AJ McLean | Not Skinny But Not Fat

where do you live now I've been in California for 22 years really I'm in uh I'm about about an hour north of L.A I'm in Ventura County okay so you're like California but not living in the like yeah I mean I I was in the hustle and bustle yeah uh up until I got married and then once we had our first we we were living in Griffith Park which was like uh hipsterville it was great but uh uh living in a in a major Park you get a lot of transients you get a lot of homeless which is fine but it got a little scary for the kids and uh you know and I and I was busy so I was traveling like most of that time so it's just my wife and my oldest at the time so she got freaked out so we finally moved to Calabasas and then from there where we are now which we've been in our home now for almost seven years to Calabasas yeah so now we're in uh West Lake Thousand Oaks Suburbia Suburbia oh yeah I love it you love it I never thought because I grew up in the city and in the city of well Florida now Florida but like in like the hustle and bustle uh and my entire family's from here my mom is from Hackensack uh my grandfather grew up in Spanish Harlem my grandmother grew up in Brooklyn uh and my dad is actually from Cambridge Massachusetts so if anyone doesn't know me and they ask me where I'm from and they assume I'm from New York I just say yes yeah because I I'm not a big fan of Florida okay I mean but who is nobody it gets such a bad do you feel like it deserves the bad rep that I think look growing up there obviously I didn't know anything else you know it was just it was Disney and like the beach and that was it but over the past probably four to six years I feel like it's kind of come I up like kind of up on its head right you've just kind of seen the like the war side the worst side you know but growing up my mom always said this is where all the good New Yorkers go to die and I'm like I have a lot of friends that are from New York that are not going there now they're all going to Nashville yeah there's new hot spots mom yeah there is brand new brand new hot spots yeah if you guys couldn't recognize by the raspy voice that you've known since you were probably five or six or eight it's AJ [ __ ] McLean hi isn't that cray-cray like I need to bring it back for myself for a moment like I'm trying to do the you're 44. 44 looking better than ever trying thank you I'm 30. four baby but when you started you were 14. that's insane it is because a lot of people don't realize that so it's already been 30 years for me because I was the first picked by Lou Perlman back in the day in 1990 like the middle to end of 92. so I helped actually form the band as far as even the audition process um how did he find you at 14. so there was a thing in Orlando called the Blue sheet which was basically like the classifieds for anyone that was in the entertainment field so There Was You Know pages of auditions for Disney to be one of the face characters or back then it was Nickelodeon Studios and Universal um so one of the last pages on the top of the page it said local entrepreneur looking to put together a five-piece Harmony group Allah Boyz II Men meets New Kids on the Block and I had just gotten fired from a job uh from a Nickelodeon TV show that it got picked up on ABC and lasted three episodes and got canned so so you knew you wanted to be like in the industry I mean well I've been in this business since I was three so how did that happen I started out modeling and then uh theater is what really kind of drove me I started doing theater when I was six did it come from you or was your mom like a stage mom no I just I I just love to be in front of people I just would make up stories I would you know learn monologues and do whatever but I just I loved performing um it was either that or I I was dying to be a police officer I want to be a cop or a fireman or or actually my biggest passion was dancing before singing was ever anything so I grew up dancing and doing theater from like ballet Jazz tap all of it my dream job was to be a backup dancer for either Michael or Janet that's what I wanted to do and singing was just there because of doing a musical theater yeah never in a million years that I think it would become my daily job right but I doing what I do I get to do all of it right because in a music video you're acting sort of you know I'm dancing I'm singing I'm performing I'm on a stage you know it it's kind of encompasses everything so so you were manifesting since three years old yeah exactly basically so you see it at in the in the paper so I go with my mom uh we go to Lou's house uh we had to have a song and a dance routine prepared so I had both uh and he signed me on the spot and then the rest of the auditions ensued so the next to get picked was nick uh who was 12 at the time uh Howie would have been next to get picked he had a stage name which does not because he's Puerto Rican and Irish yeah and his stage name was Italian it makes no sense Tony dinetti he does not even look like a Tony dinetti like where did you even come up with that damn name dude um but so but because it wasn't his real name the casting director lost his resume so he had to re-audition almost a year later we had two other members uh that did not last um for various reasons and uh we lost one we got Kevin who was working at Disney at the time everyone's working at such a young age yeah well he was Kevin was 21. oh right Kevin was older and then we lost our fifth and we're trying to find someone and Kevin's like well I have a I've got a cousin in Kentucky who Brian was a junior at the time and uh and then literally two weeks later we met uh Brian did our first show at grad night SeaWorld 1993. and here we are 30 years later almost that is do you think that would like fly today like a entrepreneur meeting with like 13 year olds signing that well I mean today I don't know but I mean if you really look at like and I'm not gonna I'm I I don't want to speak out of out of out of context but just from what I've seen and what I've heard and again don't quote me on this but if you look at like the bts's of the world they are put together by like big business right it's corporate