The men of Boyz II Men have a reputation for being very sweet guys, always appreciative and good to their fans. They proved that image is accurate once again when they took time out of their mega-busy touring schedule to keep All-Stars-and you, out readers-up-to-date on what's going down with Boyz II Men! Michael McCary recently rang All-Stars from the road to chat about their current tour to promote their latest disc, II, his love life, and the Boyz' next step on the road to mega-stardom! Without further delay, here's Boyz II Men sweetheart Michael!
All-Stars: Congratulations on winning two Grammy Awards for II!
Michael McCary: Thank you. We'd like to say to the fans thank you for all the love and support you guys have given us from day one with Cooleyhighharmony. We just ask you to keep on supporting us and we definitley thank you for continuing to support us on our album, II. We're just going to keep on trying our best to give you guys the music you want to listen to.
All-Stars: You express those feelings on the song, "Thank You."
Michael: We were sitting in the studio and the album was about half way done. We said, what don't we have on this album? We don't have a specific song for our fans, and that's how "Thank You" came about. "Thank You" was a project that came up from that conversation. We co-wrote the song with Dallas Austin.
All-Stars: Boyz II Men is on tour through December - that's a long time to do a show almost every night! How do you prepare for the show?
Michael: Some nights I work out before a show, sometimes I stretch like crazy, some nights we just play Sega to unwind a little bit!
All-Stars: Do you have time to write while you're on the road touring?
Michael: We write every time we get a chance. It relaxes us, so we try to find the time. We even sacrifice sleep to write!
All-Stars: What inspires you when you're writing?
Michael: Basically just anything and everything. A lot of the songs that we wrote were actually about things we saw going on in other people's lives, not neccessarily things in our lives. Maybe something in a situation moved us to write. Sometimes you may be walking down the street and a song just comes into your head, and then it's up to you to develop it.
All-Stars: So many of Boyz II Men's songs are about love and lost loves. Does any of that come from your own lives?
Michael: A lot of it does, but a lot of it is extremly sad. It's about what you really want in a relationship and you really don't have the time to have a relationship so therefore you just fantasize how you want your relationship to be and you put it into song.
All-Stars: What would you like a relationship to be like for you?
Michael: Of course, you want to have someone who'll be there for you as a person, not just you as an entertainer. I want someone who knows the real Michael and falls in love with the real Michael someday.
All-Stars: Do you have any aspirations to act?
Michael: I think all of us have aspirations to go into acting, to go into other arenas, just to make Boyz II Men as a whole bigger and more widespread.
All-Stars: Would you act in something individually or as a group?
Michael: I think as a group. But then we would do things seperately in the name of the group.
All-Stars: Do you have any plans to do another album anytime soon?
Michael: Um, right now we're just planning on touring straight through to the end of the year and maybe some of the begginning of next year. And then, at that point, I think we're going to take a ittle break. (Laughs) We'll get ourselves together and then go back to recording.
All-Stars: Do you have any ideas yet for the next album?
Michael: We write songs almost every day. Even if we don't use them right now, we have other people who will use them.