| 98 Degrees Learned From Revelation |
| Drew Lachey and his brother Nick, along with Justin Jeffre and Jeff Timmons, had planned a two-month vacation from anything 98 Degrees. Instead, what they got was a two-month working vacation. "I think that time off really gave everybody a breath of fresh air and new life to go in and do this record ["Revelation]." Drew Lachey (pronounced la-shay) said. "When everybody came together, we had songs that we had written over the break." Upon reflection, however, the group decided that the songs weren't up to standards. So, once again, 98 Degrees separated--this time to work on improving its songwriting skills. Drew Lachey headed to Nashville to work with songwriters there, while the rest of the guys stayed in Cincinnati to collaborate with hometown folks. (Most notably, Jeffre hooked up with Bootsy Collins.) Drew Lachey explained that the sessions were especially beneficial to him. "On the last record, I was really timid and not really confident. The thing that turned it around for me was that I went down to Nashville for a couple days during that break and got together with some great writers. They just kind of wrote with me openly. I saw what I was able to give to the project, and what I was able to add as far as a different outlook. That kind of really helped build my confidence and made it that much easier to be a songwriter." On Friday (11/17), the group introduced the ballad "My Everything," the second single and video from "Revelation," to MTV's "Total Request Live." "It's a very personal intimate video," Lachey said. "Each one of us was able to have our own scenarios. We were all individually able to design them. [It] kind of represents what our everythings are to us." Three of the group members' "everythings" have been plastered all over gossip pages. Timmons revealed that he has a daughter, Alyssa, who will turn 2 in January. Nick Lachey and his girlfriend, singer Jessica Simpson, sang together on "Where You Are" from Simpson's album "Sweet Kisses." And Drew Lachey recently married his longtime girlfriend. "For the most part, the fans have been extremely supportive of it. People have come up to my wife and said, 'Congratulations.' It's really very moving to have your fans make an effort to say something to her." Those fans, along with "Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche)"--the Latin-flavored first single from "Revelation"--recently helped push the album past the two million mark. While rival boy vocal groups 'NSync and Backstreet Boys have sold several times as many records, 98 Degrees claims to be happy with what it has. "We just kind of really tried to make the record we that we wanted to make, and leave the rest up to everybody else," said Lachey. "We know what we've done in the past, and we know what we feel like we could legitimately do, and we're very, very happy with what we already accomplished on this record." |