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Jordan Knight |
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Thursday, 28 October, 1999
Jordan sings over phone
Jordan Knight recently spent time recording a duet - over the phone.
According to his official website, the ex-New Kid recorded a duet with Mya while he was in London and she was in Los Angeles.
They recorded the song over phone lines with the help of a recording system called EDNET.
The song, "Underneath the Spanish Skies," will be released on Mya's album "Mya Mya".
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Tuesday, 22 June, 1999
Ex-NKOTB Jordan Knight has a new act
By KAREN BLISS -- Jam! Music
TORONTO - Jordan Knight surveys the empty baseball field from an unoccupied private box at Toronto SkyDome, where the stools have legs of baseball bats and seats of bases. He is not a baseball fan, but is impressed by the stadium. Not too many years ago, the former New Kid On The Block performed on a stage erected in its outfield.
"What is the capacity here, do you know," he asks, perhaps remembering the deafening screams from NKOTB's frenzied fans that once filled its massive confines. "I remember performing here because it's beautiful and I remember people had hotel rooms up there," Knight says, gesturing.
During the New Kids' reign as teen-pop idols in the late eighties and early nineties, the Boston-spawned group had an incredible five albums chart simultaneously on Billboard and a merchandising empire that included comic strips, books and lunch boxes. Conservative estimates of NKOTB's 1990 income topped $850 million, but by 1995, it was time to disband.
Jordan -- who will perform at Mississauga's Playdium on Wednesday from 4:30 to 5 p.m., followed by a 90-minute autograph session -- still gets fan mail from around the world. His web site (www.jordanknight.com) has amassed over a million visitors since it launched to coincide with the release of his self-titled solo debut.
This summer, he will open for pop-phenoms 'N Sync in amphitheatres across North America, a position he finds slightly amusing, yet an "awesome" opportunity. "It's a flip-flop. It's their tour and they let me on the tour, so naturally I'm going to be opening for them," he acknowledges.
While's Knight's appeal is still to the pre-pubescent girl, his album is a sophisticated collection of beautiful ballads and urban-inflected pop, showcasing his strong, sensuous voice and tasteful arrangements. It is already a hit on the strength of the upbeat single "Give It To You" and will undoubtedly begin to appeal to an older demographic, which may or may not care about his NKOTB legacy.
"I wanted to go to the next level, wanted to feel a part of my music and was willing to take time to do it," says Knight, of co-writing most of the tracks. "I'm very good, I feel, at the tone of the song, the content of the song, the feel of the song. I'm good at giving feedback, 'This melody here doesn't work well, maybe we should try and bring it up so the song has a climax,' kind of like a songwriter/producer both combined."
Jordan, who wasn't given the freedom or encouragement to write and contribute material to New Kids, an entirely orchestrated, hands-on producers' project, acknowledges New Kids' influence on the latest wave of 'boy bands' and the effect that kind of phenomenon and possibility has on would-be producers and singers.
"The comparison is obvious and the influence, to me, is obvious," Knight says. "Definitely not to take away from any of the guys who are in the bands because they're all really talented guys, but I think we had an influence." He pauses, then adds, "I don't really think about it. A lot of people ask me about it, but I don't think a lot of about it. I just think about how we were influenced by a lot of other groups like New Edition and The Jacksons.
"It's a natural thing. You grow up and you see these people performing on TV and you say, 'I want to be like them.'"
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Tuesday, 22 June, 1999
Chip off the old Block
At 29, Jordan Knight is confident enough to go it alone
By JANE STEVENSON -- Toronto Sun
TORONTO -- Former New Kid Jordan Knight could have been forgiven for wanting to turn his back on his boy band past with the release of his self-titled debut solo album.
But instead, the 29-year-old singer -- dubbed "the cute one" by rabid fans of the late '80s-early '90s pin-ups New Kids On The Block -- seems to be embracing the good old days.
Knight, who got major buzz on his first solo single, Give It To You, and gets 3,000 fan visits to his Web page every week, is touring with late '90s boy band sensations 'N Sync in July and August. He'll also likely be on board for 'N Sync's Sept. 4 show at the Molson Amphitheatre.
"At first I was like, 'I don't know if that's a good idea,' " said Knight, relaxing yesterday afternoon in a box at the SkyDome, the site of two sold-out New Kids concerts in 1990.
"Because I want the association of myself being past the boy band thing. But then I said, 'If I go on stage and I just am myself, that will just show everybody that I've grown up.' Plus I figured it's a great way to launch, I believe, my new career. To touch the built-in audience and move from there."
Seems reports of Knight's stage fright in his post-NKOTB life -- as detailed in People magazine -- are a bit overblown. He did admit there was some anxiety after signing a solo deal with Interscope in 1996.
"I felt pressured. I felt like, 'Oh, man, they expect me to be really, really great.' I just felt nervous," said Knight.
To work through those jitters, he played a handful of times on open-mike nights in a Boston piano bar, just around the corner from his house. Knight performed under an assumed name and in disguise.
"That was to kind of get over the antsiness of doing it by myself," he explained.
On his new album, a fairly straight-ahead mix of pop and R&B, half of the tracks are produced by Minneapolis studio czars Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (Janet Jackson).
"It was awesome," said Knight. "I pushed hard to get into the studio with them. I've wanted to work with them since I was 17 or 18. They were my No. 1 pick for producers."
Two Jam suggestions led to interesting samples. Sugarloaf's 1970 song Green-Eyed Lady is heard throughout A Different Party, and the 1978 Kansas hit Dust In The Wind weaves its way through Close My Eyes. It wasn't a Jam & Lewis idea, however, for Knight to cover the Prince song I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man. That was the suggestion of Knight's chief songwriting and producing collaborator, Robin Thicke -- son of Kirkland Lake's own Alan Thicke.
"Sometimes you think it's easy, and then sometimes it's diffcult to tap into what people want to hear," said Knight of his chances for solo success. "I always aim for the best. I'm truly just grateful for what's happening right now. I feel that it's going to be a successful record, but I'm not expecting, 'I deserve four million, I deserve eight million or blah, blah, blah.' I'm just like going along with the ride and just trying to work hard."
Knight said he always wanted to go solo even when he was still with the New Kids. After they split in 1994, he took a few years off and then went shopping for a new deal.
Now, ironically, Knight and fellow NKOTB member Joey McIntyre -- who released his solo debut album, Stay The Same, a month earlier -- are competing against each other. They also both employed NKOTB's Donnie Wahlberg as a producer.
Knight said he regularly sees McIntyre doing radio promotion shows and the timing of their releases was just a coincidence.
"I think it's cool," he said of McIntyre's Stay The Same. "I was surprised because I didn't know him as the writer that he is now. I guess he's really worked on writing and coming up with music and lyrics and stuff like that. I think he did a real good job.
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