Boyz II Men (Part 1)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Question. Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Uh yeah, okay, but his real name and a picture?
I mean that's what is Mama Phone? Yes? I remember? Okay, alright, Well,

(00:25):
ladies and gentlemen, what can I say? Our guest today
are the pride of my hometown of Philadelphia. They are,
in my opinion, and I'm very biased. They are simply
want to be finest, most talented singing groups in history. Uh.
They have made classic records, they have broken records, and

(00:45):
when those records got broken, they broke records with their
own records. Three singles, three singles single handedly have occupied
in number one spot for forty three weeks in a row.
That is no small feet to just spread out through
three signals. Um. Only two other artists in recording history
have achieved that feat. And know his name isn't Michael Jackson,

(01:10):
Elvis and the Beatles. You know to be alive to
watch Beatles fans cry over into the road record breaking Beatles,
that was one of the most craziest days I've ever seen.
We can call them the last true R and B group.
We can call them the forefathers. We know that every
any any group of individuals that call themselves Boys Band.

(01:32):
They know they owe this group everything from and sinc
to BTS. They owe them greatly. Please welcome to Quest
Left Supreme. Finally, the one and only Boys de Mena. Finally,
because we only got one call. Wait, wait, wait, this

(01:53):
is this is gonna be you hey, you know what
type of we're high school like, Yeah, it's gonna be real.
Fante had to look at the face right now. I'm
all right. The jal Scott episode went somewhere, the music

(02:14):
episode went somewhere. Boy, and this is this is this
isn't real age. You don't get like, you know, we
only know one way to talk to each other. This
we actually wait my first question. People are dying to

(02:35):
know what the hell did y'all do this sudden impact.
I don't know what we did that wasn't I'll tell
you what I'm playing one of what we did. We
tried to save him after Mike Vimins got rid of him.
We tried to sign the Stone Creek and Philly and
took him over the top of the toll and he said,

(02:56):
all hell now that somebody named the Backstreet Boys came
out and then they disappeared. Wow, thank you, I can
tell it's gonna be a classic interview already where you
guys right now? Assume that? And I know you guys
get tired of asking like when people see you individually,
like we're the other group, as if you're attached to

(03:18):
the hip. Yeah, like we're conjoined together right right, because
I can never be nowhere without used to get you know,
right exactly? So, were you guys right now? I'm in
l a Ones in Vegas and and uh nikes in
a big old house in Tampa, Florida, sitting by the room,
big old house like anybody else, everybody else in the
big old house by lake all right. I see when

(03:47):
when Okay, based on the reality that we're living right now,
when's the last time that you three were physically in
the in the room at the same time. I want
to tell you this, Yeah, Mark, But I'll tell you
one even crazier. When we left each other in March.
By the time we got to May or June, it
was probably the longest that we've ever been apart from

(04:07):
each other since high school. That's what I was gonna say.
What has this been the biggest break that you guys
have had? Yeah, without a doubt, without seeing each other
or talk. Yeah. Physically, yeah, we went on breaks, but
we saw each other. We hung out one show, you
living around the corner, stuff like that. But like physically
being apart for this long, it's the longest miss the
hell out of those niggas. So how how does that affect?

(04:35):
Especially when you've been singing together for so long, for
so consistent, how does that affect you? Like? When I
hang up, I'm about to We're about to do like
our first route show in eight months, and I'm actually
nervous about it because like, like we're gonna have rehearsal,
which is I mean, we did it so much that

(04:56):
the automatic pilot was good, But like, how does it
when you're not in that rhythm anymore? Like, how does
that affect? I mean, you don't know, you never did it.
It's never happened before, you know what I'm saying. But
but like you said, you know, Googles have been together
for this long, and you know, working together, we we
pretty much know our roles, we know what roles we play,

(05:18):
so you know, I'm pretty sure it's more it's it's
auto pilot as well. Um, it's just you know, getting
in the room together and you know, remembering our notes
and the steps and all kinds of stuff like that.
That's the only thing. But for the most part, man,
this is this is weird. You know what I'm saying.
It's definitely weird, but you know, we got to make
the most of it. Is this a welcome break? Most

(05:40):
most artists that I talked to say like, this is
the first real sleep I've gotten. This is the first
like I mean monetary issues aside of worrying about you know,
how your life is gonna be affected. Like, is this
a welcome break or is it just like I mean,
I think it's more into rule that that that that

(06:01):
question to be answered. I mean for me, I think, uh,
two months, that's that's a welcome break for me, you
know what I'm saying. But after two months, I'm ready
to see that I'm ready to you know, be where
we where we are, you know, ready to get back
on stage. I'm ready to see my brothers. I'm ready
to you know what I'm saying. You gotta have that
that that energy flow of people that are like minded

(06:21):
around you and and create the same way and think
the same way musically around you. So after two months,
I'm like, Yo, it's I gotta, I gotta do it.
But you know, it's it's it's welcome for about two
months for me, I don't know about everybody else. Now
you're just anty to get back to yeah whatever, I mean, yeah,
I mean, it's it's the same. So I think we

(06:42):
were all due. There's there comes a ceiling that you know,
you tour after a while, you know, you want to say, Okay,
you know what, let's let's let's fall back for a
second and kind of like you know, look at our
houses for a little while and go food shopping and
do regular normal stuff. Because I think with us that
that's the balance that's required for all of us. We've

(07:05):
we've never really been about and you know what's in there.
We've never been about all the the you know, the
spectacle and all the other stuff that just came with
the job. But for the most part, you would see
us driving down South Street, you know what I'm saying, like,
you know, in our cars getting some music or you know,
getting some food or just hanging out or whatever. That's
just what we like to do, you know. And and

(07:28):
and the stage is is just another persona that when
you know, when we're on stage, we go off what
we need to do and this thing, and we jump
around and we have like fools and then after that,
you know, we're back to just being normal Shawn, Wny
and Nick, you know what I mean. So you know
that that's that's always been the ebb and flow and
as it should be with most artists, like you know,

(07:48):
we we require both in order for us to feel whole,
you know what I'm saying. So you know, so, so
it's it's but yeah, it's it's I miss it. I
think guys missing, Um, we missed being out there and
performing because like I said, it feels like it's half
of us that's kind of missing to some degree. You know. Yeah,
we'd like to be home. We like to chill on

(08:10):
all our stuff, but you know, we don't go out.
We like to entertain. This is what we do. One
thing I was curious to though, I saw y'all. Y'all
came to Riley Man. This is probably like ten plus
years ago. This is a minute ago, and y'all performed,
and you know, it was outside and y'all was in
the suits and the choreography I think y'all were doing
like the Motown. Uh it was cover records, y'all done,

(08:31):
and um show was amazing and we all like we
loved it. I was curious to know how do y'all
preserve your voices after all these years? Man, because y'all
still sounded exactly like the record twenty plus years later.
I think part of it is exactly what we're saying earlier,
is like we haven't really been away from each other
this long. I mean, I played the fifth on the
other topic. But the fact that we've always we we

(08:55):
sang all the time. There hasn't been months that have
gone by we haven't sang or we haven't performed. So
you know, it's like a muscle. If you work it
out all the time, it'll be there for you. And
because we've never really ever been separated in our whole lives,
we sing almost every other week or so. And I

(09:15):
mean definitely in the last five years or so, we've
been extremely consistent. I mean with with Vegas, we I
mean there's probably not a week that's gone by in
the last five years that we haven't sang What's up Go.
It's in consistent what you're doing now to make sure
it is well. I mean we still we still think

(09:36):
we just don't sing together. I mean, I'm sure you know,
we know each other's personality, so you know, we're singing
around the house, we sing on stuff we create. I mean,
we just we're just singing. I think we're just It's funny.
When we first got started our role manager of years ago, Kylil,
you know, we would sing so much that every every
time we would sing, he would pull out a cup
almost as if you know, you guys trying to sing
for some coins or whatever, because you know, we we

(09:58):
hadn't quite been successful in so it was like, you know,
you gotta learn when to tone it down and when
you know, you just can't sing all the time. But
I think that's one thing that he never really could
take out of us. So over time, you know, it's
just something that we've always done. Okay, real quick, what
you mean by you plead the fifth on the last question?
Then I need to Oh, no, we'll see again. The

(10:22):
difference for me is that, unlike you guys, I fled
before we did this. For the last five years, I
fly almost five thousand miles a week for Vegas. So
when you talk about needing time away, I probably need
a lot more than you guys do, because I just
it's just too much for me to do. I mean,
I'm flying east west, east west every single week, so

(10:45):
it's not it's not for that residency. Yeah you were
doing I live in Florida've been flying back and forth
for the last five years every week. And are you
still Nate? Were you still doing your show as well?
We used to do you see? See, the thing is
I'm answering. I'm answering question because I know what he's saying.

