Meet The New King Of Cool
(4/18/04) Daily Mail UK (much thanks to iluvmrjt for scanning and Candy for transcribing!)

JC Chasez turned Justin Timberlake from nerd to superstar, yet you may not even know his name. But now Joshua Scott Chasez is about to become even bigger than Justin. Louise Gannon meets the former *NSync heart-throb.

If it weren't for a man called Joshua Scott Chasez, Justin Timberlake would probably have remained a frizzy-haired former television child star whose only claim to fame was that he once dated a pre-teen Britney Spears.

It was Chasez who helped turn a distinctly uncool mommy's boy (known only as JT) into pop's multi-million global phenomenon, who delights in the nickname of Justin Trousersnake - a tribute to his sex-god status.

Chasez spent nine years as Timberlake's mentor and bandmate in America's biggest boy band, *NSync. "Justin was just 11 when I first met him," he says. "I knew then there was something about him, even though a lot of people thought he was uncool.

"Three years later, he heard my music and realised we could do something really big together. I never imagined just how big we were going to be. I'm sure Justin did, he was always the big planner. I was just the guy who was totally into music."

Chasez was, in fact, the musical genius behind *NSync, a middle-class white guy who introduced a mix of dance and garage to America in the palatable form of pure pop songs and a boy-band format.

Timberlake describes him as 'the most amazing songwriter in the world, a music god', but he was also the band's number-one pin-up because of his cute looks and cool dance moves. A betting man would always have taken a punt on him forging a solo career.

Now, 27-year-old Chasez looks set to outshine even Timberlake. After 18 months of kicking his heels since *NSync's controversial split, Chasez has recorded Schizophrenic, an album that has got the music industry slavering with excitement.

It has been hailed by critics as a triumpha and reviews rescendo with superlatives. Chasez acknowledges this with a modest smile. "They've been pretty cool," he says. "A lot of people are really excited about this, but I never made the album just to be the next big thing. I just made it because I was missing my music."

Like Timberlake, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Chasez began his career in showbusiness as a Disney Mousketeer. But unlike his fellow superstar pals, the middle-class Chasez didn't spend every waking moment dreaming of life in the spotlight.

Chasez is the eldest son of computer engineer Roy and business magazine editor Karen. Dark-haired and good-looking in a classic American-athlete way, he was brought up with his two younger siblings in a suburb of Washington DC.

A natural career choice for Chasez would have been law, or possibly computers like his father. He admits he is an accidental pop star. "I never really expected to be doing this," he says. "It was just a fluke that I got into it at a young age."

Dressed in loose-fitting jeans and white T-shirt, Chasez plays with one of his many fat metal chains. His hair is styled in a worryingly Eighties tousled cut (Duran Duran are his fashion heroes), but his cutely lopsided smile makes up for this defect.

"I started entering talent competitions because I was dared to by a friend - and "because I was told there would be loads of girls in leotards," he says. "I could always dance a bit and I sort of realised I could sing, and I always wound up winning. The girls seemed to like that, so I thought it was pretty cool.

"Then there was this competition for a Disney show. More than 2,000 children showed up, and at the end of it the organisers asked my mum if I could go to Florida to be in The Mickey Mouse Club.

"Justin, Britney and Christina all joined a couple of seasons after me," he says. "I remember meeting Justin. He was nervous but I could see he was someone I was going to like. Christina was really quiet, except when she opened her mouth to sing, everybody just stepped back in amazement at this huge voice coming out of this tiny little girl. I remember the first song she ever sang was Love Can Move Mountains. She was awesome, even at ten.

"Britney was the real cutie of the show. She had blonde hair and huge brown eyes. She was a typical Southern girl, discovered when he took a trip to see his former Disney music coach, Robin Wylie.

"We'd talked about doing some music and laying down some tracks, and Justin and his mum, Lynn, turned up," he recalls. "I knew Justin really well, but we hadn't got together on a musical level. I never realised he was so into the music. He was only about 14, but he was completely focused that this was going to be a career.

"Justin wanted to do a demo and he also wanted to hear what I'd done with Robyn. When he heard my stuff he loved it. He was completely blown away because it was different to anything around.

"He persuaded me to go and stay with him in Memphis to write some more songs. Lynn encouraged us - I thought it was amazing that Justin had a mother who wanted it as much as he did.

