Boyz II Men

What's good? This is Nathan. This is Sean and I'm Juan. Yeah, we're boys to man and we are that man Are we chilling with our brother on his podcast on that note on that note? Welcome. Welcome. Welcome everybody to another episode of on that note I am your host Sean Stockman and as you guys know, this is the place where we speak a language We all understand and that is music as you can see is a special edition We're on the road this time. You know, as you can see, we're on a on a stage here All right, and we're on this very special stage actually and we'll get into that And I'm sure we'll capture a little moments of it and all that other stuff But first let me introduce my guests here My guests today are two-thirds of the most successful r&b group of all time Their debut single Motown Filly was their launchpad to a career that made them successful beyond their wildest dreams Trust me. I know The only artist in music history of any genre to have not just one Not just two But three songs Top the billboard charts as the longest at number one They won four Grammys nine american music awards three billboard awards nine sold train awards a world music award seven platinum singles One of the first artists to accomplish that feat in music history and sold over 64 million records worldwide They've influenced amazing artists such as in sync backstreet boys 98 degrees one direction bts and so many others not my words but theirs and They tore the world consistently selling out venues of all sizes and made songs that are celebrated by all walks of life Black white young and old. They're the most talented people I have ever had the pleasure of working with for over 33 years Some of the most amazing songwriters producers arrangers vocalists and performers the world has been blessed to witness They're my brothers my family and I love them dearly ladies and gentlemen. Please give it up for the 2024 mass singer champions First group to ever win first place on the show ladies and gentlemen. Wanyay Jermaine mars Nathan Bartholomew mars. Yes, her they are boys two men Yes, absolutely. Yes. How y'all doing man chillin man. How's everything? How's things going? You know I want to start off by saying we are boys two men. Yeah, I know you got to be formal, but you know, you know, we we we doing this thing This is different. This is together. I know this kind of a weird Thing but we're gonna get through it. It's one of those things where it's like I was like, okay I'm gonna be the the guy that's spitting out the questions as you notice. I put up my my famous ipad. I normally have like a bunch of questions I don't need it this time. You know what I'm saying because I already know Pretty much how this is going to go. So but y'all good everybody straight perfect, bro We're musical words, by the way. How many two world musical? You know what I normally ask if I get my stats right. Do we have two? Yeah, we got two. We got two world musical words. Okay. I'm sorry I'm sorry. I miss more. And and and you got it. When you say black, white and and everybody you got to say black, white, Asian uh, Southeast Asian, you know, every every place man. It's it's amazing. Everything you said was amazing I was sitting there listening like wow. A lot of stuff. That's a lot of stuff, bro And we reached a lot of people with that music that you're talking about Was crazy as I could have kept going, but I wanted to leave it for the interview. I dig it. I dig it. I always give the introduction and always give flowers to my guests as far as their accomplishment. So, you know. Why thank you, Sean. I appreciate it. It's all good, man. So where are we, fellas? Where are we? Las Vegas. Yes, sir. Closmo. Chelsea Theater. Week two. Yeah, week two. We've sold out pretty much both weekends on a slow Vegas, I guess you say, time. So that's big. Yeah. They say Vegas is digressing in its tourism. It's lost a lot of people, I think, anywhere between 11.2 to 13% of something. They've lost some tourism in the last six, seven months. So something like that. I wonder why. I mean, you know. Yeah, well, yeah. It's the way of the world right now. Yeah, it's crazy work. But like Nate said, in a time, in a climate like this, to be able to have such a feat or accomplish such a feat, like shelling out two weekends in a row at the Chelsea Theater here in Vegas, it's something that, again, we can't forecast a lot of this, bro. We go out on faith. Everything that we do, we go out on faith. We don't know what's going to happen. All we know is we have the music and each other and God. And that's who's on this stage. So it's an amazing feat to be able to accomplish that. What I've noticed that throughout our career, like a lot of it was based off of just going with our gut, like not knowing really what the outcome is going to be. Absolutely. Just kind of doing what felt the best. Yeah. And I think that's what kept us in this space that we didn't really focus on trends or trying to be the hot topic or anything like that. We just did us, despite what people thought. I have to attribute that to Nate, honestly, me personally, because Sean and I, we're the youngest, you know what I'm saying? So us being the youngest, we kind of got our ears to the streets a little bit more. So when things were kind of trying to change, you remember, things were kind of trying to change and it was starting to be a little bit more urban and a little bit more street wear and stuff like that. Yeah, we were. You know, Nate was like, no, you know what I'm saying? Like we're not going to change our sound. We're not going to do none of that. You know what I mean? We want to stay boys to men. Right. And that's the gut that we all share, you know what I'm saying? Because if it was anything other than that, if we felt anything other than what Nate felt at that time, then we would have been, you know. I think it was partially, I mean, I'm part of it, but I think that we always knew. It's just, you know, when, when you're young and you're creative, you always want to do something different. So it's like, whether you're good at this, you're like, yeah, we did that, but I want to do something else. But it's one of those things where, you know, Coca-Cola don't change from red and white, you know what I'm saying? So if it's successful, they don't need to chase the other, everybody else is coming out with a new brand. So. But even think about it, Nate. You know, the decision that we made, it was the right decision for us morally, but for the time, it really wasn't. You know what I'm saying? Because, you know, people really wasn't trying to see or hear things the way that we were delivering them at that time. Because the world changed. The world changed, you know what I'm saying? So, but regardless, and that right there is the key, that the regardless of it all. That we were. That's the God right there. I think most people, when they're in a situation where things are changing and they're not sure what to do, they feel like they should change. I think we went through the growing pains of doing what we do the same way all the time. So when things changed, we fought through not being accepted. We fought through whatever until it came back around because we stayed the same, now it's back around. So we went through the pains that most people wouldn't want to sit through. They want to move around. Yeah, ugly face. They didn't. You know when you're trying to go your beard and you get the ugly face. And you know what's crazy? We did go through that moment, but somehow we still managed to evolve. We still changed. But we changed the right way. We changed organically in the right way. Right, right, right. I mean. That goes back to what you were saying about, we kind of just went, you know, when we thought about changing and realized that we can't really control the change, we just went where the change was gonna go. Right, yeah. And like you said, obviously. Honestly, we looked corny trying. Yeah. We looked corny trying. We know what we do, man. And I love that we do what we do. We don't try to be anybody else. You know, we don't do things that we can't do. I'm a big believer in numbers. I believe like, you know, if the numbers don't lie, we know we sing well and we know when it comes to music, that's what we do. And we don't go out of that realm. If we want to do something else different, we do it personally. But to keep the nucleus and the brand of this group, we do everything at 100% that we can do best. That's what we do. I like to do a segment, fellas, called, we're gonna go back, way back, back in the time, right? So we're gonna go to each y'all. I'm gonna do everybody individually. When you were about 10 years old, you were in North Philly, Nate, you were still in Southwest, right? All right, starting with wine first. Give me the sights, the smells, but most importantly, the sounds. What was the music that you heard around your neighborhood and your house, amongst your family and parents, whatever, that made you Warnier Mars? The guy that we know as Warnier Mars. What was, who were the influences? Okay, well, I'm not, again, I'm horrible with years, like 10 years old and stuff like that, but I know that the time, you know, where I was. You were a toddler. Yeah. A young child, a young child. Growing into puberty, let's put it that way. Okay, cool, cool, okay. Well, the music that was being played at that time was, it was a lot of my mom's group at that time. My mom's group was called The Break Up Dawn. Okay. Yeah, they had a single out called I Like Your Style, and she was always in the studio, and I would be there with her, you know, and I would listen and kind of at that age critique. That's not the right note. No, that's off. That doesn't sound right, you know what I mean? And they would listen. And then my dad, he was also in a gospel singing group called the Way Music Ministry. So I was at their rehearsals, and then I watched them perform at church. And then in the hood, where I'm from, and Rich in Island projects, it was Power 99, WDAS, you know what I mean? Those Philly sounds, you know what I mean? You got the Patty LaBelle's and the Philly International, you know what I mean? But for the most part, everybody in the hood, they would actually put their radios on the hood, on the roof of their houses. Yeah, outside the window. You know what I'm saying? Outside the window. You walk down three houses, and it's a whole another party going on. And then over here, you got the aunties listening to WDAS, you know what I'm saying? The old school station. The old school station. So it was the music was always playing in the projects. And then you know what I said? I said this, and this is funny, and I hate to sound selfish, but I'm the only one out of my projects in that era, you know what I mean? Where music was very influential to them. It was a lot of people that had an influence, but it really, it began to teach me, you know what I'm saying? Because I was paying close attention to it. I feel like in my area, in