iTunes.com/CityandColour

Dallas Green (who in effect is ‘City and Colour’) will also be hitting the road with his band to perform these songs this summer, so be sure to follow him on Twitter to keep up with their plans.

CANADA: STREAM #thehurryandtheharm, exclusively on @itunesmusic (Canada): itunes.com/cityandcolour @cityandcolour @dinealonemusic

— Dallas Green (@cityandcolour) May 24, 2013

I got to sit down with Jordan Knight and Danny Wood recently to chat about their new album, upcoming tour, and life as a New Kid, 20 years later.

If I could go back and tell 7 year old me that 20 years down the road I’d be interviewing the New Kids on the Block, I think I would have lost my mind. How does it feel to be back as a group 20 years later?

Jordan: I would have done the same. If I could tell my 20 year old self “you’re still going to be doing this in 20 years”.

Danny: I feel lucky. Always. I feel lucky that we still get to be able to do this.

What is it like to meet fans from the 80’s and 90’s who are excited that you’re back?

Danny: There are always great stories that they tell us. “I got to see you here, in 1990” and now they’re back. You get the stories too that some girls weren’t allowed to go, like their parents wouldn’t let them or didn’t want them to, and now they’re grown women. Professionals: lawyers, doctors, teachers and that’s the part I like to see. I like to see where they are now in their lives. There are a lot of very successful women out there who are fans of ours.

Are you gaining a new following as well?

Jordan: Maybe a bit of a new following, but we mostly cater to and have stuck with our fans who have grown up with us. All the youngsters out there have their Biebers, they have their One Directions. They have their groups. Our fans really didn’t go anywhere; like us they just did separate things and had separate lives. When we came back, all our fans reunited too.

You both took different approaches to the time that you were apart (with Danny maintaining a low profile and Jordan embarking on a solo career) how do you think those experiences set you up for what you’re doing now?

Danny: I think it makes it easier to balance things now – family life and doing this – because mostly I was just being a dad for those years. So now when we work it’s easy to get right back into it, but when I go home it’s easy too. I usually take a red eye flight home to LA then Miami so I can still bring my daughters to school in the morning. It makes it easier to balance.

Jordan: I think it was good for all of us to have a break. When you’re that immersed in something, you identify with it. And to be able to do something personally, by yourself, it’s a healthy thing to branch out and discover who you are. Once we did that, it was good for us to come back together. More of a solid base of who we are and make the group all the more better.

What prompted the decision to reunite in 2008?

Jordan: It’s not that we got together and just decided; I think each of us at that moment in time all figured it was a good idea. It was a good time for New Kids to come back… I think the world was ready for the New Kids again. Our fans were ready for us again.

I saw an interview where you talked about being grateful for the opportunity to get a second chance. Do you think you’re doing things differently this time around as a result?

Danny: Well I know we’re doing things differently. It was the 80′s and 90′s, so the fashion is a little better [now]. I don’t regret any pictures we’ve taken in the last five years. So you take all of that experience and the mistakes you think you made from the first time around and you don’t do it. It’s kinda like going to high school again and getting a second chance to experience it all over; You know to do some things differently and we’re doing that.

The new album, 10, definitely has an old school New Kids feel to it. I would love to hear about the album and the process of putting it together.

Danny: Well first of all that’s great if you feel that, because that’s where we wanted to go with the record. It’s kind of more in our roots of R&B, pop, like the Hangin’ Tough record. We wanted to get back to that. What makes the album really special is that we hired a fan who used to work at Interscope and she met with DK Music and they gave her The Remix. That’s the first song we heard and then we ended up with 13-14 songs from them. It was very easy because they just kept playing us songs and we loved them. It made the process easy.

What has the response to the album been like so far?

Jordan: It’s been really great. A lot of people are also saying “that’s the old New Kids that I fell in love with”. Just us singing love songs and being very romantic. It’s old school R&B but with a new cool twist to it that the producers put on it, so it’s like pop R&B but there’s this kind of Euro-pop/rock feel.

I’ve heard you say that you have a special relationship with your fans. What do you think makes you go above and beyond or differentiates you from other artists?

Danny: We’ve been asked this question a lot, and a good example is that our fans all pitched in and got us a full page ad in Billboard and wrote a very nice message to us. And we feel same way about them. We try to go out of our way to do certain things. Like when we weren’t touring last year in the states, we held town hall meetings. They do things for us and we do things for them. And it makes it very unique.

You’re all very active on Twitter and in social media, which wasn’t around in the 80′s and 90′s. How has Twitter, Facebook and social media changed the way you market yourselves and interact with your fans?

