuff that’s weird about it is that the first episode, you know, I was like “I don’t want to be there, I don’t want to be there, I don’t want to be there,” but my daughter was supposed to come down for her birthday during the filming of the show and I hadn’t found out any information about where she was, what time I was going to see her, and I wasn’t getting told that and it was making me extremely anxious. It looks like I don’t want to be in this new group the whole time, which I didn’t at first, but a large part of the tension for me was finding out if I was going to get to see my daughter for her birthday, but you’ll never see that.

I completely understand, and editing is going to play a part and I think everybody knows that. Anybody who watches reality television knows that, so I think that’s cool. So speaking of the more light-hearted times, you all have these big bed spreads with your pictures on them. What did you do with yours?

At the end of the show, I wanted to burn it. I kept talking about it the whole show on the last show I was going to take it out to Chris’s firepit and set it on fire, but I just left it there. I don’t know what they did with it. Every time I’d walk in to do the interviews, they’d have the bed spread all set up and I would just take it off the bed because it would drive me crazy. The last thing I want to do is look at myself, you know? I’m really paranoid about that kind of stuff. I don’t want to look at any pictures of myself, I don’t like seeing myself on TV, it’s kind of a weird thing.

Well maybe you should have swapped with somebody else, so that way you could have cuddled up with Rich or Bryan or something.

That’s even more weird.

Okay, so how about a record deal? Anything in the works? I know you said you liked the behind the scenes sort of things, anything you’re doing to push it more, or are you just letting it take its course?

Well, with the show, we have to let it take its course. We can’t give away too many things that are going to happen later on. I think we’re all open to doing a record together. We might, we might not, it all depends on what the reaction to the show is. As far as me, personally, I have a record album coming out the first or second week of September. It’s an album I’ve been working on for some time and it’s going to be out everywhere. The single is going to radio here in a couple of weeks and I’m really proud of that. I’m also doing some production for up and coming artists. A lot of female artists, solo artists, R&B pop girls and guys. That was some of the things I had in the works when I went and did the show, which was another thing I was worried about. I have all this stuff set up, and the stuff set up for my solo record, why would I want to do this group thing? But being with those guys was just great, and I’m excited about not only my record coming out, which I’m very proud of, and also the possibility of having a record with those guys.

Yeah, that would be great, and I hope you guys do get a chance to tour. Maybe a cheesy mall tour is in order—a throwback to the old days or something. I think that would be great. Maybe you can join Brooke Hogan and make it a VH1 mall tour.

I’ve done some shows with Brooke before, so that would be cool. I just did a show with Brooke last year.

There you go! You should talk to VH1 and get that going because she’s already hitting the road to all those malls, so she’s got the hook up.

What do you think of the show? Do you like it?

I do, but I’m an obsessed crazed fangirl—have always been a boy band fan. I’m 29 years old now, but I still love boy bands. I’m a high school teacher and they make fun of me daily.

See? I love that! I like that you said you’re 29 years old, but I think there are lots of girls like you out there that have to become aware of the show. I don’t think a lot of people were aware of the show because we didn’t really promote much before it came out.

Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to it. I write a VH1 blog, so I’ve been looking forward to it since February when I first caught wind of it, and I’ve been harping on them to get it on the air, get it on the air. So I’m really excited about it. Like I said, I hope they show a little bit more of the lighter moments, just because I think that’s more of you guys’ personality from what I know of you guys from the past, and I’ve seen all of you in concert at least once, so I’m a HUGE fan. I don’t know if I’m the typical demographic, but I think I am by all the message board postings I’ve read.

You’re the perfect, exact demographic.

I think so, and I think that’s why I enjoy writing my blog so much. I get paid to write about these crazy VH1 shows.

That’s awesome.

Alright, this might be a crazy question, but I’m going to throw it out there for you. You’ve got Lou Perlman and Maurice Starr and they’re going to have an ultimate fighter cage match to get to be with you guys, the new man band. Who is going to win and why?

I don’t know Maurice Starr too well. I wasn’t involved with either one of those guys, but I would say that I think Maurice Starr should kick Lou’s ass. The only reason I’m saying this is because I did some work for those guys a couple of years ago and they never paid me my money, so I would actually be on the side of Maurice Starr. I hope he kicks Lou’s ass.