stuff it's not you know yeah it's not best friends it's and and just like with like The Mickey Mouse Club back in the day they age out and then they just rotate yeah you know what I mean so that would be the closest thing I think to the entrepreneurship some billionaire or you know somebody putting together a group I mean it's been done outside of Lou and he's still connected with you guys Hulu yeah oh he's dead oh dead dead RP oh yeah well yeah I mean it's unfortunate because we never not for all of us I made my peace with it but he went to prison uh for the biggest Ponzi scheme in history uh he had his his sentence was 25 years in federal prison uh for every million dollars he paid back he got a year off his sentence and uh he died of a heart attack uh right after we filmed our documentary um and one of the things that we wanted to have in the in the actual doc was as many of us as the prison would allow to go in and sit down with him and just ask the most insane pondering question of just why yeah and we were not able to do it and then he passed away so I know some of the guys still have a grudge and still have unanswered questions but you know again if I were to be asked do I regret anything no no nothing I this is exactly what was supposed to happen yeah for us to be where we are today so when you meet all these guys they pull them in you're not friends do you I knew Howie from auditions and Nick from auditions barely I knew Howie Moore uh anytime there was any audition for any Latinos Holly and I would see each other because we're both Puerto Ricans so we would both see each other at all and yet ironically it would be all these Latinos and then they would pick the blonde hair blue-eyed kid oh my God Howie so did you have any do you remember if you had any like First Impressions you're like who's this kid Nick or like Brian from Kentucky well Brian Brian still we actually talk about it in our show right now uh actually Nixon one that that brings it up which is when Brian showed up to we had a band house that we were like were renting to rehearse and like I was being tutored at the time um and uh Brian showed up with a cut off flannel t-shirt cut off jean shorts Reebok Pumps remind you from back in the day and a nice high fade and he opened his mouth and he's like hey y'all my name is Brian literal nice to meet you and we're like oh [ __ ] okay all right and literally that night we all sat in the in our little garage dance studio thing and we picked out the harmonies to uh boys to men's version of uh yesterday and I wish anyone could be a fly on the wall for that moment because that's the moment we knew this is this is this is the group the sound everything it just fit it's just you know and here we are wait so 1993 you started and when did you like blow up so if memory serves we signed with our label then Jive Records then which has now become RCA uh like 96 97 I mean we for the first few years we were doing uh there was a thing called the esm tour which we were just touring around the country in a Winnebago doing middle schools and high schools like auditoriums and we were nobody we had no label we had no we had songs that we had cut with local producers in Orlando um and then we would do a like acapella stuff and whatever I mean we did the grand opening of a pet store we've done uh Walmart parking lots we've done airplanes we were getting paid no oh not getting no we were just doing our thing I mean we would sing for dinner if we had to um and then uh there was an offer on the table for mercury records back in the day and that fell through and the head of a r at at that time left Mercury and went to Jive kept telling everyone there's this group of guys I'm telling you so I believe we were in North Carolina uh we did a club show and unbeknownst to watch there were label reps there and uh shortly after they signed us and they shipped us off to Stockholm it's our first time leaving the country and we met the now Infamous Max Martin and the entire Sharon team Dennis pop and that's how we created the Backstreet sound I mean it was just did Lou come up with the name yes so Backstreet Boys Backstreet came from a uh uh there was a place called The Back Street Market which was off of International Drive which was like a huge tourist Street back in Orlando and I guess kids would hang out there on the weekends and you know probably tailgate or do whatever the hell they were doing so Backstreet and then boys because we're boys boys we're all buds we're friends so did you become friends though after like when you were touring on the road I mean you know there's a 10-year Gap really between Nick and Kevin um right so Nick and I being the youngest uh Howies second oldest Brides In The Middle but I mean I mean Brian lived with me uh I moved out when I was 17. um moved in with my then girlfriend 17 was ridiculous yeah uh Brian moved in with me and then Brian Howey and Kevin all live together in like low income housing uh I mean Kevin's car that he just got got left on bricks one day they freaking stole his rims uh you know it was we definitely paid our dues yeah um I mean hell Brian had a waterbed that's how far back I know I ended up having a waterbed though well that was all the rage is it we were too looking back like because I know I was eight I think and obsessed with you guys like posters on the wall all you know looking back is that weird to think that we like you had like eight-year-olds ten-year-old dance oh well I mean if you look at our ages then you know when we really took off I was about 18. I'd say yeah so it just kind of right made sense you know and Europe is where we kind of got accepted first the us at the time it was Nirvana it was Snoop it was Dre it was you know alternative rock there was no room for a pop band like us and there was no such thing as a boy band yet that word did not even exist yet um so we went to Europe because it just took off Europe accepted us that's where we first heard the phrase boy band we had never known what that was we considered ourselves and still do to be a vocal Harmony group that's what you say in the states that's what it is doo-wop kind of Harmony group The Temptations the shy lights The