Jordan: The great thing about Twitter and Facebook is that at a moment’s notice we can put out a video or send out a message. Back then, if we wanted to touch all our fans, we’d have to run down to Muchmusic and get on TV. But now we can just make a video. We don’t need a middle man or middle network or middle radio station to get to our fans.

What can fans expect from the upcoming Package Tour with Boyz II Men and 98 Degrees?

Danny: A lot of hits. It’s a lot of hit records between the three groups. Like with us and the Backstreet Boys it was like a lady’s night out. But this is even more because it’s 3 groups and more records and more hit songs. We try to give the fans a lot for their money and that’s the point of The Package Tour. To have it be an affordable lady’s night out and have a good time with your girlfriends.

When does this end? At what point do you say “I’ve had enough of being a New Kid”?

Danny: Never. Because doing it this time, there’s nothing that makes you feel that way. Nothing we do makes me feel like I’m ready to retire. I feel lucky and blessed. We just made a new record, so obviously we want to take that overseas next year possibly. I don’t see any reason for this to end any time soon.

Their new album, 10 is available now. The Package Tour (featuring the New Kids on the Block, 98 Degrees and Boyz II Men) kicks off on May 28, 2013 in Uncasville, CT with Canadian dates in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Comprised of three siblings, Kimberly, Neil and Reid Perry, the Band Perry first splashed the scene in 2010 with their self-titled debut. The album’s popularized single “If I Die Young” catapulted the charts and both the single and TBP reeled in ACM and CMA awards as well as CMT’s ‘Breakthrough Video of the Year’ and ‘Best New Live Act’ — not too shabby of an initiation into the country music scene.

The music that permeates from these three artists shuffles between conversations of sensational eloquence and attention to elevated chord progression. Songs are powerful, dramatic and catchy regardless if the subject strikes glimpses of sorrow, angst or hope.

“Country music is always about real style stories, stylistically it may vary, but the heart behind it is the same. There are so many flavours in the sounds too, country music is not straight laced, you have bands like The Lumineers to Mumford and Sons to pop acts to rock n’ roll -  there is a lot of variety and that’s what makes it special,” explains Kimberly.

With Kimberly being classically trained and all three having roots in piano precision, the move for the brothers to drums, mandolin and bass was a self-taught transition. The art of songwriting that switched between piano and guitar was one of those crutch moments that helped invigorate a new template of music authenticity.

“Playing piano and then playing in a band is like two different subjects, math and science. Piano you are all by yourself and creating solely through that mechanism, with a band it’s a completely different experience. It’s nice to have the foundation of playing the piano though, it is reassuring,” comments Reid.

The song “Back To Me Without You” is an example of how the process of songwriting and welding instruments to run the course can surface with more power amongst a collective. The highly emotional track is surrounded around a loss of a friendship that was “crashing and burning” and it was written in real time with Kimberley taking the wheel and both Reid and Neal helping steer between roadblocks; it is a song that can transcend into multiple meanings for the listener, and also brings comforting advice along the bumpy way.

The first single off Pioneer “Better Dig Two” was recently performed on Dancing with the Stars and the band’s latest country-sparking single “Done” breeds the same boldness as Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats”, with feisty guitar interludes. Other notable mentions that ring with sincerity and sass include “Mother Like Mine”, “Chainsaw” and “Lucky Ones”.

Another facet of the band is their own compass of scene and scope, both in Nashville and the brooding rotation of music styles and counterparts from varying backgrounds.

“All the collaborations that are now happening in the country music are not necessarily with only country acts,  you have rappers coming with country artists, there’s the Nashville ingredient mixing with pop artists and so on, it’s a good time for country music because there are different styles and that brings in different audiences,” furthers Neal.

“Nashville itself is a small creative community making music, and it’s interwined with artists and business, it’s really the biggest small town in the world. You have to be really transparent and creative, you have to know each other and trust each other  — it’s become such a haven that is bigger than many may think  — it’s diverse racially, age and what not, it has long arms,” explains Kimberly.

The Band Perry may only be into their second album, however their collaborative effort is already fixating through a boy-to-girl echo. The rational, the sensual, the fear and the security are all themes exposed on the record and it’s those desires and complexities that surface through the sounds of three hungry adventurers.

Pioneer delivers songs that pursue refuge, coiling between harmonies of triumph and temper; a totality of savour-rich ballads that can morph into stadium heightened showcases and quiet corners with the same grip.

As Reid puts it, “The general idea of Pioneer is getting from one point to the other. It’s a spirit, spirituality and musically a coming together of that. Pioneer starts out soft and then grows into the grandeur bolder songs and it’s really about taking that journey with us.”

The Band Perry will be performing at the Boots and Hearts Music Festival in Bowmanville, Ontario this summer from August 1 – 4 – find out more on the festival here.