that time, with everything that was playing and all of the things that I was learning and it was taking and taking, I think that that was for me. That's how I feel. I think God was actually doing those things, you know what I'm saying? For me. Because I was supposed to see the signs to move forward, to get to where I am. I'm talking about fame. When I was watching fame on Sundays, to go to school, to go to grade school, and they come to college, you know when they do the, not college, but the high school stuff when they came. That's all I was waiting for. Fame, I wanted fame to come to the school. And when I saw them, I said, fame! I jumped up, you know what I mean? No bull crap, dude. I know it's called high school for creative performance. You just call it fame. I just call it fame. You know what I'm saying? And that led me to these guys, to you guys. But in knowing you guys, we all kind of share the same journey as far as music and things like that. I think you guys are a little bit more wider than I am because I focus mainly on focus. I'm just wider because I'm older, bro. That's the only thing. But you know, like for instance, y'all know words to songs and stuff, y'all might know a Stevie Wonder song and lyrics and stuff like that. I never paid attention to the lyrics. I always paid attention to the melody and the vocals. You know what I'm saying? So that's what my focus was. And that's what I started, really, it became my journey. Well, because of that, that's what makes your journey unique to ours, to each other because your focus was on that. Yeah, lead, lead, focus. You know what I'm saying? That type of thing. But it made you, just like you said, it taught you. It made you who you were. Your approaches on singing and your influences, whether you knew it or not. Cause when we first heard you in high school, we heard Stevie Wonder, we heard all of these great singers in you that you were subliminally may have been, yeah, channeling because you might've heard it around your hood. So now what you need, like, a lot of people don't know that you were basically a preacher's kid. And you grew up under the church and you had a lot of different influences that a lot of people would know. So go back to when you were a child with Buddy and Gale and all the, you're just siblings and everything. What did y'all play around the house and what influenced your vocal style? It started with gospel music, but I mean, it was like, my parents were from down south, so Virginia area. So it started with like Southern gospel that probably most of your listeners won't even know, like, you know, Harmonizing Ford, five blind boys from Alabama, you know, Sam Cook, Soulster, stuff like that. So that was played around the house, you know, when my dad was there. When, you know, and then my mom would play it as well, but my dad left, you know, then that's when I got, you know, more of the secular music, but my mom was diverse too. I mean, my mom played from, you know, earth, wind and fire to rock, stewart. So that's kind of what made me verse in the, you know, R&B side of things and pop side of things to understand both sides of the music. The music thing for me was done because it was easy. It wasn't something that I, like I said, I want to grow up and be this guy. But that's interesting. What did you want to do originally? I wanted to play football. Okay. I wanted to play professional football and the music was my out because, you know, we all come from the ghetto in our situations and mine wasn't the greatest and my mom struggled way too much. And all I really wanted to do every night I prayed, I didn't pray to be a singer. I didn't pray to be, you know, a successful ball player. I just prayed that to put me in a spot to be able to make sure my mom never asked to worry about anything, whatever that was. So when music came along and it was easy, I was like, okay, well, I'll just go ahead and do this until something else shows up. It was fun in the neighborhood. I mean, I sang in, you know, choir and when I was in grade school, they had me in church choir. But my plan wasn't even to go to performing arts. I mean, I know he was talking about the fame thing, but I actually was anti-performing. Yeah, I was going to ask you because we all know the story, but your goal wasn't to do anything concerning to performing arts at all. You wanted to, like you said, play football. Now, but what led you to actually making that choice ultimately? Well, it wasn't me. It was my mom and my music teachers. I had a bully that used to beat me up in grade school and we used to go at it. And it got to a point where I, we was just talking about this the other day where it was an incident where I was just really pissed off in school, I think I was in sixth grade and I was just, I couldn't beat them. So I got kicked out of class. I went to the bathroom. I was just pacing and just like literally furious and I ripped the sink off the wall, got suspended. So then at that point, my parent, my mom and the music teacher got together. We got to do something because otherwise he won't make it into school or a bar. So then both of my music teachers were married to each other, the one in grade school and one in junior high school. So they moved me from junior high school when I, from grade school to the junior high school and tried to get me to focus on music. And the same thing happened when I graduated. They tried, they pushed me into performing arts. I was trying to go to Overbrook to play football. But my mom and music teacher was like, no, we, you know, too much trouble, but it's not a good neighborhood, that kind of thing. So they put me in performing arts and they didn't have any sports teams there. Like they had tennis and I think basketball for one year and I just didn't have nothing to do. So I literally was like, all right, well, everybody sings here. So let's just, I'll find some dudes and we'll make a group and just sing around the school and have some fun. All right, cool. So let's fast forward to that. Like you got into creative and performing arts in 1985. You just, like you said, you kind of acclimated to the system and you had some vocal chops, right? I will say, and real side note that I did, but I'm a believer as far as myself, I think that I could sing, but I think my improvement in being in this group is better now than what I was then. Because I felt I could sing, but I didn't think I was, I was going up against everybody else in the building. Nate, I was actually being facetious. You could sing back then too. No, but I'm being serious. I really felt like, you know, I'm in here and I can vibe with everybody, but I'm not that guy. Well, progression is everything. But I'm just, I'm just, you know. Yeah, I feel you, I feel you. Because you know, I was the same way. Like I knew that, I knew what I wanted to do when we first started, but I just didn't, my voice wasn't ready, remember? Like I was pissed, dude. I cried a couple of times because I just couldn't do what I wanted to do. So you guys had to do the part, you know what I'm saying? But it's progressive. We grew each other up. Well, 100%. And then I learned too that it's okay not to be that. You know what I'm saying? Oh yeah. It's okay not to be that guy or that guy. It's okay to be this guy. And once I figured that out, my life completely was on the poly. Because at that point, you know, once you realize that it's okay to be who you are, even in the midst of what everybody else is, all the power and everything, it's okay and you're in a safe space, life is easy at that point. I think this group exemplifies that because when we were, we're gonna get into this, but individuals in the group, we all were different. Like, and it all, it all glued together and matched. Because I wasn't wine and wine wasn't me. And I wasn't Nate, Nate wasn't me and Mike was doing his own thing and Mark back when we first started. So it was a lot of individualism within the group that made, that's what made the group unique because everybody wasn't stepping on each other's toes. And that's why I believe that we are still here today. One of the reasons why we are still here today is because we respect the roles of each other. You know what I mean? And I mean, of course, we're human beings and sometimes, like anybody, that respect takes a back seat to emotions. You know, well, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, you know what I mean? You know, as humans, we tug of war, but that is the reason why boys to men stand out. We are three people that have significant roles that we play to a tee every single night. And they're all important. You know what I'm saying? Like I could never do what I do without y'all. You understand? That energy that we share on stage is what the audience is like pulling from, you know what I'm saying? And our roles, whether it be singing or not, you understand that, right? You know what I'm saying? Because a lot of times it's not just about singing. Sean, I say it all the time, I call you what? The master in ceremony, you understand? Because when he goes to say what he has to say, everybody's gonna listen because of the way that he says that there's a sincerity. That's his role. I could never do that. Nate, he is the glue. He's the glue that keeps boys to men, boys to men. The infrastructure. The infrastructure, you understand? And he's gonna make sure that we maintain, as much as I try to go off the beating path sometimes, he's gonna make sure that I know that there's something there that I have to maintain. You know what I'm saying? You know, Nirvana, you know what I'm saying? And I fought against it. I fought against it, but he's right. What's the Nirvana thing? We don't know the inside job. You like explain to him. Well, we were, you understand? You understand? You know, Juan was doing some new stuff to add to the show to kind of make the show a little bit more diverse. And, you know, he normally does a lot of production stuff. So he sent out the stuff he was working on. And I normally try not to give a big opinion because if I'm not physically at the rehearsal, I don't wanna tell somebody, oh, you can't do this when I didn't even show the hell up. So he had did a version of Nirvana that he dropped the key a bit. And I explained to him, I said, bro, it's the type of song that the key, the original key of the song is almost way more important than anything else in the song. If you drop it and people can't recognize what the song is or they don't feel that energy, instead of boom, boom, boom, you hear, boom, boom, boom, boom. It kind of, and, you know, we kind of fought it. Because he sings a lot and I know where his mind was. His mind was, listen, I got three, four songs before it. And then I got that one after that. I can drop the key, then it helps. But I had to explain to him, like, I get it. Maybe we should move it in another spot, but that's the type of song. That's like changing the key into the road. You're some songs you just can't change the key. And it was, it