OJ's uh Boyz II Men that's what we thought we were uh and then we go over there and there's like 30 other groups like us but only one or two guys could sing they all looked pretty they could dance but that was it and then the minute we sang acapella everybody was like oh [ __ ] this is the real deal and from Europe into Paris from Paris into Montreal from Montreal it bled down into Upstate New York and finally at that time Hanson had come out and Spice Girls they blew up in the States now radio was like okay we'll give these five these five dudes a chance so we re-released a brand new first single we got it going on was the first single peaked at like 69 on the charts came back to the States and put out quit playing games and that and put the video together with us in the rain and our pastel colored silk shirts I love him yeah and uh and then uh MTV had to create some way to retire our videos because they just there was there was just two popular hence TRL was created so it was essentially created because of us in the sense of having to find a way to retire videos what do you mean by retire so like you know people would call in on like the Top 20 Countdown and like at a certain point other people need an opportunity you know what I mean so if the same video is always playing there's a bunch of other artists it's not just about you so TRL was then created which was this huge explosion of Us in sync Christina Brittany Good Charlotte uh Blink 182 you name it yeah and that was the Hub you know and uh and I'll never forget we did the very last episode of TRL I think it was in 2000 maybe four or something like that somewhere in there it was the final episode and then it was done and it was done but uh yeah wait so when NSYNC came about were you guys like where are these new kids also from Orlando yeah um it's wild that you know also signed by Lou um we had the same management team uh Jive Records also signed them so it got a little sticky yeah you know because it was that whole don't shoot where you eat mentality and we kind of took it personally like okay this is the exact rep why are you creating yeah yeah and then Lou continued to make more boy bands none of which really reached the level of us and or in sync in sync their opportunity came from something that we turned down we were so fried and so burnt from traveling and touring and everything that uh there was a Disney special that we said no thank you we want to rest in sync got the slot and that's what blew them up uh I mean we work with the same producers the same everything um those guys all you know knew each other how he actually went to school with Chris Kirkpatrick they went to college together um and I knew Joey just from around the Orlando area um where I lived was down the street from the high school that he went to so uh you know I mean if you would see each other at like VMAs or like award shows was there like friendliness um back in the day Chris and I had beef right it was it was over an X that we both dated it was the dumbest thing in the world now we're the now we're actually both really really good friends he's a he's a dad now and you know and I think just over time you you kind of squash stupid and looking back there was room for both I mean both both bands were huge and they were extremely talented yeah and they are the nicest guys and I mean I'm still friends with all of them and you know there was a uh enough room for everyone and there was there was you split down the middle you had NSYNC fans and you had Backstreet fans you're right you know right and just also there was no one like you at the time like tattoos no I mean there's still no if you look at all boy bands starting back from the Jackson Five if you want to call that a boy band which it was there has been nobody that looks like they should be in Good Charlotte degrees right none of them right you know you were like a yeah you were like not the stereotypical boy band dude back in the day which is why I'm proud to to today I just posted about this before we even scheduled this interview we were talking about The Backstreet Boys and I asked my followers like who do you think that I like the best and I got offended I mean Nick is great but like there were the girls that loved Nick yeah you know what I mean because he was like blonde and had that thing baby he was a baby and I felt cool for like you being my fave you know because that meant that I was like hardcore you know even though it was between you and Brian I've had like both guys even though I'm the biggest teddy bear in the world I'm not at all what what you look like no not at all I'm a major pushover I really am you know I I I think for me it was you know it was all Cookie Cutter back in the day like we all had the matching at matching outfits and but it was different colors yeah you know and finally when I I think the first thing I did was dye my hair blonde and that started this like self-discovery of like I don't want to be like the rest of you then I got my first tattoo in Germany in a hotel room when I was 19 and then that's continued and do you think looking back do you think you did that because sort of wanting to stand out or be different than it was just a form of self-expression yeah I think and then I started painting my nails and it just became what felt comfortable to me yeah um you know I like I've I've always been comfortable with my feminine side my masculine side I mean I've worn dresses before I wore a dress at my wedding like it's you know I don't I don't really care yeah what people think yeah about what's on the outside it's it's more so what's on the inside that matters and it's like this is just who I am you know and I nobody just gets one tattoo either I don't care who you are yeah you even if they're small yeah you've got to at least have two right so are you done no no I mean I I gosh my last tattoo I got was probably a year and year and a half ago but uh no I'm not done yet the next one I'm getting is going to be for my youngest daughter because I've got one for my oldest here over my heart which hurt like a ugh but I'm still trying to figure out what to get for lyric it's got to be something as creative as what I got for Ava