Drew Lachey

They hadn't come to the States yet.

They had done Germany and then they were kind of making their way

from Europe to the States and we were in the States making our way to Europe and we kind of met in the middle and we were the only two American groups on the tour and you know all the same age all kind of at the same you know level of coming up in the business and we just hung out we became friends then you know Backstreet we never had that same kind of experience together we never were on the road together but we all

we all walked a similar path, you know?

So there was a level of respect and appreciation and for, for whatever way went through, uh, the grind, uh, the success.

I mean, you look at those two groups and you're like, all right, it's, it's, we're, we're in some good company there.

Um, you know, but yeah, we, we've all, especially as time has gone by, like I'll text Chris and Joey and, you know, it's usually something wildly inappropriate and just, you know, cause that's,

That's the relationship.

You're still teenage boys at heart.

We are, we are, we are gray hair.

Uh, but you know, we still have the same mental capacity that we had as teenagers.

Yeah.

Were you guys all being shopped the same songs?

Like were people did, did everyone make the rounds to see who, you know, who was going to get which song?

I'm sure there was an element of it.

I think once Insane Backstreet kind of got into the Max Martin camp, that was kind of their world and no songs left that world.

We had our own Swedish mastermind, Anders Bagge, you know, who did like Because of You and No Shame, those songs for us.

But I know our first single, Invisible Man, that was originally written for Boyz II Men.

And we stole it before it ever made it to them.

So I'm sure there was some sort of like, hey, I'm just going to send this to all the labels and see which one bites first.