While walking through Hoboken, you might find the familiar faces of ABC's reality TV show "Making the Band's" Ikaika Kahoano, Bryan Chan and Mike Miller grabbing a slice at Benny Tudino's Pizzeria, weightlifting at the YMCA and even warming up their vocal cords on the PATH train. The three boys moved to Hoboken about a month ago with Broadway star Matt Morrison of "Footloose" after forming their new harmonic self-called "man band" LMNT (pronounced "element").

Chan and Miller weren't selected to join "Making the Band's" group O-Town, founded by record industry bigwig Lou Pearlman, who also founded 'N Sync and The Backstreet Boys. Kahoano, the Hawaiian native, who became popular on the hit show for stirring up controversy, was chosen for O-Town, but left to join his former cast members in their new group LMNT.

The band has just finished recording a demo, and is in the process of finding a label. In the mean time, these four twenty-somethings are taking up gymnastics to include tumbling and handsprings in their live act, rehearsing their songs in their living room, and driving around town looking for parking.

Despite their hectic schedule, LMNT recently invited the Current to their Hoboken home to talk about their "Making the Band" experiences and their new venture.


Louise Thach: How did you guys come together as LMNT?

Mike Miller: We were invited to the premiere of ['Making of the Band']. It was suggested that we should take the guys who didn't make it and put our own group together. I thought about it for a week or two, and then I called Bryan up and asked him what he thought about it, and he said, 'Yeah, let's do it.' About two months later, we wound up in New York interviewing a bunch of different guys for the group.

Bryan Chan: Me and Mike were putting things together and interviewing different people, and originally when Mike was approached it was like, 'Why don't we take the three guys that didn't make it?' But Mike and I wanted to get Ikaika in the group, but [Ikaika] wasn't sure what he wanted to do. It turned out that this had to be a four-person group, so here we are in New York, we didn't know a soul and we didn't even know how to go about putting a group together, other than what we had learned from 'Making the Band.' So we interviewed different people, and when we met Matt, Mike and I instantly looked at each other and we were like,'Yeah, this is the guy.' We wanted to get someone who would fit, because Mike and I are really tall, and we were getting people who were really short or people that were tall and looked good, but couldn't sing. So we met with Matt, and the next day I got a call from Ikaika, and he asked if we were still looking for another member. And all of a sudden, it all came together.

LT: Did you guys know that you weren't going to make it?

BC: I knew towards the end, definitely, that it wasn't going to happen.

MM: It took me like 'til like the night before. But Bryan and I joked about it all the time, we would always say, 'So after we get kicked off this thing...' But by the end, I think everyone knew who was going to make it.

LT: Did you want to be in the band?

BC: Oh, definitely. I wouldn't have stayed had I not wanted to be a part of it. What's hard, and what you don't see on the television show, is that there were little nuances where Mike and I would look at each other and knew that we didn't fit the mold of what they were going for. They were trying to put together a boy band, and there's a clear distinction between the guys in O-Town right now and the three of us. We were all friends, but we were very different.

LT: It seemed like there was a tremendous amount of fighting and everything was going wrong.

MM: Well, we were building this thing from the ground up, so it was not easy. There's a lot of work that goes into it and a lot of discipline on our end, and imagine that compiled with a television show and cameras. It's hysteria.

LT: Were there cameras everywhere?

MM: They tell you about a certain amount, and then you find out that there are little microphones somewhere that you didn't know about.

Ikaika Kahoano: There were hundreds of surveillance cameras around the house plus the regular film cameras. There were little microphones hidden in clocks in our rooms, and behind the medicine cabinet in the bathroom that we didn't know about until later.

LT: So do you watch the show?

BC: Yeah, especially now, because now it's more interesting than ever, because we don't know what happened. This is what happened after we all left.

LT: Ikaika, you had a tremendous amount of problems on the show. What went wrong?

