Now, 20 years after their first hit and 14 years since they split up, NKOTB are doing it again. Neil Davey finds out if they've still got The Right Stuff.
For Danny Wood, it was the dolls. "I mean the animal dolls," he explains. "Not the action figures, we had these stuffed animal dolls. They were creepy looking."
For Jonathan Knight? "The slippers."
At the height of their fame, New Kids on the Block were the subject of some very strange merchandising choices. "And do you remember the marbles with our heads in them?" asks Danny. He shakes his head firmly. "None of that's happening this time around…"
Ah yes. This time around. The reason two fifths of the band are reminiscing about seeing their faces in strange places is because Danny, Jon and their three bandmates - Jon's brother Jordan, Joey McIntyre and Donnie Wahlberg - are now older, wiser - and, most importantly, back. While it's almost too soon to call it a nostalgia boom, with the recent Take That and Spice Girl reunions there's clearly something in the air. However, the two are adamant that there was nothing planned calculated about the reunion.
"It's something we've thrown around for a couple of years,' explains Danny. 'It just happened that we were all at a point in our lives where we could put other projects aside and do it." So is it a driving ambition to great pop back to the world? Or was it the chance to record with The Pussycat Dolls? 'Hey, that's a good a reason as any…' says Danny with a laugh.
"If we were going to do this, it was going to be our plan, we were going to do it our way and we were going to make the decisions between the five of us," continues Danny. "And at first it was music. Donnie found a song called Click, Click, Click and that spearheaded everything. From there it just had a snowball effect. We started recording and everything progressed. We didn't even talk about touring, and what our ultimate plan was. I think it was very natural, it wasn't calculated."
"This is what we do,' adds Jon. 'Getting back into it wasn't as difficult as people on the outside might think. It's just what we do."It's fair to say that things have worked out. At the time of writing, the comeback album The Block is riding high in the US charts and the band have sold over 300,000 tickets to their US tour - and adding to that figure by about 6000 a day. 'The fans have come back like we never expected,' says Danny.
The guys are clearly genuinely surprised by the level of support. "It wasn't until we decided to get back together and put our website together…" reveals Jon. "Last year, sitting at home in my office, I would never have thought that 12 months later I'd be sitting here in London, doing promotion for our album which is now number two in America… it's just surreal. And something I'm very, very, very thankful for."
