'NSyncstudio Interview
Phone Interview with JC

Congratulations on your No. 1 hit in Australia with "Bye Bye Bye"...
JC: Thank you very much. We were more that excited, to say the least. The JIVE people called us and said that it was our first ever No. 1 down there, and that bands like the Backstreet Boys and 5ive have never had a No.1 in Australia, so we were very excited.

Did you celebrate big-time?
We celebrated a little and you know, it's great that the song is doing well- it's the biggest song we've ever had and it's been played on a lot of radio stations around the world, but our focus is on the album right now.

Why is the album called "No Strings Attached"?
Basically we wanted to let everyone know that this was more like freedom for us. We had complete artistic control on it. This is our baby and it hasn't come with any strings attached, because when we did most of this record we were between record companies. We were pretty much the masters of own destiny.

The album sounds a bit funky for you guys.
We just wanted to be creative, we didn't want to get stuck in the same rut. We don't want to do what everybody else is doing. We are pop artists, but we just had to take it to the next level. You can't put out the same album twice in a row, it becomes stale. We wanted to hear new sounds, so we sat in the studio and got creative. We would literally make stuff up. We'd go outside with microphones and sample sounds like car doors shutting and breaking light bulbs on the side walk- we would do some weird stuffs, man.

So along with a new album comes a new look for each of you, huh?
Yeah, everyone did something to their hair besides me. Justin and Lance have kinda grown theirs, while Chris got bored. He had the braids for two years and it got to him. You know, it took him eight hours every time he got his hair re-braided. And Joey's had red hair for a while now, but at first it was pink and that scared the hell out of all of us!

How did Left-Eye from TLC end up working with you on the new album?
Left-eye is the co-manager of a group called Blaque, and I sang on one of their songs called "Bring It All To Me" as a favour to her. So when our album came around, we had a dance break in this song and I was kinda like, "Why don't we get someone to do a rap or rhyme on this?" And the guys were like, "well, who could we get to do this?" And I said, "Well, I know someone who owes me a favour !" And they were like, "Really?!" Left-Eye was perfect for it because TLC have that futuristic thing going on.

Who else do you guys want to work with?
We got to work with a lot of our idols on this album-Teddy Riley, Richard Marx, Diane Warren- but we'd still like to work with someone like Michael Jackson.

There's a rumour that you have done a duet with Britney Spears called "The End Of Us".
Oh yeah? (laughs) Wow! No, I haven't heard anything about that, but it sounds pretty cool. We actually might tour with her overseas, like in Europe.

Have you heard any of her new album?
Yeah, I've heard her first single, called "Oops!...I Did It Again", and it's pretty much Britney, very poppy and boppy. I also heard a really cool song, I don't know the title, but it sounded like Michael Jackson, crazy stuff with guitars.

There's plenty of romance rumours about Britney and Justin. What's the deal? Are they dating, or what?
Ok, the deal is basically that they've dated in the past and whenever they're in the same town they might hook up, but everybody makes more out of it than there is. They don't talk about it because everybody is going to say this, that and the other. Honestly, all it is, is that when they're on the road they do their own thing, but when they see each other they might hook up.

We heard that Lance recently broke his foot. How did he manage to do that?
Well, he actually twisted his ankle a few nights ago while we were doing a performance on Saturday Night Live. We did a few sketches and two songs, including an a cappella performance of "Bye Bye Bye".

You appeared on the same night as Josh Jackson- did you hang out with him after the show ?
No, we didn't really talk much with him, we just said hi. Doing the sketches was pretty wild, though. We did a sketch that made fun of boy bands. It was a lot of fun because we got to make fun of ourselves- and who better to make fun of us than us ? we can point it out and we know what's whack.

You guys don't mind doing some acting, so whatever happened to the *NSYNC movie?
We're actually going to shoot it in August and September. It's not like *NSYNC: The Movie, it's actually a character-driven film. It's got nothing to do with band, we're just gonna be characters in the movie. It's being done by Playtone, which is Tom Hanks' film company.

Is there a title?
Right now it's called WHY CAN'T I BE YOU?, but that could change any day because we're still writing the script.

