Interview by Cynthia Horner, December 1997 **Courtesy of Sisters In Style Magazine**
SIS:Batman, what is going to happen with Sister,Sister? Will you ever be back on there?
Batman:Actually I'm doing a few more episodes. Eventually, they're going to write me out of the show.
SIS:That's going to be sad.
IMM:No, it will be alright.
SIS:I saw you guys once on Family Matters when they had a prom episode.
IMM:We didn't get to see that but we had a lot of fun.
SIS:Did you get to meet the people on the show?
IMM:We weren't around that long but we know Jaleel(Urkel), Kellie(Laura), and Darius(Eddie). The only people we didn't know were the guy who plays Waldo(Shaun Harrison) and Reginald Johnson who plays the father on the show.
SIS:Reginald Johnson is a good cook. What do you guys like to cook?
IMM:Stir-fry, Shrimp and Fondue. We can make Jambalaya.
SIS:Do you get nervous when people push forward to get to the center of the stage?
IMM:Yeah. Sometimes the best thing to do is to stay back. We don't get that close to the people. Romeo got pulled into the crowd one time. You can't take it as a job. I mean you have to take it seriuosly. If you just take it like this is not what I want to do, then you wind up doing whatever. When we meet fans we don't take it like this is our job and it's an obligation. We take it like we want to meet them because they've been our supporters. We feel like we're getting back what we like to give. If you don't want to do something and you're not devoted to that particular thing, you shouldn't be there. It's going to turn into pire hard work if you're not devoted. If you have fun here and there, if I can do it and it's like fun like when I go to a restaurant and sign autographs, you have fun with your fans. If you're in this business, like we were at a young age, it's just like you have to keep your childhood..keep doing things. You have to grow along with the business. You can't just grow up the minute you get in the business and then become an adult and then it's like "oh, where'd my childhood go!" Like I missed out on everything as a child. And then you feel like blaming everyone else. We try and maintain everything. Even after we were in the music business we would still play football and play with toys. Now we don't but we try to do everything else we can. We go to the movies. We try to keep young.
SIS:What are some os the funny things that have happened at your concerts?
IMM:One time a girl threw her panties on stage. This one girl took off her shirt in front of everyone because they were video taping. When this camera went around they saw this girl taking off her clothes. The adults are worse then the kids..they'll follow our car and wind up right behind us. We like it though. It makes us feel like we have support from the parents, the adults as well as the kids.
SIS:Do you feel lonely when you're on tour?
IMM:We don't feel lonely because we're around each other all the time. Sometimes our friends stop by and see us. Sometimes we fly our friends out to see us too.
SIS:What do your friends think of coming to the shows?
IMM:They watch us and they think it's fun. They're like, "look at little Romeo trying to fall off the stage." They have a real good time.
SIS:I feel differently when I see you perform.
IMM:We know what you mean because it was like that when we would watch Quindon. After he would get on stage it made us look at him a little differently. I think that's because like when we're just talking and lounging we just act like normal people. That's what people don't seem to get. They think like Immature are just stars. A lot of people think we're a certain way but we're just normal...we eat, we bleed. We're just like anybody else.
SIS:Do you have anything fun to do on the tour bus?
IMM:We have a Sega Saturn, Sega Genesis, and a Sony Play Station. We also have a refrigerator, and Ray Charles' autograph.
SIS:Who's in charge of helping you guys with your school work?
IMM:We have our tutor. She keeps all our books together and everything.
SIS:How is the school work done differently?
IMM:There isn't any differencce. It's just that instead of the classroom, we're in school on the bus, or in a hotel room. It's a lot easier because you get a lot more focused and we each individually have our own work. We're in different grades so we have different work. Sometimes you can work on English the whole day,you can work on math another day or you can divide them up. We follow a program, but as long as we get our work done at the end of the cycle. The only real difference between regular school and our school is that teachers don't get to pick what we do.
Do you think that three hours a day is a good amount of time to get everything done?
IMM:It would be better if we had five hours. Sometimes we'll go for 6 or 7 hours. Sometimes it's fun because in school it seems like all the work gets done. When we're in tutoring, and we have 3 hours,5 days a week, it goes by quick. We get a week's worth of work done in three hours.