so what did you get for Ava so Ava um I it's actually she was about four months old yeah and it's her actual hand holding my finger and it's a heart locket so she has a key to my heart no this was when we were only having one and then we had two and now I'm like oh [ __ ] but lyric it's got to be something music based because right because of the name that's that's what inspired the name right my wife got to name Ava after Ava Gardner my wife grew up watching all the old movies and loves old Hollywood and lyric was mine so I mean that makes sense now that you say that makes sense um how did you meet your wife Rochelle right yep uh she was a bartender and waitress uh at a restaurant offer off Sunset called Saddle Ranch um oh wait does it still exist oh God yeah it looks like that Western they have the mechanical Bowl yeah yeah what I think's hilarious though is like now it's become a tick tocker's Haven so all these Millennials think that it's like the new cool spot yeah you guys are so behind like 20 years behind you guys are so no I mean it's so uncool that it's cool again like well like now you see like the Millennials with instead of airpods they have the old school ones they have the like everything good comes back around yeah and the 90s will never go away so you think what you're doing is original but guess what I never stopped doing it yeah but so she was a bartender waitress I asked her out uh it was a Sunday morning she claimed that she didn't know who I was wait really and this was she was an insync fan mm-hmm yeah so wait what year was this that she claimed she didn't oh this was in 2009. no freaking way and so but what's funny is she went she took two of her younger friends drove them to Vegas uh I think when she was 18 or 19 uh to go see our black and blue tour um and they were up in the nosebleeds and I always ask her to this day I'm like did you look down and ever think you're gonna marry one of those guys and she's like no because she was obsessed ironically with the gay members of boy bands so she was obsessed with Jonathan from New Kids yeah obsessed with lands and then she married me so it's like okay um but uh yeah so I asked her out what you just thought she was a hot waitress she was beautiful and we had a connection I asked her out and then she asked her manager who I was and our first day was supposed to be dinner in a movie and I worked late in the studio the night before so I was like why don't you just come over to the house and we'll watch a movie and we'll order in and she panicked and was like oh okay come over to your house watch a movie did you have like a fancy house at that point it was a nice house but I wasn't really thinking of anything but really why I love movies like literally I'm obsessed with movies and so she flaked and then she quit she was gone for a year so I was like oh okay well there goes that and then she came back a year later I asked her out again and March 22nd 2009 was our first date uh it was the best worst first date ever where'd you go we went to a place called camachos at CityWalk at Universal in LA and uh there was a mariachi band playing the entire night so dinner was very loud and our conversation was screaming um and then uh back then she was big into horror movies which I was is my favorite genre and we went to see a movie called Last House on the Left ah unbeknownst to me there was a seven minute very graphic rape ensued scene so I'm sinking in my seat like oh my God this is the worst night ever dinner was horrible and now this and I'm like God I'm so sorry walked her to her car and gave her a kiss on the cheek and that was it and then we've been together ever since it was just she was normal she was normal you know she did that huh you needed that like ground I didn't think I needed that and nor did I want that I wanted because I was in my crazy phase I was in my drugs in my parties and all that so that's what I thought I wanted and come to find out she was the Calm before the storm and then she was one that Tamed The Savage Beast I mean she put up with me we've been together for 13 years now yeah yeah 2009 yeah 13 years married for 10. uh almost 11 this and it'll be 11 years this year and it's like it's it's nuts did you did you have any high profile like relationships before her no no date and then there was a couple of opportunities that I heard about after the fact that were interested in me and I'm like oh man wait you gotta tell me uh one was Jennifer Love Hewitt back uh like I know what you did last night oh my God uh but I blew it I didn't know and then many more but she was significantly younger and that would have been weird when she came out she opened up for us uh Millennium tour um but no I mean there was I oddly enough never a celebrity never yeah yeah it's just I I never I'm sure I could have hit my publicist up and been like hey let's go on a date with someone so yeah that's just not me yeah I I like the balance and my wife's in the industry she's a professional special effects makeup artist Hair beauty all of that um she's worked on film sets and TV shows and commercials uh her dad's in the industry her brother's in the industry her sisters in the industry so she's been around it uh you know but never like in it and you were saying when you met her and on your first Mariachi horror movie date you were in the crazy part I I had just started kind of in the not so good phase like I did drugs right in front of her but she didn't think anything of it she probably thought oh this is a casual thing this isn't going to be a problem yeah we all know but it but it was a PR right because your famous stories that you tried cocaine before the video yeah which is what got me into that but I was already drinking before that I mean I started drinking really drinking at 25. I didn't even drinking my 21st birthday everybody else got sloppy ass drunk and food poisoning on my 21st birthday I had I just had no desire really yeah until 25 20 25 to 27 was bad yeah and then since then I got sober for about almost seven years and then on again off again up until uh almost almost a year ago so uh I've been sober now for a little over 10 and a half months amazing so you know it's been