O-Town ::AOL Chat::


TV Guide on AOL and AOL Live presented an exclusive chat with O-Town from ABC's 'Making the Band.' Ashley, Erik, Ikaika, Jacob and Trevor answered questions about making the final cuts, the show and their new hot single, "All for Love." Check out what the guys had to say below!

O-Town: Actually, it is. Personally, I don't know. I'm not used to not having a camera around here.

RobertLIVE: I am honored. I love the show. It's great to have seen how far you guys have come. It's a little part of history for AOL that you are doing us first. We appreciate that. Let's get right to the fan questions, if you don't mind. Actually, what I think I'm going to do is have you each introduce yourselves, so the transcriber can get used to you and the AOL people can know who is talking and when. Ashley, how about you?

Ashley Angel: I'm Ashley Angel. I'm 18 years old. I grew up in California.

Erik Estrada: I am Erik Estrada. I am 20 years old and born in Bronx, New York.

Trevor Penick: I'm Trevor Penick, and I'm 20 years old. I'm from Rancho Cucamonga, California.

Dan Miller: I'm Dan, the newest member of O-Town. I'm 19 years old from Ohio.

RobertLIVE: Dan, you were originally part of the first 25 that was selected?

Dan Miller: This is true.

RobertLIVE: For those of you who aren't that familiar with Dan, watch.

Dan Miller: Please. Jacob is also here, too!

RobertLIVE: We've got a little insight there. The exciting thing is that AOL teams have been promoting your visit here today. Our first question will be from AOL Kids: Ashley, was it weird for you to one day be going to the mall and hanging out with your friends, and then the next thing you know, you can't go to the mall or go anywhere because of your fans?

Ashley Angel: I've got to tell you the truth. I love going to the mall. I love getting recognized. I love the fans. We don't call them fans anymore, we call they our friends. They know too much about us to just be fans. They've watched everything we've gone through on the show. They know about us personally. It's like, going to the mall -- it's a blast. I love it. I love going to the mall.

RobertLIVE: Have your fans and family accepted your celebrity yet? Is it more exciting for them?

O-Town: I don't think we've accepted it yet. I don't think about celebrity, period.

RobertLIVE: Let's see. HoneyBuddy wants to know: Will you guys be doing any touring in the near future?

Erik Estrada: Hopefully we'll be doing some touring coming up soon, hopefully. Maybe even October, we're talking. If not October, definitely early next year for sure, definitely. We're in the process of formulating a tour. We're going to be doing six major malls around the US, as people get firsthand to actually see us perform, you know. We're excited about that. That's not a major tour. It's not like a full show, only a couple of songs.

RobertLIVE: Erik, since you answered that question, your first performance was at Southwest Middle School. How have you guys already progressed from that moment, your first performance?

Trevor Penick: Southwest was about here. Here is where we need to be, and here is Southwest. We're probably around right here. Maybe a little higher. No. We're not this low. We're probably 70% where we want to be. I forgot they can't see us.

RobertLIVE: If you could remember to make sure you say your names, that would be great. Trevor has answered your question. Have you guys ever thought about having girl dancers?

O-Town: This is every day of my life. It's a really good idea. We should talk about this, when we go on tour, having girl dancers -- dancers in the background.

RobertLIVE: You probably want auditions to start with a thousand possible women? What requirements would you ask of these women?

O-Town: That they can dance, look good. And look good while dancing.

RobertLIVE: There you have it. Do you guys know if Mr. Lou Pearlman is going to make a ‘Making the Band’ for girls?

O-Town: I hear there is a new show coming out on another station that is for girls. I don't know if it's already been done with or auditioned or anything, but I know there is one starting. I don't know too many details about that.

RobertLIVE: Lou is spearheading that?

Trevor Penick: I think it's already been cast. The show is going to be called ‘Pop Stars.’

RobertLIVE: Lou is... for all of those that aren't familiar with him, which means they haven't been watching the show, he helped find and do exactly what he's doing with you for *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. Has he been a real inspiration for you guys?