(11:07):
It's like I just needed clarification because you know what
I'm saying. I just met clarification. I don't know, but
that's what I was saying. It's like, you know, it's
not it's not it's not the group per se. It's
just when you get it. My my grind is a
little bit different than you guys because you guys on
the Wedge coast right there, thirty minutes away. You know
what I'm saying. But when you gotta wake up at

(11:28):
four or thirty every every or Thursday and Friday, fly
out every week and turn right back around, and that's
not counting what we do during the week. I mean, yeah,
you need a break right, I get it, so that
means natives, James Poyser and a mirror. I was like,
I'm gonna be in Manhattan. I don't move to Manhattan.
James is like, no, I'm gonna go further down, further

(11:50):
down south to Delaware and drive every day for three hours.
All right, I get it down. Yeah, that's try about it.
But you're about right. This This leads to my next question.
So you know I was I was immersed in my
particular culture at Creative and Performing Arts High School. Uh.
For those that don't know, um, yeah, we always have

(12:12):
never made it, never made it, never ever made it.
To advisory sat right next to me. I know he wouldn't. Man.
The thing is, The thing is is that you know,
there's I don't know much about the singing culture at
Creative and Performing Arts. So my particular experience there was

(12:36):
all right. First of all, like I had a kind
of a bloods and crips uh environment. The bloods were
like the jazz heads. So in order to get Chris
and Joey's respect, I just study all the forties jazz
to let them know I speak their language. Right. And
then on the other side, Kurt Rose Winker. I don't
know if you remember Kurt Rosewinkle, but he's like, yeah,

(12:59):
he's He's a massive deal right now in the in
the world of jazz. So he would try to force
me to unlearn all the old ship that krist and
Joey wanted me to learn. And then I'm going behind
both their backs and doing hip hop with Tarik kind
of like whatever gang was winning that That's the side
I was on. But what was what was the culture

(13:22):
for vocal majors on the fourth floor? Oh I can,
I can, I can, and like take me through it.
I could break that down because because honestly, I wasn't
in any of them. Because when I could, y'all would
break out in song. Yeah. Yeah, here's the thing. When
when when I came in, um y wasn't in yet.

(13:43):
I came in six, and why I came in a
seven and there was a freshman okay, and I and
I came. When I came in, you had your clicks,
you know what I'm saying about. You had your gospel kids,
you know the ones that just straight up saying gospel
all day, every day, all day, you know what I'm saying.

(14:07):
And then then you had the cool kids. You know
what I'm saying that Nate used to hang around like no, no, no,
no, no no no, don't even do that. No no, no,
no no no, don't be right, be right, let me
don't I don't be right. I did not hang around them.

(14:28):
They hung around me. Let's let's not even you know
this out No no, no, I need that, I need
we gonna clear it up. They hung around me because
most of them was from North Philly, and thank you,
Cappa was in South Philly. And you know, the Blumbo

(14:50):
kids will come outside and try to beat our asses
every day because we could sing and dance, right, and
I didn't have that problem. A lot of those A
lot of those dudes hung round eight, as he says it,
because you know that that was the cool kids. That's
my neighborhood. So they don't want to get their asking
How real? How real was the plump because again I

(15:12):
was so when you're in that basement, you could hide
all day and nobody would miss you until right so
I was separated from all that ship because we just
stay in the basement. How real was that pullum? Bottom
line is one of my friends got it that was
broken by the little kids. Yeah, okay, here here, don't

(15:37):
don't listen, plum all right, let me know the plumb
Let me, let me, let me, let me explain to you.
I got you little kids. They're big brothers were from
the projects. There you go, there you go. So they
lived in my neighborhood. I went to the school because
I was local. Most of the other guys went to
school because they were from Northeastern Aid was a magnet school.

(15:58):
So when they came down, you know what they little
you know, so called Gucci shoes and whatnot. My my
neighborhood guys wasn't happy about that. And then they would
be in the school and they would mess with the
little Plumbian kids and they go tell their big brothers.
And by the end of the day, the big brothers
be waiting outside and I'm the only one that can
walk outside and I have a problem. So they all
around me. They was like babies kids they kind of money. Yeah,

(16:26):
because they're still had to be split high school that
we shared them. It was their bigger brothers. I got you.
So it wasn't the actual a lot of little kids,
but they was causing the issue though. Well what it
was was the school was. It was a big high school,

(16:47):
one of those older schools, and you know, it's a
it's a neighborhood with no money, so they split all
high school in the same building with lower grade kids
that were like seventh and eighth grade, so they won't
trying to build it. We on the other side, those
upper crusty so called Kappa a choir people that like
the you know, mess with little broke kids, would call

(17:09):
them all kinds of names. They go home and tell
their family and then they have to deal with it.
That the school. But you know, you know what name.
It wasn't always them calling them names and stuff. It
was the fact that we were that that the the
you know, artists are eccentric, you know what I'm saying.
So we walk different, we talked different, we act different,

(17:29):
you know, and they and I'm not gonna I'm not
gonna front. I mean, of course there was some interaction.
I'm sure the interaction escalated it to be what it became.
But the thought process behind it is there was a
lot of kids in that school and the fact that
we we all had to interact at some point in time,

(17:51):
whether it was crossing the hallways, I'm sure there was
a little bit of eyeing and things like that, But
when you left the school, you're not thinking that what
happened in school is going to you know, I'm thinking that.
So when you walk outside and you see all these
dudes standing on the wall, like did he go right there?
Or did they go? It didn't even have to be

(18:11):
that person. It's just they wanted to make sure that
they made themselves known and seen that this is their neighborhood.
And y'all gonna have to run if y'all come out here.
That's where anyway, I digress, I digress. Um back to
the to the vocal culture. So you had the so
called favorite I just said the same thing you had.

(18:35):
You had the so called cool kids right there all
hung out with me and um. Then you had the
geeks right, the nerds, right, spazoids, the horrible You were
in a dweep, Nah, I was, you was pulling yours though,

(18:59):
I was. He put the jaws when he got in
the group. No, no, no, no, let me let me explain.
I don't think I got nothing. That was very true,
which is one of the reasons why one of the
reasons why I had somewhat of the issue because listen,

(19:20):
I was the same nigger when I went into school,
right right, I could sing the same I hung around
the same people even when I was in the group,
the whole nine yards, really in the group. You know
that show February for it and when y'all cheat with
the Sparkles, Yeah, okay, yeah, you don't really want to cheat.

(19:41):
You know when y'all had the whole house business. Listen,
you didn't kill that ship for they had sparkles in
their hand. If you didn't boce the man, you're going
all the way. That's the only way we know, all right, Yeah,

(20:04):
to bring our people up to date. There's a Valentine's Day,
uh performance in school, and you know this is the
moment where you felt like, all right now your instrument
was just gonna do it. No, I to you not

(20:27):
got beat by Sparkles, No, go ahead, no, but I'm
dead serious. When y'all walked on stage, I was like,
oh shit, they're like a real group. Like this isn't
unique attraction anymore. This is this is like a real group.

(20:51):
And the thing was, girls were screaming in the audience
like it was Ed Sullivan on the Beatles. Absolutely, and
I was like, Yo, but dude, like I just sat
next he still might owe me seventy five cents like
this still them they're not a real group there, But
for that, for that ten minute performance, y'all, y'all transformed

(21:15):
into like it was like the Jackson's came to school
and ship and I was like, wow, let me tell
you dude. Honestly, we didn't really realize it until that.
It was. It was one of those things where I
think there was the same way you felt it at
that moment. It's the same way we felt it and
we literally had no idea what the hell was happening. None, No,

(21:38):
I mean, it was a transformed the moment. It's it's
crazy to bring that up because even like Seawan said,
it was girls that you know, I'm pretty sure we
all tried to like, you know, send my Holly at
normal year, you know what I mean, and basically gave
us no attention whatsoever when we were when because you remember,

(22:01):
the principal came and stopped it. Yes, he was gonna
stop because was like, this is not a concert, this
is not remember that we remember look in our poses
looking stupid as ship. Yeah, Like that's really weird. I

(22:23):
was the only one that remember this moment. I was like,
I wasn't even bringing up like you. We talked, we
should talk about it on the toll bus all the time, dude,
Like why, I said, And Sean said, nobody wouldn't talk
to us, dude. We we all had our own little clicks.
But when we were doing boys to mental stuff, because
everybody in the group in the school could sing, you know,

(22:43):
a male could sing, like everybody could sing. It was
just like, okay, well everybody could sing. But it wasn't
just in the school. It was after school, when we
stayed there till ten o'clock at night, or when we
went down the subway at ten o'clock at It was
all that stuff that that put us a little bit
ahead and everybody else and they for us, that's just
the way we're supposed to do it. Yeah, we didn't

