According to Nick Lachey, Drew Lachey, Jeff Timmons and Justin Jeffre, three things kept the hit boy band 98 Degrees together for nearly three long decades — dedicated fans, hard work… and alcohol.
“I think a lot of it’s hard work,” Timmons, 52, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, May 8, of the band’s longevity. “Of course, the fans, obviously — if they’re not there we can’t do any of this stuff. But for us, we’ve always kind of prided ourselves on hard work. We come from the Midwest. We come from a blue collar background and we were taught to work hard. I think we feel like we’re talented guys, but I think our work ethic and the way we treat people along the way – it’s allowed us to stay in the business and [given us] longevity. And again, without the fans we would have no choice of doing this 30 years later.”
“That and alcohol,” Drew, 48, added. “Yeah, a lot of booze, too.”
The boy band made its debut in 1997 with their first album, aptly named 98 Degrees. One year later, they released 98 Degrees and Rising, which included the hit singles “Because of You,” “The Hardest Thing,” and “I Do (Cherish You),” helping the album go quadruple platinum and certifying the group as one of the hit boy bands of the late 90s and early aughts. They went on to sell 15 million records and release four top 10 singles.
Nearly 30 years later, the boys are back — they’re now managed by Johnny Wright of Wright Entertainment Group, embarking on a 25th Anniversary Tour and have released a brand new album, Full Circle, out Friday, May 9.
“We felt like, now, we are at a place where we have this catalog that we want to rerecord and get control of our masters again,” Drew explained. “And it took a while to get the music right for the other five originals … We just wanted to make sure that it was the right record to put out and kind of reflected where we have been and where we are now, and also give[s] a taste to where we’re headed in the future.”
The album even features a song Nick, 51, wrote for a solo project that he just knew was meant for the group to sing.
“The minute I wrote it – this is way back in probably 2007, 2008 … I was like, ‘This doesn’t sound like a solo record. This sounds like a 98 Degrees record to me,’” Nick explained. “So, all these years later I finally got a chance to play it for the guys and they liked it as well.”
The Love is Blind host continued, “It has our signature kind of sound — really great harmonies, just that great pop hook. So yeah, that was the first single we released off this record.”
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