8/24/00:.
YES!! It's TRUE!!! Sorry to all you Ashley Lovers
but he is taken by his one and only Shelly!!
8/23/00:.
The rumours are true!! Ikaika signed on with
another "Making the Band" exiles who is putting together their own four-man band, called LMNT! ("Element," get it - like the four elements.)
the four member are : Ikaika Kahoano, Bryan Chan, Mike Miller,
and Matthew *un-known*, who used to play the lead role of
Ren in Footloose on broadway!
8/22/00:."This article is from a friend that lives in Hawaii" PLEASE read this article if u want to know more about ikaika leaving the band and the TRUTH behind "Making the Band"
Here's another couple of articles from our local (Honolulu) paper.
One is an interview and another is a story about reality TV. Very interesting!
Posted on: Sunday, August 20, 2000
'Iolani grad finds reality TV appearance 'not real'
Advertiser Staff
The Honolulu Advertiser's Mary Kaye Ritz made a conference call
last Sunday to Ikaika Kaho`ano (who's back East working on his
new band) with, his father, Kimo Kaho`ano, and his fiance, Malia
Yamamoto, here in Honolulu. The conversation focused on Ikaika's
experiences on the "Making
the Band" reality TV show. Here are some excerpts from that
rambling conversation:
The Advertiser: Living in a fishbowl, complete scrutiny,
microphones in the bathrooms - how weird was that?
Ikaika: It was hard to deal with at first. As the show went on, to
save my sanity, I just blocked everything out.
Kimo: We thought we knew what was going to happen, but we
didn't have a clue or a real understanding what was really going
to happen to him. "OK, the camera's going to follow them." But we
didn't really understand how much. (That even included sending a
camera crew to the Islands when Kaho`aano was here during a
filming break.)
Ikaika: I didn't think they'd come back to Hawai`i with me, try to
locate me in Hawai`i. It wasn't too bad for me, as long as they
were filming me. When they tried to get my family and girlfriend
involved. . . they didn't sign up for that, you know? I didn't appreciate that.
Advertiser: How real is this experience?
Ikaika: It's not real, because the whole time you know the cameras are there. You think differently; you say things differently, things you wouldn't have said otherwise. You're not reading lines from a script, but
had the cameras not been there, there would have been so many things I would have done differently. Like, I would've gotten into
a fight with Jacob (Underwood, another Band member), but because the cameras were there, I couldn't do it. I like Jacob now, but
when this was going on, I didn't.
Kimo: The last show, when they saw Ikaika leave, people got very negative and upset because they thought Ikaika was leaving
because of Haku (his
brother) and because of me (urging him to come home). The only concern we have is for the mental, the physical, health of my
son. That's all we were
concerned about. It wasn't just us calling him home. We knew it was best for him to come home at that point, because they had
taken things out of context, and it wasn't looking good, and because Ikaika was the
most important thing to us. We don't care about any money.
When it comes down to it, we care about our son. That's it.
Advertiser: Malia, how real was the portrayal? Did you feel you
were being accurately portrayed on the show?
Malia: I didn't really give them much to go on, because I tried to avoid cameras and all that. For the most part, it was accurate,
but I didn't like the way they'd allude to the fact that I'd (supposedly) said Ikaika had to choose between me and the band.
Ikaika: That never happened. She never once told me to choose
between her and the band. They were telling me to choose, it was coming to that.
Malia: Lou, from the very beginning, was trying ...
Ikaika: (Excitedly) Yeah, from the very beginning! Lou came up to me and asked me, "Do you have a girlfriend?" He's like, "We're
going to have to do something about that. The girls out there don't want to think you
have a girlfriend. They want to think you're single." I was like,
"Whatever, bro."
Malia: At one point, Lou told him, if I couldn't handle the cameras, why don't we break up on TV.
Ikaika: He's like, "Why don't you stage a breakup on TV?" He told me this off-camera, of course. "Stage a breakup on TV, then
don't talk to each other for a month, then when you go home, when the cameras are gone, you get your cell phone and you can
call her whenever you want." That's exactly what he told me. He's like, "You have to have two lives. You have to have a private life
and a public life." I only have one life, and it's mine. People know I
have a girlfriend and I don't care. I have a girlfriend, and that's the truth. Deal with it.
