OTown Interview (english)

Since we only have10 minutes we are gonna do this really quick and we're gonna start with the fun part. We have a lot of questions.

Dan: It's all fun.

Me: No this is actually fun and we hope that nobody has done this before because you have met other fanpages and they all ask the same questions usually. So we figured you end our sentences now.

Jacob & Erik: Okay

Trevor: You what?

Jacob and I: End our sentences.

Trevor: Oh, okay.

Let's start with something easy. I am thankful for....

Trevor: Us getting back together

Erik: A second chance

Dan: My beautiful family being healthy.

Jacob: Those are good. Good job guys. I am thankful for being back in Germany.

Me: Yeah you can drink beer on the street now.

Jacob: I know I figured that out.

My life is empty without... (to Dan) I am pretty sure I know what you're going to say.

Dan: Do I have to answer? My family, my son, my wife.

Jacob & Trevor: Music

Erik: Laughter

Me: Thats a good one.

Dan: Good one E. I am so proud of you.

As a child I wanted to be....

Jacob: Singer

Me: Always?
Jacob: Yeah

Dan: A ghostbuster.

Trevor: Entertainer

Erik: Painter

Three things on my mind right now... (to Trevor) other than M&Ms please.

Trevor: What time is our dinner getting here?

Jacob: I have to set this up for the show.

Erik: Do we have enough time to work out what we have to fix from last time?

Me: There was something to fix?

Dan: There's always something to fix.

Me: I was there. I didn't see anything.

Jacob: You were having too much fun. I was spilling beer on you remember?

Me: Yeah and then you tripped. I saw that one.

Dan: It happened while there was beer in your eyes. We messed up while there was beer.

Jacob: It was all wet and then I went wooop

Alright now a funny one. If I could be a woman for one day...

Dan: Oh that is dangerous. Don't ask that.

Jacob: I'd spend the whole day naked.

Erik: I'd feel myself up.... frequently.

Trevor: I find myself as a male, I'd be super hot and then I'd have sex with myself.

Erik: That is the weirdest answer. I just saw a female version of Trevor having Sex with a male version and I am freaked out.

Me: Does the female version have dreadlocks?

Erik: With the blonde tips? YES

Dan: I don't really have a good answer for that question.

Alright let's start those questions. How did it feel to be back on stage after 12 years?

Jacob: We smiled.

Trevor: Yes, the first time we went out. In London. It was so awesome. When we first walked out it was like “Oh my God this is really happening. We're doing this.”

Dan: I forgot how hot it was.
Erik: I was nervous. I have anxiety. I think these guys (Trevor&Jacob) are used to getting on stage over the past 10 years. I know we (Dan&Erik) haven't. I know I was like... I was so nervous. I am still nervous. I am nervous about today and we've done it 5 times already.

Is the show going to be different in America since most of it is after the Album release? Lucky them by the way.

Trevor&Dan: Yeah

Trevor: Lucky you. You get to see us now.

Me: For 10 minutes....

Dan&Erik: 50!

Me: Yeah on stage.

How many songs are on the album?

Trevor: 10 or 11. Probably 10.

Did you write all of them or did you have songwriters?

Trevor: Both, about 70%. And then the other 3 were picked by us.

Erik: And Skydive was co-produced by Jacob. Even though Skydive wasn't written by us, we have a thumbprint on pretty much every song on the album.

So I am guessing none of you actually went skydiving and then wrote the song?

All: No

Trevor: I've been skydiving.

Erik: And Dan doesn't want to go skydiving so I don't know if thats in the cards for us.

Me: You should. Wouldn't it be cool to have that as a single cover?

Trevor: Skydive with O-Town and then (-Dan). Skydive with O-Town contest but Dan won't be there. We're gonna do that.

Erik: We wanna do skydiving, but we knew that if we went skydiving, we would have to have some random dude attached to our back. You can't jump out of a plane alone.

Trevor: You can get certified pretty easy.

Erik: Really?
Trevor: You need like 7jumps.

Erik: Thats it?

Dan: You can jump out of the thing with her husband strapped to your back.

Trevor: He will probably stab a knife into your back.

Me: No, he hates Jacob the most.

Trevor: That stupid website.

Jacob: Thats good. I love when people hate me even though I've never met them.

Me: He found out you were my favorite back then.

Dan: Oh thats why.

Yeah and then I have a question for you. You remember our Skype-Date.

Jacob: Yeah.

You were expecting a question about Ashley, which we never got around to since there were so many questions coming in. How has this been just the 4 of you, without Ashley?

Jacob: Surprisingly easy.

Me: Really? There isn't anything missing?

Dan: No, because Trevor always has to go pee right before we go on stage.

Erik: Ashley...

Me: Who's the one that gets lost?

Dan: On this trip Jacob. He spend most of this trip drunk.

Me: He's in Germany, what did you expect?

Dan: I'm just saying

Jacob: I'm like carrying too much stuff.

Erik: I don't think anything has been missing. That's what Skydive did for us. I think at first we were really nervous about weather this could work as four. We have never worked as four. After we've heard Skydive and we heard our voices back we said “You know what, this could work with us.”

Me: 14 years ago they said it wouldn't work.

Erik: No it wouldn't.

Me: And now it seems to work surprisingly well.

Erik: Thank you.

Me: I mean, you don't know how the single is going to do yet but the teaser looked really nice.

Jacob: Yeah its cool right?

Me: When is it coming out?

Erik: Tomorrow

Trevor: Friday

Jacob: I think Friday.

Me: We're not home tomorrow. It can not come out tomorrow.

Dan: Unfortunately we don't control that.

Trevor: We're doing Viva tomorrow

Erik: Yeah we're doing, we're doing.

