He's been around the Block, but he's back
Ex-New Kid in Town: Jordan Knight, who has an album on the way, sings at Irving Plaza tonight.
The transition from boy band to music man is filled with all of the awkward growing pains of adolescence - pleas for attention, dips into nostalgia, a dependence on new cooler friends.
That's why Jordan Knight, the former falsetto frontman of the New Kids on the Block, has of late popped up in strange places, most visibly on the fading-star-studded VH1 series "The Surreal Life" and more privately at the Orlando digs of Aaron and Nick Carter, where he helped write a song for Aaron's new album.
"You get pigeonholed by radio people and stuff," says Knight, 34, who is trying to reignite a solo career that flared briefly in 1999 with the raunchy single "Give It to You."
"It's always 'From New Kids on the Block - Knight!' Rather than, 'It's Jordan Knight!' "I mean, we slipped away gracefully," he says of the group's demise. "It wasn't like we were on coke and had to go cold turkey. But we were all ready for the next chapter. It's fine so long as I get a good shot in '05 with the new record."
"On the Inside" doesn't have a release date yet, but Knight says Kelly Clarkson, Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick make appearances on it. He also says Jadakiss' manager recently called to see if the rapper could contribute. Knight's also on tour. He's at Irving Plaza tonight, with Rob Base and "Surreal" roommate Flavor Flav on the bill, too.
He admits that his reality-TV gig - he seemed an awkward recluse on the show - was a bid for publicity: "I had no want or no reason to want to do it. I was conned doing it, convinced by my management that it would be a good thing for me, to put my face back out there."
To some degree, it's working. Just the other day, he says, a man buying cigarettes at a gas station told him, "Hey, I know you from TV, bro!" Raising his profile was also the logic behind "New Kids on the Block: The Remix Album," a collection of the group's hits sung by Knight and released last spring. As with "Surreal," he says he felt pressured to do the project. "It wasn't really something I wanted to do, but I had my hands tied ... I was under a contract, and the label wanted to put it out."
Whether the new recognition will spur album and ticket sales remains to be seen. That's why Knight is keeping busy with other projects, like the Carter song, inspired by tragedies like the tsunami and California mudslides.
For his own album, Knight sticks to the formula that helped launch his career - up-tempo songs about romance, this time with a dash of hip-hop flavor. Despite his lineup of collaborators, he hasn't invited any former Kids to guest. "It's almost like if one comes on and the others want to come on, it would be a whole New Kids on the Block album," says Knight, who adds that he speaks to the other Kids every few months. "[Doing one song together] would be cool, but I don't know what kind of money they would want for it."