Kimo: They did that on purpose. Their major concern was their television show. They sent Ikaika back to Hawaii, then they set
him up. All the boys were getting mad, then they tell the boys
they don't know (what's going on with Ikaika). Of course they know. They know exactly what's going on. So, there were things
done - they may not have had a script, it's the closest thing you
have to a script when you influence what's going on.
Malia: Yeah, watching everything that went on, it made me realize how much power the media has, especially television.
They're making people think certain things. People are watching this and making judgments, but they don't really know the truth.
They have so much power, I question the
integrity of reality TV shows.
Advertiser: Did you know the truth, what it was really like, when
you signed on?
Ikaika: Not at all. I thought it was going to be a music group, they were going to videotape us singing and practicing, getting
along. I figured I'd be with people of my mind-set who wanted to work hard, to put a good group together, people who knew as
much about music as I do. That's not what it was about at all.
Malia: Ikaika had to see a psychologist at the beginning.
Ikaika: There was a psychologist who told us, "This wasn't going
to be easy. The cameras are going to be in your face 24 hours a day."
Malia: It makes me think they had screened all the guys' personalities. They kind of figured you weren't going to (get along).
Ikaika: You're totally right, they did that. When I went to the audition, they screened us for television after they did this music
test. They put us in this little room and they bombarded us with questions. They checked out our personalities, as Malia was saying. They planned it out. They planned out the scenario.
They're not stupid.
Kimo: They had a job, and the job was to put together the show,
so they had to get personalities that would sometimes conflict.
They were wrong, because if they had focused on the music ...
Ikaika: ... the show would've been so much better.
Advertiser: You were in six months of seclusion, from when you
quit the show until it aired. That had to be a difficult thing.
Ikaika: That was a tough time for me. Coming home, having no idea what I'm going to do now. I missed the semester, so I couldn't go back to school. Plus, I was on national television, and now people are wondering what I'm doing home.
Kimo: It wasn't easy for us. Being 5,000 miles away, and thinking these guys could have control over him that we didn't want them
to have. One of our efforts was to have Haku travel to him in Orlando. . . . I got
tired of people asking. Ikaika did a better job than anybody of not telling (the outcome). He understood the gag they put him under.
One of the greatest things to happen to him was landing on Rosie (O'Donnell's) show. Because it really showed what Ikaika was
about. . . . I think a lot of people in Hawaii
are proud of the way he stood up for his character, his relationship. He carried that through this tough time. Then he
went back to do their promos. He didn't have to do that, but he did. He's been more than generous to them, and they have not been one-half of that to him.
Kimo: Malia, this must have been tough for you to deal with.
Malia: It wasn't that bad, but at first, people were saying, "What a bitch she is. She made Ikaika choose between her and the band," which, of course, I didn't. Things like that. People would say horrible things. It was a bummer.
Advertiser: Did you check out any of the fan Web sites?
Malia: Actually ... (laughs).
Ikaika: Malia used to go on, and I'd catch her. And I'd say, "Babes, stop looking at the Web site." I'd suggest she didn't look at it. (Malia would say) "Look at this girl. This stupid girl is saying this and this about me." Maybe you just shouldn't read it.
Kimo: Ikaika, now that you've been through all of this, you understand what these kind of reality TV shows, both on MTV and
other networks, are capable of bringing out. Is it a truthful venue?
Ikaika: I think it's kind of a sick venue, truthfully. I don't think it's really real at all, in fact, it's kind of demented. . . . I've got to give it to those guys who are going through it now. They're going
through hell. They don't know it, but they are.
Kimo: They don't know they're being manipulated and used, and
people all over the world are forming opinions about them that might not be right. They're young men, they've got a whole future
in front of them. How will this affect them when they want to go back to reality, back to a job, back to what they want to do?
Ikaika: The bottom line is, they're making a TV show about music,
but it wasn't about music at all. If it was about the music, there would've been a lot more music involved.
Here's the accompanying article to the interview w/Ikaika. The article was kinda long, so I included only the parts on Ikaika. If you'd like to read the whole article, you can visit http://www.honululuadvertiser
and click on "Island Life."