Donnie Wahlberg Talks New Kids On The Block
Former New Kids on the Block star Donnie Wahlberg stopped by Late Night with Conan O’Brien on Friday to promote his new TV show ‘Boomtown’, though much of the conversation was about his NKOTB days. Donnie talked about how they played in the prison system before they made it big, and how his son isn’t too familiar with the boyband, instead being a fan of Slipknot. Read on for a portion of their chat.
Conan: He’s now starring in the new nbc series, “boomtown.” Please
welcome donnie wahlberg.
[ Skip to music talk... ]
Conan: You know, we have something in common, which is, we sort of grew
up in the same area in M. And I remember when I was living in boston and
the new kids hit, it was huge. It was just this huge experience. And joey,
from the new kids, mcintyre, he bought a house right next to my parent’s
house, like, a couple of streets over.
Donnie: Right.
Conan: And I would pass it, and I ululd see all these girls camped outside
his house, and I remember thinking, “I wanted girls camped out outside
my house!”
[ Laughter ] “Someday it’ll happen!”
Donnie: Yeah.
Conan: It never did!
[ Laughter ] That must’ve been intense for you, too, is that right?
Donnie: Yeah, yeah. it’s funny though — it’s funny that you say that,
you know, because we used to get, like, flack from people who would see
the girls hanging out, you know, people would drive by my house and see
the girls and start screaming obscenities. You know, guys would drive by
and throw eggs at halloween.
Conan: Just jealousy.
Donnie: Yeah, but it’s nice to know that, you know, beneath the jealousy,
there are people like you who really wanted that for themselves, you know?
[ Laughter ]
Conan: Yeah.
Donnie: That’s really cool.
Conan: This is a true story. Like two Christmases ago, I came home,
and my mother, at one point, said, “there’s some girls hanging outside
the front of the house.” And I was like, “yes, this is great. I’ve always
wanted this.” So I went out, and I was like, “girls, please, I need my
privacy, you know?”
[ Laughter ] “I’m a person. Leave me alone.” And they said that they
were on their way over to joey’s house –[ Laught ] — And that they had
just stopped off for a second.
Donnie: That actually happened to me before. I had girls — and you
know, they were always outside mytoo. But one day, I went out, and I said,
“hey, how you doing?” And they said, “hey, we just wanted to know how to
get to jordan’s house.”
[ Laughter ] I was like, “all right, thanks.”
Conan: “Thanks a lot. Thank you. Did you veo say that?”
Donnie: Right, right.
Conan: Now, when you guys first started out, you were playing anywhere
you could get an audience. You were playing prisons at one point, is that
true?
Donnie: We did. You know, it’s one of the great myths — it’s true.
[ Laughter ]
Conan: I was gonna say, I wouldn’t suggest that the boy bands today
go to a prison.
[ Laughter ]
Donnie: Exactly.
Conan: I don’t know how long ‘n sync’s gonna last in prison.
[ Laughter ]
Donnie: Not long. The funny thing is though people think we were this
huge, overnight sensation, but we really weren’T. We were doing for about
four yve we could do, and we did three prison appearances. One of them,
my older brother was in the prison, and he was the promoter for the show.
[ Laughter and applause ] It’s true. It’s true. He’s –
Conan: It’s nice to know somebody there.
Donnie: No, it was pretty remarkable, but, you know, we used to be,
you know, obviously, we hated to get booed anywhere, but to go into a prison,
I mean, god, if you fail on a prison concert, u ght get rape y might get
murdered. There’s no telling what could happen. So what we used to do is
we would come up with strategies to win the inmates over, and what we did
the first time is I smuggled in a couple cartons of cigarettes. And so,
at the end of the show, I just started throwing them out, and I handed
it out to some of the guys in the group and we all threw them out, and
the inmates went crazy, and word spread throughout the prisons in massachusetts
about the new kids, you know, they would come and throw cigarettes out.
And so, everybody wanted us out there.
Conan: You didn’t really need an act at that point, really.
[ Laughter ] You could just’s the new
othe block and their cigarette-shooting machine.”
[ Laughter ]
Donnie: Yeah. Yeah.
Conan: Wow. Now, you have children yourself now.
Donnie:Avtwo, yeah.
Conan: Two kids. Are they performers? Can you see it in them? To perform?
Donnie: Well, I have a 1-year-old who — I don’t know with him t,t,
but my 9-year-old, my son xavier, he plays guitar. He doesn’t really know
about my musical tastes. He knows a little bit about it. But I think he
heard aboutt. The first time he really knew about is he heard eminem singing
a song about us, and said the new kids sucked or something, and he was
like, “dad, weren’t you in that group?”
[ Laughter ] “Why did he say u sucked?”
Conan: Right,
Donnie: I was like, “we did, son.”
[ Laughter ]
Conan: No.
Donnie: No, no, no. That’s a joke. That’s a joke. But, you know, he
plays guitar, and he actually — his musical taste is much different than
mine. He listens to like death metal and I don’t think it’s ’cause I’m
not a good parent. I think I’m a pretty good parent. He’s not revolting
or anything, but he just listens to like slipknot –
Conan: Slipknot’s huge.
Donnie: Yeah, I mean, he loves them. And it’s like — I don’t know,
they, like, have these bloody masks and all this weird stuff, and ’sike,
“d,hey’re coolth’re cool,” and he’s learning all their songs. So I try
to teach him some older songs like — he’s learning “stairway to heaven”
now for me. And “smells like teen spirit” by nirvana, for he does these
–
Conan: Oh, ood. So you’rinructing hi that — right. There’s more than
just –
Donnie: Well, I want him to know where all these bands came from. They
all came from led zeppe anjimmy page is like the greatest guitarist of
all-time, and I want him to know the history of it, not just get caught
up in the new stuff.
Tags: New Kids On The Block
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