ABC News Radio: Interview with Danny Wood

NKOTB Return with "10," First Album in Five Years

Tuesday, April 02, 2013 8 a.m. CDT

Image courtesy of Facebook.com/NewKidsontheBlock (via ABC News Radio)

New Kids on the Block have a new "package" for their fans.  Following the announcement of their summer Package Tour, featuring Boyz II Men and 98 Degrees , the group is releasing 10, their first album of new material in five years, on Tuesday.
While NKOTB has so many hits that they could take to the road without any fresh material, group member Danny Wood says they held some "town meetings" with their fans, and the fans demanded a new album.
"That's the first thing they wanted was new music," Danny tells ABC News Radio. "And we had been feeling like, 'It's gonna be five years [since] the last record,' and if we're gonna continue to do it, you want it to stay fresh."
He adds, "We were all kind of jonesing to get back in the studio.  The fans wanted it and we put it together really, really fast." 
Because the project was turned around so quickly, the group members themselves didn't do much writing for the project; instead, Danny says their criteria for finding songs was to "get back to a more pop [sound], like our roots, like the Hangin' Tough album and Step by Step album: just more really good, well-written pop songs."
As for why the album is called 10 -- since it's not NKOTB's tenth album -- well, that's a technicality.
"It is our tenth U.S. release," Danny explains, including all their studio albums, plus "the remix album we had back in the day, the first greatest hits that was released, then we released another greatest [hits]."  He notes, "We're not saying it's our tenth album 'cause it's not.  It's our tenth release in the U.S."
So, when fans head out to see New Kids on the Package Tour, will they be hearing a good chunk of the new album?  Maybe, says Danny.
"It's all very tentative," he tells ABC News Radio.  "We have a few that we're thinking about but we're not gonna overdo it because there are so many other songs that people wanna hear.  But we're gonna give people enough of the new album so they're happy with that, too."
Before The Package Tour kicks off at the end of May, NKOTB will be hanging with their fans in more intimate surroundings: on their annual fan cruise , which gets underway May 18 in Miami and travels to Nassau and Half Moon Cay on the Carnival Victory.  Danny and band mate Donnie Wahlberg have teamed up to raffle off a cruise package for one lucky fan and a guest, with all proceeds going to the Komen Foundation for breast cancer research.  Visit the group's website to bid.

"I lost my mother in 1999 to breast cancer and we're almost past the million dollar mark with the proceeds we've raised over the past five years," he tells ABC News Radio. "So, it's a very personal thing for me."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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