AJ Mclean | Backstreet Boys

Hey everybody, A.J. McLean here, AKA Alexander James with my boy Sean Stockman on that note. Check us out. Welcome everybody to another episode of On That Note. As you know, this is the place where we speak a language we all understand and that is music. My guest for today, he's actually a long time friend and he's a West Palm Beach native solo artist and member of one of the best selling boy bands of all fricking time. All right, now, let me just make sure that I get all these stats right. Because sometimes I look up some stuff and it's not. Yeah, never trust Wikipedia. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, and I try to veer from that. Well, just Wikipedia says that my net worth is 120 million. Nice, congratulations. And I own a football team in Palm Beach, which doesn't have a football team either. Awesome. There's no football team in Palm Beach. It is now. But apparently I own a football team in Palm Beach. In an alternate universe, it is. Yeah, yeah. All right, so there you go. Just stick with that, all right. With sales of over 130 million albums worldwide, his band has toured the globe electrifying stages far and wide to the delight of their beloved BSB army. They hold a Guinness World Record for being the first group to have a top 10 album in three consecutive decades, the 90s, the 2000s, and the 2010s. Am I doing well so far? You are. OK, beautiful. The group won eight American Music Awards, six Billboard Awards, four MTV Music Awards, and a Partridge and a Pair Tree. Still no Grammy, damn it. Well, it's coming. It's nominated nine times, though. Yeah, it's good. It's just nice to be nominated. Wait, you guys don't have a Grammy? No. When we came back out with the DNA record, our first single got nominated. But that was the year the Grammys was very female dominant. So Alicia Keys hosted. We were up against Gaga. She was coming off the film and shallow. And you ain't touching that. Right. So. Yeah, yeah, there was a time where ladies ran this. Yeah, I literally turned. I turned to my wife. I said, if we don't win. Let's go get dinner. And our category came up. We lost. I stayed for one song. We went and got dinner. I was like, why am I going to stay? There's no reason to stay anymore. It happens. It does. But again, to be nominated is still very, very gracious. It is. It is. Especially after this long. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It's the Grammys is still pretty much the Grammys, you know, despite what climate, whatever climate the music. Yeah, I would have won something. Yeah, I know. But, you know, it's just one of those things. You know, but anyway, I digress. They just finished a record breaking stint at this fear in Las Vegas and is scheduled to return in 2026. Actually, 2025. Yeah. He is a father, a husband, a brother in bond, a tattoo maniac and my involuntary golf instructor. Yes, because I suck. Um, ladies and gentlemen, yeah, we'll get we'll get that. I'm going to get you right. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for my long time friend, Mr. Alexander James McLean, a.k.a. AJ McLean. Well, I'll clap for myself. Hi, Sean. How you feel? I'm good, buddy. How are you, man? Man, listen, I'm I'm I'm just happy. I'm in a space of peace and discovery. Yeah. And relaxation. At least I try my best to. Same. And really just coasting right now. Like it's it's it's a good moment in life right now, because I'm at a point where, you know, and I think we're in the same trajectory as far as not really having any boundaries. Like we're in a in a sphere now where we can do whatever we think of. True. I mean, I just want to say congrats on the show. I think it's awesome. I've been following since you started. And I think it's, you know, I. I dabbled in something like this when I did Dancing with the Stars. We did a podcast. I was myself, my best friend and Cheryl Burke. And it was called Pretty Messed Up. And all of us are in recovery. We're all sober. So that was kind of the epicenter of the show. Cheryl, too. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. So we were all, you know, it was. That was kind of the the the core of the show. But then, you know, we would have anybody on from, you know, actors, actresses, musicians. We had Deepak Chopra on, which was freaking awesome. Crazy. But, you know, schedule wise, it just got to be overwhelming. And we did it for about a year and then it just got to be too much. Obviously, you know, schedules and everything. But but hearing all the stats and stuff, it's like. Yeah, how does that make you feel? Like to know that you've accomplished like dream worthy attributes, like you have those and and 10 multiple times. How does that make you feel and still doing it? Yeah, you know, and is like swearing off the books here or is. Yeah, yeah, no, no, curse all the fucking. It feels fucking great. No, because I so I've I've been down. I've been going through this whole transformative journey over the past probably three years. Yeah. And in that journey, I've learned to accept. Compliments, I've learned to accept. That's still hard for me. Reality, I have boundaries. I never knew what that word really meant in my life. Good for you. The biggest thing that I learned, I would say is. I'm no better and no worse than anyone else. Number one, A.J. is a character in a band. Doesn't define who I am as an individual. And Alex got kind of stifled for the last. Forty years. Because, you know, I I I lived in the mindset of I have to always be on. Yeah. And I never knew how to turn it off. And so I figured if I stay in character, I'm going to get all the attention I want, all the external validation that I think I need. And you're going to love me. You're going to accept me. You're going to love me. Right. Now I'm of the mindset. If you don't like me, tough shit. That's your loss. I'm a good I'm a fucking good person. I think that comes with age. Like, and I hate to sound so cliche, but that really does things to people. Like, range experience. Yeah, of course. Yeah. But for me, it was, you know, I I suffered from a condition called peace of shit ism. And I didn't know how to balance the two. And like I said, I never knew how to turn it off. So when we finished the DNA tour back in 23, I so my my wife and I are separated, but we're we're actually working things through and we are in a great place. That's awesome. I am stoked. Yeah. But during that moment, we were living separately. We're still living separately for now, but we're already looking at forever homes and stuff again, which is great. That's great. And she's looking at twenty five million dollar bricks in New York. I'm like, what the hell? But yeah, well, she loves New York. My kids love New York. That's a I'll get to that later. But you asked about the say, you know, we love New York. I I do in short bursts. Yeah. But so we we we wrap up the tour and I. Took it upon myself to go to Scottsdale, Arizona. I did an intensive outpatient program at an amazing place called the Meadows. Yeah. And I went there for like. Sex, love and relationship. Not so much the sex part, but the love and relationship aspect. Yeah. Um, because I'm not a sex addict by any means, but I am a love and relationship addict for sure. Interesting. But the love side of not loving myself and the relationship side of. Getting myself into relationships and then self sabotage. Because then I can fix it. Yeah. And it makes me feel good about fixing it. But that's not healthy to live your life. It's not healthy. And so I was supposed to be there for four weeks. I stayed for 10 Monday through Friday in my group therapy. Golfed every weekend because Scottsdale is the Mecca. Yeah, of course. Golf. If you're a big golfer like I am. But do you know who Brene Brown is? She does like a lot of TED talks and stuff like that. She's I would say like a motivational speaker. OK, we watched a video from her in one of my group sessions. And it it was a turning point for me. She lives by this mantra of it's acronym. The word is braving. Braving. Braving, which stands for boundaries, reliability, accountability, vault, integrity, non-judgment and gratitude. OK. And so that I literally tattooed on my arm now. Wow. And I live my life that way daily. Yeah. You know, like I was saying to you before we started, like I didn't hear I didn't have boundaries. I didn't know what boundaries were. Yeah. I knew what the word was, but I never. You never applied it. I never know. And now it's like, look, I have to have boundaries, whether it's with my mom or it's with the band, you know, with regular people. I when I'm not working, I introduce myself as Alex. I'm like, you know, I know you know me is so and so. But like, hey, you know, I'm not in Backstreet Mode. Right. Which leads me to why everything I'm doing solo is under my real name. Yeah. I want to introduce the world to Alex. Because that's who you