98 Degrees Singer Nick Lachey Readying A 'Funky' Solo Album

01/28/2003 12:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Billy Johnson Jr

(1/28/03, 12 p.m. ET) -- 98 Degrees singer Nick Lachey will release his debut solo album via Universal Records this spring. The first single will tentatively impact radio on April 1, according to the singer.

Even though the album is due within the next several months, Lachey is still searching for an appropriate title for it. "I don't have a title for it yet," he explained. "I need to do that this week. The label is like, 'We need a title!' That's my job of the week."

Lachey collaborated with several highly respected producers and songwriters for the album, including the Matrix (Avril Lavigne), Walter Afanasieff (Celine Dion, Mariah Carey), and Guy Chambers (Robbie Williams), among others.

Asked how he would describe the set, Lachey told us, "It's maybe slightly more guitar-driven, but yet R&B-based, and kind of funky at times--a little funky."

Lachey's wife, pop singer Jessica Simpson, added, "Think George Michael or Jamiroquai."

The 29-year-old Lachey is following in the footsteps of fellow "boy band" stars Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys and Justin Timberlake and J.C. Chasez of *NSYNC in pursing a solo career. When asked what he makes of this recent trend of male solo artists stepping out on their own and away from their groups, he said: "Some of it is probably due to the fact that what people considered boy-band music, it felt like it hit its end. If you think about it, there were no male solo artists, and there hadn't been since, you know, George Michael. You know, it just hadn't happened."

Lachey also said that he's already convinced that his solo album will automatically be compared to Timberlake's and Carter's solo efforts. "You know, and people are probably going to turn around and pit us all three against each other like they pit the bands against each other, but I think we're all doing very, very different kinds of music," Lachey said. "And obviously, we're not all the same, and people will eventually see that."

The one thing that Timberlake, Carter, and Lachey do have in common is that on their solo albums they didn't want to stray too far away from the type of music that they did with their respective groups. Lachey explained, "I think the fear--when you step out of a group and when you do your own thing--is you don't want to alienate the fans that have been loyal to you from the beginning. So, I didn't want to come out and do a heavy metal album and people would be like, 'What the heck is he thinking?', you know, and that's not me anyway."

Lachey admitted that a head-banging, heavy metal solo album is out of the question, 98 Degrees fans will still be pleasantly surprised with what he does have to offer. "I definitely wanted it to make sense in terms of what 98 Degrees did, but I didn't want to do a 98 Degrees album and have it sound exactly the same."

However, Lachey acknowledged that finding a sound that he was satisfied with was not an easy task, saying, "It took me a while to figure out how I'm gonna make this different--how these songs are gonna sound different from what the group used to do. It's not the same as 98 Degrees. It's definitely an evolution from that."

Lachey said that 98 Degrees remains on hiatus--they have not broken up--and that they plan to regroup and record again eventually. Aside from his recent wedding and the upcoming release of his solo album, Lachey said the public could expect more major announcements from him in 2003. "Just one," Lachey said, "I'm taking Lance Bass's place and I'm going into space," he replied with a smile.

-- Margy Holland, Nashville; Sofia Fernandez, Los Angeles; and Jason Gelman, New York

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