Ashley Angel: Lou is totally different than you think he is. He is the biggest kid. He's so much fun. ‘Making the Band’ is an incredible idea, and it was a lot of Lou's idea.

RobertLIVE: Why don't we take another question: Where is Ikaika? Isn't he part of the band?

Dan Miller: You have to keep watching the show. It all starts to play out really soon. Actually, this Friday things will start to happen. The Friday after that, more things will happen. You'll see why I'm here and Ikaika is not. We'll answer your question then.

RobertLIVE: Very good. Are you guys going to be going back to school in August? Are you dreading it?

Trevor Penick: I'm dreading -- not back to school, actually. We will not be attending school this year or probably next year. We are going to be very busy recording the album or doing shows. School had to be put on hold for a little while. Hopefully within the near future, I and the other guys will be able to get back to college and get our degrees.

RobertLIVE: What do you think you are going to miss most about not being in school?

Trevor Penick: The little things. Walking through the halls. I was such a big fan of school. I will miss everything about it, except for the homework.

Ashley Angel: I just graduated high school last year. I have a lot of friends that are seniors and juniors. I can't wait to go back in the middle of school year and hang out at lunch.

RobertLIVE: I am sure they are all going to love that. They would love to schedule that with you now. “Jacob, have you ever considered piercing your nipple? I think it would look so sexy.”

Jacob Underwood: She does have the hottest screen name. That's cool. You are a fan. You are a friend.

RobertLIVE: Let's not dodge the question.

Jacob Underwood: Have I thought about it? Yes. Would I do it? No, because it hurts so bad.

RobertLIVE: Words from the wise. Can you give us a hint of tonight's show?

Trevor Penick: Let's see....

RobertLIVE: The show is on Friday nights. For those of you lucky enough to watch this tomorrow, that would apply.

Trevor Penick: House of... we did perform at House of Blues and we did perform in front of a record executive and some stuff starts to happen with Dan and whatever. Don't take what you see with me seriously. They are both my best friends.

RobertLIVE: Speaking of friends, Christina wants to know: Do you guys still hang out with guys that didn't make the band?

Erik Estrada: Yes, we do. We were recently with Bryan in New York. It's always a good thing.

RobertLIVE: What did you end up doing?

Erik Estrada: Going to a club and hanging out and talking and catching up, what are you doing? He's on his career now. This show has been nothing but a positive launch pad for his career, along with Mike and Paul. They are doing well. We try to talk to them as much as possible. We have a busy schedule. It's hard for us to get to talk to our parents on a regular basis.

RobertLIVE: You mentioned launch pad. All I can picture is you diving off of the stage New Year's Eve. Who was diving off the stage?

O-Town: Jacob.

RobertLIVE: You guys got killed by the management team after that. What were they upset about?

Trevor Penick: They were upset because we were supposed to be...

Ashley Angel: We were supposed to be all casual. No one was supposed to know who we were because the show hadn't started yet. Dan jumping off the stage wasn't a good way to remain low-key. I talked to the people that yelled at us that night. They were like, you know what? We overreacted. I was like, yeah, you did. We were right. We were having fun at 2000 New Year's.

RobertLIVE: Let's go to the next question: Hey, guys, I love you so much. Do any of you have AOL and would you talk to fans online? They are doing it right now. Thank you very much, for the first time ever, if I could add that there. Are any of you guys online?

Trevor Penick: We all have AOL. Dan does. You do? And I do. Erik does. The four of us do.

RobertLIVE: What are you going to do about that next year, the rest of you have AOL?

Trevor Penick: I bring my laptop on the road. Sometimes we get e-mail addresses and stuff. I do have an e-mail address, I can have people write me stuff on that.

RobertLIVE: Do you want people to write to you? Do you have an official O-Town site yet?

Trevor Penick: Me, the guys and my brother are working on that. My brother is a computer programmer. We're getting ready to set up our own site, by us, with new pictures and a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff and recent news. We don't know yet. It's going to be something else.

