Important question for all you ’90s kids: Were you more of an NSYNC fan or a Backstreet Boys fan?
Did you do the “Bye Bye Bye” dance or belt “I Want It That Way” at the top of your lungs?
These days, you don’t have to choose as Joey Fatone of NSYNC teams with AJ McLean of The Backstreet Boys for a special boy-band mashup live at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland this Saturday night.
“To see NSYNC and Backstreet Boys fans in the same place, they’re not beating each other up, it’s not like the Jets and Sharks from ‘West Side Story,’ so we’re good,” Fatone told WTOP. “We had the same management team, so when Backstreet signed with Burger King, we signed with McDonald’s. When Backstreet did Pepsi, we did Coke, so it was that friendly competition. … The only beef anybody had was Chris (Kirkpatrick) and AJ when they dated the same girl.”
Rather than simply taking turns on stage, Fatone and McLean combine to mix it up on duets.
“We do it all together,” Fatone said. “Some we do together, some we do individual, some I’m doing Backstreet, some he’s doing NSYNC, so it’s a combination of everything actually, believe it or not. We even go through a whole medley of a bunch of different slow jams that NSYNC and Backstreet sang and what it would sound like if AJ were to sing the NSYNC song and I were to sing the Backstreet songs.”
Imagine a medley of NYSNC slow jams like “God Must Have Spent” or “This I Promise You” with Backstreet slow jams like “As Long As You Love Me” or “All I Have to Give.” Of course, the best possible mashup would be combining the “heart” songs: NSYNC’s “Tearin’ Up My Heart” and Backstreet’s “Quit Playing Games with My Heart.”
“True, true, that’s a possibility,” Fatone said. “We started doing a whole bunch of weird mashups. Every time we do one, something will happen and we’re like, ‘Oh, let’s do this!’ We’re always changing and mixing things up. … I gotta try to learn the chair dance [from] ‘Quit Playing Games with My Heart,’ there’s a chair dance, I gotta learn it.”
Speaking of dancing, NSYNC’s marionette choreography from the “No Strings Attached” album on songs like “Bye Bye Bye” and “It’s Gonna Be Me” is eerily similar to the macabre hand movements of Backstreet’s “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).” Seriously, go pull up the music videos to compare and I dare you not to dance.
“The little hand wrist motion!” Fatone said. “We do ‘Bye Bye Bye,’ a couple little dance movements from there, a little bit of ‘Everybody,’ it’s a free-for-all. We’ve had people come up on stage and they know the choreography full out. Sometimes we just sit there in awe and they’ll be dancing the whole choreography. It’s amazing.”
You’ll also hear fun covers of classic songs from other artists chosen entirely at random on the spot.
“We throw a die, one of these big blowup dice, out into the audience and it rolls around like a big hot potato when the music stops,” Fatone said. “The person in the audience holds up the dice and whatever number from 1 to 6 [we sing]. It’s random songs like ‘Sweet Transvestite’ from ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ we have a swing version of ‘Little Mermaid,’ ‘Part of Your World,’ it’s just random stuff, it’s hysterical, it’s really funny, it’s great.”
It’s fitting that they throw a dice because Fatone has become a staple of the game-show arena, not only providing the announcer’s voice of “Family Feud” but also hosting “The Singing Bee” and “Common Knowledge.”
“They’re a lot of fun,” Fatone said. “I never thought it’s (A) something I could do and (B) be good at it. … When somebody approaches me with stuff like that, it’s nice that I’m able to pick and choose what I want to do. I’m like, ‘That sounds fun,’ or ‘Nah, I don’t want to waste my time.’ It sounds funny but I’m pretty financially secure, not like millions and millions of dollars, but I’m comfortable where I don’t have to go crazy working 24/7.”
We ended our interview with some rapid-fire compliments about all of his NSYNC bandmates:
J.C. Chasez: “For our group and for pretty much anybody out there, probably the best voice in the world, amazing vocalist, better than Justin, we all say it.”
Chris Kirkpatrick: “Crazy MF, love him to death, spontaneity, he’s very spontaneous.”
Lance Bass: “Gay! I love him. He’s awesome. Very business savvy. He’s awesome, just a sweetheart, he’s a guy’s guy, he knows more about sports than I do, he’s always into football and I’m like, ‘I’m into musicals.'”
Justin Timberlake: “Hard worker man, he’s a hard worker, he’s a hustler, man. He’s one of the main guys that really has a passion for music honestly. He’s a big writer, same thing with J.C. I’m not a big writer obviously and if I was I would be doing music, so that’s not the route that I took, so for me it’s a little bit different, but for him, he’s a hard worker, he’s a go-getter. [Regarding his recent legal trouble]: It’s all good, things happen, things happen.”
Himself (Joey Fatone): “I’m just crazy, happy-go-lucky, always looking on the bright side of stuff, I’m always someone who’s optimistic. … It’s fun to be able to reinvent and keep the boy band dream alive!”
Listen to our full conversation on the podcast below:
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