it's it's not easy you know but this two-year break that we all had really did a number on me in the right way uh it gave me a chance to really reflect and really like take take this as serious as I possibly can as well as now with the fentanyl crisis um you know it's a it's it's it's a Scary World out yeah where you know I know me well enough if I pick up a drink today that'll be it today tomorrow it'll be two or three eventually the drugs are going to come back and I don't know what's out there I could do one line and be dead yeah and I cannot leave my children fatherless my wife a widow my band mates without a band mate I just it's just not it's just not worth it so you tell like you you tell stories about the fact that your bandmates didn't know what was going on they didn't know it at the beginning but I'm sure like Midway through they they're they're all really smart guys they all and even if they did know they didn't think it was a problem because I still showed up on time I still did my job I still performed I did all these things and it's like but it was when it started to affect where I started missing rehearsals and or vocally I sounded like crap or then I started drinking on stage fans didn't know because I was freaking out of a red Solo cup just a straight shot of Jack uh so yeah I mean that's when it got bad yeah you know like like like we say in the rooms of AAA it worked until it didn't is it hard to be in this industry and be sober um yes and no um you know I know a lot of guys that have been sober 30 years that are in this business uh it's just how bad do you want it yeah how bad do you want it um you can literally have everything and more and enjoy the fruits of your labor and remember it and savor it by staying sober um I have flashes to this day of things that I didn't remember that I'm like oh that's right I did do that or oh I've been there but what really kind of kicked it off for me was dancing with the stars two years ago getting in good shape for that getting mentally prepared because I had no idea what to expect Nick tried to prepare me and I was not prepared uh but it was a life lesson that show and then it really kind of was the Catapult for me to really start looking at myself and you know I had some ups and downs during this two years but then finally I just woke up and I was like you know what no I'm done I'm done I don't want to go on the road again and be out there for a week my my my alcoholic brain would already tell me before I left home where and when I'm gonna drink if it's two days after I leave if it's a week into it if I'm going to be in a certain city that I know that I love but that thought never crossed my mind this time and and I have a healthy fear every day if I don't have a healthy fear then my ego comes up and then I tell myself I got this you don't got this I don't have it yeah if I don't have that little bit of fear of oh my God this could be the end then yeah yeah absolutely you don't get too confident you're like Okay no Okay good well you just posted like I'm 44. I'm sober I'm feeling great you're in amazing shape get in there getting there get in there getting there I still got a ways to go but I'm getting there okay so speaking of getting there we were talking before you were like I've been doing this [ __ ] since the 90s like what the tick tockers are doing today so speaking of like Tick Tock and the whole world of social media do you feel the pressure of like keeping up making little videos like you know you know I wasn't on Tick Tock until last summer and it's blown up oh yeah I mean I've I've I enjoy it but I'm not one of those that like posts every day is that you do you have help me no I do I my Instagram I've got an amazing social media team but when it comes to tick tock I like to create the content myself and I like to you know think think think out what I'm gonna do I don't just do it because oh it's trending like I'll do something just off the cuff um you know random uh I think probably my most viewed and liked is again just random we were at Lance's house rehearsing for this uh for the show that we did for for La uh Pride and we were trying to move furniture and we were moving a couch and I asked the guys can we recreate the famous pivot scene from the best TV show ever created yeah and oh my God that's my favorite thing so we did it and it literally just blew up yeah and so yeah I mean again the bloopers of that scene oh God oh my God yeah yeah it's so I had never seen that show in my entire life until about now I'd say nine years ago oh my God and now you could ask me anything on any episode and I will tell you well you benefited oh I've seen it at least a thousand times oh my god um love that we would go to bed watching it when it was on Netflix uh I brought the box set with me on the road oh yeah back when the when the Blu-ray box that came out my wife got it for me for Christmas and I brought it with me that is the sweetest thing horror movies and friends that's the side of your heart now my new one is uh new girl even though we were like about a year late on that one but it's what a it's a Kia child it's yeah Schmidt and Schmidt and Nick are like like the best duo come on Nick Miller he's so good yeah I mean what an amazing cast yeah I've known Zoe for a while and she's just the sweetest most amazingly talented woman period my wife and I actually for Christmas last year went and saw She and Him do their Christmas show um and that was that's her little duet band oh it was so awesome she's so folky and cute she is she really is so do you so you're good with social media yeah you don't feel like the pressure to keep up pose that's what I and maybe I'm dating myself I don't know but what I what I do find fascinating is that these these tick talkers make a living the shit's creek massive fan of [ __ ] AJ massive fan of freaking shit's creek um and so we were in Toronto and I hit up my publicist and I was like crap Show's tomorrow I know it's probably last minute but I really want to invite Annie and Dan I thought Dan still lived in Canada but he's in LA and uh and then within like three hours get a response back an email from Annie saying I already have tickets to the