Published: June 8, 1999
JORDON KNIGHT
How
ready is Jordan Knight to get back on stage? "After the New Kids thing,"
he recounts, "I still really wanted to perform, but I didn't have an outlet
for it. So I'd go to this little piano bar in Boston and sing for the
people there. I used a phony name and sang Elton John songs and stuff.
The great thing was, the regulars at the bar - who had no idea who I was
- kept telling me I should try to get a record deal, that I should sing
professionally."
Of course, Knight is a professional singer. As frequent lead vocalist for New Kids on the Block, he toured the world's stages, belting out a pop-R&B-rap hybrid that climbed to the Top 20 ten times in half as many years, sparked a revolution in merchandising, and endeared five young men to millions of crazed fans. His fame endures, as evidenced by the 3,000 fans that visit his web page (www.jordanknight.com) every week.
Despite the many drawbacks of living in the biggest pop fishbowl since Beatlemania, Knight really only had one problem with the New Kids: There were five of them. 'I never got to do exactly what I wanted to do musically, the way I wanted to do it," he says. "There were always four other guys I had to check in with." With his solo debut, Jordan Knight (released on Interscope Records May 25, 1999), he had only himself to answer to.
Boasting production by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, as well as Knight and his songwriting collaborator Robin Thicke, Jordan Knight is a surprise-laden soul-pop smorgasbord. Leadoff track "A Different Party" percolates with good-time old-school intensity atop an unlikely Sugarloaf sample (remember "Green-Eyed Lady"?). "Never Take the Place." is a languid, sensual reading of Prince's turbo-charged classic. First single 'Give It To You" answers the burning question, What would happen if hip-hop superproducer Timbaland, breakbeat pioneer Afrika Bambaataa and The Beatles (circa Sergeant Pepper's) were stranded together on a desert island? "Broken by You" is an aching. atmospheric ballad.
Uniting these varied Stylistic adventures is Knight's voice, a supple instrument that conveys a wealth of emotion. Dismissing comments about his technical mastery, he insists: "I'm a better singer now because I have a freer attitude. I'm not afraid to take the risks that lead to a greater level of expression. You can do all those runs and gymnastics with your voice, but if the feeling isn't there, that stuff is meaningless. There are a lot of singers who don't have perfect voices, but they communicate so much passion that it doesn't matter. It's about genuine connection with the listener."
That Knight has grown as a singer is something of a given; what will come as a revelation to most Is the idiosyncratic independence of his solo bow. His unique creative stamp - only suggested on the New Kids' multiplatinum discs - is in full flower here. Asked to define the character of the record, he says with deceptive simplicity, "It's a Jordan record." Considering that Knight grew up singing in church and formed his first band when he was eight years old, this "Jordan record" has been a long time coming.
The youngest of six siblings (the second-youngest is former New Kid Jonathan Knight), Knight grew up in the Dorchester section of Boston. "It was your typical working-class, racially mixed, urban East Coast neighborhood," he attests. There was a piano in the house, which his father played regularly. Inspired by older brother David, who had a band, Knight formed his own group. *We played Beatles songs at church talent shows," he explains. "I have this tape of us singing 'Here Comes the Sun.' It's so funny because you can hear me plucking out three notes on the guitar - which was all I knew - my friend's terrible drumming, and us all singing in these high, squeaky little voices."
In addition to The Beatles, Knight grew up listening to the classic rock of The Who and Queen, among many others. Soul groups like The Temptations, The Stylistics and The Delfonics, and later, singers like Freddie Jackson and Luther Vandross, also informed his budding sensibility. As he headed into his teen years, he starting spinning rap records on his bedroom hi-fi.
Knight was just shy of 15 when he joined what would become New Kids on the Block. At 16, he began teaching himself keyboards (which he also contributes to Jordan Knight). He recalls: "Maurice Starr, the New Kids' producer, was a great musician in his own right, and I was always bugging him to teach me stuff. I'd always be asking, 'What key is this in?' or saying, 'Show me that little thing you just did on the keyboard.' It became a running joke how I'd constantly interrupt the proceedings to ask Maurice these questions."
By 17, Knight had begun writing songs. But Starr, who also wrote much of the New Kids' material, was reluctant to add the teenager's work to the band's repertoire. In 1989, Knight offered his composition "I'll Be Your Everything" to a young singer named Tommy Page. Page's version of the track, which Knight produced, spent 13 weeks at #1 in 1990.