RobertLIVE: Maybe when we get the information, we'll post it first on AOL.

Trevor Penick: That would be awesome. We'll let Robert post it so everybody can know what the official site will be. You can write me. Robert is tonight's host. :) E-mail me at nameless4tv at AOL.com.

RobertLIVE: We appreciate that. “Hi, O-Town, I was wondering if Ashley is still with his girlfriend, Shelley. I watched the show, but wasn't clear if they broke up. Thanks.”

Ashley Angel: You've got to keep watching. There is more stuff with that. You've got to keep watching.

RobertLIVE: How many of you guys have had girl trouble since the start?

Dan Miller: Every day.

RobertLIVE: What was the girl trouble you had?

O-Town: There was a girl in my life, period.

Trevor Penick: It is hard to keep a girlfriend during this whole situation. They are far away, you are far away from them. You are very busy. You each have separate lives. It takes two very strong people to work it out. Lots of times it doesn't work, only in some cases does it.

RobertLIVE: And he is not here and no longer part of the group, but do you think that's why Ikaika left the band?

O-Town: Strong reasons.

RobertLIVE: Priority is hitting the stage and music?

Trevor Penick: Our priority is our craft and our career right now. We want to be, you know, we want to be on top. We're going to work to get there really hard.

RobertLIVE: A lot of sacrifices. Do you guys ever get homesick?

Trevor Penick: Every day. Not every day, but a lot of the times. We actually get some breaks when we have four or five days off when we're dead and not doing anything, where we get a chance to fly home and visit our friends and family. That comes, you know, maybe once every two or three months. Right in the middle of that or towards the end of that time, I could say we all pretty much get homesick. We miss our friends and family a lot.

RobertLIVE: Which family member do you each miss? I know your mom has been an inspiration for you. Your mom helped you get into the business, a piano player. Are your moms the focus for you guys?

Trevor Penick: My father, actually. He sacrificed so much for our family. We grew up not very wealthy at all. He worked at least 20 hours every day. He's done it for 35 years. He's finally getting ready to retire next year. Hopefully sooner, if things go well.

RobertLIVE: Very good. I hope they do. Here is another question from AOL Kids: Where did you come up with the name O-Town? This is from Monica.

Dan Miller: That was actually a name given to us by the fans.

RobertLIVE: Friends.

Dan Miller: We were in the process of filming the whole show, didn't have a name in the show yet. The nickname for Orlando is O-Town. On our bus and when we were shown in public appearances or when we were doing shows, the media would hype it up as the O-Town project, O-Town guys are spotted, O-Town boys. Just happened to be in our first show at the House of Blues, they were chanting "O-Town." We looked at each other and we were like, all right.

O-Town: We're O-Town.

Dan Miller: The fans decide.

RobertLIVE: Friends. The friends.

Dan Miller: The friends. The name is only something to refer to Ashley, Dan, Erik, Trevor and Jacob, too. The music is what we are. Let the fans decide the name and we'll come up with the music.

RobertLIVE: Very good. Who is your favorite pop band? If you could open for anyone on tour, who would it be?

Jacob Underwood: We heard Jackson Five are back in the studio recording an album. It should be done before ours. If they go on tour, when they go on tour, that is our one request from God.

Trevor Penick: We will beg, plead and pray.

RobertLIVE: One of you was listening to Michael Jackson when he was signing?

Trevor Penick: I am a die-hard Jackson fan since I was five years old. I have everything, so much stuff in my room. That would be a dream.

RobertLIVE: Speaking of dreams of that night when, you know, you found out you were the final five, how crazy was that day? What happened when they turned off the cameras?

Ashley Angel: It was the craziest day ever, because it was so many weeks building up to that moment. The cameras didn't go away. They filmed us for hours after that. We didn't get a moment alone until we were lying in bed getting ready to fall asleep. I remember thinking, what happened? My life is totally changed. I am doing what I love to do. I remember being so excited, you know, that I was with these guys, that we were going to go out there and do what we love to do and try to be successful at it.

