New Kids on the Block by Nikki Van Noy

Author:Nikki Van Noy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A Touchstone Book

chapter

08

Hold On

We were all on our own island, and it was just a bummer.

—Joe

Donnie likens fame to riding a ship over a wave. Up until 1990, he says, NKOTB were sailing up the crest. As they rode, there were different elements to contend with: finding autonomy within the group, grappling with the public perception of NKOTB, dealing with the media, and working with the record company and its demands. And then, he says, “The fans are like a storm, brewing all the while. You need those winds desperately to make the ship go, but those winds can become so loud and violent. You’re trying to just stay steady on the ship: I just want to call my girlfriend, I just want to hug my mother, I just want to walk down the street in my old neighborhood. Or I just want the world to know who I really am. I don’t want to be the thing —the cartoon character.”

In the midst of all of this, the guys had very little control—particularly as time wore on. Donnie explains, “Meanwhile, it doesn’t matter what we say or do. We’re going up this giant wave anyway. The fans are blowing the winds in our sails. The ship is going up this giant wave, and the press is exacerbating it all the way. And guess what? There’s only one way to go, man: down.”

As 1990 wore on, storms began brewing. In November, pop duo Milli Vanilli confessed that they hadn’t actually sung on their multiplatinum, Grammy-winning album, Girl You Know It’s True. The scandalous story made headlines everywhere and resulted in the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences withdrawing Milli Vanilli’s Grammy Award for Best New Artist, awarded just a few months earlier. Although this obviously didn’t overtly involve NKOTB, an accusatory spotlight was also turned on other groups in the wake of the scandal. Because the New Kids were the biggest pop act in the world at the time, they were often mentioned in articles about the fiasco, for no other reason than that they dwelled in the same genre. For Jordan, these types of media-ignited firestorms made performing difficult. He says, “It was really awful the way the press just threw us in without even considering or giving us any benefit of the doubt. We just got thrown under the bus. The media was really bad to us. We got hammered. But what was worse was I had a tough time singing on TV—like, I would panic. I had bad stage fright. On certain shows, my voice would quiver because it just seemed like so much pressure to perform well. People didn’t give us a break, we had to be perfect. So I put that pressure on myself, and it backfired all the time. It was a mental condition. I couldn’t get over it.”

After finishing up the American leg of the Magic Summer tour, the guys went on the road for another hundred shows, this time internationally. Then it was back to the United States for another arena tour at the beginning of 1991.

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