Do you still live with Chris and Justin?
Not anymore. All of the guys in the group still live in Orlando, but Justin has a place with his mum and Chris just bough a house. I'm living with our producers, Rip Rock and Alex G.

You guys have had plenty of legal troubles recently. How are things between *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys at the moment?
Of course they were worried when we first moved over to Jive(their record company). They were a little hurt at their record company, but they can't be pissed at us because we're just trying to make something happen and they understand that. We didn't care that they were there, we signed with Jive because they proved that they could make pop work. They have a track record and that was one of the big reasons why we went to them. At the end of the day, you have to be a grown-up and say, "It's business". So, Backstreet said, "If that's the way it's gonna be, that's the way it's gonna be." And we see each other, we wish each other good luck, you know, the whole nine.

So when is this long-awaited *NSYNC Australian tour going to happen?
That's a good question. I think right after we shoot the movie, we're going to try and make our way Down Under. That's when we will do something with Britney and tour over there. I mean, nothing is set in stone, but we're all about a great show, so why not bring it to Australia?

MTV Online Interview
(by Chris Connely)

MTV's Chris Connelly: We have scores of cheering fans out there, but this is old-hat to you by now. This happens really everywhere you go. When did it start getting old-hat?

JC Chasez: It's not really old-hat 'cause we don't get to come to New York every day. It is routine but it isn't, you know what I mean? Because every day something different happens. Even though there's a lot of people there every day, somebody always does something usually that kind of catches us off guard on a regular basis.

Chris Connelly: You guys have all been in show business for a long time.

Lance Bass: You know, actually we've been singing together for three years as a group but two of the guys were on a TV show on the Disney Channel for how long, four years? (points to Justin) Two years, and Universal Studios (points to Joey and Chris) and then I wasŠ

Joey: In high school.

Chris Connelly: What is it about Orlando that's drawn so many talented young people there. You're all from different parts of the country and yet you all wound up there and were performing there at a very young age. Why was that?

Justin Timberlake: I don't know. I don't know if there's a secret that somebody knows that we don't know about Orlando but yeah I mean, we just decided that that would be our place where we met up just because that's where we met for the first time. We figured that that would be our hometown or whatever.

Chris Connelly: Well that is sort of good luck for you right? You were going to wind up on "Star Search" weren't you?

Justin: I was on "Star Search"! I did do "Star Search" alright? Let it go! I got three and a quarter stars.

Chris Connelly: Who'd you lose to?

Justin: Some girl who sang some Broadway song. I don't want to talk about it. (laughter) I don't want to talk about it. Next question.

Chris Connelly: How long did it take for you two guys to hook up though and think that you could make something go?

JC: I was singing on his demos.

Justin: Yeah we were in Nashville. After we finished with the TV show, after the TV show was over, we went and did some demo work together in Nashville. After that for about a year we were together doing a little demo work. But the group originated with Chris... the link from Chris to everybody goes sort of like this -- Chris started the group and I had kind of known him from some auditions and whatnot...he called me and I immediately gave JC a call and then we ran into Joey in Orlando -- big melting pot.

Joey: Yeah, we worked at Universal like I said and we were singing and dancing there and we knew each other and I knew JC...

JC: He was actually the first person I met when I moved to Orlando to do the show. When I first moved, he was like the first person not in the show that I met and we became friends.

Chris Connelly (to Lance): You're not in the mix yet.

Lance: No.

Chris Connelly: We're getting to you in a second.

Chris: Lance is what made us special.

Joey: Well, I wasn't a bass that's the thing.

Justin: We originated singing acappella harmonies and we could carry lots of cool sounds but we didn't have a bass and we tried to make Joey sing bass but it just wasn't working.

Chris: We gotta use that tape sometime as blackmail material.

Justin: So we got in touch with my vocal coach and that is what led us to Lance because me and Lance had the same vocal coach.

Chris Connelly: What is it about Europe that made them more open to you guys faster than America?

Chris: They don't understand what we're saying...(laughter)

Justin: I think the, the market has changed around in the last year in the States so much but originally it was like that in Europe you know. It was like a big melting pot. You found genuine mixed with some rocker mixed with some like a rock artist. Yeah, and so I mean, I think that... I honestly think that like Hanson just did something. Hanson and the Spice Girls just did something and went to the edge with the pop market and then it kind of mellowed out. And that is kind of when we saw our opportunity.