was that. And when I, and I fought it, you know what I'm saying? But when I went and I listened, and I, I, AB, both versions, he was right, you know what I mean? He was right, but that's the point I'm trying to make. You know what I'm saying? We, we all got different. We do this for each other and with each other. There's no one person that does anything. That's right. You're going to learn in this interview that we fought a lot. So we're going to get more into that. But like, let's, let's go back though. Yes. 1985. You got in, we weren't there yet. So you had some other people that you formed a group with. Now, did you found this group too? Or was it like a collective with the other members? Like who, who brought the idea of putting a group together? Me and Mark Nelson. Mark Nelson. Yeah, we were sitting in the back of a, a war history class in freshman year. And I can't remember if I was singing or he was singing. It's kind of how we met. But either way, we met each other, started talking about music, blah, blah, blah. And then we both started singing in the class and we both got kicked out. So we were like, all right, well, let's roam the halls. And at that point, we just came friends, went through a whole lot of stuff. We both like new addition, which was real big. And then we talked about putting the group together and we just start picking people from school. Some people kind of pushed their way into the group that weren't supposed to be in the group. They weren't as talented, but you know, we were underclassmen. So I mean, I got called. I don't even know one way to shoot. So we were underclassmen. So we kind of just like, okay, well, I mean, if, you know, they're upperclassmen, put them in, yay, we win. But that was pretty much a jest of it. Just trying to find something to, me personally, was just trying to find something to do to occupy my time. Cause I didn't want to see dudes walk around leotards all day. Got it. All right, cool. So yeah, cause there were guys that walked around in leotards. Yeah. But all right, so. It was fame, baby. So yeah, it was fame. So, okay. So you had a few Leroy's up in that mug. Yeah, yeah. So you, all right, cool. So, all right. So you had your group, a couple of them graduated, left. It was just you and Mark after a while. Actually, yeah, it's me, Mark and Juan. Juan came in in midway between the old group and what we have today. So. Now mind you, before he tells his story, I was already a year there, a year prior. He was right behind me. Sean was right behind me. And they didn't even know I existed. Now I knew you was there. I just didn't know. Cause you ain't seen. I didn't know. I knew you was there. I just, because you were part of a clique that I knew to click, but I didn't know that you sang. Well, let's get into that. Cause I think this, we don't learn enough about Sean sometimes. Cause he's the host. Oh, you want to hear about this clique? Yeah, because I want to go on chronological, chronological quarter. Oh, you want to hear about this clique? Oh yeah, for sure. Like, let's see. So here's the thing, right? Hold on, hold on. We can do it. So 85, you get your group, whatever. Some of them graduate. Some of them graduate. 1986, I come in. Sean comes into school. So at the time, Sean comes in. I go a whole year. Yeah. He, yeah, he, yeah, a whole year. A whole year. But in a four year school, that's not bad. But first of all, you gotta remember, you weren't the only one who nobody knew could sing because we were all on the choir. Unless you got solos and stuff like that, or it was a part of a group or something. Nobody got a chance to hear you sing. That's true, Sean. Stop. See, you know what you're trying to do, right? You see what he's trying to do, right? No, no, what am I trying to do? He's trying to say, I was there a whole year and nobody saw me do it. You ain't sing, nigga. When you sang, listen, listen, listen, listen. But see, think about that. It only took one time. One time. Okay. It's different, right? That's your fault. Well, he didn't know it do. No, no, no, no. All right, cool. Let him talk about it. We could have just said, yeah, he didn't know it. He's here, he's here. All right, he's singing a little. When we heard it, we was like, oh, bro. That was it. That's it. Right, I'm not refuting that. I'm not refuting that. That's what I'm saying. No, I'm not saying it. I'm trying to get the call for the people. For the people, I got you. I got you, all right. I got you, all right. So get me back into it. Let's go back. Let's go back. All right, 85. Mark Nelson, Nathan Mars, Tim Melkor. Tim Melkor, right. Oh, shoot, Tim Melkor. And John Shotes. Then we added George Baldi, then Tim Leff. Crazy ad, crazy ad. Then Tim Leff. So then it was me, Mark, George, John. Then we added Marguerite. Crazy ad. Then we added Wine. Now Wine was picked before he actually came to the school because the way the school functions is you come and audition the summer before and then you get the letters in the mail if you can come and out. So I was already in the school and me and Mark had already put the group together. So a lot of other people in the school would come up and check out the auditions to see who was coming in the school bubble by. And I was standing in the hallway when Wine went in to audition. And I was pissed at first because I heard our music teacher at the time, Mr. King, asking him about the songs and his repertoire. He was like, well, I don't really have, because you were supposed to have a contemporary piece, a classical piece and a piece in another language. This nigga had nothing. So I'm looking through the glass and I'm like, bro, y'all made me sing like, Coronations Day Day, all kind of crazy, like fresh music before in my life. And he didn't do it. So he, because the great love of all. So, but, bro, I was standing in the hallway and I heard him kill that, the greatest love of all. I was like, yo, Mark, I don't know if we add enough subtracting, but when he get in here, somebody got to go or he's coming in. So he was already picked before he even knew he was coming to the school. So that next year, he got drafted already. So that next year, he got drafted. So then that's how wine got in. And then when all the three left, because they were leaving that year, then that's when we, and we saw Sean the year they were leaving. Yeah. We'd heard his solo the year that they were leaving. So I was like, okay, well, they gonna be out. What was your solo, Sean? No, no, I want them to, because I've explained this solo before on the show, but I never heard it articulated from you guys' perspective. I'll tell you one, I was an upperclassman. I wanted the solo. He didn't give it to me. Right. For some reason, Mr. Dumpson, who was our teacher, all the time. He hated me. For some reason, I know the reasons, but I... Well, yeah, he didn't like Nate. So for some reason, he came to me. Now mind you, just like why I mentioned, I didn't really sing outwardly a lot. So for him to pick me out of everybody was weird. And it was kind of, it gave me a little anxiety because I'm like, why is he picking me? So he gave me the part, it was Love Said Not So by B.B. Wynans. He chose you to do the... Didn't he tell you to learn it? He told me to learn it. See, I didn't know that he told you to learn it, Sean. Yes, he said learn this song. So I went back, right? Prior. Prior. Oh, see, I didn't know that. Right. So he already gave you the part. He chose you. So he was just shitting on me. Yeah, he was shitting on you. So, but he chose me for whatever the reason. And mind you, let me, this is another note to that. And didn't he give you an award at the end of the year? Yeah, he did. Yeah, so weird. But I never sang gospel like that before. So this was my first time touching into, come on, man. See what Wynans is based it off of. See, I hung out with what you could say with a degenerate. Well, let us, let us explain. Like you say all the time. Come on, please. I wouldn't say they were, how about this? At that time they weren't what, I guess, what the kids thought were cool kids. You know what they were? They had their, they had their click. If they were, they were the kids in the neighborhood. They were goth. They were goth. They were goth. Yeah. That's what you're not. But knowing Sean really well now and his musical take, it makes sense, Sean, because you love, no, but you love, you love, you have a very eclectic, it does. I mean, I call him a jukebox. I can just bring up a song. He's the best. The melody's there. It's crazy. I think to me personally, he's the best addition to this group because of the fact that Sean is not going to not, he's not going to. He's very musically eclectic. Yeah, he's not going to not learn what he wants to learn. Like I've got, I'm versatile cause I know a lot of music, a lot of different genres. But Sean is like, he falls in those crevices of music that you never going to think that that's the song that, and he knows every lyric. Like he, that's just, that's his thing. I think that's the craziest thing ever because I, me, like I said, I don't know no songs. I'm like horrible. All I know is boys to men song. Every boys to men song that we've sung throughout the course of our career, if you play them right now and we listen to them like maybe once or twice, we can probably give every note lock in, hump ad libs, riffs to everything. I'm talking about songs from like 30 years. You know what I'm saying? That's all that's inside of me. If I got to learn a song, I literally have to learn a song. Like mass singer, I have to learn everything. I still don't know a song. You know what I mean? Be honest. Okay. All right, so we go back. Wines already in the group. I've been there a year. I wasn't in the group yet. I sing this BB Wynans solo. After the solo, Nate walks up to me and says, amen, just all national. I won't be in the group. No animosity because he got the solo and I didn't. Right. But I knew he was bad. I'm like, hey, I need him. And I said, all right, cool. And I said, cool, I'll do it. I said, you want to join the Avengers? Yeah, right, basically, basically. So, so. Do you want to join the Avengers? Yes, sure, why not? So all right, now who's in the group now? Hulk. Oh, I'm sorry. Now it's me, Mark, Sean, Juan. And that's it. And that was it. That was it. That was it. That was the original. Explain how McCary, Mike McCary, the bass got into the group. We actually were about to go to choir. I think it was seven period of our men correctly. And we went into the bathroom. And we, because at that time we used to sing like little gigs around the neighborhood. So we'd have to rehearse for, I mean, you know, we were like the funeral band. We sang at little nightclubs, whatnot. They'd have to sing. We were too young, but they just wanted to hear us sing. So that being said, we was working on some songs for one of the gigs that we had coming up. And we're in there singing and then, you know. Yeah, Mike comes in the bathroom, he walks past us and goes into