second show uh and the fact that he's inviting me like uh I will be there her exact words I'll be there topless with bells on um and so her and her little Squad came and we sat on my bus and talked and you know I don't yes I know a lot of celebrities fine but I don't know a lot of celebrities yeah I don't walk up to other celebs on the red carpet I don't walk up to celebs at parties it's just not me they could be the nicest person in the world but that's theirs that's that's their space that's their time I'm inviting you can come talk to me whenever you want and my wife could tell me about it all the time she's like do you not know who you are and I'm like I do but I don't look at myself that way why she wants you to like like just you know like if you're on the red carpet and you know Jack Nicholson's there say something I'm like I'm not gonna do that yeah I just that's not me yeah and so like to know that someone like Annie looks at me the way I look at her yeah it was a sweet yeah and you know and it was just funny because when I when I asked her I was like can you do me a favor can you please do the ill oh you asked her I asked her and then she goes only if you do this and I was like done whatever you want I will do it I don't care and oh my gosh that was a moment that was so good I love how moments Kevin is really mad because I kind of he's a massive fan of the show as well and I kind of hugged her on my bus and he never got to meet her so I'm sorry bro sorry Kevin you know what Kev listen you became friends with Drake I became friends I want to hear the Drake story because that also blew up well that was and that was Kevin that was Kevin because uh his family and him went out they asked the hotel what's the best Italian restaurant in all of Toronto and I don't know what it's called but uh they went there and I I guess apparently it's like Drake's like favorite place in the entire city he was there apparently from what Kevin said he approached Kevin um apparently they don't we're not sure we believe Kevin uh but yeah basically saying how much of a fan he is and he shared this story with Kevin that at his 16th birthday Bar Mitzvah uh he was a madly in love with this girl that wouldn't give him the time of day and I wanted that way it came on at the party and he asked her to dance and she actually danced with him and so it was a moment for him and since then she's not given him a time of day I'm sure now she probably wants to but so he shared this whole story they exchanged numbers and he asked if he could perform with us the camera's like of course then that turned into okay I just want to introduce the song and then once he did introduce the song we kept him on stage and it turned into what it turned into did he sing the whole song with you he's saying everyone's verse except mine why uh he literally because I I kind of asked him on stage I'm like dude what the heck and he's like can't touch gold I was like okay damn um okay thanks buddy but uh he was by far the most sweetest humbled uh just genuinely good human I think I've met I mean let's go maybe your wife right you need to Canadian you know we know we know we know it goes without saying yeah Canadians are the sweetest people in the world yeah uh but he would just with all his success you know I know he's very he's he's been very philanthropic he gives back he's just a good human being and he was geeking out up there with us and it was so much oh that's so cool but you know how many I'm gonna be on your wife's side here like hello do you know who you are like do you know how many kids in the industry or in Drake's age group like all of us grow up grew up on the freaking Backstreet Boys it's it's interesting because when myself Nick Lachey and Lance uh we presented an award at the MTV Awards two years ago and when we walked the red carpet here in the city like I didn't know anybody walking the red carpet except Ed Sheeran and little Nas I didn't know anybody else all the young new you know artists but everybody knew who we were yeah and like looked at us like I don't know like oh geez yeah and it's just it was a really surreal moment yeah you know and it was sweet but it was surreal okay everybody I could be your dad well technically yeah I mean you are aging yourself AJ enough with that okay you guys look at my nails I don't know you can't see I have no nail polish on and we have AJ over here yep the fall like the stars yes did you do that yourself no good Lord no no no no um but this this base color is one of Aberdeen it's one of one of my my and my partner Josh's colors so I want to talk to you about that about your we call a nail polish brand it's a it's a it's a beauty brand I mean obviously nail nail polishes at the epicenter that's what's starting this but we do want to move into a full cosmetic and Beauty brand uh with face creams and lotions and lipsticks and eyeliners and shadows and concealer and you you know the whole the whole Gambit so actually the way I think this podcast even happened was because I was going through like a deep dive of all all the the nail polish brands that celeb men have kind of came out with this past year and every time I'd be like oh MGK is coming out with one oh you know little yachty's coming out with one and then I'd be like you guys AJ literally has had one and he's like the OG of this and also you've been actually wearing nail polish since BSB days yeah I mean for 25 plus years I mean and now like we've been talking about everything kind of coming back around now it's like P Davidson I mean I feel like so many men are manicured now they are I think it's become you know acceptable you know like I even say in our show you know I give a shout out to all the ladies in the audience and I give a shout out to all the dudes in the audience because now that were older for dudes they can finally admit I've always liked you guys I I couldn't say it back in middle school I probably got beaten up but I've always liked you guys yeah so yeah it's it's what's now considered acceptable I mean but you see a lot more guys really just taking care of themselves period more skin care Nails manicure pedicure facials are you all about that like skin care yeah I