*NSYNC‘s Joey Fatone reveals what it really felt like getting the band back together for the first time in over two decades.
“It was fun!” Fatone, 46, told the crowd at 90s Con Florida Sunday while speaking on a panel alongside Backstreet Boys‘ Howie Dorough and AJ McLean and TLC’s Rozanda “Chilli” Thomas and Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins. “MTV Awards was really cool. It was fun for me and the guys to get back together. It was surreal in the sense of we kind of just stepped back from each other. Literally, we fell into place.”
Last week, the boy band, consisting of Fatone, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Lance Bass and Chris Kirkpatrick, announced that their first single in over 20 years titled “Better Place” would appear in the soundtrack for Universal’s Trolls Band Together.
“We’re excited for *NSYNC to come out with a song, which is crazy to say after 25 years,” Fatone told panel moderator and PEOPLE Senior Editor Breanne L. Heldman at 90s Con in Tampa. “And no, I don’t know if there is a tour!”
Fatone offered his advice on how to make an *NSYNC tour happen. “If the fans want it that much yell at the companies, yell at Sony, yell at them,” he said.
When asked by Heldman whether *NSYNC and BSB had a boy band rivalry, Fatone and Dorough, 50, had different answers, with Fatone saying “no” and Dorough saying “yes.” McLean, 45, said “it was all healthy competition” and that “there was more internal competition” among the bandmates than external.
“Back in the day all the different magazines would pit us against each other even though Howie went to college with Chris, I’ve known Joey for years, I’ve known Lance for years,” McLean, continued.
The Backstreet Boys simply “wanted to make good music and just have fun and perform for you guys,” McLean explained. “That was it but the press was like, ‘*NSYNC or Backstreet Boys?'”
Now, McLean feels like the rivalry has softened. “There was a line drawn back then, but what I love today is the line has blurred because mostly both of our fans, all of our fans, are fans of music,” he said. “So, if you like the song, you like the song, it doesn’t matter who sings it.”