(23:05):
stop at three o'clock. And it was just crazy because
those girls man after that performance, the same girls I
remember him, Khadija. She sat right next to me right
after the after the class and she was like, why
you didn't give me a ruse? And I was like,

(23:28):
it's why you didn't give me a number? I'm not
gonna make it, you know how important it was, like
you know, bag up a class and I was like
everywhere and I had his life. Alasked me for a girlfriend,

(23:48):
like a straight senor, like like weeks after the show,
like I had a batty from I'm gonna tell you
what's crazy though, when you look at when you look
at the whole musical landscape to the school at that time,
it's like, you know, we used to try to do
new addition stuff like that in sound modern and that

(24:09):
was kind of our niche. But like you guys and
stuff was interesting to us because it was like our
we knew our parents would hear y'all do y'all jazz
stuff and be like, we'd be like, that's my friend,
Like he's not playing on old stuff like and it's
it's you could you knew the vibe because it was

(24:29):
like if older people fell in love with you guys
and stuff, it was fired. Not that young people didn't,
but we couldn't mentally soak in all that deep jazz
stuff y'all had going on, so we would just watch
and watch older people just lose their mind, like these
guys are so deep in there and there you know,
they're you know, so rich, and we'd be like, we

(24:51):
can't even read have the music, the stuff that they playing.
It's like it was, it was interesting. It was you
guys were more cultured than we could ever get at
that age in our life musically. And let me tell you,
let me tell you it's something a mayor like even
now like we will. We would tell people in interviews
that those four years was probably some of the best

(25:12):
years arguably in that school, because so much talent came
out of those four years. It was it was something
going on, and you talked about the real quick sean,
because it's it's common knowledge of y'all. But to the
rest of the world, people don't know what came out
of Kapita, like he just plus, it was Tarka and

(25:34):
our mayor. It was a mellow rule. It was Christian
like like there was so many established now established still
touring the world, making money, you know, winning awards, the
whole nine yards. That happened in that four years and
we all into the same school. To guys, Okay, so

(26:01):
I came to Kappa, you came in let me, you
came in eleventh grades as well. No, but the year
you came in. I was already I was already there, right.
So the thing was is that the first incarnation of
the group was unique Attraction. How did that dissolve and
how did it morph into Voice the Men? The first

(26:24):
incarnation was an eight five. Okay, that was me. That
was none of the guys that you know other than me.
So not not even Mark Nelson, No, no, no no matter fact,
yeah Mark, No, not even Mark Nelson. Mark was right
after that. We had one guy kick out. So right
on the end of that was guys you don't know
other than Mark. And as people would graduate school and

(26:47):
lead a group or quit the group, end the girl,
pull them out, you know, how to crazy stuff, you know,
I would just put you know, other people back in
the group. Now it's funny because Wine was actually picked
before or anybody else, but before he actually got in
the school because I watched him audition the year before
and I knew somebody was leaving, so I was like,

(27:07):
all right, well, if he leaving, I'm gonna get that
little neigger. So he get in there. He just don't
really know how his thing is going down. So then
you know, Wine was at it when we had you know, me,
Wine and it was a girl and two other guys
and then Sean. Actually, again, like Sean said, he kind
of had his own little nerdy click. We didn't really
know how well he could sing. We knew he could

(27:30):
sing in the choir because he you know, at school,
don't pick nobody. But he had a solo one year
and I was like, I need him. So the next
year everybody else left put him in, and then it
was me, him, Wine and Mark and it was just us.
Mike just snuck in by mistake. It wasn't like we
really hand picked the guy. He was. We were singing

(27:50):
the bathroom rehearsing. Mike walked past us while we rehearsing,
and he went to the bathroom taking picture, and while
we were singing, he sang along with what we were singing,
and you know, Mike boys, you know, filled up the
bathroom acoustics. Right yeah, So it was like, all right, well,
you know, let's let's see how he works in here.
And then that that was That was what you know,

(28:11):
And that all came together around eighty eight, right Sean, Yes, Yeah,
so okay, um, for those that don't know what actually
I don't know, I know the legend of the Civic
Center story. But how exactly did you finagle your way

(28:32):
backstage to VIV? Was it a new addition performance? Like
what was the actual story that? Okay, it was it
was the powerhouse. It was the powerhouse that year. And
uh that was the year that um uh bell BIV
Devot was actually being announced like they Mike and Rick

(28:53):
and Ron went to Philly to make an announcement that
they were going to be a singing group to Yeah,
but the thing was was obviously Charlie New New Nate Charlie,
and Charlie was like, Yo, I'm gonna I'm gonna have
let y'all you know, hear y'all sing, you know what
I'm saying? And he was like all right, cool. So

(29:16):
we're sitting out, you know, front, waiting to show up
or whatever. Um he never showed, but we knew. Uh
we ran into Teddy Pendergrass's daughter. Yeah, okay Pendergras right,
so she was and she was like, Yo, I'm gonna
get y'all in. So we got another story. So so

(29:40):
so so so yo so so so we okay, so
we got it with you right right, So we got it.
And so we're waiting around the backstage area, right, so
I don't know, and then you can help me out.

(30:00):
Who was the first person to kind of Martin Larrence
started talking to her whatever, and she was there obviously
because her dad. So she had a friend with her
and they had one extra pass I guess what somebody
else were waiting for. So Mark kind of enabled the
pass from him and he went backstage and they were
kicking or whatever, and then he borrought one of theirs
and came back out gave it to uh one of

(30:23):
the guys. Then we kepd of switching the plass back
and forth till everybody got back there. And by the
time we got back there, Rick and Ron and then
was coming off stage because they was actually hosting the show,
so they was coming off stage from introducing the group.
And when they came off stage, it was like, um, yo,
we have Ricky first, Like, yo, dude, we got um
you know, can we sing for you? And he was like,

(30:43):
you know, y'all gotta tape. You know, tape back then,
y'all gotta tape. And were just like, no, I ain't
gonna take we could just sing it right now. He's like, well,
you know, y'all gotta sit as a tape and then
Ron was like, yeah, well you know you'll consinting he
writing the address and I was like, man that, so
I asked. Mike was like, yo, dud, can we sing
for you? Mike was like right now. He was like yeah,
all right, cool, and we just rocked in the freaking

(31:04):
uh what was it? I came everybody and by the
time we finished, Charlie showed up and it was talked about. Look,
Keith Sweat was there when we finished. Surrounding us was
Keith Sweat, Paula abdul Cherrell all like Will Smith. You know,

(31:26):
Will came in after after finished singing. Will came in
with the at the jumpsuit yup and and and it's
Harry Bone. That's a fresh prince you know. Then and
with with y'all and then that's the um. Yeah. What's
funny is after we finished, Rick was like, well, you know,
y'all still got to send it to take and Mike

(31:47):
was like, no, y'a nigga, ain't gotta say me nothing here.
I'm gonna be here. Time called me about a week
and a half and that was it. Wow, just to
hear that story, it's almost like creative Russian roulette, because
if it's five minutes, if it's had Charlie Mack showed
up in time, it would have been a whole different
trajectory that any anybody standing backstage could have had. It

(32:13):
could have been a different result that at that moment
not to be late. We learned not to depend on
Charlie Mack. Hey, you know, I had the same conversation
with and he denied. This whole story is that this

(32:35):
is no no, no, no, no no no no. First of all, Sean,
you know what's funny is that Mayor check this out.
We not only did we have to get back stage,
we didn't even have tickets to get in. I can't
even remember how we snuck in the building in itself. Right,
it's quite a few people's story for Powerhouse, though you know,

(32:57):
our house is own legacy in that way. But you
know what, honestly, we started to realize that everybody was
sneaking in the Powerhouse after that, after we told the story,
everybody speaking, Dude, I hate y'all for this story simply
because then suddenly comes the onslaught of you spend for
you quick because they hear the story and then they're like,

(33:22):
I'm not having funny if they're doing for us too,
And now we'd be like, yeah, there's somebody is there,
someone established right now that has the story for y'all?
Like I came to your first and y'all in here
a lot of people who have us now, who'll music

(33:45):
came to us when we were at the Biben video
shoot and I didn't even know, I didn't need Yeah,
he's one. It's it's a couple of them. Bro, record
music gave us, gave us a CD or something. He's

(34:12):
on the bus somewhere, a lot of the whole lot
of records. Bro. Yeah, I had a con could have
had he would have he was writing music for us.
It would like crazy, Oh that would have been yeah,
yeah he had a voice. Man, Why it happens, Man, happens.
It happens. So all right, when the whatever whatever data

(34:37):
whatever data stands in your mind for for officially arriving right,
what lesson would you tell yourself back then that you
wish you knew as as a precautionary tale. I'm only
asking this because, all right, I tell people I told
someone like I think last episode, I said, I spent