RobertLIVE: Just for a little insight, how long are they filming you guys every day?

Trevor Penick: Every day from the moment we woke up until we went to bed. How many hours?

Erik Estrada: It was 24 hours a day. If they had the camera in the room with the Mike, we were asleep -- and they would wait until we were asleep, then they would go away. Then they would know when we had to get up in the morning and would be ready an hour before we had to wake up. They had a crew there.

RobertLIVE: What an incredible disadvantage to celebrity. You have to not only prove yourselves on talent, but be judged by who you are and... create the persona with all of this stuff going on.

Ashley Angel: That is one of the big draws of the show. You don't see us in our final version until the very end of the episode. You know? I think people see the finished project, you know, so much that I think it's intriguing for them to watch when we're not in our good moments, when we're messy and not singing on key. I think it makes us more real. Hopefully people connect with us more. And they grow with us when we get better.

RobertLIVE: Absolutely.

Jacob Underwood: People had no clue bands were bad in the beginning. When you get put together, you don't sing off perfectly onstage and dance perfectly. Jackson Five started off, they weren't perfect. They had to practice all the time. They are seeing us very bad. Our Southwest Middle School performance, that wasn't the greatest thing ever. They are going to see us progress. That's what we like. Everybody likes the underdog. We hope they connect with us like that.

RobertLIVE: The songs are well received at the school, I remember that. SchoolHTC wants to know: When does the new CD come out? Do you know that yet?

Trevor Penick: We don't have a release date yet. We're going to start working on it as soon as we get off this radio tour. We're hoping for a Christmas release.

RobertLIVE: How many songs do you think you will have on that?

O-Town: Probably 12. We don't know.

RobertLIVE: What is the song you guys all connect with the most, do you think?

O-Town: It's actually a song they are going to see on the show you haven't heard yet, called "Say Say." It's a song we write as a group. All of us participated on it. You've got to watch to see that. It's a good song. We're pushing to get it on the album. It means a lot, because it's the first song we wrote.

RobertLIVE: I wish we could hear it right now.

O-Town: No.

RobertLIVE: What is Lou really like? Is he really involved in the band? For the people who aren't watching that episode, can you give us insight into the boat thing?

Dan Miller: We took a little trip on the boat and ended up getting to rehearsal real late. We were admonished for it. It was our fault.

RobertLIVE: It was like a lesson. It was all planned out. They totally did this on purpose to see if you guys would fall for it.

O-Town: Lou just likes that boat. He loves to be around us. He is highly involved with the project and involved with us and involved with the criteria. He is hands-on. He is just with us here where we are right now. We're on a four-city radio tour right now, at the moment. He tries to make it to as many locations as possible.

RobertLIVE: How did you get on the Pokemon soundtrack? So many people are going to buy this soundtrack. That must have been great.

Trevor Penick: It was a friend of Lou's at Atlantic Records [who] knew about the opportunity. Lou said, hey, we've got O-Town. They would love to do something like that. We said it was a great song, hey, let's do it. It's a good opportunity.

Dan Miller: We're proud of this song. "All For Love" and "Baby I Would" are great songs. They are early O-Town. "One Heart" is O-Town as a whole.

O-Town: We're not O-Town without Dan. Now that Dan was involved with the song, I think we feel closer to that song now. We're really proud of it.

RobertLIVE: Was Dan one of the original 25 who tried out? And can you tell us more about Dan? Dan, don't we hear from you? Who and what and how? Who are you?

Dan Miller: I am not good talking by myself. I was one of the members of the top 25. I was on the first episode a little bit. I got a cameo appearance in there. I am from Twin River, Ohio. I apparently made a good impression on them. When things happened with Ikaika, I was fortunate enough I stuck in their brains and they wanted me back. I can't tell you too much. You've got to keep watching. The show will tell a lot. I don't like to talk by myself a lot.