the stall. And we're singing, and then he's somebody, whatever. And then we get to the bottom part. He adds the bass on the Can You Stand a Rain? And we were like, what the hell was that? What was that vibration? Right. And then he comes out and he's about to do that. And we was like, do it again. Yeah, yeah. Can you. No, no, no. Right? So then he comes out and we're like, no, no, no, no, no, do that again, bro. Do one more time. The party just says do it again. And then it sounded like nothing that we ever heard ever in our entire life. And at that point it was like, bro. Yeah. I mean, I don't even think, I don't think I remember even asking him to be in at that time. I think it was afterwards. We had went to class or whatever. Then the next day I think we came in early and we were in Mr. Walker's room and we had tape recorder because we always tape our practice or whatever. And Mike used to always come in early with his mock neck and his sweater and his little cup or whatever and his little bagel. Because if anybody who had money in the group, it was Mike. Mike had the money. He had a job. Mike always looked good. He always had a haircut. He always had a job. Yeah, he was that guy. So after that we were like, yo, why don't you sing that part against it? And eventually Mike kinda worked with us. And it was the sound was just man. And it can't be a match. And I tell people, man, not even in the ego thing, man. But if you love boys to men as a three and if you loved it as a four, Jesus. Oh my God. If you heard us as a five with Mark Nelson, it was crazy. The world's a whole different place. Oh my God. It was pretty insane. The world's a whole different place. All right. So okay, the Avengers have been assembled. Right? So around this time, it's about, let's say 1988. We've been together about six months. A friend of ours who happens to be in the music business named Charlie Mack. Who I grew up with in Southwest Philly. Cool. My sister used to beat him up when he was small, Charlie Mack. Right. Yeah. Now he's big Charlie. Yeah. So he basically was the security guard for the Fresh Prince, AKA Will Smith, friends and nates. He told you what? Like what did he tell you about Will and- It was that performance we did at the Black Party performance. Remember he came and he showed up to that one. He said, if I remember correctly, I think he said, come, I want you all to come to the- Civic Center. Yeah, the powerhouse or whatever. Yeah, powerhouse, yeah. The powerhouse was a show, the annual radio show that the local radio station, Power 99, threw every year, basically like a summer jam. You got a bunch of artists that come in and do their thing. And he said, I'll get you guys in and he mentioned something about somebody that he wanted us to meet. Now we didn't know who that was. And then, you know, obviously that was the thing where we met Mike Bivens, come to find out, which we never knew. I guess Charlie had had some relationship with Biv at the time that that's who he had wanted us to meet. That's what it was. I never knew that. I didn't know that. I didn't know that to Charlie. Are you serious? Yeah, because remember back in the day when they had that lawsuit going on, I was asking Charlie. That was because of that? Yeah, I was asking Charlie. I'm like, well, y'all went ahead of me, and I had a deal with Mike. I said, well, Charlie, we didn't know who you were bringing us for. But if you got to be with him, if he promised you that, then you got to go in and do what you got to do. Don't worry about what, you know, us. I mean, you got to do what you got to do. So that was the point at that time where he had set up for us to meet with Mike. And I guess, yeah, but he wasn't there. But he wasn't there. No, he came late. He was supposed to get his ass in. So we met Michael Bivens based off of our own record. So we get to the powerhouse. We try to contact Charlie Mack. Charlie Mack is not to be found anywhere. There was a young lady by the name of Donna Pendergrass. Yes. Who was Teddy Pendergrass's daughter. That actually the first time we met her, for some reason, she was nice enough to. Shut up. She was nice enough. She was nice enough to get us into the to the building. All right. Stay focused. Stay focused, fellas. Stay far. Sorry. All right. So she got us into the building. Right. Right. So go ahead. Actually, no, it was a. She got us in the building. She got us in the back. Yes. Somebody got us in and then somebody got us in the back. There was some. No, no. Somebody got us in and somebody let us in the building. We went to the front. We went to the front because we was trying to stand and wait for the show to start. I know that somebody was like, they got us in the building. Yeah. And then when we got back towards that door, we were singing. And one of the ladies back there was like, oh, you guys sound good. What are you doing here? And then we start talking. I mean, I know Mark start talking to about it. And that's when we got one. And Mark, he marked the past. Mark got the past. Mark went back. He knew they were already back there because they got us in. But then they went backstage. So then he got one of their passes came out with two. And then we start shuffling to get everybody back. OK, cool. So now we shuffled backstage passes starting off with this one nice lady who was an angel, whoever that woman is. She probably don't know what she probably don't even exist. I wish she would change her life. If she had a story, she probably know. Yes. So we're all backstage. Soon as we all finally get back there, coincidentally, Michael Bivens, Ronnie DeVoe and Ricky Bell just walk off stage from announcing them being a group of their own. BBD. Yeah, we're about to do. We're about to do our own thing, which eventually became Bell, Bibi DeVoe. As we were walking in, they were walking out. What happened when they came off? Mark asked Ricky, Ricky, yo, can we sing for y'all? And Ricky was like, hey, y'all got a tape? And we was like, no, we can we can sing it right now. And the Rick was like, yeah, well, you know, we got to rock out. But, you know, if y'all could send us a tape, blah, blah, blah. And then Ron was right actually right in the address. Yeah, well, you can send it and so forth and so on. And then I was like, you know what? Fuck it, I just asked Mike, I was like, yo, bro, can we sing for you? He was like, can y'all do it now? And he's like, yeah. And then we jumped into Kenny's standarain. Again, this was all, I guess you could say Kismet, because unbeknownst to us, six months prior, Biv just scored a production deal with Gerald Busby and Motown Records. So he was already on the lookout for other acts. So he just happened to find us six months later. Coincidentally, six months is when the group was actually formed. Very strange. But that's when all of that happened. So six months after that, he finds us, we sing. And we're encircled by Biv, Kid and Play, Keith Sweat, Paul Abdull, Paul Abdull, everybody who was everybody at that time. Yeah, because they all heard you sing. They all heard me listening to us sing acapella. Yes. And it was silent the whole time. And then when we finished, yeah, it was like they heard something different. And then the crazy part was they still said, yeah, it was like, yeah, y'all still, you know, yeah, well, so you could just send a tape to this address. And the mic was like, no, you ain't got to send me nothing. He wrote down his number, said, yo, here, bro, I'm going to be in L.A. for the next two weeks. I had to the Duffy Hotel call me next week when I get there. And we'll talk about some things about. So we took the number and at breakfast, we just. So OK, so after they walk out, coincidentally, Charlie Mack with Will Smith walks in. Yeah, he was like, yo, dude, you're kidding, so on, so on, so on. So we don't need you anymore. So he won't have a career right now. Yeah, I'm talking about. They want to let Charlie. We love you, Charlie. Then I spoke to Charlie, whatever. And then I get and I saw him start talking to Mike about something. So that's another reason why I think that they might. He like little Charlie said, because they all of a sudden he went right to him. So I mean, whatever the deal was, either way, he got in. And then, yeah, after that, the crazy thing was that. We as a group weren't even looking for a record. You sure were crazy. It's part because, you know, when you go to a school like that, it's all about being better. Like every day you want to learn a new chord or a new riff or, you know, a new, you know, structure of what you're doing vocally. So every day you would learn something. So our goal was to go meet Mike and, you know, our idol. And see what you had. Tell us, you know, give us his opinion. Say, hey, you know, that guy was this. You know, if you sing this part a little better and he really had no nothing for us. So we were just like, OK, and then just left. And then I start calling them to start blowing up the phone. All right, cool. So again, as we noticed or as we noted, it was five of us. Yes. Right after that incident, that right after that moment, because it was a great night. We hung out with Will at his house in Winfield. Yeah. We hung out with Kid and played a whole night. It was a great night. It was crazy for the little kids, impressionable kids. It was amazing. But shortly after Mark Nelson, who was the fifth member, came to all of us at Nate's apartment. Nate, what happened? He mentioned something about a deal or a song or something. He was doing with somebody else. And I guess he was trying to be above board. But I mean, at that point, I think he was already partially into it. It was done. And it was done. You know why? And it was like put on us kind of late. Like, whoa, we trying to, if we do this Mike Bivens thing, you know, we trying to figure out what we got to do. I'm about to tell you real quick, because you weren't there, Nate. We were going to Crystal and Carmen's house. Mark Nelson was with me. We were at the bus stop, right? When we get off the bus, you know, right, right, right. Yeah, right at that walk. Exactly that long walk. So we were there. It was me and Mark. And he was like, yo. I think I'm going to go solo just like that. I promise you, bro. And I'm standing there. You know, I'm the youngest. And he like, he was very influential. You and him very influential. So I was like, why? You know, he was like, I mean, you know, I just feel like, you know, I could do, you know, it could be a I can do more of my music. And, you know, I don't have to leave the group. I said, Mark, I said, you can't be a solo artist. And being a group, that just, you know what I mean? And he was like, well, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, you know, saying something about it. He said, because the Orpheus or something. Orpheus Records. Yeah, he said the guy from Orpheus Records approached me at the impulse. One of the clubs. One of the club. The impulse. Right. And said that he wanted to give me a deal. And I was