mean I you know it's one of the perks of having a a wife that's in the Cosmetic world because she gives you all the inside track of what's the best products and what is good for my type of skin would you do like lasers and treatment um yeah I don't know but I don't know about all that like you know like I you know people don't understand like I'm terrified of needles yeah I know it doesn't you would be like why don't but I like so Botox and all that [ __ ] never there's no it doesn't make sense to me to intentionally stick a needle in my head yeah just so that my expression doesn't change yeah uh that's okay yeah I'm fine never having done that no you have great skin AJ Latino oily skin hopefully I looked like this when I'm 70. yeah I hope also being sober helps because I could look much older right now yeah if I was still out there doing my thing do you still smoke cigs sadly yes not as much uh but uh that's my last Vice yeah you know do you feel like that you're like I just need to I do to one I mean I mean I'm a fan of celebs that smoke it's like what I tell myself though is like once I get to the physical place that I want to be with my with my with my body and I get to the mental place I want to be with my mind and I can quit coffee then the cigarettes will be gone because those two goal though it is but it's a realistic goal but I I will not stop until I'm a thousand percent ready yeah because I don't want to quit and then two months later pick up again yeah because to me that's just as bad as picking up a drink so I'd rather be a hundred million percent ready to be done and then do it so and you're gonna be a matcha drinking yeah I know I just water like yeah you know uh I drink more water now than I ever have in my life uh the only soda I'll do is Diet Coke because it's the least amount of sugar yeah um but like grain free gluten-free sugar-free it sucks but you get used to it yeah you get used to it I mean and every so often I'll well whatever you're doing is working so maybe we should smoke sags um so okay so Ava Dean is the the brand and obviously you have amazing nails and you take care of them and again I will shout from the rooftops that you've been doing it you've been doing it so all the dudes that are doing it now and is there any though like little feelings of like as OG but whatever like no I mean look I I think it's cool uh you know that a lot more guys are using their platform to kind of you know show that it's oh that it's okay and it's it's you it because it is unisex it really is there's no it's not only for women or only for men um same applies to makeup I'm wearing makeup right now I wear makeup everywhere every day I wear makeup always always I have no shame in that I mean I just can't even tell no what like Foundation Foundation yeah yeah my wife's taught me uh you know the best way to make it look nice and natural and even uh I used to do Just For Men but I can anymore because uh my wife is violently allergic to hair dye and what's just for men like to you know get the Grays out of here oh so a little fun fact for all you guys out there waterproof mascara that is waterproof mascara you need to do a little Vogue getting ready with me in the morning video there's a lot of a lot of tricks of to the trade that you can literally do yourself and nobody would be the wiser I love that um okay so new sound just came out a lot last week it's gonna be the last one so new song came out last week called smoke love it thank you what about thank you thank you what a fun song it gives like Prince Vibes it gives I was thinking Blurred Lines with the video too the video was around yeah the video well you know like I when uh so this is the fifth video that I have co-directed with my with my partner Renee lizondo uh the last video we directed together was actually Backstreet Boys chances video which was our last single off of our DNA record um yeah the inspiration was uh the old Robert Palmer video for Addicted To Love like I was young enough that like these women were like not even scantily dressed but they weren't wearing bras they could see through their black dresses and I was all like getting excited in the pants and I was just like oh my goodness this is awesome and then the George Michael Freedom video with all the supermodels and uh and then Blurred Lines but blurt Blurred Lines did not leave anything to the imagination right like that was here's tatas they're out here they are Emily radakowski yeah who is stunningly gorgeous here's my boobs so I wanted to kind of merge all three of those together but do it in a very classy way and yes it's sexy it's edgy but you never see anything yeah and we purposely did it that way to where we get you there and then it's over yeah and leave it up to the imagination and did you co-wrote the song yep who wrote the song with a bunch of amazingly talented writers um and uh it was one of the last songs in the first round of writing that we did back in January and uh it just once it was done you you you just know like we just sat around and we just keep playing it and playing it and we're like this is a this is a hit man this this feels right no it feels right definitely like it's one of those songs you want to keep on listening to what happened though because you posted earlier was it like a week ago that the the music video was like almost ready but then you were like I'm not putting it out because like I need to change we we had to re-edit the video and we had to re-edit the song uh the length was not right um so because basically now what I've learned is back in back in my day uh three minutes and 30 seconds was a typical radio edit it's not the case anymore was it today it's like you're lucky if it's 2 30. really and if you and what blew my mind is my manager told me wannabe Spice Girls it was two minutes and 35 seconds and what's so great about that is the it's over so quickly you can't wait to play it again it's a mind [ __ ] if you will so we smoke is two minutes barely or a little bit over two minutes so the video we had to make it longer so we did a remix we added some more footage because we had so much footage and my producer and I did like a little breakdown and we made the video