Dan: It's not like official.

Erik: Yeah we can't announce it yet. This is like internally. With the discussion that we're having that's why we said that. But yeah, video is coming out this week.

Me: Well you're very lucky that this video won't be ready till the weekend. Because we're recording it and we have to write everything down, translate it to German. It's gonna be a lot of work.

Erik: Oh do you do subtitles?

Me: We wanna do the video normal, without subtitles, we're gonna have it written down in English and German and then put it both on the website.

Erik: Transcribed?

Me: Yes. It's gonna be a lot of work.

All: Thank you.

Erik: We appreciate that.

Me: You're welcome. It's been a long three years.

Jacob: Well we appreciate it. We're finally rolling now.

Erik: I think that's one of the things with us too that when we're really getting into it. One of the things that rubbed me the wrong way with Ashley coming back or not coming back was because this really isn't about us as much as it is about the fans.

Me: Yes, because they were all there. As soon as 2011, there was...

Jacob: The announcement.

Me: You're doing the reunion, you're at the studio. Suddenly there were all these fans. How did that feel? Did you notice? Cause we were around back then.

Jacob: Yeah that was part of why we got together again.

Dan: We're also.. There was still... I think even in 2011 I think it got announced a little premature before we were all comfortable with it. We still didn't know if it was going to work. We didnt have a song.

Jacob: We actually never went into the studio.

Dan: We never went in all together.

Me: There were this photos of one day.

Trevor: That was Earthquake. That was the only one.

Me: And then it went very quiet and we were the only supporter page left really. Everybody else just quit.

Erik: Well you can't expect people to be around when we're not surfacing any music.

Me: well yes, the fans were still there.

Erik: We just knew they needed something else. You guys needed something else. There is no band without music and there is no new band without new music. And that's what we consider ourselves. A new group with a familiar name. But we needed new music so I am glad that we have music that the fans now can be proud of cause I think. You girls wanted something to be proud of too, you're all friends of O-Town and I am sure it was probably difficult to go out in public and be like “Yea we love O-Town”. And we know that. It was up to us to make something quality that you guys could be proud of.

Me: Well you did pick a perfect time with all the boyband reunions. It wasn't that hard to say “We still love O-Town”. New Kids on the Block came back, Backstreet Boys have a reunion every two years basically. Blue got reunited last year, two years ago. At least in Europe there's been a lot of “boy”bands.

Erik: It's been the same in the states and we won't say that that didn't help inspire the reunion but I think more so than anything else we wanted to make sure that the music was right and that the song was right. Once that was right we all were 100% in. The minute we heard Skydive we were like “Oh this is what we can be proud of”.

Me: You definitely seem like it.

Erik: Absolutely.

Me: I was surprised yesterday.

Jacob: Yeah?

Me: So much more fun, open, funny.

Jacob: Yeah its a light-hearted show. We don't take ourselves to seriously.

Dan: That was the biggest thing we did coming back. We didn't want to take ourselves too seriously.

Me: I mean honestly. We laughed a little with the boyband moves. We knew they were coming. They have to.

Jacob: Exactly. We have to. We can't not dance.

Dan: We tried..

Jacob: We have to dance, so let's just make it something thats a little fun and cool and not serious choreography.

Me: Yeah you're faces are great. I don't have one photo where you all look decent. One is open-mouthed, the other one has the eyebrows raised. And you move to much. I can't take a picture.

Erik: We're a mess.

Manager: Sorry guys, I have to break this party up.

Jacob: Did they get dinner?

Manager: No.

Me: Can we take photos real quick?
Manager: Yes.

Trevor: Do you have more questions?
Me: Of course we have more questions.

Erik: If you wanna ask questions while we're taking photos, we can.

Dan: Well we don't have our food yet. Just five more minutes. That'll be a good 20 minutes alright

Me: Yeah 20 minutes is fine.

One question we asked ourselves this morning at 5am on the train. Which question would you ask yourselves in an interview? We were trying to find questions you havent been asked. London, so many interviews and yesterday you had three or four. I was like: We're probably going to be last. We need that one question nobody has asked before.

Jacob: Well nobody did the finish my sentences.

Me: I know. That's why we came up with that.

Jacob: That was good.

Trevor: I would... What inspired the Artwork?

Me: Yes that's a very good question because that's very interesting.

Erik: And what inspired the artwork.... was the artwork.

Trevor: Well the album artwork. If I was a fan I would be like: why the lines and circles why... Dan what made you come up with that?

Dan: Yes just when we started talking about that, Erik was inspired for the name of the album Lines&Circles. And I told the guys from the beginning I was like “Don't worry about the album artwork. Let's figure out a name for the album and then we'll get there.” So we came up with the name of the album. It was literally one of the first ideas I had and I showed them to everybody and they were just like “Go.” which is a good thing about working with these guys. There hasn't been the looking over my shoulder the whole entire time. They said “Alright. Do it.”

Jacob: We trust each other.

Dan: And then.

Erik: it's just. It's interesting. The album title Lines&Circles I came up with, but only because I was inspired by Dans design of the original logo. The O-Town with the O with the underline. On my iPad it flips. One day I picked it up and it flipped and I saw the logo on its side. And the O turned into a 10. And it just yelled a decade. And then I saw a line and a circle and all these ideas came rushing out at me of why it meant , why those two words together had relevance to us. But it was because of Dan's design, that the title was inspired and his next design was inspired by the title. It's been a very synergistic and creative situation that we were creating with our band. We don't have to deal with outside sources to get the product that we really want anymore.

Me: And now you have a circle made out of lines.

Dan: circle made out of lines.

Erik: I love it!

Dan: Was that intentional?

Me: No actually it comes with it and we had so many left over. We can probably make another one.