(35:01):
my entire events in three weeks, not knowing that that
was it, right, I blew my whole advance on like
four stopping stopping spreeze and that was it. One lesson?
Did you did you wish you knew then the first
time you got put on like that first year? Hmm,

(35:21):
it's it's yeah, Well okay, God in my DJ lad,
Now what I knew? You're in the culture. Yeah, that's
all I had. You are not dead. I thought I
had my business and order. I thought when my group

(35:43):
signed a fifty fifty publishing deal with Mike Bibins that
it was publishing deal, and without me going too deep
into it, it wasn't. Okay, So you wish you would
have fought for that. I wish I wished y'all would
have known a little bit more at that moment. Then
I knew four months after that because it didn't take

(36:05):
much long to figure it out. But it was. It was.
It was a life changing decision that if it was
made early for all of us at that point, four months,
five six years later, things would have been a lot
different at different Okay. Uh, Well, to ask, was it
was the parting with BIV amicable? It was not at first,

(36:29):
I mean, I think to this day where where I
think we're better now, But at that time it was
not amicable at all. No, it was Actually the funny
thing is is he was literally forced to part with us,
you know what I mean, because it was it was
between boys two men and Big ten Records, you know
what I mean. And we were both involved with Motown

(36:51):
Records at the time, so you know, he had to
make a choice because they said it was a conflict
of interest, and he chose Big ten Records. Yeah, I
take away from the fact that he had that he
had present about publishing and and writers. Was was Gerald
Busby a part of that difficult part of it? The

(37:14):
time at the time that we we split, it was
during the time Town was going through a major transition
of being sold to a larger record lab and we
were a key piece, were Yeah, and we let we
basically let him know we were at that time, we

(37:34):
were about nine million records in for eight something like that. Whatever.
It was a lot and um, you know, we saw
all of the you know, bad deals are surrounding us,
and we're like yo, in order for us to kind
of continue and make records, you know, we basically very
kindly said, well, you gotta fix this deal or else
we're not making any more records. So, in you know,

(37:58):
trying to fix the whole situation, Gerald presented with the
Big ten deal record because we were signed the actually
actually that did that. Yeah, that deal was predicated on
Mike finding three artists, which he did before we even
met Mike. It was set up for him to find

(38:20):
artists and then if his artists were successful, he would
roll over and to that record label, which the artist
was us another bad creation, and at that time mc
brains he had three successful artists. But because we were
on the back end of that, like Sean said, we
you know, our numbers weren't right for us. Gerald pretty
much said, listen, I got this deal with you, but

(38:40):
you can't be in these guys pockets too. You gotta
figure something out because these guys are holding up my
company now. So if they don't make a record, I
got a problem with you. So he jammed him up, saying, listen,
you can take one or the other. You take this
big ten, big ten deal and rolling rock with that,
or you can rock with them, And he knew we
weren't really happy because early on, you know, we figured

(39:02):
this thing, like I said it was, it wasn't too far.
We figured this thing out about two and a half
million records. I'm like, this money ain't right. So we
rolled it out four million records, knowing that it was wrong.
So by the time we got there, he chose to
go with Big Pen because he you produced his three
records that artists that was supposed to be you know,
we're successful, and then we ventured off. So Gerald made

(39:23):
that split happen, or otherwise Mike would still be a
part of Boys the Men in some kind of way
right now. Wow, So I guess the boy Fruit Punch
didn't deliver too much, didn't get out much, didn't get
out all right? So who what what's the what's the uh?

(39:49):
I guess the the process of deciding what the creative
vision is, at least for your records, Like, Okay, you
got a record deal, and I know that you know
the characters and and Dallas, uh collaborate with you guys,
But who decides Like who says that, okay, let's start
off with I never besides the SSB, and I don't

(40:10):
know many groups that have thrived starting their album off
for three ballots. I heard but I was like, wait
a minute, don't go boy, right, So you know what
it was who was navigating. We didn't have any records.
They didn't know what to do with us. They signed

(40:30):
the R and B group that could sing and they
loved it. But once we made they once we got signed,
they didn't have any songs. So, like, you know, all
the songs that are on the first album, if you look,
we wrote all those in performing arts. We wrote those
and those halways and those before we even had a deal. Yeah,
before we had a deal. We had those songs done
and they were like, Dallas, we're gonna put you with

(40:52):
this group with songs you got, Dallas have moretown Philly
is sitting around from the Joyce early days. But other
than that, Dallas Austin had no more there. So we
was like, oh, well we got you know, we do it.
So hard to say about it. Actually there's a cover
you know we wrote Please Don't Go and Lonely Hard
and this like we wrote. So we just start recording
them and Dallas put the production, he produced the record.

(41:14):
We sung it to him and he sat there and
figured it all out and produced the record. And you
know those songs that you actually here were already pre written.
And as far as the Balats is concerned, you gotta
people tend to forget that Moretown Philly was the first single.
It wasn't a ballot, right, Okay, Now, I just meant
in terms of the record, it's lose the alpha that decides. Okay,

(41:36):
this is this is the title of the album. This
is gonna be like. Yeah, that was big and I
think you know him talking to us, he kind of
understood our strengths and and in the album's specifically this
this specific album, cool Hire Hardy and the ballads had
such a presence that we all agree that, you know,

(41:58):
the theage O side was the best side. You know
that perform and we stole right, so we want we
wanted that just as much because those hit different with us,
you know what I'm saying, and and it hit different
with our friends. We bring friends over and stuff like that.
I mean, they loved the ups, but the ballance just

(42:20):
kind of that kind of made it real fussy. I
went through that list kind of fast. I'm just curious.
Those songs that you said that you wrote in high
school were what and then how did that division? I'm
so curious to the songwriting process. In the divisional, Nate wrote,
please don't go in Lonely Heart in school. Right as
we were going along with the process of doing the record,

(42:43):
you know, we started coming up with ideas. Uh Wanya
and Nate wrote, uh no, me and you we wrote
this is my heart in school? Yeah, I wrote, I
wrote my part on the train on the l that's right.
And then I can Wine rote his you know the
loving in time and like he you know what I mean,

(43:05):
like and and and he wrote that in the studio
man wrote, we wrote, we wrote that in Mr Walker's room. Bro,
I promise you which one holding yea remember that Mr Walker?

(43:27):
You know. But just to reiterate what y'all said earlier,
for for the novices of people who just listening, y'all
wrote these songs in high school. And yeah, and still
you only got fifty of these songs. And that's when
that's when you look at like me and Shawn sitting
in my backyard right Motown Philly. You know when I
mean again, I give biv all the credit for, you know,
a lot of the creative stuff. You know, the idea

(43:50):
of creating a song called Motown Philly. The idea of
coming up with a song called titles and concepts are great,
but none of that song titled you to have my song.
And that's where things started to go left. And we,
you know, we looked up to him a lot. So
our thing was, you know, that's our guy. You know
what I'm saying. It's cool, we understand, but once we

(44:12):
start to realize money is coming through and we're still
in South Philly, something's got to change. But I don't
want to get back on the negative. I' gonna stay
on on the other stuff. As far as the songs,
like I said, me and Sean did Motown Philly in
my backyard and then Wine we was we were all
sitting in my brother's room and like I said, Bib
came up with the idea, you guys need to write
a strong call, and Niggas was like so it was like, um,

(44:40):
nobody wanted to write it, so we said there we
all flipped the coin and Wine lost, so he had
to write it. So he started writing the song. We
all went back in the studio. They remix Chunk, and

(45:00):
I think me and Sean in the remix, I think
I did anyway, I started writing. He came to the
studio and he couldn't finish it. So he's like, yo, dude,
you know, finished finished it, but you said it ain't
nazy said enough, and he was like he was like,
well dude, I mean you know, what what are we
supposed to do? I said, yeah, get here. So I

(45:22):
rewrote some of people. I rewrote it and I wrote
wrote one parts of it, and then we had we
started singing it. Wee. I was like, I don't know, man,
my my dad ain't gonna be proud of me with
this song. We're just like all just we just pushed
record and just kept going. It was like trying to
pressure that right now. So one came in the studio

(45:44):
late the day we were recording, and we had a
girl in the studio. Didn't make the record, but we
had a girl in the studio making these sounds and
stuff on it. But I mean, like some of the
stuff that we had didn't make the record. But anyway,
video Wine came in. I was I was on the console.