just shy of three minutes but the song itself the radio edit is actually like under two and a half minutes so hopefully it makes you want to listen to it over and over and over again is it like is the excitement different when it's like a solo Thing versus like a BSB thing it is and especially now because I my first solo record came out in 2009 and it was only released in uh like the Pacific Rim and parts of Europe and it was if you go back and listen to it it sounds like a Backstreet Boy album it just does but just with one guy I mean because I didn't know who I was yet I didn't have a sound that I was identifying with and then I stuck my feet in the world of country for a hot second and it was great and then covet hit and I knew that once things were lifted I would have to start all over again because you really have to embed yourself in Nashville if you want to be a successful country artist especially coming from the pop World it doesn't matter if you're Beyonce they don't care yeah you still have to prove yourself and so during the two years I was just like um I I can I do it yes is it what I'm passionate about no Funk and R B and soul is what's always been in me and I I can't even tell you how great this album is it's it's yeah wait so is a full album Gonna Come Out full album will be out uh we're looking at hopefully top of the year next year we were thinking fall of this year but I don't want to rush it yeah but there will be another single out this year for sure and then uh and then album next year and uh yeah I'm I'm stoked man like really really excited you're in the freaking Prime of your life Alexander you're doing my damndest okay so you were saying that you're what are you watching right now you finished new girl finish new girl my wife and our uh uh Modern Family I know we're way behind them but we're watching Modern Family I love that it's so good um and then for me personally uh stranger things and we just finished uh myself Josh and uh our other buddy Justin who was on my bus as well he does our meet and greets and all of our photos uh the TV show called The Boys [Applause] phenomenal it's weird it's always very funny uh Chase Crawford right right it was a good reason it was a really good friend of mine yeah it's a little bit of a different character from Gossip Girl right he like has sex with like a lizard seed creatures with like octopus and yeah oh yeah yeah well his character is the deep and he is like the Aquaman of this show and he talks to sea life but he also has sex with sea life and I need to see what the show is it's really and it's really if if you don't like violence don't watch it because it's you'll see stuff you never thought they could show on television any reality TV big brother yeah oh yeah I am not watching this season yet one uh I trust me I've been asked multiple times yeah uh but no no I I I'm away from my family enough yeah um but uh but I'm a huge huge fan I've missed the last couple Seasons just because of tour I've become really good friends with one of the castmates uh Paul Abraham uh who is on season 17 I want to say yeah uh him and I have become the best of friends uh but it's uh it's such a fun show to watch like I never thought my brother-in-law who's like football and like obsessed with me like oh yeah and and like we'll even watch the like after Dark and like we get the alerts CBS app oh yeah oh my God you guys yeah I love this information so celebrity crush man or woman oh man Ryan Ryan Ryan Reynolds is my celebrity oh [ __ ] yeah that is my so wait we need to make this happen when he got on tick tock he like his second video he posted uh something uh it was I think it was all for one and then he did another one with him and Will Ferrell because they were doing a movie together and I do edit both of them the first one I'll I was with you in the car right in Vegas and he runs in to get like soda and like something else out of this convenience store and he comes out and I'm like oh my God he's like what what what I'm like look who commented on my page second comment he said number five on my bucket list duet with AJ from the Backstreet Boys and then I do edit another video with him and he said another thing that was amazing I I didn't know what to say I was just like we had the same trainer because when he was doing Amityville and doing uh Blade Trinity uh I call my publicist and I was like I want his trainer and you're like he looks hot I wanna yeah so now his trainer's been my trainer for the longest time we're best of friends uh and I've always tried to get to Ryan somehow I know he lives here yeah um but uh I don't know maybe I'll maybe I'll ask my Publishers today if they can just randomly hit up Ryan and invite him to the show that'd be kind of fun I I mean AJ I don't know I mean look hey I literally reached out the day before to get Andy Murphy to come and it all worked out yeah but she already had tickets I highly doubt Ryan has tickets to the show right now or maybe Blake maybe his wife Blake I know is a big fan yeah so yeah oh no you got me wondering now you got me oh my God you guys can't do you know Ryan I don't okay but I know that like I I I know his public said oh my God I know I have to published this number probably did so here we go I'm gonna text her oh my God oh my God we're making it happen I'm obsessed and I can't believe all the fun things we found out about you today I love it AJ you made a childhood dream come true for me and we all love you so much thank you and everybody check where the Backstreet Boys are playing near you yes Christmas show uh we have a Christmas album coming out this year our first one ever uh hopefully doing some Christmas radio shows uh as well as uh go stream or download smoke it's out now um thank you so much to everyone for all the love and support for each of us outside of the group it's overwhelming and it's it's I'm beyond grateful and thank you uh and album coming soon and uh thank you for having me on the show thank you thank you

Channel: Not Skinny But Not Fat

Views: 6,388

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Id: q7KtUHSfIPc

Length: 58min 3sec (3483 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 23 2023