SIS:Do you deal with people that go to public schools? Could you go to any of their activities or would it just be too complicated?
IMM:We want to be able to go to our prom. We don't want to cause any problems with the guys...they think we get all the girls. They don't see the cool side of it. They just view us as entertainers. If they took the time to get to know us, we're cool and down to earth. We're easy to get along with when guys come to talk to us. There was a guy that was mean to us, but when we got to talking to him we got to know him and he got to know us. He thought we were cool and we thought he was cool too.
SIS:Have you guys bought anything new lately?
IMM:We've just been buying outfits for chilling at home or chilling in the hotel. We've been shopping a lot since we've been on tour.
SIS:What state had the best clothes?
IMM:Every state is pretty much equal. The stores pretty much have the same stuff.
SIS:What place has had the most stuff that you have never seen before?
IMM:The Macy's in Washington.
SIS:When you guys were in Florida did you like the rides? How were you able to go on the rides with out any problems?
IMM:We loved the rides. We had special passes so we got to the front of the line.
SIS:How was that?
IMM:Everybody was dressed up having a good time. It was fun. It was like shopping centers...little front areas by our hotel...there was a carnival by our hotel. Florida's a fun place. Universal Studios was the best. Better than the one in California.
SIS:Do you feel like you're getting older now? If you see an old picture from when you first got started can you remember that part as well?
IMM:It's so hard to remember...
SIS:Did you expect to get this famous when you first started?
IMM:When we first started we wanted to be.
SIS:Did you think it could happen?
Batman:Yeah when we first started we thought it could. After our first albulm came out, it really didn't do too well. But it didn't discourage us, so we decided to see out the next albulm would do. We weren't thinking that the next albulm was going o be the albulm of the year. We were just hoping we would do better...it was just wishful thinking. Next thing we knew the albulm was getting to be pretty big. We couldn't believe what happened...we went from album that didn't sell anything to an album that sold big. That change really shocked Romeo and I. LDB wasn't in the group at the time.
SIS:How does it feel when you go past the magazine stand? Do you laugh when you see your pictures?
IMM:Yeah. Some of the pictures are funny. The photographers sometimes catch us off guard so we wind up looking kind of goofy.
SIS:Did you ever see the issue where we cut the pictures of you apart? Wasn't that funny?
IMM:Yeah we liked that. We got most of them right. It was a real good idea.
SIS:One day we'll let you be the editors of an issue and let you figure out what should go in it.
IMM:Cool. Let's do that, it'll be fun. Immature does the interviews. Immature will do an interview on TLC. That'll be fun!
SIS:Do you guys fight over girls?
Batman:Like my Dad told me--never let anybody come between you...like your friendship. If you and your best friend like the same girl, I don't think you should ruin your relationship over one girl. There are so many fish out there in the sea. Don't ruin your relationship forever with your friend. Say me and Romeo like the same girl and I ruined my whole realtionship with Romeo over a girl and me and the girl was only together for a week and I end up not getting along with the girl. If I don't have my friends to go back to then it's like I lost both of them, my girl and my best friend. So that's why we have our realtionships and we never let a girl come between us. It's not worth losing.
SIS:Does it seem like girls you're with don't really understand after all? (About being in the group)
IMM:They understand because when we give a fan a hug and a kiss on the cheek, it's our way of saying thank you. We're real supportive of our fans because they've supported us through all these years so we try to show our love and appreciation.
SIS:Are you able to keep up with your special friends while you're traveling?
IMM:Well, not all the time. No not all the time.
SIS:You're not really on the hotel because you're on the tour bus.
IMM:That's probably why we don't have girlfriends now cause we're on tour. It's like we won't get to talk to them or we won't get to see 'em. We have a lot of friends that are girls so we find them and say hello and everything. We have a lot of friends. As far as realtionships, girls get jealous if they see me kissing other fans. "Why do you have to hug her so tight!" I haven't had a girlfriend in like 2 years...for about a year and a half.