RobertLIVE: Did you have to work, like, around the clock to catch up with the routines and with all that stuff? Did you have much more work to do because of this?

Dan Miller: Of course. Beyond working on the material, I was worried about working on bonding with the guys, because that's probably the hardest thing is making sure, you know, I grow as a brother between these guys, not only as a band member. So when I came in, the dancing and singing, that was going to happen, you know, because I was going to work at it. The other stuff that was the hardest, making sure I didn't offend them or they liked me enough to keep me around. That's about it.

RobertLIVE: Excellent. I am sure you will be around for a long time. “Hi, my name is Ashley. When are you going to make a video for your single ‘All For Love’?”

Jacob Underwood: "All For Love" wasn’t our single, it was a song for the show we recorded. It was kind of to help us decide who was going to make the final five, who would blend well on the recording, who was good in the studio. It was part of the competition, and it's just for the show. We're not doing a video or releasing it as a single.

RobertLIVE: It's such a good song. You guys do such a great job with it.

Trevor Penick: We want to come out with something different no one else has really heard of before. It's a good song, but it pretty much sounds like everything else out there right now. We want to come out with something totally different to blow everyone else's mind.

O-Town: We didn't get to have a whole lot of choice in picking it or helping write it. That's something we're into, is writing our own music or at least sitting down and being involved in like the selection process and meeting the writers and connecting with the song before, like, this is it, let's do this.

RobertLIVE: Cool. Let's see. We've got another question here: This is Mario. I wanted to know, when you guys are being taped for TV and even right now, are you more nervous or are you used to it now? The cameras, you guys are probably used to these things.

O-Town: When it comes to the interview process, we're a lot more well-seasoned than most artists just getting into the business. Due to the show, you know, other than the fact we were around cameras 24-7, we had to give in-depth interviews or biweekly interviews on the occurrences that happened during those two weeks. We have to express them. We had a lot of time to experience the interview process. It helped us in being able to communicate with our fans and being able to express exactly what we want to express to them and in a fashion they can understand.

Ashley Angel: The first couple of weeks, it is awkward. You don't really know -- you know you've got to be yourself, but it's still awkward. After a while it goes away, and you forget the camera is there. Then it's just everyday life.

Trevor Penick: If you are like me and Ashley -- actually all of us. We're all performers. We are all hams. Every once in a while, you know, nothing’s going on and the camera is staring right at your face, you've got to ham it up and play to the camera. There are a lot of outtakes they don't show on the show. There are so many things we do. We're going to try to get some never-before-seen footage from the show, never-before-seen interviews.

Jacob Underwood: If you want to see it, call and request it. Go on the MTV site and let them know how much you want it.

RobertLIVE: And the MTV site which we're promoting has an exclusive outtake every week. Check that out, too. What are your reactions when you sit back and watch an episode of ‘Making the Band’? Do you guys get a chance to see the show?

Trevor Penick: It looks like this....

O-Town: You have to watch it two or three times. The first time we watch it, something will happen funny that we remember. We'll start laughing over the next seven lines. We have to watch it two or three times to get the full amount of the show. We usually get the tape a couple of days before Friday and come over to mine and Erik's apartment, because we have the VCR, and we watch them three or four times. When we see stuff, we remember. We live through it, but it's interesting for us to see how they piece it all together. When stuff happens, we're like, I can't believe they did that. This week, for instance, I kissed two different girls on the same episode. They are both my best friend from home. It's not going to look that way. It's going to look different. I want to let everyone out there know they are both my best friends, no more. They’re like taking girls in the show and making it look like it's a relationship.

Trevor Penick: Sometimes it is.

O-Town: You, it is.

RobertLIVE: I like this next question: You guys, you are used to reality TV. Who do you think will win ‘Survivor’?

O-Town: Jack.

O-Town: I've never watched ‘Survivor.’

Erik Estrada: We don't know the characters. This show is like ‘Survivor.‘