(46:06):
Wine came in and he heard the girl. He looked
at the booth, was like, what what's what? What's that?
What's what is that? It was like, we're just trying to,
you know, get the song where it needs to be.
It's like, dude, I told you Dad ain't gonna be
proud of you, and he ran out, slammed the door
on me and showing with each other like I tried
to get one more time where you go from the
time chip chip. So again, most of those saw almost

(46:32):
all those songs except two on the first album. We
all wrote either in high school or on the way
to the studio and houses getting ready to make that
record because Motown had no songs for us. They didn't
know what to do with us at all. So how
difficult was the transition in your personal lives? Again, I

(46:57):
can only speak from the experience that your life drastically
changed is and probably the people that change the most
on you are your our family members, like people that
are close to you and whatnot. How awkward or not awkward? Uh,
what's that adjustment like with your your your first year

(47:17):
into coming out with as far as like interacting with
friends from your your your childhood and people that feel entitled.
I can't I can't say. I can't say that there's
been like some metal dramatic like change personally from people
that I knew the people that I knew, we're actually
in support of me even before all this, So when

(47:40):
it happened for me personally, they were like, Okay, that
makes sense because I was the kid that was in
the Philadelphia Boys Choired eight. You know I did these
things and that you know, all those stuff. So when
it came down to oh, I'm in the group, yeah,
you had a couple of knuckleheads, is like, oh, think
I don't believe until you know it all happened. But
it was never like oh, you know, give me some

(48:04):
money or some crip. It was. It wasn't a movie scene.
It was it was. It was awesome. It was all
supported in a sense where when I came back to
my neighborhood, everybody was like, Yo, what's up? And I
was sick, my old stupid just with my you know,
the same friends that I had, and we ain't out
and kicking. I think it's this ain't with everybody. I mean,
you know, n teammate dude like, Yo, you're supposed to

(48:31):
come me, You're supposed to get us up all out
of here, and I'm sitting here going through because I'm
a logical thinking guy. Shoul I go intrough my head.
I'm like, and I asked this dude, all just five
y'all out here, let's just just just play this game
for a second with you. I'm supposed to make it
and come back and get all of y'all out. So
if I come get off, five y'all out and give
y'all all my stuff, y'all gonna be going, and I'm

(48:54):
gonna be back here on this corner by myself. I'm
not gonna be here by myself. Not give me y'all nothing. Yeah,
and that's how that well with with me. It was
with me, it was a little different because I'm from
the project for Richard Island Projects and yeah, and exactly so.

(49:14):
So so I'm from Richard Island and a lot of
people that when I became famous, Um, they were my age.
You know what I'm saying. There's a lot of cats
that was my age. But they were doing another thing.
I'm saying. They were street farmacists. You know what I'm saying.
They were you know, they was hustling, they was doing
all the different stuff. But they always supported me. You

(49:35):
know what I'm saying. Once we became uh you know famous,
uh sort of sort of speak. Um, we actually, you know,
when I would come back, every time I would come back,
somebody was in jail or dead, you know what I'm saying.
And it was their brothers and sisters who were now
older in the place where they were, so they didn't

(49:59):
have the same respect for me as their brothers and brothers,
you know what I'm saying, who was like, yeah, we
we finally made it, you know what I'm saying. That's
how they felt. But then as they started going you know,
the prison and you know, passing away and stuff there,
that there was no respect there. I even had to
move my grandma mother, and she loved the projects. She

(50:21):
loved it, even when I was making money. She really
literally wanted to stay there, you know what I'm saying,
because that's really all she knew for so long. But
I had to move her out of there because I
couldn't go and sit out in front of her house
with my with my bins now, you know what I'm saying,
with my bins and or in my my my truck
and people just walked by. It was always something and

(50:44):
my grandma was here to getting a lot from it,
and she basically was like, yeah, they're talking crazy. I said, well,
you gotta move out of here, and I just bought
her to heat the heat. Yeah. Yeah, So I mean,
it's it's it's it's different. I mean, family is is
a little different too. Of was because, like you said,
there's always an entitlement somewhere somewhere. It's not necessarily always

(51:05):
the immediate, but there's always an entitlement of a cousin,
of a cousin of a cousin, you know what I
tell you do you know, but they're not really you know,
a part of your life like that. You know, I'll
tell you what's funny. What mean is that I had
to try to, uh, because I always try to think
a little bit ahead. I had to try to think
for family members who don't really understand the change of

(51:26):
the lifestyle. And in some cases, you know, obviously, when
you become successful, you can't bring your whole family, you know,
of out of the ghetto. I mean, there are people
still live there and whatnot. To the point where I
had to start seeing my family at my house because
I always felt like me driving up in my car
going in their house, I'm kind of endangering that because

(51:46):
when I leave, whoever saw that car pull up, It's like, well,
what was why was he going in there? What? What's
in there that I don't know about? So I would
always have to wind up having my family come to me,
and I had to kind of pull up from going
to see my family just to put them in those spots.
It's a controlled environment if they come to see you. Yeah,
exactly exactly. How how burdens him is in the end

(52:09):
of the road in retrospect, how burdens m is it?
Like I understand what he's saying, is it? Is it?
How do you feel? Like? No, no, no, even when
it was happening, When it was happening, you know, Okay,
So I was obsessively reading billboard like this is right

(52:31):
before we got put on. So I was always hanging
in industry circles. I was interning at rough House. So
when it got to that twelfth week, like every four
year old white guy was like, yo, they're about to
break the Beatles, right, it was like Santa Claus wasn't real. Idea, no,

(52:52):
for real, there there was like it was like Santa
Claus wasn't real, and they are gonna break this record
in the next And it happened like that did it
feel anyway or was it just like, yeah, we got
the new Yeah, when we got the news, we were
in London, and you know, we were overseas most of

(53:13):
the time that end of the Road was doing what
it was doing. So when we finally got the news,
we were literally ten minutes and going to on stage
at the Hippodrome in London and someone told us, hey, guys,
you know, you guys broke the record. Uh you know,
the longest number one blah blah blah, and we're like,
oh cool, I think there was more so I think

(53:35):
it was. Honestly, we didn't really know how much it meant.
Like again, the same way we were in high school
was the same exact way we were in the business
for a long time. It was just find a song,
learn the song, sing the song better than any damn
other group can never sing it on the planet, and

(53:56):
keep doing it again and again and again and every single.
That's all everything was about. So all the other stuff
that was going on that didn't even matter. It's like, Okay, well,
now we're finished with Thomas rehearsal rehearsals at seven. We
gotta get we gotta get these harmonies right. For the
next thing. It was just never a time to even
think about that. We just didn't know how big that was, right,

(54:19):
And the funny thing was, at the same time, it's
if we were if we knew that the the record
even existed, Like you said, you were around that circle
of mirror, So you know what I mean, people were saying, Oh,
this is about to happen. We didn't even know that
there was a record that existed that needed smoking, you
know what I'm saying. So if we were like waiting

(54:39):
for like all, we're about to do it, We're about
to do it. Yeah, what I'm saying, we didn't do it.
I guess if you're living it. If if you guys
are actively working living it and I'm observing it, it's different,
Like at that point I was observing it. For me,
like me observing those first two years was just like

(54:59):
wh Like someone that I actually know is doing something,
yea doing something big. Let me let me tell you nothing.
Let me tell you one real quick. We got the
same vibe with y'all, and this was crazy. We was
running around doing all this stuff, went up to Canada,
not you know Canada. They got the all the all
the gear and whatnot. The first time we ever heard

(55:22):
Roots was the clothing line in Canada. So he was
like jack nigger. We heard about it. We heard y'all
as the Roots. We was like, oh, we know that's
what that's dude, that's that's a man. No, it was
for us. It was like we just felt like, yo,

(55:43):
it's other brother made it. You know what I'm saying.
Like that was just so like because that's the only
way we that was our only time we ever heard
anything about the Roots, and like, oh, it's the group
and they oh that's oh, we know that b is y'all.
That was it. That was it. They forgot about your

(56:06):
gass after high school. Him here, it was like I'm
gonna wait, wait, wait, I'm not I'm for real, I
gotta tell you that I had to throw that shirt away,
which because all right, so it's weird. I know your
lives have changed, but imagine a two point six a

(56:30):
two point six second cameo in a video, A two
point six second cameo. It literally it changed my life
at that point to the point where like Tarik would
come out of the crib we go by and he's like, wait,

(56:52):
what are you doing? And I was like, I don't know.
He's like, you're not wearing the shirt. I'm not wearing
that shirt, Yo, go get the shirt. Man was dirty?
I wait, like that outfit had to be worn. The
worst that ever got was at my grandmom's funeral. I'm

(57:13):
not lying. I'm not lying to you. It's like it's
it's like, you guys were so popular, so when they
asked you to be in a video of mirror you
just how long did you take to say yes? Yeah?
Like that man being in a video was like and
that's why the funny thing getting verified on Instagram funnier man,

(57:41):
is that back like you wake up at four in
the morning all excited looking at you out fit Like yeah,
it's like but it's funny because back then, dude, as
soon as we got the word that we was doing
motown Philly and we knew he was doing it in Philly,
I mean just nature for us was like who do
we know? Who's people? A mayorshell? But we were anybody

(58:03):
we grew up with like video, yeah Johnson, Yeah, we
tried our best yes video because we wanted we wanted

(58:24):
Filly to be finally on the map with us. We
couldn't go on the map without everybody else HANSO, wasn't it. Yeah,
it was like I don't know what must respect to Hans. Yes,
he's reverend Reverend Hans three more. Yeah, let's talk about it.