are. Exactly. That's who I am at my my, you know, authenticity. That's that's the true lesson learned of this entire journey is authenticity. Yeah. And I was not living a true authentic life. And it's why now you could say things like that, the stats. Yeah. And I'm like, hell, yeah. Yeah. I I'm so grateful that we have that. And really, there's no other group that I can think of outside of you guys that are still doing it and doing it well. From Vegas to touring to all of it. You guys are still where you were. It's a blessing if if not bigger. It's a blessing. That's the thing. It's like. It's weird. I feel like something about Vegas. Re-envigorates the fans and the artists. It does. And because how how long were you guys there? How long was the residency? We were there for six years. Yeah. Damn. So so we are at the Mirage for six years. And yeah, like, I mean, at first, at least we had to convince Juan. Yeah. Of it, because he felt like that was the place where artists go to die. And that's not true. Same thing we thought. Yeah. Yeah. We thought it's not true. Wayne Newton. Yeah. Not that Wayne's better than he means, but like. But same thing when we did the very first residency, we we some of us thought the same. Yeah. Same way. But then you looked at, OK. Celine Dion, Elton John, Brittany, change that perception. Yeah. And then, you know, we go out there and it's. Well, the crazy. Well, Alex, the thing about Vegas is that it's always in a cycle of renewal. Yeah. Like, yeah, in the 60s, it was the rat pack and all that other stuff. But it recycled and then it became sunny and share and whatever. Then he recycled again. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. So so that that's that's the magic of Vegas. Like it always represents basically how I say it is the ones that at that moment in time have the disposable income and the good credit. So so so now we're that generation. Yeah. We have the jobs now and we have the the credit cards and the means to go and go and the girls can go on those girl trips and not you know, it's become the end game now for a lot of artists that want to do a residency because. It's easy on the body. You don't have to go on a tour bus and around from hotel to hotel. It was awesome. Even if you're young, young, young, you you may not want to travel around the world and do all this type of stuff. If you can be in one place, that's an international hub. Yeah. Why not? And it's fake. And now Sphere is. You know, that's the new end game. Now we're going to get more into that because I've heard so much about that venue and you haven't seen the show yet. I haven't. I haven't. I know why they came and and but I was we were going in and out. And especially this year, we've been doing a lot of moving around. But my wife and I tried to stay the time where you saw my other guy. And I was like, I had to go when I'm catching it. Thank God you guys are doing it next year. But we're going to. Yeah, we're going to we're going to go until they kick us out, essentially. Yeah. The rumor we heard was they're trying to get us to 100 dates, which nice would be insane. But after next after the next batch, we'll pretty much almost be halfway there. So there you go. And then, you know, they got a rotate because I heard that a metallic is doing a stint there, too. Yeah, I heard. And you got no no doubt coming up. They're coming up in I think May of next year. Very cool. So we were the first pop act in there. And obviously our show is different than any of the previous bands, right? If you will, because, you know, we went and did some recon. We went and saw the Eagles. Yeah, because none of us had ever been in the venue. So we didn't know what to expect. And I love to know we walked out with neck pain because you're looking up everywhere. Yeah, that's you know what? Let's let's let's talk about that. There's a lot of questions I got to ask, but that let's let's get into that since we're on that topic, like the experience of that venue, the sphere. Like. Take walk me through it because is the entire roof and ceiling and wall a screen? Like, so you're looking at every feet. Yeah, it's about 150 feet high, 300 feet wide. It you can only shoot content on one camera. Right. It's called a big sky camera. It shoots in 16 K. So like we're sitting here thinking I got a 4 K or 8 K TV and I'm a bad ass. No, 16 K. And again, there's only one camera in the world that can shoot. Now, look, a lot of the content is digitized. It's made on a computer and with a whole system. But we shot five vignettes, if you will, on the big sky camera, because otherwise we would look like little pixels. Sure, sure. But we were the only act so far to actually shoot content for the show. Yeah. But when we went and saw the Eagles, we were in. Mr. Dolan Suite, which is like the president suite, right? Smack dab in the middle. Right. You're in the perfect spot to see everything. And even Don Henley came out and said, you know, hey, we're just the house band tonight. You guys, you guys enjoy the movie that you're watching. The house band. Like you're one hell of a house band. Right. Right. Exactly. And shockingly, I knew every song. I was like, wow. But I mean, it's the Eagles. Yeah. But if you go back, well, now eight years, my wife and I were having dinner and we were talking about music. We always somehow end up talking about music and about. You know, tours and whatever. And yeah. And she was like, you know. What would be really cool? She's like, no act of your caliber has ever recreated their biggest tour ever. She's like, I missed Madonna's like a virgin tour because my parents didn't want me to go because it was provocative. Right. She goes, I missed Janet's velvet rope tour. She's like, if these artists would go back and recreate their biggest tour. People's minds would explode. It's a good idea. So I was like, I think you're on to something. It's a great idea. So and recreating the Millennium tour exactly the way, like in the round, fly on the surfboard is the whole thing. So I went and I pitched it to the guys. They said, no, we were in a different mindset. You know, we were doing, I think at that point, the inner world like this album, then the DNA album. And then finally they were like, you know what, let's do it. Yeah. We sit down with the powers that be everybody at Live Nation, William Morris, our publicist or management. Yeah. The guys are like, OK, throw out the pitch. Right. So I pitch it. Everyone's on board and then radio silent. And I'm just like, OK, so is this not happening? Because it was supposed to happen this year. Yeah. So I reached out to our managers and I'm like, so what's going on with this tour? They're like, well, we might have something else in the pipeline, but we don't want to tell you guys until it's 100 percent. Sure. Sure. Sure. So we had heard rumblings about us going back to Vegas. So we were we were reaching out to different hotels and seeing if there's any new venues coming up. We were trying to actually go to a smaller venue. OK. To make it more intimate so we can actually spend more money on production. Right. Because truly, the biggest theater venue there is at Plano Hollywood. Right. If you open upstairs, it's like seven thousand. Seven thousand. Yeah. We were looking at like Foltair, which is fairly new at the at the at the Venetian. Yeah. And you know, nice place. Yeah. And a couple of other spots. And then they dropped this in our lap and we're just like, whoa, spear. OK. Yeah. So that's when we went and did our little recon and we started brainstorming and then we got with this incredible guy named Baz Halpin. Baz did you too. We did the Eagles. OK. I want to say he did. Grateful, dead. I think he did fish. OK. So he understands the venue. OK. Silent House is is the production, one of the many production companies that does this stuff. So it took eight months to build the show. Yeah. You know, going through the content, having conversations about. Right. You know, first, we had to get the set list, which took forever. Yeah. We had like 40 songs in the show. Right. But the irony is when we did the Millennium Tour, it was in 99. We were going into Y2K 2000. Everyone thought the world's going to explode. Right. But we wanted this futuristic show. Right. So we flew in on the surfboards to the Star Wars theme. Sure. It was all future. Sure. Now we have the best of all worlds. We're in the most state of the art venue in the world. Doing this 25th anniversary celebration of the Millennium album. And instead of touring it, this is like this is the best of all worlds. Perfect. And so the merge between the two was just destiny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And perfect timing. The show, you know, we put up the first six shows they sold out in 20 minutes. Crazy. We kept adding. So we did 21 shows for the first round. And what's the capacity for that place? So capacity without the