Well, Lou Perlman you watch out! I think I agree. I think Maurice Starr is more of a street fighter and Lou might cry in a corner for awhile, but that’s just me.

Lou would try to kiss him before he’d fight him.

He might. Speaking of Lou, last time we saw him, he was putting together a group for a reality show called OTown. What makes you guys better than OTown besides obviously you don’t have a song called “Liquid Dreams”.

OTown was a little bit different than all the groups anyway. I know a lot of people think NSync was put together, but Chris put that group together. My group, we put our own group together, LFO, Rich put that together. Lou just happened to sign all those groups, not our group, though, he didn’t sign us. We weren’t in Orlando or that crowd, unfortunately, because all those guys blew up bigger than us. I think OTown was more of a contrived kind of thing. This is definitely contrived, but it’s with guys that are more experienced. With Bryan Abrams that people even think he was in a boy band is crazy. He was in an R&B legendary group back in the early 90s. I think, again, it’s not us dancing in front of mirrors and going to vocal lessons. It’s just about us hanging out, picking songs that we like, and possibly performing. I would say it’s a little more—I wouldn’t say it was an organic band it was a put together thing for a show and that’s what it is, but I think it’s a little more fun and we’re all down to earth and more grounded and all of that.

Right. So how did the four of you get together? Is it because you all knew each other previously, or did VH1 put you guys together?

VH1 is the one who contacted us individually. Again, I was afraid to do the show because I’ve been out of the mix. I’ve been with my family the last few years and getting ready to come out with a solo project that’s going to be out in stores. They came to us and finally once I knew Chris was in the group, I thought he was a funny guy, and Rich I love. I knew what he had been through, and whatever we were going to do was going to benefit his foundation, I definitely wanted to do it.

Right. Hey, that’s an idea for those bed spreads. You can sell them on Ebay and then give all the money to his foundation. That’s a good idea.

That’s a great idea.

So everybody probably asks you what the hardest part of having the cameras on you all the time, what was the BEST part of having the cameras around?

I think the best part of it was, for this show, a lot of people think these boy band guys are these, you know, rich, young jerks that you know have no personalities, and just care about the way they look. I think that this shows that we’re just kind of regular guys. We’re the kind of guys who will go watch football with their buddies. I’m from Ohio for God’s sakes from a really small town. I think it shows our vulnerability and that we’re human just like everybody else. I don’t think for us, at least the guys in this group, we ever wanted to be perceived any differently than anybody else. We just like to sing, perform, and that’s the only thing that really makes us different. We have the same weaknesses and strengths that anybody does. That’s what I really liked about being on camera.

Very cool. Well, I just happened to dig out my old “NSync Backstage Pass” board game, and there’s some questions about Chris, so I was wondering if you knew anything about your 3 week long roommate Chris Kirkpatrick, so here’s a question for ya. Chris has a tattoo of the NSync flames—where is it?

I have no idea.

You have no idea? Well, according to this card, it says his right leg. I have no idea if that’s true, I’ll have to ask him when I talk to him later. I’m going to quiz him on himself, too, so we’ll see.

I have not seen that. I had not noticed that. The NSync what?

The NSync flames.

Flames? I had no idea they had flames.

Yeah, their logo is their name with the flames coming out of it.

Ah, interesting. So he has the flames but not the words NSync?

I don’t know. It just says the “NSync Flames” it doesn’t say the words, so…

Okay, I bombed on that one.

You did. Okay, let’s try another one here. What’s Chris’s worst habit? This ought to be interesting.

Worst habit. Ummmm…he talks a lot?

Well, this says biting his nails, but yeah he does talk a lot too.

He does talk a lot, but he does bite his nails, too.

Okay, well good to know that hasn’t changed. One more. Once Chris needed 60 stitches—where?

60 stitches. Oh man. Above his eye? Somebody hit him or something?

It says in his head. I don’t know where in his head, but that was pretty close, so I’ll give you that one.

Good. 1 for 3, that’s not bad.

That’s not bad at all! Okay, so here’s another crazy question a fan came up with, and they wanted to know: Boy Bands generally had “roles” within the group, like you had the cute one and the big brother type and that kind of thing that each of the girls kind of flocked to. What’s your grown up man band role?