(58:48):
Let's talk about free Jesus money. I'm working with tax
free man. I know that, I know that I know
to get up, come on, yeah, yeah for real, Like
I had to throw the shirt away and not rock

(59:09):
that ship no more, man, that's it's yeah, but it
got it got crazy. No. What I actually, what I
do want to know is, um, can you guys speak
on Khalil round Tree like your relationship with him and
the effect that that had on you, Gretish man Kilil

(59:34):
Foo Foo Big because Kylo was role manager for the
addition and we met him in a Philly right guys,
we met him in uh used to her so RPM
on Delaware Avenue, right avenue, baby, And you know, to

(59:56):
make a long story short, you know, Khalil it became
our father figure, you know, somebody that looked out for
us and and protecting us from everything and everybody. And
and you know even though Big brought him, brought him
in and initially his loyalty was to bive. You know
that slowly turned it turned into something else, like you know,
he started to love us, just like we started to

(01:00:19):
love him, and it became us. You know when you
when you talk about that where your father is like
in you guys lives, like what was you know, they
weren't on the road with us, you what I'm saying,
Like when we were on the road and we were
traveling and doing all the stuff that we were doing,
he took on that father you know figure you know

(01:00:40):
mine was mine was out. But yeah, right, but but
for the most part, he took care of all of
us and he made sure that you know, we were
not only safe, but that we were carrying ourselves the
right way and that you know, we stayed motivated and
even doing rehearsals and all the other stuff. Like he
he was something special because you know, he really gave
a ship about us. It wasn't just a paycheck, you know,

(01:01:04):
to Khalil, like we became an integral part of all
of our families. He would talk to all of our
mothers on the road and you know, because the mothers
were were calling on the road making sure that we're
all right. He would talk to each and every one
of them, making sure that they knew that, you know,
we were safe and all that. He became something different
than just an average roomman. I mean yeah, he actually,

(01:01:26):
uh my dad was only comfortable with me being on
the room met he was like, okay, I'm cool. Was like, um,
he was like the partner for me. Man. Like I said,
my dad wasn't around. So you know, I I think
I got the call first from Viv about a guy

(01:01:48):
that he was looking into and Killile had. It was
the night before we all met him. Um, he was
staying at an airport Mariott or whatever, and you know
he had with a big giant silver cage with all
his sets lined up on his on his thing in
his room out remember that. And when I first walked in, dude,
I mean I was a little intimidate because you know Kyle,

(01:02:08):
it was a big dude. I mean he's a big,
big guy. So and that real deep voice you know
what I'm saying. So you was it was almost like
the father figure that kind of you know, put you
in line without you mentally knowing it. But you know,
once you got to know him, you knew he was
a big Teddy Bear overall. But he was just always
he was never going to tell you something that you

(01:02:30):
know wasn't right or something that was bullshit. That just
was not the guy. You know, if someone tried to,
you know, say hey, well you know I need you
to do this, or you know in the business when
they're like, yeah, we need you to get your artists
to do he was never that guy like I'm not
getting my artist to do anything, Like I'm going to
tell them what it is and then we're gonna talk
about it. He was that guy. So he taught us

(01:02:50):
early on the ins and out to that whole business thing. So,
like Seawan said, you know, he was he was more
than a father. He was He was everything we could
have posted be as. Yeah, what year was it when
he passed. I remember seeing y'all. This was I mean god,
I was in like seven grade. Y'all came to Greensborog
Coliseum and I want to say it was the Boy

(01:03:12):
Wide super Fest, but I remember it was. It was y'all,
Jodoc and hammil was the was the headliner. Yeah, I
think it was episode Yeah, um, that was around when
he passed. Yeah, well, yeah, it was ninety two. Yeah,
it was in Chicago. We just finished your playing The

(01:03:34):
Rose My Horizon, No, and and and what was funny
is we all kind of like, uh, kind of keying
on this particular moment. The night that he passed away,
I got murdered. Kyla was a very confident dude. Every
move that he made, everything that you know, he wanted
us to do, he said it with with calculated what

(01:03:55):
I'm saying, we're gonna do this, We're gonna do that,
We're gonna do this. This was the first night because
I don't know that we ever seeing Kilt say where
y'all what hotel y'all want to stay? I didn't know
which hotel where. Yeah, he came to us with the
promoter's idea. I guess the promoter wanted us to stand.

(01:04:18):
You know, I promoter, they got a cheaper hotel over
to where you know, all the crew is stands. So
I want to move the guys. And like Sean said,
Kyleile was never never in decisive. He was always well
that's what they're going, You're doing this, this what they're going.
Because I said so, and he came to us and
addressed for him, It's like, you know, the promoter, you know,
but save him some money if you guys did this

(01:04:38):
so forth and so on. You know, I don't, I
don't really know what I mean. I'm kind of on
the fence. What do y'all want to do? And we
were like, I mean, care, it's up to you whatever.
You know, I'm saying, we don't really whatever you want
to do. And he picked the hotel and unfortunately that
was the hotel where guys came in. And you know,
I don't like to talk about it so sharing that.

(01:05:02):
I'm sorry. I do have to ask though, because I
know that singing is I always see singing as an
intimate thing, and I know that you guys are like brothers.
You know, when Terek and I are angry with each other,
like the Roots show can still happen because we're not

(01:05:26):
we're not facing each other. But how do you guys
handle if if there's friction between y'all and you still
have to do the intimate act of singing with each
other and harmonizing, you do it because actually, the funny
thing is that music it actually supersedes everything, you know

(01:05:51):
what I mean, what we do together is magic, and
it's like, you know, literally you know sometimes I literally
lit us into how we create and figure out certain
parts without even thinking about it, you know what I'm saying.
So when we're on stage, we all know that we
have a job to do for one but at the

(01:06:12):
same time, we also know that this person next to
me is going to do that job better than anybody
that I could ever, you know what I'm saying. So
the respect level is really like, I know what he's
here to do, I know what Sean's here. I could
be piste off and me that mad at me, but
we know what we gotta do because our integrity is involved,
you know what I'm saying, singing, singing your version of

(01:06:36):
don't go to bed mad so almost again, because I mean,
if we are having issues, most of the time, after
we finished performing, somebody will come to somebody's room, somebody
will say something to some It will always it takes
away everything because of what we just did on stage,
that right there together is greater than the anger that

(01:07:00):
we have, you know, for each other. They always like that, Yeah, yeah,
I mean we we have fish fights and then go
back and go out on stage and rob literally I
mean it's just I mean again, we we we grew
up as brothers. Literally, like I have three brothers. I
have my my my brother, and then I have my brothers.

(01:07:22):
I mean, we don't know anything else. I mean I
always say that, you know, when we started earlier talking
about how how how much time we've been together, we've
been together longer than any of us have been together
with any family member. That even our mothers, like, we
spent more time with each other than our own parents,
like any there's not one family member in any of

(01:07:44):
our families that we have spent more time around than
each other. So I mean that right there, Like, I mean,
it's really that it answers itself, you know what I'm saying, Like,
that's what that's what family do. You know? Of course,
you know go through things like argue, but at the
end of the day, you know we're still families and

(01:08:05):
and we do something together better than anybody, I believe,
And we're the only one that can say what we
said about each other. And you can't call my brother
that I can say it. You can't say that. Yeah. Um,
because we were getting into the two albums, were into
the row. Um before we got there, I wanted to
go back a little bit, so one of my boys

(01:08:27):
men hot takes. I have several as as a longtime fan.
My favorite album for y'all Coulio Harmony. I love Kulier Harmony.
Outside of Couliou Harmony. I always thought that some of
the best just writings, songwriting, vocal, everything was on Christmas Interpretations.
I love that album. Man, like y'all. Nils was in

(01:08:50):
y'all bag on that ship. We had to fight. We
had to fight for that. Well. The label wanted, you know,
a tip of cool Jackson five you know, you know
ho ho host Santa Claus Christmas record, and we weren't
going to do that, Like we didn't want to fall
into that platform of the whole hole hole in jingle bells.