like, well, we just met Michael Biffins. You know, he's like, well, you know, we don't even know about that. You know what I'm saying? And then when he came, I didn't know when he was that day. I didn't know that that's what was going to happen. But this was probably that weekend, because, you know, we always went over there on the weekend. And then that next weekend is when he came to rehearsal and said that shit. And I was looking at him like, all right. So fast forward after that to that moment in your apartment. Yeah. When he was like, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, I got this solo deal. I'm trying to do that. And we all, and we all, it was like, bro, like, I'm not gonna it was like, bro, like we, we've been, we've been rehearsing all these damn new addition songs and all this before we get the guy from new addition who's willing to be involved and do something, try to do something with us and you trying to do something else. And honestly, I tried to hold on as long as I could. But I mean, the guys was like, listen, bro, if he gonna leave now, he gonna leave later. So I think I remember Sean saying that, like, if he gonna leave now, he gonna leave later. So that was after two, because, remember, Nate, you was like, fuck it. I don't want to do this shit anymore. I was like, yep. And me and Sean, we were balling out like, I'm talking serious tears, bro. And then where we go, we walked right around the corner and just the stairs where your room, your room used to be. Because I think you moved down to slugs room at that time. Right. And we was over in the corner and right on sitting on the stairs and we was crying and I said, fuck it, we'll just do it ourselves. Yep. So me and why I was going for my group. We were going for my group. It was going to be me and him. And then Nate was like, fuck it, man. He ain't going to be, he ain't, he ain't going to be in this. It's just going to be us. Right. He ain't going to stop the show, man. I mean, I know we put it together, but that's it. It's giving me chills. Yeah, you gotta. Did Mark ever try to come back at some point when you guys started to? You know what's funny? Early, before we even, I think he went and rethought what he was doing. And then when he came back, the problem was it was Sean's point is that even if you come back now, your goal is to do something. He's ambitious to do solo. And then he came back. Then he came back. Yeah, for a second. And it's not even. I remember that. And here's what's crazy. I don't even put it on him, man. His mom was a solo artist, very successful woman. His mom was a Phyllis Nelson. She's still to this day back then they had what they call maxi singles, whatever, like when back and she she'd sold a lot of records. And he, you know, he grew up in in the, you know, solo mentality. So I understand why he would want to do that. But again, it made all the sense in the world to me when Sean made the comment that, bro, you're going to leave eventually. So do we want to make this something and then wait for you to leave? Or do we just make it something without you being here? And that's what we decided to do. So Mark leaves, leaves the apartment, goes off on his on his solo adventure. And not too much long after we signed a deal with Motown. Now this was 89. Yeah, 89. It took us a year. And a half, you're practically to to get to the point where we could actually drop a single. What was going on with us? You guys are being serviced on other people's records. OK. You know what I'm saying? You had a lot of work to explain that. Well, basically, you know, we we were in the process of signing a deal, we get signed to the record label and basically a lot of the label and producers and in Mike, too, we're using Sean and Juan's vocals on a lot of other people's albums before we even got our records out. Boys to men, partially voices were already out. That's why you know, on people's albums. So yes, that was one singing mostly underneath that on the Aisha record for another band creation. It's like that. Yeah. And we were singing. And my voice was too low at the time. So that it didn't they didn't need me. Or I mean, they they they they sung as us over top of us. So we were kind of like they're double. You know what I mean? So they did not sing. So you were in the background. You were lead. Yeah. Yeah. They did not sing. We just laid it really, really good so that they can have that that that, you know, that structure. And as they got older, they started singing themselves. So yeah. So OK. Please tell us the odd jobs that we had to do for Biv as we were going through. It's all encompassed in one job. The main job is that we were Michael Bivens, FTD florist, pretty much. And every year that chick that he was trying to, you know, get at, he'd call us and tell us to go up to their job and sing to him. He'd have flowers delivered. So he was pimping us. You know what I'm saying? Trying to, you know, he might he might be saying that well, I was just trying to see if it was going to work. If y'all saying good enough that women would you knew it when you signed this, bro. But anyway, we were he was the first walk to get cheesecake. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like Puff did. Yeah. He was there. We were that we were that group. So we show up at everybody's job and this and that. And, you know, it was some pretty some pretty women. How about this? The same way they were fine. The same way dudes tell us nowadays that, you know, they got with their first girl because of us. We were Mike Bivens connection. That's how he that's how he got in. That's how he got in. All right. So with all of that, we did all those things. We finally get into the studio after Gerald Busby tells us he was going to sign us, but he didn't know what to do with us to do with us. So we meet this young upstart by the name of well, no, wait. First we meet these two guys out of New York. That's right. Name Troy Taylor and Charles. Yes. Right. Troy Taylor, who explains the story in the previous episode. But like we walk up to New York, we go rather we go up to New York. We record these particular records. Break that down a little bit, Nate, as far as like that experience. Well, we actually it was the first time we were ever in the studio, like professionally as a group. And, you know, we were we were ready to be directed. So we kind of was just riding with whatever the producers wanted us to do the vibe. You know, we did about four songs. We wind up only keeping two. So we did the songs and then we presented them to the label. They liked them. They didn't think they were what was going to push the record. They still couldn't find an identity for the group. And they just didn't have any music. So then they bought Dallas. Dallas Austin, who was an upstart producer out of Atlanta, who also didn't have any music, who also didn't have any music. Oh, this is early Dallas. This is very early. This is this is Alice. This is Dallas sounding the Joyce Irby Dallas. With a real one of the shittiest deals ever. But they put us together. And in high school, like I said, we all we did was sing and write and come up with stuff. So most of the album that you hear on the first album, we wrote most of it because they didn't have anybody to write. So we did. We did Please Don't Go. We did Motown Philly. We did we did all those records. So Dallas was, you know, he was the guy who was in the music business, who could help us kind of direct the records where we wanted to go. Like a lot of them. Yeah. A lot of them we would sit down and in the studio and say, OK, well, we got this song by like perfect example, I'll use mine like Please Don't Go. Which you wrote. Yeah, which I wrote. And I was like, OK, so Dallas, here's the chords of, you know, the songs because we used to sing it acapella, you know, because little people are the player. And then, you know, he said, all right, so then I teach him how to play it. And then he would create the production on it. And that's the rest of the music. Yeah. So that's kind of how he did for most of the album. Yes. Showing us showing him the song, showing him how we want it. Like all vocals we arranged. Most of the music we knew because we come to music school. But all the lyrics we wrote. Right. He he was a different. He was that aspect that was that was more of the business that we never been a part of production. So he knew how to bring it together. Da da da da da. So that's how the whole structure of the song. Here. Yeah, yeah. Let's let's let's focus on that. Yeah. Because because credit where credit is due. Our biggest records were produced by the baby faces and the Jimmy Jams and those guys. And they did us a service for that. But the nucleus of and the creation of what the boys to men sound. It came from us. Yeah. Like what people know us for. It came from the songwriting, the arranging and the produce, the co-producing that we did on the actual. Early, early in this conversation that it was organic because the label didn't have any songs. They didn't have anything. They didn't know what to do. We just we just did what we went to school and did. It was organic. We just oh, y'all need a song. Well, we got a couple of songs. We I mean, we wrote these. I mean, we didn't know it was hit. So whatever we just did what we liked. And it was we organically created songs showing a while. Oh, man, well, this is my heart. So we just did what we do. It wasn't choreographed. Dallas didn't do it. The label didn't do it. This is all we knew. And it was a amazing credit for it, though. Oh, my God, all the gang residuals. As we sat here for 33 years, babyface just at dinner. Yeah, a couple of maybe like four months ago, six months ago. He just was found. He just discovered that we did our first album that we wrote on our first album, nobody. Our first album. Nobody knows. Nobody knew. So. And then we wrote more on the second album. We're going to get into that, too. But the point is, is a lot of what people know of Boys to Men started with us. Like we weren't created like a lot of the music that people fell in love with came out of these guys. And like Sean said, we weren't created like music created Boys to Men music brought us together. So it's not like nobody said, hey, you know, you you you you guys should put together a group. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't like that. It was like everything happened the way it was supposed to. And when we came together, the only thing that that was that we had in common was music and our voices. I actually, me and Nate didn't really like each other in the beginning. I mean, I think Nate like me. I just didn't like him because I didn't know him. You know what I'm saying? That's what it was. And we're a different dude, bro. Yeah, yeah. Him you didn't like. I mean, I mean, you know what I think it was. You know what I think it was? And more so than anything, Nate was. He had a part of that he had of him that he had already matured to knowing and understanding about himself that I was probably going to get to. So it's a part of that there's a part of Nate's personality and my personality that have a clash, a synonymous. You know what I'm saying? We're both a certain type of person. You know what I mean? I'm a little bit more outgoing, but there's still that nucleus. So what it did is we tug of war. You know what I mean? Like self-consciously, I look at him like, who do we think he is? You know what I'm saying? And he looking me like, nigga, I'm who you going to be. You feel what I'm saying? Basically, you know what I'm saying? Like in that thought process, you know what I'm saying? And that's why I was he's from the hood. We both dark skin brothers. We both got last names of Morris and we not even related. You know what I'm saying? So it was almost like, who is this guy? And how is he my boss? You know what I'm saying? You feel me? But I was a kid, so I needed them to mature me. But that's why we I believe that's one of the main reasons why we clashed a lot. And I played too damn much. And he played a lot. He played too damn much. But anyway, in the process of songwriting, the first record, tell us tell us the funny story behind the song. Now, let me let me let me break this down. Sometimes Biff will come to call. Yeah, he never came. Well, sometimes. Yeah. Every once in a while, he came with boys with multi-filling. Oh, he was there. Multi-filling. Yeah, I thought that he called. No, he called. He called. He called for a definitely called for a multiple. Yeah. So so just to break it down and explain, sometimes Biff would get make these like obscure weird phone calls to us with these ideas that he came up with while he's on tour with Bell. Amazing ideas. And and and he would say, hey, for example, I want you guys to come up with a song called Click. Yeah. Start first with Motown Philly, because think about this. If you never knew the song, never knew the group, never knew anything in the 90s, and somebody called you and said, yo, or taught you to make a song called Motown Philly, you like a song to sing. Oh, so you're going to sing to sit. It didn't make any sense. Right. So that one we got over. Group, the city. OK, we can figure it out. You can figure it out. Some kind of way. Eventually you could make it to that. Yeah. But yeah. Finish. Yeah. Yeah. Biff Biff calls him. Biff calls Nate. We had rehearsal. No, we were in rehearsal. We were. We were in rehearsal. My brother. OK. We were all sitting on our knees like I was not on my knees like that. And yeah. And yeah. And Biff was right. And Biff was like, yo, I need y'all to come up with a song called I. And basically, like, I mean, he gave us some tidbid's a sex song, like some sex immediately. I was like, so there you go. So now normally back then, we went whenever we had a dispute, we would flip a coin. Yes. Right. Because nobody wanted to nobody wanted to write. Nobody wanted to write a sex song at that time. Teenagers. We still live with our parents. And it sounds stupid. And it sounded kind of stupid. Oh, because the nigga had a song said, Wank, Wank, Wank, Wank. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, it was ridiculous. Yeah. Big, big, big. Shout out to Mike. Straight out. Yeah. Shout out. But Wank, Wank, Wank, Wank. That was for ABC. But but no, he came. Oh, it was for ABC. He came. The first one. Yo, y'all should write a song called Wank, Wank, Wank, Wank. Anyway, no, no, no, no. Let's not get it to happen anyway. Years before. OK. Oh, we're all sitting in the room. We'll be like, all right, well, who's going to who's going to write it? So we all flip a coin. And I lost. He lost. And that's right. That's right. Because the way we do it is it's forward. So what we do is we flip two people, whoever, whoever wins, they're safe. Then you flip again, whoever wins, they're safe. Then it's down to the last two. Right. So it's down to me and wine. Flip the coin. And I lost. So is this like a theme for you guys showing flip coins to see who's going to send this song? I mean, I've seen it on socials before. It settled a lot of beats. Some of the most dramatic, like some of the biggest decisions in our career were just that simple. Flip of a coin. Something that's simple, whether we're going to perform at the American Music Awards or not. Whether we're going to who's going to keep the award that we just got. Like anything. Flip of a coin. It was just it was just easier because there's four guys in the group. The only way to do it. Right. So. Oh, ah, he loses. Lost. He has to write the song with Nate. No, no, no. No, no. He has to write the song. That's right. He has to write the song. So. OK. So now I remember I had to walk. Walk to Ellsworth and Federal and try to like squeeze through the little subway stop, the little subway stop. Yeah. They had a little bent area. I had no car fare. So I was squeezing through and and I'm trying to figure out I gained weight so I couldn't make it. I didn't make it through that day. So I'm walking. I'm walking. I walk from where we are. Where South South Philly to Richard Island. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I walked there. So long as when I got home, when I got to my grandma's house, it was it wasn't too late, though. I don't think it was that late. I would normally is well, but I think that time I think for some reason we left early and I'm in my grandma's house, went upstairs, sit on the toilet. You know what I mean? And I'm like on the toilet. We got I got to write this song. I don't know the half of it. I never had sex. You understand? So I didn't know nothing about all I knew about was love and you know what I'm saying? So let me try to make these love words make sense. You can't. And there's no internet. You know what I'm saying? We can't Google or check. You know? I mean, I did, you know, it was freaky, deaky. We called the freaky, deaky back then with girls, you know, but no, there was no intimacy. We like I baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, So I'm sitting on the toilet and I started and I said, and I said, okay. So now I'm vibing, but I'm on the toilet and I'm pooping. No bullshit. I'm totally pooping guys. You know what I'm saying? So I ended up by the end of that time and it didn't take long. That session. Yup, that session. It didn't take long. I ended up writing the whole U. But it was very, very PG. It might have been borderline G, huh? Yeah, it was a little. It was PG 13. It definitely wasn't R. It was Holly Hobby. It was Lilo and Stitch. It was definitely, I mean, you know, but so the next day I sent it to tonight. I said, hey, dude, this is what I got. It's not sex. It's not that. You know what I'm saying? But I know, you know, you could do something and then he took it and made it exactly what it was. Okay. So he made it what it was. Now the recording session. All right. We're in the studio, all of us. You know, we had a few girlfriends at the time and Mike at the time was going out with a girl named Nakea. Nakea, yeah. Right. So Nate comes up with an idea. Hey, y'all should go into the booth and just kind of like make these little moan sounds and stuff like that and, you know, simulate sex. Now, man, you I'm in school now. I'm I didn't I wasn't at the session. Yeah, because he we I had already graduated at that point. So I had my days free. I was I was partially in the dope broke, but I was an adult. Right. So I was still going to school. So we're in studio. We're recording graduated. Yeah, I was about to graduate. Yeah. So we get into the studio. We record in the record. Wine comes into the studio. What happens? He comes in the studio and he hears what's going on in the booth and the lyrics that I rewrote. And he's like, bro, did you get what I sent you? I was like, yeah, you told me I changed it. I kind of got it to where he's like, I don't I don't know if we can we could sing that kind of day in the morning and doing whatever. I was like, we're going to have to change it back because my dad, my dad's not going to be proud of me. I was like, bro, what are they doing? I was like, bro, this is if we. If we trying to do a sex song, but I can't slam out the door. We looked around like, all right, Mike, run that back. I guess he thought we was going to stop because his dad wasn't going to be proud, but song was on the road. I didn't expect it. He was mad. He was mad. He's pissed off. Well, he got it out. So his dad couldn't be mad at him back then. That first album, I was a major cry. I was hurting a couple of circumstances. How old were you during this time? 15. 15, 16. I was 16. I was 18. 18, 18. Yeah. So, okay. So that that was a moment. And let's go back to Motown Philly. Just like you said, Biv comes up with this idea. Hey, let's do Motown Philly. Let's create this concept. Nate and I sitting in studio for. Well, no, we started in my backyard. Started backyard. We're in studio for we're trying to record this record. And we're like kind of just going through the ideas and things that nature and some of the ideas were cool and everything. But eventually Nate wrote the first verse as long overdue, but now Philly's slamming boys and men ABCB. So he added the guys that we're affiliated with. It's literally a four minute autobiography of, of, yeah, of, of who we are, where we came from and what we were trying to do. Biv comes in, does his rap, you know, check out his rap. You know, check this out one day back and Philly and all that other stuff. Right. Did you guys already have the record and you just wrote? No, no, that was a record. That was the only record that Dallas Austin brought complete. Without a track. He had a track that Biv had liked and he was trying to get it from him. And Biv at the time was also trying to help him deal with his Joyce Erby deal because it was shitty, but make a long story short. They pulled that record that track was already there. So we literally just that was the only one we actually wrote to the track. Everything else we wrote before we even wrote the music. So I had a question. So you coined the phrase East Coast family. Yeah. That was, that didn't exist until, until you wrote it. Until you wrote it. So Biv. Told it. Like a few other things that I'm not gonna get into right now. You know what? I already know. That's crazy. I didn't even know that. I thought that, ah, that's bananas. I already know that this is going to probably need a part two, three, four. Oh, no, it will be, dude. We got to continue this. Yeah. But, but the thing is, is that I want to at least get through this era. Oh yeah. Let's go. And, and, and get through at least to 1993. Right. We're going to try to get this quickly. Yeah. So we got to the Motown Philly. We, like you said, we got in the studio. We wrote that. It was a section where after Mike did his part, there was another eight bars that we didn't have any space for. And we were all standing around the piano and I was like, well, let's just, let's just do something like, like we did in high school. Like a, like a bell, like a, like a scale or whatever. And then we all kind of sat around and created the scale of how we wanted to do it. And that became, because it wasn't, it was just nothing to put there. There was no lyrics. We didn't have anything, but it was like, let's just go back to our, what we learned in high school and throwing a triad to scale. And that's what everybody sings now. Tell us the story real quick about when we did, it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday and we wanted it to be the second single. And we presented this idea to Gerald Busby. Do you remember that? And remember, he basically was saying, there's no acapella records on, on radio. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. Yeah. It's not, it's not. Yeah. And this, this, the cra, the cool thing about Gerald, God rest his soul was that we did have a really sincere relationship. Yeah. Yes. It was unlike any other relationship you would have with an artist and a president. We could go to his office and talk and hang out and go and just chill and we have real conversations and he trusted us in, in, in some weird way because he was like, I'm going to drop this single. Yeah. But I don't know how well it's going to do. And we were like, yo, trust us. Yeah. We think it's going to go. And it was great because we had an urban audience at in the beginning. A lot of people don't, a lot of people remember the Kulia Harmony album from the bow ties. Sorry. The bow ties and the red Jack sweaters and all that. But that wasn't the original album. The original album was us wearing the Sherwin coats and, and the, you know, the canes that we had from Jamaica and the Timberlands. Yeah. And the Timberlands. So we, we, we, we garnered an urban audience, which was another one of the reasons why we thought it's so hard to say goodbye yesterday would do well because that was just a huge, you know, cult following for that movie. Cool. Cool. Cool. High. So, and I think Gerald understood a little bit of that, but his business sense said, like Sean said, I get it, but it was acapella. You know what I'm saying? You're doing it acapella and that's not what's happening on the radio, but lo and behold, man, the world, the world. And then the right after that, everybody starts singing. All these groups start coming out singing. So it just created a whole different vibe that we weren't expecting. So it was. So now the success is going where we're off and running. And we get a call from MC Hammer and he wants us to go on tour with him. It's us. Yeah. Actually, I think that was, I think he talked to Mike. He talked to Mike. Because the label didn't want us to do it. Yeah, they didn't want us to. The label felt like, you know, we don't want them to go in that direction. Because that was the hip hop and R&B hadn't started really blending yet. And at that time, Hammer was hip hop, but you know, at that time, he was pop hip hop. So Gerald didn't even actually see us at pop at that time. So Mike actually fought for us to be on that tour. He went to the label like, listen, these guys need to be on this tour. They're different. They're not the typical R&B. There's something different. So he fought with Gerald to get us on that Hammer tour. And honestly, there's a lot of things that Mike Bivens did for us. He did a lot of creative stuff. He did some bad stuff. He was innovative. But that single decision right there might have been the biggest decision in the history of our group. Because there's no way we've ever been able to reach the audience that we reached if we didn't go on tour with Hammer, who at that time had the entire nation. I didn't care if it was Wyoming, Atlanta, New York, Oakland. He was the biggest. He was the guy. And Mike saw that. Gerald didn't understand. Was this a world tour? Yeah, this was yet. Well, he went on a world tour, but we went on a tour with him in America. In the United States. And like I said, he was a rapper that was performing in Wyoming. You know what I'm saying? And Bill was like, yo, I need them on there. You know what I'm saying? I don't care how many songs they do, get them on there. And that's what allowed us to be able to intertwine with all those different audiences. And we weren't forced to be stuck as a typical, we only have the R&B genre. So let's reiterate because sound bites matter. Shout out to Mike Bivens. Oh yeah, I'm sure. For doing all of the due diligence and believing in us when nobody else did. Because what he also did was he fought for us up at that label. Yes, he did. When we showed up after walking on Sunset Boulevard looking like Lightsabers Candy with all kinds of colorful, which was his idea. Wearing all kinds of cardigan sweaters and bow ties and khaki pants that didn't match anything. And we walked up into the record label and I literally remembered people laughing at us. Oh, the laughter. They were laughing at us. What was the Motown office in? It was on 63rd, 60th in Sunset Boulevard or something. It was in the 60s. And it was right on Sunset Boulevard. And we walked up being seen by the label for the first time. And I remember we sang acapella and we did Motown Philly with the routines full out. Like in a section a little bit wider. Small, a little bit smaller. In a hallway in the office. And even after that, the label still didn't get it. And Mike wasn't even there. And Mike wasn't even there. He just sent us up there like he sent us to the Sing of the Girls. Yes. So after all those things, again, Biv had to fight to just make sure that we had a shot. So he took us to the mall. He retooled it, which is one thing I will say is that in that instance, he realized that he had an idea, but it wasn't sessed up. We tried it the way he thought about it and it didn't work. But then he realized, okay, there is something there. Let me go back and retool it and get them cleaner and get them this and get them that. And that's all Mike, man. Yeah, that's all right. So we did all of that. We go on tour with Hammer. There was an incident, Nate, a Mr. Tour that changed our lives basically forever. It happened in Chicago after we performed at the, what was it? The Horizon was called? The, yeah, you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the venue. We were on tour with Hammer. We were on tour with Hammer and our role manager at the time, his name was Mr. Khalil Roundtree, who was practically a father figure to us, came to us. And I want you to tell the story because it's kind of ominous in a way. Yeah, he, normally, you know, I was always into the whole, you know, the business side of things. So I was always like, kind of, I was always at his side like asking, what's this? What's that? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? And after a while, you know, as a kid, he kind of would, he'd always make the decisions because he was that guy. But it was just one night, that night when we came into the dressing room and for some reason he couldn't settle on where we were going to stay that night. Now, the promoter wanted us to stay at a certain hotel. He preferred us to stay at another hotel. Promoter obviously for financial reasons, Khalil for his Khalil fatherly reasons. But normally he would make that decision on his own and say, well, y'all going to stay here. We're doing this bank. He came to us and asked us in the dressing room and told us the promoter wants you to do this. You know, I think we should stay here, blah, blah, blah. And it was the first time he was ever not certain about what decision to make for the group. Yeah. And I mean, we were kids and we were just trying to, and I'm leaning on, you know, what he would have taught me like. I was arguing with. Yeah. I was leaning on what he would have taught me. Well, if the promoter thinks, you know, if it's, you know, to save money, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, we'll just do whatever the promoter wants. But I mean, Kay, it's really whatever you want to do. And he was like, well, I'm not really sure, you know, if y'all want to stay here, let me know what you guys want to do. And we all decided, unfortunately, to go where the promoter wanted us to go. And I wanted to stay with TLC and Joe to see at the hotel at the Sheraton, remember? Yeah. Yeah. It was closer to the venue. Right. So we went and moved into that hotel. And show was over that night. We all came in, Khalil and them got us up to our rooms and then they went back down to settle, you know, to close out the hotels and, you know, pay off all the incidents will not get ready for the morning. And once they did all that, they went to the elevator to go up to go to bed. Now, mind you, we had just finished the show. So they had, you know, the checks or whatever, everything from from the tour probably for that week, because we I think we had a count where we shipped all the money and everything back every week. So him and his partner, Quadri, who was, you know, our Quadri Alamy, who was our road manager after they got into the elevator. And as they got into the elevator, go to the room, three guys got into the elevator with them. And Quadri tells a story, said, you know, it seemed like, you know, they were, you know, just regular kids when they got in the elevator. And he said, once that door closed, their faces just got like dark and evil. And him and Quadri start looking around. And the next thing you know, gunfire throughout the whole, whole elevator. See, they shot Khalil in the head. They shot Quadri in the knee. Quadri fell first. Khalil fell on top of him. And they were looking, they saw that they shot Khalil in the head. So they knew he was gone. Quadri said he didn't move. They shot him twice though. Right. Right. But the one that they saw. Yeah. Yeah. That's how they knew that, you know, they got him. And they stayed still because if he'd have moved, they'd have known that he was. So he laid underneath a kind of mind. Khalil is like 300 something pounds, like almost 300 pounds. So Quadri's smaller guy laying underneath him probably can't breathe, but he shot, blew it. His whole kneecap was blown out. So he couldn't move if he wanted to. But he laid there until they left. And then he got up and tried to, you know, Khalil was gone. And that was, that was, that was, that was his story to me. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. What actually told me. Yeah. He said that, that he was actually, they were actually in their rooms and the guys who were in the hotel, they were knocking on doors looking for parties. Yeah. They were looking for parties, you know. And then when they went down this, they went to, they went, that Khalil always had his door open and it was the latch. Yeah. His latch. And he was on his knees, you know, with his mouth doing his thing. He was sick. So he had to, he was trying to get Quadri some, some nightquill or something, you know what I'm saying? So they, they, he said, let me finish this and then we'll go downstairs and get you some nightquill. You know what I'm saying? But what happened is while he was doing the accounting, the money and stuff like that, like you said, the, they was knocking on doors. He heard him knocking. And one of the dudes came and looked in his room for the, cause there's, you know, you know, and he was like, yo, what the fuck are you doing in my room? So the guy shut the door. He shut the door. Khalil, Quadri said that. He called and said, come to my room, man. He said, these motherfuckers then came in my room. You know what I'm saying? And he was like, I mean, did they leave? And Khalil was like, look, they knocking on doors. They go knock on one of these stupid niggas, stupid ass niggas doors. You know what I'm saying? And they open the door. It's going to be a problem. Let get, get over here. So that they decided to get them and escort them downstairs into downstairs to the lobby. The other way. Okay. Yeah. So they decided to escort them because they were going downstairs to get, get Quadri some medicine too. So they decided to escort them downstairs. Now Quadri said that they weren't trying to go. You understand? But they kind of ushered them in. Not too forceful, but let them know, you know, look, y'all got to get. He said the one dude knelt down. Soon as he got in the one with the gun knelt down and was kind of like in the corner. The other two, they was hemmed up and they was pretty scared. He said. Yeah, he's not made me say he had one of them. Yeah. He was hemmed up. He was pretty scared. Khalil had another one. He said that when the door shut, just like you said, that they, all of their faces just turned into like. Demon. Demons. They shot in gunfire. Ba ba ba. They shot Khalil. Boom in the head shot shot shot him. Boom in the head once in the chest and then bow shot him in the leg. Khalil. He said that he when he fell Khalil was still up and then he fell on top of him. So yeah, that's just crazy, bro. And then this this the bananas thing though, I was with my girlfriend. Remember Sean? I was with my girl from Mellow Yellow and Teronda was was with you. And I don't know if it was a room, your room or something. But I was with Mellow Yellow. I was in her room. I left. You called me. Yeah, I left and was walking to my room and it was a we heard something. Right. But we thought it was just door slamming. I'm walking through the hall. It's a big ass German Shepherd with a police officer and he looking at me and I got on shorts and stuff. So he didn't think no, I'm a kid. And he was like, you got you're going to need to go to your room. So I went to my room and soon as I got there, I called my girl and Teronda came and said, Khalil's dead. And I said, she said, did you hear that one? Yeah. And I said, no. And I hung up the phone and that's when I called you. I said, yo, what I say. And yeah, he was like, yo, something happened. I don't I don't know what it is. I don't know what happened. Something happened. So I get on my pajamas. We find what what the commotion is some cops bring us in. We went to Khalil's room. Yeah, went up to his room and they were in the room and they asked his questions. That's when I saw the Polaroid of Khalil in the elevator dead. Like that that will never I can never unsee that. You know what I'm saying? So with all of that and all the stuff that happened, that pretty much changed. I guess you could say that's when the boys to men transition started because we realized at this point we were on our own. And so you know how much he meant like he he was pretty much like Sean says. I mean, he was way deeper than our father. I mean, this guy is you talk about the McGott. He was he was chat GPT before it got here. And he any anything that needed to be done or figured out that was the guy and he did it all for us. We were kids. We didn't know any better. Whenever we had disputes, he always knew everything. So it's it was a bigger shift than you think. Meaning that it's almost like we had nothing. We were all we were we could be on autopilot and have fun and enjoy our lives and create songs and and do stupid kids stuff because we knew he had everything and our parents knew he had everything under control. And like Sean said, once once he was gone, man, it was like and then you saw the sad part is that all of the industry, you know, vultures start coming out, bidding for who could control boys to man or who could manage or who could do this. And we were just trying to get through the fact of losing, you know, the one of the most important people in our lives. And we had real tough loyalty. Like we were loyal to a fault to a lot of people that we knew whether it was right or wrong. But some some of those cases led us down bad streets too. But when he was gone, man, it was it was it was time to it was wasn't no more playing around. It felt like it was over, ladies and gentlemen, we got to do another segment because we could be here till the show starts. And and and I don't I know we all have things to do. But I will say I will say that this is definitely a part one. We'll get more into our story as we continue to do more of these conversations. Let's remember where we at, though, because for sure. So so we just helping me do because I know no times what to wear. Yeah. You know, I'm sitting here like that's why that's why it's important to me. Yeah. It's deeper to me than just this whole thing because Nate of anybody, he's like again, the Oracle, he knows times, dates, places. So he's basically opening my mind to a lot of things that I forgot or didn't know about. I'm learning some stuff. Yeah. So but so let's let's end this on a fun note. Right. I normally do like a top five. Right. So let's do a top five. Top five. Favorite songs. Let's just keep it basic. Top five favorite songs of all time for you. I know it's kind of like a off the cuff. Yeah, I know, I know. But whatever comes to your mind. Yeah. And you can always change it because we're going to have a part two. OK, so so. Got you. Top five favorite songs. Start with wine. You go. 100 find 100 ways. OK. That's Quincy Jones and James. Yes. Patty LeBell and Michael McDonough. Oh my oh. Yeah. OK, OK. OK. My time came. Yeah. Also I would have to say. Can you stand the rain? OK. I have to say that. I would also say. Running back to you. Commission. Commission. Yeah. That's another one. How many I got so far? That's just four. OK, one more. One more. One more. One more. One more. I would have to say. I'm going to have to say on Bended Knee just because of what it means. What the different evolutions the song has taken for me. The meanings, you know what I'm saying? So I would have to say on Bended Knee. OK. All right, Nate. Well, I'll start early beginning. Mine is one of mine is a sentimental reason by Sam Cooke. Hmm. We were talking about Sam Cooke. Yes, we were. We were. Yeah, a sentimental reason by Sam Cooke. Obviously you got to throw Kenny's Stand the Rain in there. Standard. It's not in your top five. I can't talk. Yeah, I'm a little biased. I'm going to say please don't go only because the first song I ever wrote my life. For sure. For sure. And then the other two is this. And I don't know. I'd. Come on. Just it. First thing comes to your mind. Whatever comes to your mind. Color love. Hmm. OK. That's a great one. Color love. And then I can't wait for us to talk about that record. And I'm and I'm so amazing by Luther Vendross. Oh, oh, beautiful. That's fantastic. Real quick. What was the record Luther and Gregory Hines? What song was that? There's nothing. Oh, what a record. Oh, yeah. Trying to figure out where you're going. I'm singing. I'm waiting for the first. I'm going to sing the first one. He said, I was going to read. Yeah, I was. Yeah, you're good. It's all good. All right. I always ended. You know why? Because we hear those notes. Yeah. Yeah. I know what to say. He's tuning that up. I got a question for Juan and Nate. We had Bobby on recently. And Sean and I were recently talking about this. How he would have loved for you guys to work with Whitney. And Bobby kind of confirmed, hey, she loved y'all. She would have loved to work with you guys. And Whitney always came to me and said something to me about working. It's funny. And then she got a little testy after the go round. I was like, I can't. Y'all going to say that. I remember saying to me, I was like, yeah. But this is the crazy thing is, is, is, is, uh, Whitney said to Brandy a while ago. Oh, how'd I leave her? She said, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's in my top five. I'm sorry. There's a brandy song in my top five. But she said to her, yeah, I mean, he could, he could do all them riffs and runs and stuff like that. But can he hold the note? How about that? That's what she said about me. And, and, and, and I didn't get offended because I was like, wow. Yeah. I never thought about it. I need to try to, you know what I mean? Do more that I'm holding. And that's where the, all of those different. If you notice those lines, those, those, those, that's my tribute. That's me saying to Whitney. Did I do, did I do good? You know what I'm saying? And it's hard to get offended when Auntie Whitney said to her. She wasn't happy about that Mariah thing. She was like, yeah, she was not happy. Are y'all serious right now? That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that studio session would have been for sure. We would have been probably one of the greatest songs ever. And I'm, I'm, I'm being, I'm puffing out my chest. Well, because the competition of Whitney saying, she was going to go ahead and think about it. We wouldn't went crazy about that. We'll just pause that for one second. When you think about the top songs in, in, in, in history, musically, we've got three of them. Sure. Whitney took our place with one of them. And then we took her place with us and Mariah. So that threesome us, her and Mariah. I mean, those are some of the biggest songs that exist in the world. Yeah. So with that being said, Hey guys, let's end on something. Right. We're done now. Oh, no, no, no. Saying how we feel is no longer allowed. Nate, some people will work things out and some just don't know how to change. Let's don't wait till the water is dry. We might watch our whole lives present by. Let's don't wait till the water is dry. Biggest mistake of our lives. Don't do it, baby. That's it. Thank y'all so much y'all. This has been another episode of on that note. With my boys. Definitely gonna be a part two, maybe a part three, two. Thank y'all so much for tuning in. Make sure you like, subscribe and all that other good stuff. Once again, Nathan Mars, Wanyé Mars of Boys Two Men. I am Sean Stockman, also a Boys Two Men. Part one, baby. This is part one and we ain't even getting to the meat. There's so much to talk about and how many parts is this going to be? We got 33 years to talk about. We got to save some for the... We do, we do. We'll compartmentalize, but in the meantime, we hope you guys enjoyed this segment. And again, we'll see you again very, very soon. Thank y'all. On that note, baby. Yeah, and we'll see you again next time. Peace. Thank you.