Man band role? Uh…I don’t know. I don’t know. I guess I’m the guy that kinda shuts up and sings in the background. I don’t know. I think what’s different about this group is that we’re all leaders in different ways. So I think my role for this group is really behind the scenes as far as like what happens with the management. We all work closely with the manager, but I talk to the manager the most out of everybody–managers, agents, everybody. I think my role is to make sure everything is going in the right direction behind the scenes.

That sounds fair enough. You were labeled the “hunky one” just so you know, from 98 Degrees (by the fan who wrote the question). I don’t know how you feel about that.

I don’t know. I’ve been getting killed online for that. You know, I looked at a couple of places online, and they were ripping on all of us for how we looked and they said I looked the same as I did in 98 Degrees and they were ripping me for that. You just can’t win with some of these guys.

Yeah, you know everybody’s got their own level of jealousy somehow, so you gotta just kind of tune them out.

I guess that’s right. It’s been awhile.

You’ll get used to it again, I’m sure. You’re back in the spotlight now.

All the hate blogs and stuff? Yeah, I’ll get used to it.

That’s okay because the only blog you need is WatchingVH1.com because all I do is shriek like a fangirl everytime I talk about you guys.

I love that. I love that you’re doing that, thanks.

Yeah, no problem. Alright, here we go again. If you guys had to wear matching outfits like Boyz II Men, what would your uniform be?

Oh, geez. I don’t think we would. We would definitely NOT wear matching outfits, but at this point I would say it would be a more sophisticated kind of suit or something.

We’re upgrading here from the old days.

From what? The silver plastic suits we used to wear? Shiny silver jogging suits?

Yeah, or the wife beaters with the white pants and the white sweatshirt tied around your waist on the beach. Yeah, I remember that video. You think you guys were above that, but no, not really.

Hell, no we weren’t! We had like, we wore matching bullet-proof vests one time.

I think I saw that concert, actually. Yeah that was pretty fun.

It was pretty lame.

So some of your former 98 Degrees bandmates have been in the spotlight recently, obviously the Lachey brothers, are the two that I’m thinking of. Any chance you’re going to do another reality show after this one? Maybe Dancing With the Stars or Charm School: Sureshot for VH1?

If they wanted to do another season of this show, I’d do it, but that’s about it. I was really reluctant to do this one. I’m glad I did it because it was one of the best experiences of my life and it was tough and everything was so fast. I probably wouldn’t do another one.

Oh, okay. No Dancing with the Stars even?

I can’t dance, are you kidding? I’d be the first one voted off. I’m worse than Jerry Springer is.

I don’t know about that, well, he WAS entertaining. But I’ve seen you dance. Or at least you had women dancing around you at your concert back in the day.

Exactly. They were the ones dancing.

Drew managed to win, and he was in the same boat as you, right?

Drew’s a good dancer.

Oh, okay. I didn’t see that. You guys were letting the dancers do the dancing at your concert that I saw. So it kind of surprised me that he was such a good dancer, actually.

They had to dumb the dance down to me for as bad as I was.

Well, you didn’t have to do much. It was a bunch of grapevines and watching girls spin around you, maybe holding their hand once in awhile. So it wasn’t too bad.

That’s right! You DEFINITELY remember.

I do remember. I was there! Okay, so let’s say you guys got your record deal—I’m just going to assume you’re going to get it because I think you’re all great—what would you name your first album if it was based on the experiences you’ve had doing this show?

Oh, man! Ummm…I don’t know. Probably like…

Wow, I stumped you.

Story of My Life, I think. That’s what we would name it. Like the song.

That would work. I would like to suggest that you know, “That Heather from WatchingVH1.com is the Best” or something along those lines would be good.

We could put that in there. That’s what we could call it. “Heather from WatchingVH1 is the Best” and then we’ll put The Story of My Life in parentheses.

That’s kind of the story of my life so that would work for me. Is there anything I didn’t touch on that you want people to know about you guys or about the process or what to look for?

I think you covered everything. You did a good job, you did a great job. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, I appreciate you gave me the time to ask the questions and I’m glad I didn’t shriek in your ear too much and be too much of a fan.

Nah, you were great, you’re great. You do a great job with the blogs. I’ve read a couple of the other ones, so keep it up, and if you need anything from me, you know how to get a hold of me, okay?

Thanks, and when you come to Iowa, make sure to let me know so I can come see you guys, okay?

I will, I will.

Thanks a lot!