floor, I believe, is around 15,000. OK. We opened up the floor because we wanted GA. We wanted our fans because, again, we're still doing our show. Yeah. We're dancing. We're running around. Right. If there was no GA, the first row in the 100 sections is probably like 75 feet away from you. Yeah. And that sucks. Yeah. We want to be able to actually sure touch you. Sure. You know, sure. So we open up the floor. So we're we're roughly between 18, five and 20. Awesome. A show. Every show. Every show. You know, I'm telling you, sick, man. Dude, from what I've no, I've seen it. Well, and, you know, obviously I'm in industry, so you hear about it. I've seen the video. We'll never we'll never get to see the show. That's what sucks. So the opening day, the week prior, we were in rehearsals from 11 p.m. till 6 a.m. There was the only window of time we could get in the venue because of the other things happening, like the the movies and like the other whatever things they have going on there. So and they have to pull things out. We have to load in our stage and all this stuff. So day before we finished at six in the morning, morning of the first show. And we're all dead, but they canceled all other events that day. So we could come in and watch the show, watch your show. And we were all too tired. So that was our only was our only chance to see it. Wow. So opening night, we're like singing and trying to like take a peek. And you can't you can't appreciate it or see it. And then you get disoriented. Right. You know, you kind of lose your balance. So like that went out the door quickly. I'm not going to do that anymore. But I heard that's another thing, too, that like, depending on where you sitting, you're sitting in this fear, you can really get like, you know, vertigo. There is a disclaimer. What's the best seat in the house? In my opinion, the best seats in the house are sections 205 to 207 and 305 307. You are right smack dab in the middle and you will get the full projection. There's nothing. Now, if you're in a suite, sure, you're in a suite, but there is an overhang on the suite. So unless you're sitting in the front of the suite, you won't really get to see what's above you. And we don't we don't really utilize except maybe two or three songs where there is something happening above you where you don't want to miss it. Right. So I've told people and this is not for anything more than just appreciating the show. You got to see it more than once. He's going to have people fighting over those sections. Like you do need to see the show more than once. 205 the prices went right. Right. Exactly. No, you do need to see the show, I would say, to anybody more than once to really see everything. I would think so. Because if you like, especially if you're going to do GA, cool, you're coming to a regular concert. Yeah. If you want to see everything, you got to go to a seat. You got to be back. You got to like put yourself in a place. And again, there really is truly no bad seat in the house. Right. If you really think about it. Yeah. Because of how big that screen is, there is no bad place. But I will say, yes, there is a disclaimer, not just for our show. I think for all, if you suffer from motion sickness, yeah, take a dramamine show up drunk. Right. Yeah. No, it's funny because a friend of mine said, told me like, yo, it's not bad. Do not drink in certain sections because you will throw up. Well, yeah. And I, I so I put this thing out probably about maybe four or five months before we did the first show. I said, I want everyone to come dressed in either Millennium Blue or an all white to commemorate. And I thought it was going to happen just for the opening weekend or opening night. And that was it. It is continued for all 21 shows. You're looking out at a room full of orderlies. Is essentially what it looks like. Mental patients. Right. Right. Right. No, but. And, you know, I'll say every couple of shows like, hey. How many of you were scared to wear your outfit tonight? And, you know, you have the crowds like, yeah, I'm like, how many of you are drinking wine right now? You probably shouldn't. Don't have any pasta. You know, I will pick you out if you're if you spill on yourself. Right. And there's maybe like, there's maybe like, I'd say five percent of the crowd. Is not wearing white. You know, or they have just like a white T-shirt and black pants. It's usually guys. Yeah. But there's a lot of guys coming to the show. A lot of guys. Yeah. Straight men. Yeah. Just. Yeah. Just. Having a blast, man. I want to be there. I want to be there. I want to be there. I mean, look, we it's it is a show for everyone. And it's an I'll I'll I'll just nip it in the bud with this. It's an experience. Yeah. As a whole. It's not just coming and going on this musical journey of literally we do every song from the Millennium album. Every single song. Summer done in medley form, but we do every song. And then we sprinkle in the rest of our hits. I saw clips of it on their show on YouTube and and was like, it's like a Disney ride. Like it's it's amazing. It starts off with a spaceship and it's like it's like it's like next level. And at one point we are 75 feet above the stage on this like big pod. We're obviously we're harnessed in. Of course. Brian is mortified of heights. So he has a really he has an oh shit handle as we call it. Sure. Sure. Sure. But we're literally parallel with like the two and three hundreds. That's crazy. And we're only up there for like a song and a half. But it's it's pretty intense. But it's visually it's insane because what's happening on the screen and what's happening as we're lifting. It's like this elevator effect. So it that really messes me. Any of my friends that went and saw the show said that's the part that they had to close their eyes. Yeah. Really because it does look like we're fucking moving. Yeah. And it definitely is like. Yeah. Well, congratulations. Thank you to you and the fellas. Are you motion sickness? Do you have a would you get really would you get fucked up in this? I mean, I don't think so. I mean, I don't think I'll be like super sick or anything like that. I guess it depends. Just like you said, if I take half a drama mean you're fine. Yeah. You might fall asleep in the show. Is it worse as a fan or is it harder as the artist in the venue? Because you said Brian has a no, I mean, that's the only moment that we're that we're in any kind of. Parallel which we're not in parallel at all. No, I think that's the only moment for us. And then for the fans, I mean, they're they're getting the best of all of it. But I think, you know, the the the way the show happens and like the flow of the show, it's, I don't know, it's probably the easiest show we've ever done. Yeah. Because you really are heavily relying on what's happening. The vision. Yeah, it's it's it's an experience. It's it's it's deeper than the music. And honestly, that's what you go. And the sound in there is. Yeah. And that's what you go. It's a six hundred. One hundred sixty six thousand speakers like that. Yeah, I mean, you got to cover that whole. Yeah, it's it's it's it's insane. Well, like what I would I would recommend for those who are watching, even if you're not a Backstreet Boys fan or anything like that, you go for the experience. Like. Check out the production and how the songs intertwine with the production and all those other things. Yeah, if you're going to Vegas, you don't know one song with your friends or you're going on a date night, just go see a show. Go see that. Go see. Go see the show. Like I'm asking you to wear white if you don't want to wear white. That's up to you if you're just coming into Vegas. But anybody that wear white. Yeah. Anybody that appreciates a good show, you will appreciate this one. And I'll just leave it at that. Whether you know every song or you know one song, like just go for the experience and they they from what I've seen, they put on a hell of a show. So and I think everybody will enjoy it young and old, bigger, small. All right. Well, all right. Let's let's take that journey. Let's go back though. I always like to do a segment called we were going to go back way back back in the time. All right. So we're going to start off when what you said that all I thought of was Black Street. Yeah, exactly. Going back. Way back. Yeah, exactly. You've got your exact. Exactly. So let's let's start when what year were you 10 years old? What was that year on that time? I suck at math, dude. Yeah. So that would be 1988. 88. All right. That's a good year for music. You're 10 years old. I always choose around 10 or 11 because that's the real formative years for boys and girls because they're no longer babies and they're transitioning into what they're going to become. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hopefully by then. Yeah, around that time. So around that time, what was popping in your house in your Walkman? Like what were you listening to? Yes. What were you listening to that developed the AJ sound? Like what made you say I'm going to be a singer? What are these artists and that those songs? So I grew up in musical theater. So singing was already kind of in me, but I, I, it wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a dancer. Okay. My dream was to be a backup dancer for either Michael or Janet. Like that was my dream growing up or to be on Broadway. Like those were the options. But around 10, I was listening to, if it was my mom's choice, I was listening to like Three Dog Night, Zeppelin, Skinner. You know, kind of that rock stuff. Me on my own discovering a lot of Prince, Stevie, David Bowie, Queen, Michael, CCR, Al Green, Teddy Penegras. I just loved any of that vibe. That makes a lot of sense because and it's no slight to the rest of the guys in the group, but out of the five. I believe you have the most soulful voice out of all five. Like you have the grit, you have the R&B in your throat, you have the rock, you have like you, you embellish everything that you mentioned because and you can hear it. Like you can tell that you have more of a broader power. I try to emulate things I heard, like, and then make it my own. You know, I couldn't do a run to save my life until Drew Hill came out. Okay. And when Drew Hill came out, a lot of people told me that Cisco and I had that similar grasp. So I would try to emulate his runs and then make them my own. Yeah. Because. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. All that. There's an ad lib that is in three Backstreet Boys songs, which is, which is very similar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just morphed. Right, right, right, right. But yeah, like that was a turning point for me as far as riffs and runs. Yeah. You know, we listen to you guys shy and Jodicy. Okay. And Color Me Bad. And I think that's the core that we listen to. That really inspired us to kind of develop our sound. It's funny. I did too. But like, yeah, we, you know, and then I would try to go toe to toe with your runs. And then Juan was just another level. I was just like, but. At first ten or so. But what really, what, what to this day, and it's still, I still play it. I'm not bullshitting you. I still play it probably four times a week. Every week have been visions of a sunset to this day. Come on. Is just such a great record. And what's crazy is I never saw the movie. I never saw Mr. Hanzo. But I mean, I, I love it. It is a good movie. Yeah, it's a good movie. But that song just that was my like, when can I see you again? Type of comparison. Like it's just, there's just some songs. That stick. Is that a baby face record? Which one? When will I see you again? No, no. Oh, that is. Oh, visions. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you wrote it. Yeah. That's this. This is my record. Like I did it for this. Yeah. That's my. Yeah. My first concert though. My first concert. I was. I want to say five. Was the victory tour. And I wish I see. And I, but I fell asleep. So I saw it. No, listen. I saw the intro. They came out in their sparkly jumpsuits. Yeah. Yeah. I think I made it through two more songs and then I fell asleep. My mom was just like, she was going to watch it. But, but what's funny is as an homage. The intro to the Vegas show. Yeah. We come out with larger than life. And I was driving around LA. Oh, I heard the music. And I was listening. I heard it. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, hold on a minute. Yeah. Almost the same key. So I hit up our creative director's Richard. I'm like, can we, yes. Yes. You know, Keith, Keith Harris. Yes. Of course. So that's our MD. Yeah. So I was like, Keith, can you make this happen? Don't tell the boys. I just want to see if they even notice. And so we got the whole second versus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I pushed it. I kept going. So on get down. Yeah. For years I've wanted to add get down. On it. Yeah. Yeah. So we threw that in there now. We have to. Yeah. Like a little homage. That's the fun thing about live shows is that you can just throw shit in. Like, you know, it's all a matter of just. Well, plus we've been doing these songs. Both of us for years that it's like. We want to make it fresh for us. It gets a little Monday. But what I do love about both of us. Is that we've never done, which, which is a testament. We don't change the melodies because the fans want to come. They want to sing along. Yes. And if you, they don't care if you remix it necessarily. But if you start messing around with the melodies. Yeah. That's that's a buzzkill for me. Like if I see a concert and someone's like. Thank you. I agree. No, no. AJ just dropped the jewel guys. Yeah. And this is something that we were actually taught very early in our careers when we were first performing and, you know, doing our shows and stuff. You know, we're singers. So it's like, you know, we were saying, please don't go away from me. And we would just go on a tangent. We go all this other stuff. And our role manager got rest of soul color roundtree. Would pull us to the sides. Hey man. Don't do that. Yeah. He was like, you know, people come to hear the song, how they fell in love with it. Like if you go too far from it, then now, and I've noticed that like when you go too much on a tangent, you got people not watching anymore, but just kind of not enjoying it anymore, but just watching you. Yeah. Opposed to being involved. Like the whole point of performing is for people to somehow get them involved. Exactly. In the actual experience of the show. So they feel just as much as part of it as you are. And even now, like we sing the melody, you might hear us kind of hit a flip, but other than that, the heart and soul of it is still the same. Very true. But there are other artists that I've seen, not just maybe not even live, but just I've seen them online or whatever. They do too much. I know Beyonce does it where she'll switch the melodies around sometimes and you're just like, man, I want to sing along with you. That's the key right there. I want to sing with you. You want to sing. I don't sing. Why don't you go to a concert with you? You want to be able to sing along with your favorite artist when you go see a show. That's it. And if you're singing along and all of a sudden it's like a curve ball, you're like, wait, what? That's true. And then it takes you out of it. That's true. Sabrina last night, you were there two nights ago. I went and saw Sabrina. Yeah. Imagine Espresso, she changed it up. My daughter would have been able to sing along. Yeah. My 10 year old wants to sing along. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I joked with my, with my daughters. I was like, we took my girls to see Tate McCray, who in my opinion, my daughter went to go see. And my opinion, she is our new Brittany in retrospect. Yeah. And I'm sitting there like I'm looking at this room full of young girls dressed like they shouldn't be dressed. Right. Sabrina's show too. About 70% of gay men and then, you know, dads with their, you know, kids and all the dads, I'm looking at all the dads and they're all like trying not to react to her. Yeah, for sure. Looking as amazing as she looks. Yeah. Same with Sabrina, but Sabrina was like, she's a theater kid, you can tell. Yes, yes, yes. And her banter and like she, she's a little bit of like Taylor, a little bit of Brittany, a little bit of, she is a little bit of all of it. Yeah. And, and, you know, she's a Disney kid, but she's one of those Disney kids that made it out. Her performance in the Grammys was my favorite one where she was poking fun of herself. Well, that and then SNL, her performance. So funny. And I didn't even catch the little details. Did you notice when she's singing on the bed? That heart shaped bed. Well, that, but she's singing into a hairbrush. Did you notice that? No, I didn't see that. No. She's singing a hairbrush that they covered the microphone in. Right. Cause she's, you know, she's in her vanity and all this, but it's a freaking hairbrush. Yeah. Like that detail was so cool. I love that. She also sang on a toilet, which was weird, but all right. But because sometimes we sing on the toilet. I've written some of the best music. Me too. The bathrooms have the best acoustics. She's an old soul. You can see a lot of her production is like 60s and 70s. It was very, very fun built. I mean, like, yeah, even the old vintage cameras. The vintage cameras. It's a lot of vintage references. It was, it was a very, very fun show. She's a modern day Lucille ball slash, you know, like, like, you know, she has those elements and that's why I appreciate her because she knows what she can do. And that's really all it is. Like I hate singing snobs. And what I mean by that is people who expect a person to hit an 88 note riff and