Bye, bye, bye to those reunion rumors! ‘NSync may have been one of the biggest boy bands in music history, but it appears that they have (not so surprisingly!) hung up their marionette dolls for good.
“The answer is no,” JC Chasez exclusively tells Us Weekly. “I know people want to hear a different answer but we felt like we did what we set out to do. By the way, we are all still friends and we all still talk about this stuff. But the way we went about it was we had to be inspired by something. And that’s the only way we would do anything.”
“Whatever we do together we have to do it because we are inspired to do it. It’s authentic. And I feel like that’s part of why we had a connection with our audience,” he adds. “[We want] to continue to be honest with our audience and fans. I would never want to take anything from anyone that didn’t feel genuine. That’s just kind of the way we approach everything that we do. … I think if they are going to invest in you then you should be fair to them. If you’re not giving everything that you have then you shouldn’t be doing it. That’s out of respect for them.”
Chasez — along with Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass and Chris Kirkpatrick — formed the band in 1995. They broke album records, toured the world and, well, played with a hacky sack before performing to sold out concerts.
“Thirty minutes before a performance it was just the five of us. Everybody else would clear out and it would be a quiet space — wherever it is we need 30 minutes to hit the reset button. And to gather our energy, get ready to go out there and give the best performance we could give,” Chasez tells Us of their pre-show rituals. “The other thing was we kicked this little hacky sack around. It started so early that we became superstitious that if we didn’t do it it would be bad. And none of us actually hacky-sacked. It wasn’t like a thing we actually did. We did it as a joke one day and then the next day you do it again and it’s like, ‘We did it four days in a row, let’s do it again!'” (Freddie Prinze Jr. in She’s All That, anyone?)
He adds, laughing: “And we ended up doing it for 10 years. It’s ridiculous.”
As for who still has the hacky sack? Kirkpatrick — and he brought it with him when the band reunited at the 2013 VMAs.
“We even did it at the MTV performance when we showed love to Justin for his award,” Chasez says. “Again, it was for the right reason. When your friend is being honored and you’re a part of their lives and this was a big part of his life we wanted to share that and we wanted to support him in that moment. It was fun. We did those moves so many times. It’s like riding a bike. Keep it fun, keep it light. We didn’t do anything too crazy. We weren’t trying to do stunts or elusions. We just wanted to keep it straightforward and share the moment with the audience.”
For more, read the rest of his Q&A below:
US: What memorabilia do you have?
JC: I have like a storage space. I have ridiculous things in there still. I still have the mechanical bull from the tour in a warehouse somewhere. I go through and cut through the clutter and go, “OK, I have too many of these. I still want to keep a couple of these because someday I can show people.” But I try to narrow it down. When you first get that stuff you get so excited to have it. And then you’re like, “OK. Enough is enough. Let me pick two or three of each and then keep it moving.”
US: Do you have the marionette dolls?
JC: Oh yeah. We have all of those.
US: What was your favorite music video?
JC: I liked shooting “Bye, Bye, Bye” because I got to work with the stunt coordinator from the movie Ronin for the driving sequences. At that point in our careers we really — anything we can think of we can do — and one of my favorite films at the time was Ronin and I loved the driving sequence. I just couldn’t believe how real it felt. So when it came time to make the video they were like, “You like the movie? Why don’t we just hire the guy that did that scene?” And I was like, “You have to be kidding me!”
US: What was your least favorite? Anything too strenuous with choreography?
JC: No, choreography was always fun. I always enjoyed that stuff. When you are making a video it’s just outright fun. I think the aftermath of “It’s Gonna Be Me” [though] because we had to wear the makeup for basically over 40 hours. So by the end of the day and through the dance sequences and everything that stuff was basically glued to our heads. And we are sweating this kind of tar. And tearing that stuff off we ended up having a lot of ripped skin and bleeding, which was not fun.
US: What was your favorite song: “Bye, Bye, Bye” or “It’s Gonna Be Me”?
JC: I don’t really have a favorite between those two. They are both fun. I love the opening part of “It’s Gonna Be Me,” the piano part was always fun. And I always liked the attitude of that song. And then for “Bye, Bye, Bye” I just loved the crowds response because they can dance with us.
US: Do you prefer the fast songs or ballads?
JC: It depends on where we are in the show and how fatigued I would be performing live. You forget that when you do two fast songs in a row you’re looking forward to sitting on a stool for a song. Like, “OK, I just got my cardio in” It’s basically like interval training. It’s kind of crazy but we wanted to give it as much as we could so we had to pace it out that way.
US: Are you the kind of person who will just put on the Christmas album for fun?
JC: I mean I don’t put on the album but if it’s on a station that I choose I have fun with it. They are fun memories for me. I don’t know how to equate it other than saying it’s a college memory.
US: Is there something a fan would never know about a certain song?
JC: For me, working on “It’s Gonna Be Me” — for some reason we just couldn’t get the attitude quite right. Or at least I couldn’t at the time. I remember singing that “You don’t want to lose” line a million times.
US: Do you regret any outfits?
JC: In retrospect I regret everything! And yet I love everything. It’s like you’re living in a moment — go with it. People are like, “Those space suits were ridiculous.” And it’s like, that’s kind of why I like them. Yea, ridiculous, that’s the point. It’s ridiculous. Maybe tight leather pants, bad choice. But I’m all about it.
US: You all reunited for your 40th birthday last year. Was that a surprise?
JC: It was a surprise actually. I thought I was having dinner with four people and then I walked into a whole room of people. It was a bit overwhelming but it was a lot of fun. A lot of nice things were said. Again, a wonderful moment to reminiscence and a wonderful moment to be thankful for.
US: What’s it like to look back at the span of your career starting from The Mickey Mouse Club and seeing that the cast — Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera — are all successful?
JC: I like when good things happen to nice people and growing up they were always great people. I love to see people get a win. … And by the way, these people deserve it. Ryan is a talent. Keri [Russell] is a talent.
JC: Do you keep in contact with Britney or Christina?
JC: We keep in touch. Obviously not on a regular basis but of course there’s always the occasional catch-up.