IK: I wanted to leave the first week, but my family had a lot to do with why I stayed. They wanted me to keep trying and thought that maybe I would start to like it. They saw it as a big deal, like a kid from Hawaii making it big nationally. I didn't really care. I wanted to leave from the beginning, but I stuck it out. Eventually, so many things were happening that I had to leave. I knew that type of group wasn't for me. They're all cool, but it's like a boy group. I, personally, didn't think I fit the mold. Plus, I didn't know if I was there to make music or because I was providing so much conflict and drama for their show. That played on my mind, and that's one of the main reasons why I left. I'm not going to exploit my life to make their TV show. If I'm there for that purpose, no way.

LT: Is that what your brother meant when he said in your last show that the other band members didn't know what was really going on?

IK: Well, Lou [Pearlman] was playing favorites with me, basically. He'd always talk to me in private. He wanted me to live in his house and stuff. And I didn't want to tell all the guys that, because then it would screw all them up. It was stuff like that they didn't know. I never told them about the number of times Lou talked to me in private and told me things that I'd rather not disclose. But if I told them what he told me, it would start even more television controversy. And I didn't want to go through that anymore.

LT: Do you think he gave you more attention because he sensed that you wanted to leave?

IK: I don't know. I don't know who Lou Pearlman is, to be honest with you. After all this time, I still don't know who the guy is. He tried to tell us what to do. It was a very oppressive situation; it was like I was in jail. I had no freedom. I couldn't do anything when I wanted to do it. It wasn't real. And during my first audition in Hawaii, he was already trying to control my life. He asked me if I had a girlfriend, and I told him 'yeah,' and he said, 'Oh, you got to get rid of her.'

BC: He was definitely a favorite; it was no secret among the eight of us. Lou would always pull Ikaika aside. It was an odd thing.

LT: Is that why you pushed your girlfriend so much on the show, because he told you to get rid of her?

IK: Well, I didn't push my girlfriend, I just maintained my relationship with my girlfriend. I mean, no one's going to tell me what to do with my relationship; it's not anyone's place.

MM: A lot of guys on the show did have girlfriends and situations like that, but the producers would tape whatever situations fit the mold of the TV show. Ikaika just fit the mold.

LT: Do you think they made you out to be the bad guy?

IK: Everything that they showed on TV, I did in a mindful manner. I knew what I was doing, and they showed me the way that was. That's just the way that I was in that situation.

LT: But viewers kind of got the impression that you were acting selfish.

IK: I can be selfish, but I don't think that I'm a selfish person. And I think that in that situation, it's nothing to sneeze at; you're looking at your life. And if I'm going to be selfish with my life, then too bad. I'm not gonna have anyone tell me what to do. It wasn't right, and I wasn't getting along with anyone there, and when Mike and Bryan left, I didn't have anyone to talk to. So it was lame for me. There just came a point when I had to say good-bye. They were exploiting my life, and I'm all over television talking to my family and my girlfriend about my problems, and it sucked.

LT: What is difficult to leave? Were you under contract to stay?

IK: No, I just left. I signed that one contract in the beginning that said if you do stay, then you get this much money, but I left and I didn't get paid for the show, so it's not like they lost any money or anything.

LT: Were you guys apprehensive to work with Lou Pearlman, since he's being sued by 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys?

MM: I had conversations with my mom where I said 'I don't know about this,' but then we also knew that this was the biggest break of our lives.

BC: Yeah, as soon as we got the contracts and we had the potential of being in the group, we were so jaded, I mean, you saw it on television, we were all signing the contracts with smiles on our face from ear to ear.

LT: Are you comfortable going from Broadway to mainstream music?

Matt Morrison: Well, the exposure we're going to get from this is going to bigger than anything I've ever been in. This is definitely a challenge, because I have to retrain my voice to sing pop. But I'm ready for it, and I'm excited to be part of the group.

LT: But it's not so new to you, because you were in Fresh Step, right?