By the end of that year, New Kids on the Block had seen their fourth album, Step by Step, hit #1 in the U.S. and U.K., the unveiling of a series of New Kids dolls, and the debut of a New Kids cartoon series (these milestones on top of best-selling books, video collections and comic strips). Five of their albums were charting simultaneously on the Billboard 200. At the peak of the band's popularity, their recorded telephone message line received 100,000 calls a week. Conservative estimates of the New Kids' 1990 income topped $850 million.
Questioned about how he coped with the unimaginable emotional and physical demands such fame heaped upon him, Knight concedes that the chief frustration he had with the band was also its salvation - there were five of them: "We kept each other together. If one of us started freaking out or getting out of line, the other four would say, 'Hey, come on back.'"
New Kids on the Block released their final album in 1994. After a brief break, during which he tried to put his tenure with the group into perspective and figure out where he wanted to take his own music, Knight began shopping for a solo recording deal. He was signed to Interscope Records by former A&R exec John McClain, the man who fatefully introduced Janet Jackson to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. "I'd always been a huge fan of theirs," Knight says. "I discovered them back in 1983, when they started working with The S.O.S. Band. I knew John had a great relationship with them, so I said, 'Can we get them?'" As it turns out, Jam and Lewis were intrigued by Knight's concepts for his new album and quickly took the gig.
McClain also introduced Knight to a singer-songwriter-producer named Robin Thicke, who would become his friend and chief collaborator. "The beauty of being friends with someone you're working with is that creative ideas pop into your head when you're just hanging out," he says. "It's not like this formal thing where you go, 'Okay, let's sit down and write some songs.' It's more just driving around in the car and saying, 'Hey, what do you think of this?'"
Knight elaborates on this theme when describing his relationship with Jam and Lewis: "The most important thing when you're collaborating is chemistry. I could have worked with a lot of incredibly talented people, but if they didn't believe in what I wanted to do, if we didn't connect fully, there would be no magic. Jimmy and Robin - they really listened to what I was saying, and they just got it."
And though Knight was intermittently forced to cool his heels while Jam and Lewis worked on other projects, the wait was well worth it. He confides that he was nervous early in the recording process. "I'd met these guys, but I hadn't worked with them, and I didn't know what to expect," he says. 'The very first day, Jimmy says to me, 'Check this out. Tell me if you like it.' We'd talked about the song and had tossed some ideas around, but suddenly, here it was. Jimmy sang it and I thought it was great. I said, 'Yeah, yeah, I can hear that. That's really cool.' So he says, 'Okay - are you ready to sing it?' I'd practically just walked in the door and he wants me to lay down this song I'd only just heard. And I did. We recorded 'Broken by You' that night."
That scene took place at Jam and Lewis' Flyte Time studios just outside Minneapolis. "The whole time I was in Minneapolis I was so excited," Knight reports. "I was running around going, 'Yeah, this is great! I could do this! Let's try this!' I was totally amped by the spontaneity of the whole thing. I'd usually have the broad strokes of the song I wanted to record. Then Robin and I would throw ideas at each other. Maybe I'd have some chords and he'd have a fragment of melody. And I'd say, 'Well, what if it went up high here?' Or he'd say, 'This part is really cool, but what if we change this lyric to this?' Sometimes, I'd know what I'd want to say, but Robin would have just the right words. Both in the writing and recording, we had no set plan. We just let it flow."
The resulting album seems to be treading a similarly organic path to radio. Knight knows his past success on the airwaves guarantees nothing. "I sent a bunch of the songs to a friend of mine (Sam) who works at this radio station in Miami, Power 96 [pop powerhouse WPOW]," he relates. "I wanted to see what he thought. Everyone I'd talked to thought 'Never Take the Place...' should be the single. Now, this friend doesn't necessarily have the power to get stuff on the radio, but I really respect his opinion, and he said, 'I think down here people would really get into "Give It to You." Let me play it fo the program director.'* Apparently, the program director was impressed, because when Sam was driving home from work, he turned on the radio and found "Give It to You" blasting out of his speakers. Listeners phoned in, the song was put into regular rotation, and "Give It to You" was soon #1 at Power 96.
"It's a fluke," Knight maintains. If so, it's a fluke with major implications. He recalls: "The first New Kids album flopped. The second one was on the verge of flopping when this radio station in Florida picked up one of the songs and started playing it. Then they started getting calls. One thing led to another... He adds with a tentative smile, "Maybe history will repeat itself."
He clearly relishes that notion. After all, Jordan Knight has never imagined any other career for himself than this. He admits that it may be a bit strange to perform without Jon, Joey, Donnie and Danny by his side, but that's not what he's focused on. He's too busy thinking about seeing all those faces again. "I haven't been on stage since the last New Kids show, and I really miss it. My first solo gig will definitely be a rush," he declares. "I can't wait."
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