"My parents were supportive but they were more into the idea of school. They didn't know anything about the business, but Lynn would do anything to get us started. She and Justin never considered giving up - it just wasn't an option.

"Justin wanted world domination. He came up with a masterplan just a few months later. What he has now is everything he ever dreamed of. Justin is one happy guy."

It was Timberlake who persuaded Chasez to form a band. "Justin was really excited," he says. "We were all going to Orlando to set up a group, a boy band. He persuaded Robyn to help and Lynn was going to live with us.

"I had to decide what I was going to do. I was planning to go back to school. I looked in the mirror and saw my factory uniform of turquoise apron, grey slacks and my hair tied up in a net. Suddenly school didn't seem that great any more. I told him I'd be there the next day."

Chasez seems genuinely taken aback when asked why he put his faith and his future into the hands of a 14-year-old boy. He thinks for a moment and then shrugs. "I didn't see it as an age thing, and also his mum was backing him all the way."

Lynn Harless, who split up from Timberlake's father, Randall, ten years previously, was determined her son would succeed. She found the house in Orlando and moved in with her son and Chasez. The rest of the band - Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick and Joey Fatone - local musicians and mutual friends, joined later.

"Lynn had the right-hand side of the house and we had the left," says Chasez. "Justin was still a minor so his mum had to be there, but she was just as important as any of us in setting up the band."

Anyone would imagine that having someone's mother around would ruin any chance of traditional sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle. "We weren't ever like that," he says. "Most of us had steady girlfriends - none of us was wild.

"We would all have big discussions about how we were going to make it, what we were going to do, how we were going to cut our first CD, and Lynn was all part of that. She sorted our costumes and even came up with the name *NSync. She said it suited us because we all wanted the same thing and we were all totally 'in sync'."

It was Lynn who persuaded Disney to hand over The Mickey Mouse Club fan contacts. She personally wrote to every one of them to tell them the boys had formed a band, and then touted the act to the major labels. Listening to Chasez it is no wonder Timberlake has had his back tattooed with his ambitious mother's initials. "They are the tightest team in the world," says Chasez.

Initially, only Germany was interested and the band, along with Lynn, moved there in 1997. It took three more years for them to break America. In the meantime, Timberlake's ex, Britney, was being launched as the new Madonna.

In 2000, *NSync signed to Britney's US label, Jive, and their album No Strings Attached became the first album in American chart history to sell more than two million copies in its first week. *NSync, as Timberlake had predicted, absolutely exploded.

"It got totally crazy," says Chasez. "We became the biggest thing in America. We toured nonstop and made album after album (all four of their albums went platinum). We had a great time, made lots of money and had loads of hits, but we never got a break, and in the end we were all completely fried.

"Justin and I became really close. We were like brothers. It got to a point where I could pretty much read his mind, I knew what he'd say before he said it. He was like that with me, too. It sort of happens when you're together constantly for eight years. The whole show kept going on, gathering momentum, but we were never able to have any space.

"You can't keep on working at that place. It starts to do your head in. People think show business is such a great life - it isn't. You get to go everywhere in the world but you don't get any time to see anything. You meet all these people and you have no time to talk. You have all thse things and all this money, but it becomes so meaningless. Money is just figures in a bank account when you are working every hour of the day.

"We all agreed we needed time out to freshen up. The original plan was to take a year off but things changed. Now everyone is very happy doing their own thing."

With millions in the bank apiece, in 2002 *NSync decided to take a break. Fatone tried his hand at acting, Kilpatrick went into fashion and Bass, bizarrely, decided he wanted to train with Nasa and head into space. The ever-ambitious Timberlake wanted to make a solo album, and Chasez wanted to go home and do nothing.

"For a year I just hung out with my family and my friends," he says. "I did absolutely nothing. I had weeks where I just stayed in the house. I had no diary, no plans. I needed to chill."

The switch from boy-band stardom to twentysomething dosser (albeit with $50 million in the bank) took some adjustment. "The first few weeks I was still on hyperdrive. I went home to my mum, who wanted to feed me up and make me relax. But I was rushing around the house looking for things to do. I wanted the house painted and redecorated. I wanted to fill all this empty time having meetings with buildings and designers, whoever.