shit, you know, in order for them to say, yeah, well, that's a good singer. Everybody don't have those abilities and that doesn't make them not good singers. It doesn't make them not able to sing. Everybody isn't Beyonce. Everybody isn't Whitney Houston. And that's the beauty of music. You get taste and flavors of different artists and their perspectives and their story through their voices and all of that other stuff. So like, I don't I don't trip off it. I hate to for cross Michael McDonald. Yeah, like, I never heard Christopher Cross hit a riff in his life. No, but his voice. Yeah, I mean, Michael McDonald. Yes, he'll do some riffs. Yeah. But you know, even Kenny Loggins, like he can do some runs. But like when I first heard him growing up, no idea he was a white guy. No clue. No, no. I mean, Michael McDonald. Yes. Yes. You know, they definitely had a lot of black. Why is singing the only, I guess, category that we judge. We don't judge sports like that. We think Tom Brady is great. Randy Moss is great. Right. They play different positions, but they're great football players. But singing, we judge them on how high of a note they can hit. And that's it. Yeah. Why is that? But I think like he said, there's the singing stops. There's the people that that they, they, they set this unrealistic bar. Yeah. As the listener of what they expect is like the standard. Yeah. And it's like, but that's not the standard for everyone. No. But I mean, I'm sorry, but the perfect, perfect person to put in this is Taylor Swift. She doesn't do any runs. Right. But her lyrics are genius. Her melodies are genius. Right. And she is a well, like a Joni Mitchell freaking, you know, Carly Simon, right? It's what she takes you on a journey and you don't need that. It's the heart she puts into it. And it's the same. But those of us that can do that. Awesome. Good, good, great. Awesome. That's great too. That's our thing. And that's great too. But my point is the moral of this is that's great too. You know what I mean? Like if you can sing just Melody, Shade, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, you heard what I just, who I just mentioned. Go listen to him. You understand what I'm saying? Go listen to him and watch how they make you feel. Yeah. And because that's what it really is, isn't it? It's about the frequency of how it stirs the water in your body. Yep. And everybody has those different types of frequencies and they interpret them in different ways. You don't always have to do, you know, 80 riff run. And just like we just before mentioned, a lot of times a lot of those singers that can do that do it too much. Yep. And then it becomes inundated with the same riff over and over again. You blew your voice out before the show was over. Everybody's tired because everybody just wanted to hear the song the way it was, but you didn't give it to them that way. You may not ever see those people again because you killed them the death, you know, with, you riffed them the death. Right. You know, so. What's interesting is you mentioned a word that made me think of Charlie talking about frequencies and talking about how like there is a certain freak. There's different frequencies in music that trigger different emotions. Exactly. And like, you know, there's been a couple of songs that I've written for my, for my solo project that I was messing with the key because maybe, you know, in my mind it wasn't too high, but then when we put it on, you know, put it into motion, I was like, oh, I sound like I'm like I'm squawking, but how do we find that frequency that makes you feel happy? Like there is a certain frequency. There's a certain frequency. Tempo. Yes, it is. That makes you feel happy. There's certain ones that make you feel sad or. That's right. That's very true. And it's, it's crazy that I never thought of it that way. And now like even going into this process, making this album, I was like really heavily thinking about like, okay, this song is about this. So I want the frequency to be this so that you really feel what I'm singing about or what I'm trying to convey to you, whether it's a sad song or it's an uplifting song or it's just a party song. Yeah. I want to find that sweet spot. Yeah. Well, we're going to, we're going to get into that. But first I have to ask this for the viewers and the listeners out there because if anybody that knows anything about the back, the back street boys. A weird smile on your face. No, no, no, no, it's good. It's good. It's fun. It's fun because once he hears the question, he's, you know, he's going to smile too. Um, as long as it's not about how he's fart. Oh, how's, uh, oh, no, that's a, that's a classic. I shared that in a Rolling Stone interview years ago. Hold on. Let's, let's, let's get to how we's fart. How are you being called up? Yeah. Dude, I'm sorry. I'm bringing it up again. All right. So, all right. Please, please express to us, you know, what is it with how we's fart? So we were, we were, we were recording the black and blue album. And we were, which is my favorite of you guys, by the way. By the way, we're shooting the album blue. Yes. Awesome. We were doing the call and there's a vocal breakdown that happens on the bridge. The ha ha ha. And at the end of that, it goes dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun So how he's hitting this high note, and he's going ha ha ha ha ha. And he farted right on beat in the key. So Max, Max the genius that he is. Kept the fart. Kept the fart, time stretched it, and made it into a synth. Come on. So it is in there. Now I gotta listen to it now. So it is literally the eh eh eh eh eh. That's how he's fart. Turned into musical genius. His flatulence is a synth. Yeah. Howie shout out to Howie. Sorry bro. I had to. With the fart intonation. Yo. He's crazy. He's been trying to have a rebuttal for that story, for me, for years. There is none. I would celebrate that story. None of them I can think of. I'm sure he'll think of something. Who can say that their ass cheeks have perfect pitch? Yes. Perfect pitch. Literally perfect pitch. Yo they're like perfect pitch. Like and rhythm. Who can do that? He was on beat in the right key. Yeah. That's Beyonce. We challenge you. Oh yeah. Toot it up girl. Yeah. Toot it up. Toot it up girl. You know what I'm saying? Eat those beans. But all right. Okay. Cause everybody knows that there was this. Cause it's the same thing with us, with us and Jodicy. Backstreet and insane. In sync of course. First off, where you go both signed to Lou? At the same time? Both with Lou, both with Jive. Lou Perlman by the way. Yes. Lou Perlman. We had the same management, same label, same producer. Okay. Max. Max. You don't know who Max is. Just look him up. Jesus. The great. Hands down. I will say the greatest songwriter, probably of all time. Yeah. He's pretty. He's up there. I mean, there is, he's worked with everyone and can do anything. Yeah. Change the face of pop music forever. Yeah. He's forever. He put in work. Forever. He put in work. Good old Swedes man. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we had Lou and then Johnny Wright, who is my solo manager. He was managing us as well. Yep. You know, they decided, let's manage this other group as well. To, this is what was said to us by Lou. To, to control the situation, to keep them out of your way. Yeah. So whenever you guys don't want to do something, they'll do it. If they don't want to do it, you'll do it, but you'll never cross paths. You'll never be doing the same thing. Yeah. And you can ask those guys, you know, ask any of those guys. We were coming off of whatever it was, a tour or something. We were burnt the hell out. And Disney asked us to do this special. I think it was either a Christmas special or something. We turned it down. NSYNC did it. And that was the kickoff for there. For there. Because we said no, that turned into what it turned into. Was there ever a friendly rivalry? There was, I think, you know, this is before social media too. So the only way for anyone to be pitted against each other was through the teen magazines or like Us Weekly or Entertainment Weekly or The Inquirer or any of those deals. And so that's where the media started this pit against us. But we never had an issue with them. They never had an issue with us. Everybody was able to coexist. Myself and Chris were the only ones that really butted heads because we dated the same girl two years apart. Always the girl, isn't it? And he was hearing that I was talking shit about him, which I wasn't. I was hearing the same from him, which he wasn't. And it took us years to finally let it be water under the bridge. And now we're like the best of friends. And he's such a great, he's a great dad. He's a great person. But again, it was so like cookie cutter, perfect, like duplicate. Like it was a complete clone, if you will. Sure. But, you know, if you were to ask my wife, she