Matt M: When I was going to NYU and going on auditions, David Letterman hired five guys to do a mock of all the boy bands called Fresh Step, so me and four guys from Footloose did it, and we sang cheesy lyrics like, 'Girl you're so fresh, you're so freaky fresh.' And we got such a big response that they asked us to come on again, and we were on TRL and had our own website. It was just a big old joke though.

LT: How did you guys wind up in Hoboken?

BC: We started out in the city in midtown, and about 6 a.m. you would get woken up by sirens, and we would wake up in morning, and we had a routine to go to the gym in morning and go to practice, and we would be in foulest mood.

Matt M: We were also seriously living out of a suitcase; it was so bad. I couldn't even sleep at night,
because I had half a blanket, sleeping on the ground plus the noise from outside, and we just had to have the street corner where all the prostitutes were.

BC: But we found this great place by the PATH train, and we just knew it would be easy.

So do you like Hoboken?

IK: When we tell people we live in Hoboken, they're like 'Oh my God, Hoboken!'

MM: We go to LA, and people will be telling us how cool Hoboken is, and we're like, 'We live there.'

BC: But we really haven't had a chance to hang out here yet, because by the time we get back from doing stuff in the city, everything's shut down. But the people are incredible. We have our favorite deli, we always go to Burritoville, and the kids across the street wave to us when we go out. It's fun; it's a community-oriented area.

IK: It's really cool, because there's a basketball court that's really close, and there's a track at Hoboken High, and the YMCA. Hoboken's great, but the only thing we don't understand is the nightlife because we haven't gone out yet. Except for parking. Parking sucks.

MM: We always have to park like 10 blocks away.

BC: Yeah, that's the question in the morning, 'Where did we park the car?' And nobody reaches for the keys, because no one ever wants to walk to get the car.

LT: Do you guys ever get recognized?

Matt M: It's like the beginning of the interview, we go out and it's like, 'Oh my God, Making the Band, Making the Band!' And I just watch them.

MM: No way. If it's not that this guy [Matt] is so cute, then they're telling us how hot he is. Please.

BC: Especially when we travel in a group, because we're all together and if one person gets a double take, then they figure it out. But some people are scandalous, because you know they watch the show and they say, 'I've only seen the show once, but what's going on with [Ikaika's] girlfriend?'

MM: Or they'll say my daughter or my wife watches the show, and they'll call them up and say, 'Honey, it's the guy from "Making the Band,"' and they hand us the phone and we have conversations with people's wives or daughters. And that's cool, but the thing I don't understand is when we're sitting down eating dinner somewhere not paying any attention to anyone and just eating and people come up to us, but I guess we just have to learn to live with that.

LT: Do you get recognized around town?

MM: A little bit in Hoboken, but mostly in the city. But when we first got here, we were practicing and we looked outside and there were four little blond heads who were looking in and laughing and giggling. It's kind of hard to have our own privacy. I mean they know which window is my room.

Matt M: I'm scared to walk to around with my shirt off in my own room, because every time I look outside, someone's looking at me.

LT: So they know that you're here.

BC: Yeah, but what's nice about this town, as opposed to New York, is that the people here are really respectful. We'll be at the YMCA, and people will look and whisper, but they don't bother us, especially when we're in the middle of a workout.

LT: So are you guys ready for the amount of attention that you could possibly get from this?

All: (softly) No. (loudly) YES!

LT: But if it's hard to eat dinner now without interruptions...

MM: Six months ago, I was a waiter, so it's so hard to be the center of attention.

LT: Well, it might sound great, but running from thousands of girls can't be that much fun.

MM: Hey, it's fun. What guy would mind that? Yeah, like I'd hate having girls run after me; I'd rather be serving tables at Chili's.

Want to catch the band before they start selling out arenas? LMNT can sometimes be found rehearsing at the Liquid Lounge's open mic night on Tuesday nights after 9 p.m. On the cover, LMNT is (from top) Matt Morrison, Bryan Chan, Ikaika Kahoano and Mike Miller.