It could definitely be argued that O-Town changed the world. Without the band’s meteoric success on ABC’s reality show “Making The Band,” which chronicled the guys’ every move from the formation of O-Town to two No. 1 singles and platinum status, there might never have been “American Idol” or “The Voice” or “The X Factor.” Groups like One Direction might never even have existed without the pioneering phenomenon known as O-Town.
After a 10-year hiatus, Dan, Jacob, Trevor and Erik-Michael are back. They are a little older, a whole lot wiser, impressively seasoned, in control, and simply better than ever! Their new album, Lines & Circles, is currently available on iTunes and after the success and buzz of both their first single, “Skydive,” and their recent North American tour, O-Town is getting ready to release the follow-up single, “Chasin’ After You.” This week, AXS was lucky enough to get to speak with both Dan and Jacob about the past present and future of O-Town.
AXS: Did you guys think you’d ever be back together again?
Dan: I didn’t.
Jacob: Well, because Dan is so pessimistic (laughing), I started to really believe that it never would...
...happen. There was a four or five year period when bands started getting back together and it became the trendy thing to do, so everybody was hitting up all of the old bands. We had a few offers at one point, but because Dan and his wife were expecting a child, or I was living across the country, or whatever, it just never worked out. When the 10-year mark was approaching, there was a real big reason to get back together. It was coming up so quickly that I started realizing if we couldn’t get it together now, we probably never would! But we did and I’m glad it worked out because it’s been a lot of fun!
AXS: After you went your separate ways, do you think you experienced a lot of growth as individuals?
Jacob: Ten years is a long time! We were babies and, in a sense, we didn’t really know what we were doing back then. But we all learned a lot of life lessons throughout those years when we were away.
AXS: What is the biggest difference between then and now? Is it the amount of control that you have?
Jacob: Yeah, that’s a huge one! The best way to look at it is that was our college years, while everyone else was going to college, we were working with ABC and MTV, doing shows and just learning how to do it all. Part of what was frustrating back then is we didn’t have control... but looking back, that makes sense! It was a huge investment and we didn’t have any experience. I wouldn’t give kids who had no experience any kind of control! So, we’ve learned a lot since then.
Everything we are doing now is a product of us! Dan does all the artwork. I managed the band for the first year and got us into the situation that we are in now where we will be touring. It was a hands-on, labor of love. Nobody was getting paid for that year, it was just something we were doing for the passion of it. For us to be able to build something from scratch that we are proud of and then go out there and make a living at it... That is more satisfying than anything I have done with this band in the past.
Dan: What’s most important to us is that there is no machine this time, we’ve taken on every step ourselves. We’ve taken all of those lessons that we’ve learned over the past ten years and put them into what we are doing this time around so we can do things in a way that makes us happier with the end result.
Jacob: No one forced us to do another album, we were fine in our lives. We did it just for the fun of it, but we thought we could really do something great.
AXS: What’s interesting is musicians are a lot more visible and a lot more accessible to their fans today than they were in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Jacob: That’s the thing that people keep bringing up, but they forget that we were the first fully exposed band! We are actually less exposed now. (laughing) Everybody says you’ve got to expose yourself and I’m thinking, “What, through Twitter? Try having a camera in your freaking shower!” (laughing) People have no idea what it was like for us.
Dan: It doesn’t get more exposed than having a camera in your shower, that’s for sure!
AXS: That’s right, you guys are pioneers!
Dan: And that’s something we’re pretty proud of. When we got into it with “Making The Band,” reality shows didn’t really exist yet, there were just a couple of other shows and most of them were on cable. We were the first to be on network television so we didn’t know what to expect, we were just flying by the seat of our pants.
Jacob: ABC didn’t really know what they were doing or what to expect either. That’s really funny because when you look at it now, they have it down to a science. Everything on a reality show is product placement. When we did our show on ABC primetime, instead of trying to get big sponsorships, they had us put duct tape over all of our logos because they didn’t know they could get clearance for any of the brand names that we had. They weren’t looking far enough into the future to realize they should have been getting endorsements for everything!
Dan: Also, now there’s such a formula to reality shows. Everybody knows what to expect... and everybody is expected to have their own reality show. They know what it should look like and how to play the game, but back then, we really didn’t know what we were doing.
AXS: This has been so fascinating, I really didn’t plan on spending so much time on the reality television aspect of your career.
Dan: Well, there are not too many people who could speak on this topic from our perspective, that’s for sure.
AXS: Is there anything you’d like to say in closing?
Jacob: Look for a release of our next single “Chasin’ After You,” and check out our website, Facebook, Instagram, andTwitter. We are starting from the ground and building it all ourselves this time, so every little bit that the fans can help out is great!
Dan: Touring is going to be a big part of our future. There will be lots of shows in the coming year because we want to make sure we see all of our fans who have supported us over the years!
[Photo: Nick Caster] [Source: axs.com]
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