Chris Connelly: And what did you learn playing those markets? What did you do to get your dancing together; your singing?

Joey: How to work well with the audience you know, audience participation. I mean we were still first a little bit new at it you know. Although we were performing where people are screaming at the top of their lungs, fainting, crying, this and that you know. It's kind of weird.

Lance: Well, we did shows for like 10 and younger crowds you know, to going to like college crowds. Everyone over 21. Crowds, just like different types, I mean you just find it everywhere you know. Because they have so many festivals over there for different types of people and uh, you know that got us prepared to come to America because over here we play for just so many different kinds of crowds.

Chris Connelly: How freaky was it though to just break overseas and like you're writing your friends, "We're huge over here, and they..."

JC: And they're like, "Whatever!"

Chris: I think it's only when we got to meet like famous people that they knew in the States. Like when Coolio or some people like that would go overseas and we would do shows with them and we were like one of the biggest headliners of the show and we're there with Coolio and we're like, "Wow, you're awesome." And we'd be talking to him and stuff like that and then we'd come home and tell our friends. They'd be like, "Did you get his autograph?" And we're like, "No, we headlined the show. Everybody came to see us." And they're like, "Yeah, whatever."

Chris Connelly: I think anybody that's listened to the two records could understand the difference between you guys and the Backstreet Boys. But when people ask you, what do you usually say?

Justin: Come see the show.

Chris: Backstreet who? They don't realize that we really do know them and we're just joking with them and then we say something like, "They're doing their thing and we're doing our thing." It was justŠ it's all about that they're five guys and we are five guys and we're from Orlando you know. It's really you know hard to get out of their shadow because they were first and they're pioneers but you know they're off being successful as the Backstreet Boys and we're off being successful as 'N Sync. So hopefully, like Justin said, people will see the live show, see the difference you know, hear the difference in the music and realize that our personalities are different.

Chris Connelly: Aren't there people who are going to try to pry you apart, say you should have a solo deal, you should do something on your own?

Lance: Of course there are going to be offers and everything but the fact is that we're always going to be a group you know. We're always going to be putting out 'N Sync albums.

Chris Connelly: Why is this music so popular now? Maybe four or five years ago when grunge was huge you guys probably couldn't have bought a break.

JC: Now the market... it's a great time for music right now. Honestly, because people accept every kind of music now. For a while we were going through a rut where everybody was categorizing everything. Everything was wither -- you were a gangster rapper, you are a pop rapper or you're aŠ And now you know the great thing about our music, we do pop music, is that pop kind of dips itself in every kind of music so we can do a different style of pop. We can do R&B pop, we can do pop rock, we can do you know adult contemporary jazz style pop, you know what I mean? With mellow stuff... so, that's the best part about our music is that we can dabble into a little bit of everything and...

Justin: Chameleons...

JC: Yeah, exactly. And right now, everybody is listening to every kind of music out there. I mean you play one videoŠ it's like you play a Snoop Dogg video, a Master P video, you play a Goo Goo Dolls video, then you play an 'N Sync video you know. It's cool. People are willing to listen to all these different things and that's what we're so excited about.

Chris Connelly: You want to take a more active hand in your music as time goes on? Will we see more song credits from you guys?

All: Yeah.

Justin: I mean we're writing as we speak you know. We're getting into that, that aspect as we speak. We always get into arranging and stuff. We've arranged a lot of stuff that's on our album with the help of some great producers.

Chris Connelly: Whose career would you like to emulate as you go forward? Whose career do you look at and you say, "Boy, I hope we have something that's a little like that?"

Justin: A little bit of everybody I would think. I mean, we don't want to be anybody else. We want to be 'N Sync, you know?

Lance: We'd like to last.

Justin: Wherever it takes us, wherever it takes us I think that it's going to be in a positive direction because we surround ourselves with positive energy so...

Justin: Yeah. We look up to like the Beatles and the Eagles and the Rolling Stones.

Lance: It's like to last like the Bee Gees or the Rolling Stones.

Justin: We want to be like Spinal Tap.

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