would say they were better dancers than you. You guys had better songs. That's what she would say. OK. And I was like, I mean, you know, they I think they had great songs. No, this is good. That's a good sound bite, because now everybody can debate friendly, of course. Yes. And because that's that's the fun of it. That's really. And to be honest, it benefited both groups because because you were able to create the BSB army and and sync was able to create their band of of brethren and sister and stuff like that. So it helped the brands of both groups. And if you look at like, I know you came out when we did the after party thing in Vegas, which is me, Nick, Joey and Juan. Yeah, you came out one night and then Joey and I went out and did a little tour together, which was never meant to be taken seriously and ended up doing 40 dates. Right. But and we kept telling everyone like that. We know you as fans want to see both groups doing a tour together. It's never going to happen. Right. This is the best you're going to get. Right. But you did look out in the audience and see the both these fans. Yeah. Coexisting. That's awesome. And Backstreet fans becoming in sync fans and vice versa. Yeah. And, you know, yeah. So I still want the dream tour. I would to break all tours, I think is you guys, us in sync. We get maybe Envogue. We get Drew Hill. Like we get the biggest like 10 of us. Yeah. And we do like a festival run. I think it would be the most insane thing. We would break the fucking Internet. Let's let's just say and I'll leave it at this that I know it's being talked about. I'm working on it. And and and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we should work on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm just I'm just keeping it at that. So like because this discussion has been. Hanging around for at least seven years. Pop Pallusa is what I wanted to call it. Yeah. And it's and what and what's so great about it is like we all start it. We all have a piece of it. But then you can make it a yearly thing like Lollapalooza, any of that. Yes. And we don't have to do every freaking time. No, you bring groups and artists from that. Absolutely. Time. All of that. And whether solo artists or whoever. And it could be the Blink 182s. It could be the Christina's. Basically, it's it's a plethora of artists. The 90s had some of the best music, if not the best music ever. Honor to me, 80s and 90s was the best music. I think like as a collective in every genre, obviously, you go back to the 60s and 70s. There's some bangers, sure. Yeah. Yeah. But as a collective, as a collective across the board. Yes. All genres. Yes. 80s and 90s. I think the 90s get the edge because what the 80s didn't have, the 90s had was the alternative genre. Yes. Right. That was the only thing that was that was around the first time. That was the first time ever you seen a group like Limp Biscuit do a song with red and meth. That was. Yeah. Yeah. I'm saying like, like you never seen that before. You know, outside of this way. We're in the right now. You have like groups like FGL and Nelly doing something together. Which countries no longer the same anymore. I mean, it's. But the 90s was the catalyst. Oh, 100 percent of that mentality. 100 percent. And it made people say that, oh, disc, if this can be done, then anything can be done. So all right, real quick. What year did Motown Filly come out? 1991. I mean, one May of 91. 91. OK. That's right. Yeah. 34. Because we. So I'm the founding member of the group. Ninety two is when I started and then we formed in 93. Because there was a different iteration of the group before the five that we all know. Oh, I see. There was two other members that didn't work out. OK. And we got Kevin and Brian came in to replace them. OK. But. Well, I got a question. Speaking of both groups. Well, I don't know this, but Backstreet Boys and Boys to Men did a song together. We did jealous. And it never came. Yeah. And it never came out. Which sucks. I shouldn't know. Please explain to me, because basically it was you guys a song. And we recorded it in Orlando. We thought it was great. And the next thing we know, it never came out. Why is that? I have no idea. I still ask myself that question. And where is it? I mean, it's just floating in the ether somewhere. It's, you know, it's done. It's mixed. It's mastered. We did it with Walter Avinasi. And I mean, it's. An incredible record. It was actually written by a friend of Brian's. I can't think of the kid's name. I think he's from Nashville and songs called Jealous. And I'm sure you could find it on YouTube. Like, I kind of feel like every song that we didn't want to find or didn't want people to find pops out whether someone leaves a CD behind in their hotel room. Right, right, right. I know I was infamous for that for the longest time. I'll take the blame. But I got a question. How does a record like that come together? Because you guys got multiple members of you guys each get a verse and a hook. And that's how it works. I mean, well, first off, at that time, we were both managed by Johnny. Right. Yeah. So Johnny, Johnny's the one that kind of put it all together. We did it at his compound, at his studio in Orlando. And. I mean, you know, it's a delicate blend. Like, I mean, because yeah, you can definitely work. How did it work? It's it's it's like eight voices. So like you would split the first verse. So like Nick started, I believe. Yeah, I don't remember how. But and then it goes into Sean. Yeah. And then the second verse, I think it was Brian and it goes into Nate. And then Juan and I. Like it was a freaking. I hate to say it, but like a full heart on moment for me. Like Juan and I go in toe to toe with Adlibs. And then we did two runs together in in harmony. And the fact that I could keep up with him. Like I was on cloud 15 when I left the studio that day. Oh, my God. It was a good time. Like there's pictures out floating with all of us together. Like, like we actually recorded something and it never came out. Yeah, yeah. So it's a beautiful record. It's such a great record. And we kind of just shrugged our shoulders. Why does the record like that get hung up? Is it clearance? I mean, it could have been the label at the time. You know, we I think we were still at Jive during that time. The label, I think, got to a place where they didn't know what to do with us anymore. Like we had gotten to this like pinnacle moment in their eyes. So like, what do we do with you now? What? Well, what you do with us is you maintain that. Right. But yeah, I don't know. That needs to come back around. You and I have a record together. I was about to say that was that was another question. That is coming. I'd say, yeah, AJ and I wrote a song, a record together on his one of his earlier solo efforts. It's a great kind of shrugged my shoulders. It was kind of like that one. No, so that one I actually want to put on when I put the album out in January, when we move into physical copies, I'm going to put bonus songs in there. Songs from like ours. Yeah, other ones that I've written in the past that never made the cut, but are just too good to not, you know, I've had a conversation recently with John Legend about possibly doing something together. Well, this new effort, tell us about it. Yeah, this has been four years in the making. You know, when I started the process, I really wanted to kind of do like like old school funk vibes, straight R&B. So we started in that direction. Yeah. And you know, as well as I like. Directions change to the recording process. Whatever mood you're in that day is what you're going to write about. Yeah. And then after I got back from Scottsdale, I wrote a song called Arizona and it was about my experience there. And I performed it in the tour I did with Joey and it's it's a game changer. Yeah. Fans have lost their mind over it and it's a beautiful record. And we get to hear all of this stuff. Yes. And that that was a turning point for me. That's where I was like, you know what? Normally, my mentality is if it ain't broke, take it apart, figure out why. No. That that that can't be the way I go into this anymore. So I'm like, look. People know me in the pop world, so stay in that world, but make it my own. Yeah. Like I don't need to reinvent the wheel. Yes. And there is stuff on the album that is heavily R&B, but it still has a pop flair to it. Yeah. You know, I have a record with Ty Dalla that is so dope. Such a very straight up 90s R&B record. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to Ty Dalla. Oh, he's my boy. He really gets it. He's such a good dude. Yeah. But the EP comes out literally in three days. Cool. On Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving. You know, normally new music, as you know, is on a Friday. Yeah. I've always been pretty nonconventional. So I was like, you know what? Fans have been waiting for this. I'm going to give you a Thanksgiving Day gift and it's and it's a Thanksgiving Day gift for myself to dig that to finally share this with everyone. So the EP drops, the EP's called Hi, My Name Is Alex. Yeah. Then the full album is My Name Is Alexander James. Cool. And that comes out when January 9th, my birthday. January, your OK, your birthday. My actual. I feel like that's a little dig back at Eminem, maybe he was fucking with you guys back in the 90s. No, he never fucked with us. He didn't see. Yeah, it was all. And he any any call. He had an issue with him. He literally called Chris Kropatric out in one of his songs, but he never. Yeah. He only just said the boy bands. He never said anything about us. Maybe he likes us better. Yeah, yeah, he's a BSB fan. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's been a it's definitely a still a dream of mine to do something with him because. I really look up to his recovery and his sobriety and just his journey. And I think him and I would would do something. Have you talked to Paul about it? Huh? You talked to Paul about it, wasn't I? I haven't talked to anybody about it. But yeah, I think I'd be sick. That would be dope. I love that idea. Hey, man. All right. So real quick, just for time restraints, we're going to get you some some get to have some fun. I love fun. Yeah. Why are you laughing? I don't know what you know. No, no, no, no, this is good. This is good. This is this is going to be a trick golf ball laugh over there. I see right now. No, really. So give us your top five bands. Top five bands. It doesn't matter if it's R&B, rock. It could be it could be the Wiggles. I don't care. But but like, no, no, no, no, no. They went black on my thing. Yeah, they did. Yeah. Top five bands. OK. Everybody. Queen. Queen. OK. I'm going to say it, boys to men. Thank you. 100 percent. Thank you, sir. Very sweet. Coldplay. I like coldplay. Shout out, Chris. Dooby Brothers. What? That's a new one. You don't hear that a lot, but they are dope. And Genesis. You don't hear that either. Well, Genesis, when Peter was still part of the Gabriel, yes, yes, yes. Because yeah, that's when they were in their deep God. They were so ahead of their time, so ahead of their time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's cool. I heard a rumor and I don't know if it's 100 percent true. But the way Peter was able to get that that known effect on his voice that we all hear is he would sing in the room, not in the studio, but in the room, in the main room. Against the speakers, it's a form of feedback. And then they would tweak it to where it sounded like it was doubled. Sick. And that's what I've heard from a certain engineers. Yeah. And so I've been dying to try it. It just has to be the right song. I was about to say, yeah, and that's pretty cool. And then you got to understand, too, like back then, they had a lot of analog. Oh, yeah. Machines and things that nature that you know, as I do, we our first album was on tape. Yeah. Two inch. Frickin. Yeah. For all the kids out there, like, they don't know what that is. Like, yeah. Two inch tape is basically a cassette, but really big. Yeah, really big. And and there was no there was no doubling. There was no. Yeah. Yeah. So like, I know you guys had to go in and get your harmonies as an ensemble. Yeah, couldn't do it individually. Well, or could you? Yes, we did. Really? We did. I don't think we might have sang. About a song, maybe a few songs where just me and one are in there. Like End of the Row, for example, me and Nate saying the. Uh, is that a. Like because face wanted both vocals to sing the same note, right, to add some sort of texture. Right. But other than that, every solo, every song we've done solo because that's that's I guess you could say that was kind of our secret sauce. Because when I'm listening to say Nate singing a harmony, which he sings it like a solo. Right. He sings it like a melody. So I'm hearing it and I'll go, OK. Cool, got it. So once he's done, I'm singing my solo with his solo. Yeah. And then one will go, all right, he'll sing a solo in his harmony. So a lot of times I'll sing from here. I'll go here for a second and then go back up. It's never been. We don't think that way. We've never thought that way. Like like the basic one, three, five stack, it's there. But we're crossing each other. We would always have like seven parts. Like, for example, larger than life. I think there's like six or seven harmonies. So obviously live, we pick the core five. Right. There's just no way. Right. But. And we would each go in and do each part five times. Yes. So like, I think there's like 75 tracks. Yeah. On just the chorus of larger or some crazy number like that. Yeah. And then it's just compressed and it's blended so well. But we would do a lot of. We would go in and do our individual parts. But then Max would have us come in after we got at the blend and do the same thing as an ensemble. Yes. To try to really, you know, but. Yeah, no, it's it's it's all those little little sauces. Yeah, that make our harmonies. You know, there is a different sound on tape. It is definitely a different sound. It would be cool to do like a whole album back on tape. The really retro vibe. It'd be pretty cool. People I heard still do it. I heard Tame and Paula still does it. Like I think I think Foo Fighters has done it as well. They have a couple of times. Yeah. I know David said that they've done a lot of stuff on tape because there's just it's a sound you can't emulate. No, you can't. You just can't. Only problem though, is that like when you do put it on tape, the way songs are compressed now. Yeah. It's still digitized. So it still takes some of that. Yeah, you're going to take it and then move it to be digitized. There's no. Yeah. And then it goes through mastering and they squish it again. Yeah. And then radio gets their hands on it. Then they squish it some more. So it's like it sucks because that's just how music is processed. Yeah, it loses its luster from the very beginning. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, I have one last question. Can I get one in before you do your last one? Go ahead. Nine inches. What? Because. Sorry. Good for you. Ladies now, you know, what doesn't do me any good. But there might be my give a show. I've been doing that for so long now, like somebody will be like, Hey, can I ask you a question? Nine inches. You just spit it out and they don't know whether to smile. Right. Right. You know, that could be interesting because that could be two different things for you because you're a golfer. That could be a putt that you missed. Yes, there you go. Yeah, there you go. See. There you go. Spoken like a true actor. You guys have such a great history of just creating great moments of music. Give us a behind the scenes moment that maybe we haven't heard before from you. Maybe a ward show or performance or something that that just the fans would love to hear. Wow. Well, there's there's one story that I know we've shared a few times, but it's it's one of those that that sticks with you. We were doing a festival show, like an outdoor show thing. And I want to say it was it was the four tops or the there was the four tops, the remaining members that were still alive at the time. And they were side stage watching us do our do our performance. And before we left, they they gave us a bit of advice. And they were like, always remember that this is show business. That's what we call it. We call it show business. Just remember while you're doing your show, make sure your business isn't running out the back door. And, you know, like you getting taken advantage of all these things that happen. And, you know, and we really took that to heart. And even though we still got bamboozled with the loose stuff, we, you know, we have since learned. And now we have way more control of our destiny than we ever have. And we've and we've owned up to that. Like now we we we take the bull by the horns. But only other one, I think that's kind of interesting is. We used to. We don't do it anymore because God, people would get pissed. But we used to do practical jokes like the last show of every tour was the practical joke show always tradition. Yeah. So we knew the last person on earth you want to mess with is always Kevin because, you know, it's it's Kevin. Kevin gets mad very easily. So we we had toasters. And for anyone that doesn't know out there what that is, it's a it's a lift that shoots you up like at whatever speed you want pops you up out of the stage. And we had it at the intro of our show. And we myself and Nick took Saran wrap and put it across the cover of his and put Vaseline on it. So when he shot up, it went all on his and he couldn't get it off. And he was so mad, so mad. He had to be mad. Of course. He did. Right. Right. Right. And then when he left us for six years to go, you know, start a family