(01:09:12):
So we fought to try to do an original Christmas
record and we're not having the songs again. So we
all sat around and said, all right, well here, Sean,
you do too, Why you do too? I'm gonna do too, Mike,
you do too, and then we we are We We
said okay, well, since we did, you know, since we
rock out with the night, because that's our boy, you know,

(01:09:32):
we'll have him coming, and hell, we'll have him producer
with us and if he's got a song and too,
we're throwing on and we'll rock out like that. Everybody
just wrote two songs and we just went for Yeah. No,
I love that because it was you know, like he
know what you say, you didn't want to do just
a typical you know, jingle bells, you know kind of record.
But all the songs, I mean, they were just great
songs that could have been They could have worked year round,

(01:09:54):
like they weren't relegated, like I would listen to the
album in March, you know what I mean like that, Yeah,
you know what that that that's a comp I appreciate
that fund you. But you know, going back to the
question that you you said like a little while ago,
as far as the things that you that I've regretted,
I don't think I've regretted. It's more or less I
wish that there was more emphasis applied on me and

(01:10:16):
my guys uh ability to write music. As we we
we tried our best to even even they you know,
we tried to be the next l in face of
jam and Lewis or something like that. Right, we felt
like that that was like a natural progression for us
to kind of go into that realm, and you know,
I'm speaking of all of us. Why you got a

(01:10:37):
crazy pen? Like you know what I mean? Like we've
we've all written records for us and for other people
that that that you know, I wish for my guys
that we were I guess more. I guess that that
was more emphasized on. But because boys to Men was

(01:10:58):
such a phenomenon, and it was it was such a
juggernaut in itself, it seemed like are all of our
folks honestly to look at looking at it in retrospect,
a lot of people, even down to Gerald, who's just
like Mon said, they didn't know what to do with us.
So when we were successful, they were like, what the
fund is this? You understand what I'm saying. Like everybody

(01:11:21):
was kind of like, well, how long is this candle
gonna work? So everybody's mentality wasn't hey, let's move these
gentlemen forward to the next stage. As I looked back
at all the events that's happened to us and the
people that came in and out of our lives, it
almost felt like, let's get this money now, because we
we we don't we don't know how long this train

(01:11:43):
is gonna so so so a lot of our votes
had that mentality. They didn't. They didn't look beyond the
fact that Joe Nate was a great songwriter. Yo Wine
could have been a solo artist, you know, Sean could
have did, Mike could have had you know what I'm saying, Like,
they didn't go that are with us. They just said, Okay,
they're a moment, let's snatch and grab and then let's

(01:12:06):
move on to the next thing. And the case in
point of that is when during the Evolution album, when
we came out with the Evolution album, this was around
the time the boy the boy band things started to
uh to come up. So you felt from our standpoint,
you actually felt the shift of people's priorities going from

(01:12:26):
us to them, like like literally like our literal budget
in Motown was literally taken from us and given to
ninety eight degrees. Wow wow, like that like they like

(01:12:47):
these these things happened and it was it was it
was almost like they were done, like everybody was done
with us. Almost mind boggling that they couldn't just add
singer songwriter to any time y'all names were because what
happened when when we did the first record. Like we said,
we had records that were ours. They didn't know what

(01:13:08):
to do with it. So it was almost like, well,
we don't know if this record is gonna do well.
Let's let the guys do whatever they're gonna do and
we'll see if the project does well. Product sold twelve
million records, so at that point the label was like, okay,
so we need to make it bigger. That's who else
can we get on this record. Now here's the caveat
that people tend to forget. The original Cooley Higher Army

(01:13:30):
album did not have Ended the Road on it. It
wasn't part of the original album. Yeah, that song was
done for the soundtrack for the Eddie Murphy Boomerang after
Culiar Harmony was already out. So what if you notice
the original Culiar Harmony album had us with the sharing
coats on the canes and and the little squares around it.

(01:13:53):
I think that original album probably might have got to
about four and a half five million records. When they
did the Marangue deal, they did the deal to were okay,
well they can use on the soundtrack, Will Will, We'll
have the guys performed the song. They'll perform it. We'll
put it on that set the record, and then we'll
also have to put it on we'll have the rights.
Motown took to put it somewhere else, so they repackaged

(01:14:16):
the Culiar Harmony album because they saw the have a
pop start. We had a pop audience, so they said, okay, well,
let's get the bright Color the bow Ties, throw this
strong on there, re release this as a single off
that album, and then that album goes to twelve millions.
So now that mine is like, okay, well, now we
need those kind of songs and those kind of songwriters,

(01:14:37):
not Courier Harmony songs, but those kinds. So then they
went to Jimmy and Terry, they went to baby Face,
and as we were trying to grow as artists, like
artists always hey, we we wrote some of those songs
on the one that did five six. Can we write
Oh yeah, well you can write some stuff, but right
now we need these guys. So, you know, us taking
the approach of just let's focus on making sure we

(01:14:57):
sing the right notes and do what we gotta do.
We didn't hammer home right away with trying to be
on top of it. We got pushed away to the
point where it was like, okay, well bring Dallas Austin
back because he's a producer. Artists and producers back then
they wouldn't let get they didn't. You know, the producer
was always more important than the artists because the producer
could produce fifteen and thirty records home on artists that

(01:15:20):
the label had. The artist is just one entity. So
it was always more important for labels to make allegiances
with producers and songwriters keeping up from becoming super producers
and songwriters took the power away from us to just
be singers. So they wrapped that in face and everybody
around it and and not not knockative that it didn't
do well, but it did stifle what Shaun was talking

(01:15:41):
about our ability to grow as songwriters. And they kind
of threw us a bone like, well, here go go
hang out with you know the Dallas is, be producers,
Tim and Bob and see what you come up with.
So we started writing some songs with them, which we
happened again on the two albums, and and one of
them we had to tell him that Dallas wrote in
to get it on the record, because they wouldn't put
it on that exactly. No, no, it doesn't we had

(01:16:10):
the live to the record label and tell them that
Dallas Austin wrote that song and produced it because they
weren't gonna put it on the album. So my favorite
songs on that album were the ones that y'all did
like ing, but to the record label's points, they were
trying to and and then again, I understand it now
because when you really look at it. We can all

(01:16:31):
talk about those records, but if you went to its
thembull they're talking about in the road, they're talking about
I'll make love to you. They're not talking about please
don't go. They're not talking to you know what I'm saying.
So I understand what they were trying to do. But
if it was explained to us a little bit more
back then as we were going through, we would understand
it other than people feeling other than us feeling like

(01:16:52):
artists like, well, we're gonna get the big names and
y'all just gonna take the ride. Here's the irony of
all the irony of all of that name is the
fact that yes, those guys wrote those songs and things
that nature. And this is no disrespect because there are records,
so I can't disrespect all songs, but the biggest one
was written by us, right, So so you know, despite

(01:17:19):
what they thought, despite what they might have thought, we
were or what we needed, what we was always here.
It was always with us. But but they never wanted
to see that, so they tried to literally manipulate the
situation to even make us think, you know, we y'all

(01:17:41):
need them, and and and it wasn't like it wasn't
a disrespect. It's not a disrespect because we Uncle, Terry, Jimmy, Jeff,
we there are. We love them, you understand, with all
of all of us. You know what, we love baby
face with all of our hearts. So we understand that
this was all a business move that the same same
time one benefited a little bit more than the other.

(01:18:04):
From that standpoint, and and beat me being forty years old,
I'm understanding now that life is all about relationships, Life
is about growth, Life is all about being able to
develop and go from this point to that point, and
we all need to help to do it. There's not
anybody alive that has not become successful without some sort

(01:18:27):
of leg up by somebody that was in a better
position than them. So when I look back at this,
this was by design, they wanted us to be here,
stay here, and then want to That's all they wanted
for them. They didn't want us to dabble into much.
And then it's been said a couple of times throughout,
and what made it even tougher was that even when

(01:18:49):
we tried to write and produce on somebody else, the
name of the group was so overshadowing that all people
wonder was I just want to hear y'all singing, y'all
do something I don't really want nature record or by versa.
And now that I don't like it, but I like
this better, and that's you know, it's it's a double
ed sword. The success is great, but you you and
at some at that point in our career we had

(01:19:10):
to either live with one or the other. We weren't
going to be able to get home. When it comes
to the technical aspect of the creating of a song,
is it clear who's gonna sing what part? Because to me,
like the three of you have very similar voices and
voice rangers. I know there are different you know, uh,
strong suits for each of you, But like when you're
when you're writing a song and you're creating, it's clear
who's gonna sing what part. It's like, it's like, Nate,

(01:19:31):
you're gonna sing the melody, Sewan, you're gonna sing. Writing
for my group is probably the easiest thing in the
world because you can you can literally know, you know
exactly who does what that like you you don't even
gotta like question or have a you know, tribunal about
who's gonna sing this verse or that verse or whatever.

