98 Degrees of Separation
Attention: 98 Degrees is not a boy band. Repeat. 98 Degrees is not a boy band.
Brothers Nick and Drew Lachey, Jeff Timmons and Justin Jeffre might be well-moussed stud muffins with achy-breaky voices, but there is an essential difference between them and the other players on the charts.
Singing is their forte. Period. They don't dance, and their appeal isn't limited to the Teen Beat set. They are men (Jeffre is the oldest at 28, Drew Lachey the baby at 24) who write most of their own material and model themselves more after Boyz II Men than New Kids on the Block.
Timmons is even a dad to 2-year-old Alyssa, a fact of life he said he never tried to keep secret.
"Someone asked me about it one day and I said 'Yeah, I have a kid.' I didn't go out and say, 'Hey, guess what everybody!' and certain people did try to discourage me from making it public, thinking it might take away from our younger following," Timmons said last week from a tour stop in Cleveland. "But I'm 27 years old. I have a house with her mom. My mom had us when she was 18, and besides, I've always wanted to have a family."
In another relationship scenario, Nick Lachey's public courtship of pop starlet Jessica Simpson continually keeps the group's name in the headlines. But, Timmons said, he and the rest of 98 Degrees don't pay much attention to what is written about one of pop music's most royal couples.
"I could care less, personally," Timmons said. "I don't think they're going out looking for press, but God bless their relationship."
On tour since the beginning of the month with fellow hit-makers Baha Men, Dream and Debelah Morgan, 98 Degrees is noticing a larger ratio of college-age concertgoers, mixed in with some teens and adults. No doubt that the first hit from its fourth album, "Revelation," the Latin-charged "Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche)," upped the adult appeal with its steamy video filmed in Mexico's Mayan ruins. Those bulging pecs and unbuttoned shirts proved hard to ignore for many women.
But Timmons admitted that group members were initially wary of recording the song, for fear that some people would accuse the quartet of jumping on the Ricky Martin-fueled trend.
Then, he said, their next thought was, "Who cares?"
The song set a record for being the most-added-to-playlists at Top 40 stations nationwide its first week of release - a record 98 Degrees clutched proudly until Janet Jackson's "All for You" dethroned it two weeks ago.
"Revelation" has sold 1.7 million copies, according to SoundScan, but in recent weeks, has tumbled from the Billboard 200 album chart. The guys hope to change that with the release of the next single, "The Way You Want Me To," which will offer a new video, filmed in New York.
At press time, Timmons was preparing for the shoot and bemoaning the presence of ice cream on their backstage catering carts.
"It's the temptation of life," he said with a laugh.
So, just how do these finely chiseled men stay so buff?
"Nothing too crazy. I just stay fit," Timmons said. "But I have been on the Atkins diet for a while. I feel a million times better when I'm on it."
Such discipline.
Still, that same discipline isn't as easy to enforce while sharing close quarters during months of touring. Even the smoothest of nerves fray at some point.
But, Timmons said, even though he and the guys can't be "the best of friends all of the time," they consider one another family. As for the real family members - the Lachey brothers - Timmons joked that "those guys are not like normal brothers. Me and my brothers fight. Those two don't fight ever."
For this tour, which stops Tuesday at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, the group is adding more production, more pyro and better sound. In the off hours from rehearsing and performing, the foursome has already started work on new material.
"We've been writing our whole career," Timmons said. "We work on demo tracks in our hotel, and each of us contributes to something - some [of the guys] more toward production, others more toward melody. We've got pretty strong points in each area."
One thing fans can count on during a 98 Degrees live show is a "ton" of singing.
Timmons, who cites Creed, Journey, old-school Stevie Wonder and, mostly, Boyz II Men, among his chief influences, still bristles when the group is discounted for its singing abilities because it isn't part of the song-and-dance brigade.
"Boyz II Men made me want to be a singer," he said. "But when you're white, it's kinda weird. You're considered a boy band rather than a vocal group.
"When we perform, we don't get up and dance the whole time. That's just not us. I think people who actually know music and actually listen to the music are able to differentiate."