and, you know, go do Broadway. Just not a family. Yeah. He's like, Oh, screw you guys. I'm out. We we we didn't know what to do for the fans. So the last show. We we found a cardboard cut out of Kevin. So when we did this final moment, we had one cardboard cut out of him come up and we're all like, Hey, it's Kevin. But, you know, we yeah, we don't do we don't do that stuff to each other as much anymore. Nick was always the worst at the practical jokes. He tried to get Howie once. He's always messing with Howie for some reason. But how he'll get you back. Right. Oh, he'll get you back. And he did. Nick try how he wears like wardrobe underwear for every show. He won't wear his is like normal everyday underwear and sweating that and have to do laundry. He'll just wear his stage underwear. So we're getting ready for a show and Nick took Tiger Bomb and rubbed it on the crotch of how he's underwears. That's just mean. But that's grounds for an asshole. But how we are. That's just mean. He was pulling them on. He smelled it. Smelled it. So he goes, Oh, OK, all right. So he didn't put them on clearly. Nick didn't know that. So he how he then in turn took a little bit of the Tiger Bomb and put it on Nick's in ears. Oh, we're we're like two songs in and Nick's whole face, because he's pretty white. His whole face is turning purple. Oh, he pulls him out. He's screaming bloody murder at how he had told me what he did. Yeah, dying on stage. I just stopped singing. I'm just like, this is I'm like, good, good, good. Well done. Well done. Well done. It was so good. Well, bold. How we we can't. That sounds kind of dangerous. So I mean, you know, it definitely was dangerous. But yeah, you know, he's probably. Yeah. But it's no one. I mean, Nick's Nick's only got me once. I got him back tenfold. Do you know what niacin is? No, no. It's like a blood thinner that you take. It's it's it's right. I don't know exactly what I don't know what the benefits of one eight seven is. Yes. Yes. I don't know what. Remember that song by the way? You love is a one eight seven. Take you the white hair, brothers. I don't know what niacin is actually used for, but I know that it's a blood thinner. Nick came on my bus one morning and made me a cup of coffee, which right there I should have known. Right. You should. Yeah. You a. Don't come to my bus. Right. You damn sure don't make me coffee. Right. Right. Right. So he hands me the coffee and I'm looking at it. And the creamer is like super coagulated. And I'm stirring it and it just won't like smooth out. I'm like, all right, whatever, screw it. You know, sometimes the powder ones do that. So I drink it, 10 minutes goes by and my whole chest is just beat red. I'm itching. I'm thinking I thought I was having a panic attack. My poor wife, we had just been dating for maybe a few months. So she was kind of in on it, but she wanted to like him, I think, impressed the other why people and like fit in. Right. So she didn't give me any heads up. So I was pissed at her more than anybody. Right. But I found out afterwards what he did. And so I'm always the one that nine times out of 10, I like to host an end of tour party for our amazing crew, like a crew, you know, without the crew, there's no show. That's it. That's right. And so we were at this place called Gillians. It's like, you know, they have bowling. Like a day in the busters. Yeah. So I went to a G and C that afternoon and I got a bottle of nice guys. Red, I put three in his shot of whiskey that he did. Dude, there was like these jumbo fans in one section of Gillians because their air was off the. He was so out of it and he was red from head to toe. Just like freaking out. He turned the fan on and took his shirt off. And it's just like, he had no idea what happened because he was drinking. He's having fun. He didn't think anything of it. I finally told him like a few months later, I was like, dude, I told you I was going to get you back. So you know, I told you I wanted to go to a show. I don't want to go to the end of the tour. I don't think you want to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you might be drinking some weird shit. Drink. I'm cool. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Yo, bro, I got you. Jesus, man. Well, thank you guys. You guys did pranks with each other. With each other, but not life threatening pranks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've definitely learned over the years. Yeah, I mean, we, yeah, we don't cushion. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, you know, that's a good thing to the problem with with us is that if it got to like throwing hands. Yeah. Yeah. Like we yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we we we be boxed. I mean, we're like brothers. So like we're going to have moments. Right. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Nick and I have been in the most physical fights over the dumbest shit. Yeah, it's always the dumbest shit. And it was yeah, like it's never anything logical. I'm an only child. All four of them have siblings. So these are my brothers, right? So literally, sure. And metaphorically, but they are my brothers. Yeah. So like I didn't get to do that with anybody. So, you know, I'm going to have my fun. Yeah, my temper set up. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. You put your mom in here. Yeah. Yeah. It's a rat. Put it on your on your grip. So your one exposed hand is just like on fire. Fire. Yeah. Yeah, buddy. All right. Last question. What is your favorite restaurant, sir? My favorite restaurant is a place in New York called Tatiana's Tatiana. My friend, chef Kwame Anowache. OK, it's his restaurant named after his sister. It's Afro Caribbean. It is the most insane. Dude, next time you're in New York, for sure. And what's it called again? It's called Tatiana's Tatiana's in Lincoln Center, right next to the Opera House in Juilliard. OK, it's nice and small boutique. He has another one in D.C. And I believe he's opening up one in Las Vegas as well. Best food in the world. That and then close second, which is here. When I was in Scottsdale for that stint, I was introduced to a place called there. It's called Stake 44. OK. Here at Stake 48. OK. It's in Beverly Hills. Yeah. Wonderful. If you like steak. Yeah. Best steak. To me, the only one I've never been to is Peter Lugers. And like, I know, like that's the supposedly the crème de la crème. OK. To me, it blows out Del Frisco's. Any of them. OK. It's the best. All right. So all right, let's just say for the sake of this question. We're in Stake 48. You're having a nice wagyu steak, you know, tender, beautiful. Yes. You look at the entryway of the restaurant and in walks a younger version of Alex. He's looking for you. OK. He's trying to get some jewels of wisdom and understanding of what he's to prepare for and how to, I guess, look forward to having a good life in his future. So he sits down. Waiting with bated breath to hear what you have to tell him to become a better Alexander. So what would the older Alexander say to the younger Alexander? Get a good lawyer. No. It's good advice. Yeah. No, it is. It really is actually. I would tell him two things. True victory is victory over one self. We have that battle within ourselves that once we. Get over that hump and we can truly love ourselves first and put ourselves first. We'll be just fine. And the only way around is through. So whatever the journey is you're about to partake in. Good or bad, you have to go through it to come out the other end. I just want to say that. You are one of the more genuine souls I've met in the industry. And I don't say that a lot, a lot about a lot of people. Thank you. I just want you to know that. You are fine, just the way that you are. You are who you are for a reason. And you make a difference being who you are. And it's OK. You are AJ, but you are Alex, too. Yep. And they both can coexist. They can. You can be part of that amazing group, but you can also be that amazing soloist, loving husband and father. You can have it all because if you couldn't, then it would be metaphysically impossible for you to do it. And here you are, you're doing it. I just want to say the sweet spot in life is not necessarily happiness, but peace. Yes. And balance. Yes. So once you find peace, then you can sit amidst the tempest and still find peace in that storm. And I'm getting there. Yeah, I know you are. I know you are. So. Just know that you're on the right track, you're on the right journey. And as long as peace is your ultimate goal, you'll be just fine. Ladies and gentlemen, this is my good friend. His name is Alexander McLean, AJ McLean. Give it up for him. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Hey, y'all. And that was on that note. Hope you guys enjoyed it. And if you did, there's a couple more videos for you to check out. Do not forget to like, comment and subscribe.