(01:19:52):
You know, who's going to sing it, who's gonna send
it home? And then the harmonies is just something that
most people don't know how we do it. So we
just do that. But I want to know Silent Night
is that's how long is it? Here are you guys
the craft that because here's the deal is that everybody

(01:20:13):
has their own style with the reason why I think
that a lot of a lot of it seems more
difficult than it is a lot of producers. I Jimmy
jam Terry and faced him like working with us because
and this is not you know, not trying to blow
smoke in any way, but honestly, there's not many songs
that we can not sing because vocally we cover the

(01:20:36):
gamut from here to here, whether it's one guy, two
guys or whatever. We cover the whole spectrum. We're gonna
sing every single You can't, you can't out key us.
Oh that's in the wrong key. You can't. You can't
do that with us, because vocally we just it's it's

(01:20:57):
all over the place. So with that being said, like
chance that it's easy to write for us because throw
it against the wall. And to answer your second question,
because we grew up in the coral environment, we automatically
know where the parts fall. But even after that, what
made boys to men different from just people singing coral

(01:21:18):
is we moved out of that realm a little bit.
So if Wind's background part is the first songs background
parts the second tenor, he'll start singing it and eventually
somewhere he'll end up on an alto second alto part,
and most people say, well, he went out of his range.
He's got to stay there. He doesn't have to because

(01:21:39):
when he's singing that, Winds already singing where he left
the spots open, and I'm already hearing the spots that
they both left open. So it's just a mental thing
intuitively know to jump to that place. It's like I'm
gonna make it this simple you ever have connect for
you know how when you dropped down to gook cookok could,

(01:22:00):
That's pretty much what it is. Wherever that land, you
know when you drop the next one where it's gotta
go to, you just know where it's gotta go. Hey,
and I'm gonna I'll be tolding, honest, And that's what
I was talking about Earlier's the magic, you know, the
crazy thing is is Okay, let's just say, uh, Shawn's
in in the vocal booth and I'm out in the

(01:22:21):
lobby and Sean sings this note blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah, he sings this note. When I
come in and hear the note that Shan is doing,
I automatically know where I'm supposed to go. And it's
not even a song that I ever heard before. You
know what I'm saying. So then I'll go in and
I'll do my part, and then I'll leave. Then NATAL

(01:22:42):
come in, and by the time we finished it, it
has turned into this place. And it doesn't have to
be in sequential order. Wine could start, then I'll come
in second, then Sean will come in, or I'll start
or vice versa. It's just it's just the natural and
ability to just feel what each guy idea for that

(01:23:05):
song is gonna be. I mean, and it and it
hasn't even it hasn't even gotten more difficult with three
people because I was doing both parts anyway. So it's
just now it's just rapid. It's just it's quicker actually,
and all actually and all the intention always just to
sound like a coral group, or was the intention to
sound like, I mean, look, I'm I'm a white kid

(01:23:27):
from Long Island. I listened to religiously as forever and
from this time, no fuck you, But like what I'm
fascinated by, it's like I always felt like you guys
were four guys at that time, but you sounded like
about twenty and like, I don't know, I don't think
that there was like ultimate stacking. It was just like
the notes that you picked and that the way that

(01:23:49):
you did it. And I think what I'm getting at,
Nate is like what you said is like is when
you would get to someplace, you would hand it off
to one and the Salient Night, Salient Night is the
perfect example. And then I'm grabbing men because that's not
normal because because we because we we what it is
is that we we sang some of it something like
that in high school. But what we did was we

(01:24:11):
we added R and B to it when we when
we took it for our own. And if you notice
there are some chords where literally, I mean you may
have a second or third or seventh, it sounds like
it's twelve people, but it's not, especially when you get
to that that court of the end, that that that

(01:24:32):
real big, strong. It sounds like it's fifteen people. But
it's just the notes that we chose and with Mike
underneath of it, which a lot of people never really had.
You could sing three notes and he would only be
a fourth away, but it would just make it sound
like it's thirteen people. But like was was was that
was the intention always like that cluster harmonies would be

(01:24:55):
the thing I mean, because like the gospel gospel for
the record is like it's more at the court. I'm
getting nerdy. The cords were spring out in gospel, right,
It's like it's like rude five right, right, right, We
intentionally you don't want nobody to follow you and yeah, no, no,

(01:25:17):
you're right right, like that we intentionally did that because
one those progressions aboard us like they're boring, you know
what I mean, you know, like to do one, three, five, Yeah,
you know what I'm saying that. It's like, okay, we that,
but there's so many sweet spots in the seventh and
then the thirteen and like in between and all those

(01:25:39):
other you know, uh sustained you know, chords and harmonies
and stuff like that. So those suss chords and all that,
so to be it so so to be able to
do that was always the goal. I mean, we grew
up on Take six and the Carpenters and and all
those guys who did all of that stuff. So that's
what we grew up listening to even before we met

(01:25:59):
each up. Okay, so I was gonna ask because I
didn't ask earlier. I know that, you know, Take six
is an influence, but the intricate level of of of
how you guys do your harmonies this is yeah, it's
beyond that, Like was their influence from Brian Wilson, Like

(01:26:19):
who who are you? Who can get harmony? Gods? Here's
that I'm gonna tell you. Take six honestly is the key.
But the difference is when, like I said, when you
got six guys and they're moving pretty tight. There's not
there's not a whole lot of space for a guy
to sing a soprano party and all the way down
at the baritone because there's six guys in there. But

(01:26:42):
what we did was we tonally we would listen to
them because we knew we didn't have six parts. We
found the parts that made it sound just like them
without all six Yeah, even if you had to go
from the top to the bottom just to make that
chord sound like their cord, Yeah, that's what we would do.
So we would jump all over the place, right so

(01:27:03):
that they actually created those subs cords in the middle
and then spread out to become something else. So as
a as a threesome, do you guys have the ability
to recreate so much to say we're just three people? Know?
But you know what, that's okay because when you're listening
to an album, you just want to capture the moment,

(01:27:23):
you want to create the space, you want to create
the pain, and and that's all that matters. Like it's
three of us. But if we feel six parts, we're
gonna sing those six parts. You know what I'm saying,
Because what's needed, but I will say, but I will say,
there are things that can sound that strong with three people,
and I use I use our start to flankle banner

(01:27:46):
as an example. We used to sing that with four people.
But again, now that Mike's not here, we just took
that other leg and kind of folded it under put,
put it put. We We took the meat of what
we needed to make it sonically sound the same way.
People just jump in different spots to make it sonically

(01:28:07):
sound the same way. It's just not for people, and
the average ear is not going to hear with that.
One note is not when you gotta tryad and it's
a triad of maybe a fifth or third and a seventh,
you're not worried about what the other note was because
it was probably probably unison with any other group. Anyway,
you're only focusing on that. So we make sure we

(01:28:30):
give you that, and then we'll peel one off to
where it feels like it's open, and then we'll bring
them back in. So it's ways to twist it. Like
Shawn said, obviously, records give us a lot more flexibility,
but if we have to narrow it down, that's normally
how we'll do it. So what happens if a member
has laryngitis or what's happened? And how long does it

(01:28:54):
take your just even even when Mike had to leave
the group, how how much work in adjustment did you
have to do to figure out how to how to
cover what was missing? I mean we it's literally us
getting being backstage or somewhere and just arranging it mentally
preparing ourselves because you know, when you're when you're when

(01:29:17):
you're doing someone else's part, you're doing someone else's character.
That that a lot of people understand that, Yo, that's
wan Ye sing. So there's no way I'm gonna sing
like wan Ya. So because he puts a stamp on
everything that he sings, so there has to be a
way to get around it. So you just make a

(01:29:39):
way around it. And you know, obviously it's not gonna
sound like Wanya, but we try our best for us
not to suck, and and and and and if if
if it doesn't suck, then that's good enough. And and honestly,
we have the type of fans and people that we
can be on stage and say, yo, man, he has
got a laryngitis. He's here, He's here, guys, he's here,

(01:30:04):
he's gonna sing his best for you. And people know what.
They hear it, they see it, they hate see him
struggling or they see me struggling or whatever we say,
and they sing our first. They got parts too. So
we we have that type of like people have seen
us enough to know that we can sing. That's never
been a a a doubt or a question. So when

(01:30:26):
somebody has an off day, we just have off day
and our people understand it and let's just go about
the show and we we do it and our people
ride with us. I ladies and gentlemen, sorry to do
it to you, but you know we're gonna have to
cut it short right now. Trust me. We'll be back
next week. We're more talking with Nate, Sean and One

(01:30:52):
Boys the men, Quest Love Supreme. All right, come next time,
see yo, what's up? This is Fonte. Make sure you
keep up with us on Instagram at QLs and let
us know what you think and who should be next
to sit down with us. Don't forget to subscribe to
our podcast, all right, Peace. Quest Love Supreme is a

(01:31:16):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from My
Heart Radio, visit the I heart radio, app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

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