"The thing I most needed to do was reconnect with my friends and family. You only do that by spending real time with them. There were a few friends who fell by the way, not because I had changed but they had. A lot of people think that once you have success you don't want to know them any more. The reality is you want to cling on to them because they are the people who keep you stable. The rest is just weird, ridiculous over-the-top showbusiness madness.

"My real friends stayed solid. I hadn't been able to speak to them every day for years but I always kept in touch. They knew what as going on with me because everybody did, but I didn't know what was happening with them.

"All my friends had gone through college and I'd make them tell endless stories of going out with girls, getting drunk and college life. I didn't want to tell my tales, I wanted to hear theirs because I felt I'd missed out on that. I had a year of living through it, listening and laughing.

"I didn't need to make any money but I needed to rest my head. I'd been working flat out since I was about 13 and this was my chance to be normal for a while.

"I dated a few girls but there's no one special in my life - I'm still sort of looking. I want to find someone who is pretty normal."

It sounds as if Chasez is making the cue to talk about the less normal relationship between Timberlake and Britney Spears. Chasez was friends with Britney during the five years she dated Timberlake. When they split he was in the difficult position of being friends with both.

"I don't want to get into this," he says with the weary tond of a man who has been asked a million times. "Justin and Britney were together, then they split, then they got together again, and then they split, and then they started dating other people. That's what happens.

"They were both friends of mine but Justin was in my band. It's difficult but you can't take sides. Britney didn't break my heart, she broke his, so I'm not going to start having a go at her. So much of what they went through was done in public [many of the songs on Timberlake's debut album, Justified, were about the split]. Some of it has to remain private."

He admits, with the briefest nod, that Timberlake was completely torn to pieces when he found out that Britney had been cheating on him.

"He's happy now [with Cameron Diaz] and she's doing her thing. I'm going to be touring with Britney, which will be cool, but I talk to Justin all the time. People think there is a problem but there isn't. Everything is OK with them. It just became too much of a circus, which is why they can't hang out together any more."

It has come as no surprise to Chasez that Timberlake changed his cute-boy image to that of a rampant rock star, or that his former bandmate's solo album was such a success. "I was pleased for Justin," says Chasez. "I thought it was a fantastic album - although I didn't expect him to become such a megastar.

"The one thing *NSync never really managed to do was break Britain like Britney did. We all felt we just weren't cool enough. But Justin has done that now. He's suddenly become cool."

Typically, Chasez denies that he ever took a conscious decision to make a solo album, and it certainly wasn't prompted by the success of his friend.

"It just sort of happened," he says. "I was asked to do one thing that led to something else. I was hanging around with guys I liked working with, so it seemed a natural thing to do. Then we had all these songs that worked together as a complete album."

There is the air of the drifter about Chasez, which makes you wonder whether he has the hunger, or the stomach, for life back in the fast lane.

"Fame doesn't make me happy," he says. "I'm not doing this to be the biggest thing on the planet. I'm doing it because I want people to like my music - and someone has to give Justin a run for his money."

Sounds like Chasez is the only man who can.

Lance speaks on breaking into music biz
(4/17/04) WMA College Insider (thanks nsyncgirlique0!)

Lance’s incredible talents as a singer, dancer, actor, producer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and cosmonaut aren’t quite satisfying his insatiable palate. This is the reason Lance is seeking to spread his vast knowledge of the music business by speaking and holding panel discussions.

Lance has decided to share his experience with those who wish to pursue a career in the music industry or are simply intrigued by the business. This series of panel discussions will provide an insight to the many facets of the music world by featuring several prominent names from the music business. Don’t miss this music industry mogul provide what could possibly be the advice you need to put you into what is often referred to as, "the only business".

'NSYNC has managed to break historical records in the music industry, including most album sales in a single day (over 1 million) and most album sales in a week (2.4 million). Subsequently, that same album, No Strings Attached, went on to achieve the rare "diamond" status, only given to those that sell 10 million albums. In addition to selling over 40 million albums worldwide, Lance has been a part of some of the most successful world tours in history.

For much of last year, Lance focused on his quest to travel to space and the International Space Station. He successfully trained to be a cosmonaut at Russia’s Star City in 2002 and was certified by both the Russian Space Program and NASA for an upcoming mission aboard a Soyuz capsule.