CHRIS Kirkpatrick feels it every time *NSYNC is in the same room together – he is instantly transported back to the ’90s, the wildest of times when Justin, JC, Lance, and Joey took the pop world by storm.
And, in an exclusive interview with The U.S. Sun, founding member Chris said “there’s definitely an interest” in staging a nostalgic comeback.
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The band, which sold over 70 million records during a golden spell between 1995 and 2002, hasn’t performed together since 2013.
They took to the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards when Cry Me a River star JT received an award.
*NSYNC joined Ariana Grande at Coachella in 2019, before regrouping again for one night only as part of Justin’s tour last March.
MOVING FORWARD
Chris admits he partied for a few years after the band split 22 years ago, but has thrived in the second half of his musical career.
He stars in his Name Drop podcast with MTV’s Bryan McFayden, and is loving being back on stage as part of the Pop 2000 tour.
Yet the lure of bursting out hits like Bye Bye Bye and It’s Gonna Be Me will never leave.
“There’s nothing set in stone. But with everything that’s gone on, there’s definitely an interest,” Chris told The U.S. Sun.
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He says whenever the boys are back in town, it feels just right.
The old jokes fly. The togetherness and camaraderie come flooding back.
“We just fall back to where we were 20 years ago,” continues Chris. “Everybody can’t stop smiling. It’s such a good feeling.”
As it stands, everyone is busy with their own lives – Justin is currently on a world tour, Joey has been acting, Lance is a dad to twin girls born in 2021 and JC has enjoyed traveling and voiceover work.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” cautioned Chris whose podcast rolls back the years to those halcyon days of rubbing shoulders with musical icons like Michael Jackson.
“But I can tell you, having those feelings come back in all five of us was enough to say ‘lets see the possibilities of doing something in the future’.”
*NSYNC’s rise and fall
Formed by Chris Kirkpatrick 1995, the group consisted of Kirkpatrick, Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass and JC Chasez. Their debut album was successfully released to European countries in 1997, and later debuted in the U.S. market with the single I want you Back
After heavily publicized legal battles with their former manager Loyu Pearlman, the group’s second album in 2000 sold over one million copies in one day and 2.4 million copies in one week- a record which held for over 15 years.
Their 2001 Celebrity album sold with 1.8 million copies in the first week in the US. Singles such as Girlfriend, Pop, Gone and It’s Gonna Be Me reached the top 10 in several international charts, with the last reaching no1 in the United States.
They were nominated for eight Grammy awards, played at the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics and the World Series.
Recorded music with the likes of Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Phil Collins, Aerosmith, Mary J Blige and Gloria Estefan.
They split in 2002, but briefly reunited in 2023 for the song Better Place which appeared in the film Trolls Band Together
Chris speaks fondly when recalling the final days of the band which meteorically took a talented kid who was forced to provide for his own family while moving “from trailer to trailer” to a life of global superstardom.
The 52-year-old was living the dream.
But when the inevitable burnout arrived, the writing was very much on the wall.
He said he could “feel it falling apart” yet was powerless to stop the demise.
“*NSYNC just wasn’t the priority anymore,” he said. “It just got out of control.”
“There were so many people around us. It wasn’t just five of us doing acapella in a stairwell.”
Just two years after moving to Orlando and meeting controversial former manager Lou Pearlman, the band was on the road busting out their tunes and moves in front of thousands of fans.
Chris recalls a time that was “too crazy to comprehend.”
“Every time we would take another baby step, it would just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger until you’re playing in front of 80,000 people in Rio or meeting Paul McCartney, Billy Joel or Paul Simon,” he said.
He loved every moment.
Yet the mental and physical toll was tough to bear.
He remembers a radio appearance early on in Germany where the band was exhausted.
They were going through the motions, trotting out “the song that we’ve done five billion times to the dance we’ve done five billion times.”
The fans, however, loved the boys so much that all they had to do was walk out on stage and lap up the adoration, no matter the quality of their performance.
But that wasn’t good enough for Chris. He wanted every show to be the best.
“I can speak for Justin and some of the other guys,” he admitted.
“We were sick to our stomachs because we realized what we’d just done. We wanted to treat every audience like we had to win them over.”
“To let them think that that was the greatest band I’ve ever seen in my life. Not saying that we were, but we had to go in with that mindset.”
They came through those hard times.
The balance of the band, however, was perfect according to Chris and helped keep their momentum in check.
“Being the oldest worked because I was the most immature and Justin was the most mature,” he said with a smile.
The adulation and success may have been rolling in, but Chris is at pains to point out nothing came easy.
They were riding the crest of the boy band wave with their rivalry with the Backstreet Boys heating up.
Yet the hard work never stopped.
“If we had a minute off, it was for sleeping,” he said.
As Chris talks to The U.S. Sun in a lengthy, wide-ranging interview it becomes clear he’s more than happy with his life less ordinary.
He’s traveled the globe with his friends to worldwide acclaim, recorded music with some of the biggest names in the industry, and has now carved out a second stage of a career that looked a million miles away when he was collecting welfare checks for his mom and four sisters.
Yet the allure of getting *NSYNC back together will never fade.
His journey from lost kid to boy band legend is a source of pride.
So it’s no wonder he wants another bite at the cherry.
“I came from the middle of nowhere, and had only been on a plane a few times at that point,” Chris concluded.
“We all kind of met in the middle and it just worked. Let’s kick the tires and see what happens.”
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