Lance Bass on 'NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Astronaut Training, Coming Out, and New Show 'Cocktail Wars'

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Zach Sang (1:14)

Hi, beautiful human, I'm Zach, that's Dan, and we welcome to the studio a person who knows how to do this. You know how to do a lot of things. You're very fascinating. Lance Bass is here.

Lance Bass (1:22)

Hi, guys.

Zach Sang (1:24)

It's like true, dude. Like you, like you've been doing radio forever. You've been doing podcasts forever.

Lance Bass (1:28)

I've lived a life. Just call me old, okay?

Zach Sang (1:31)

I'm old. Okay, if we were to put a number on it, how many lives do you think you've lived?

Lance Bass (1:35)

I mean, you know, I'm definitely on my at least seventh life right now. Kind of. Yeah. A couple more chapters in me, I think.

Zach Sang (1:43)

There's so many fascinating things that I've learned about you today. I didn't know that you helped discover Ryan Tedder.

Lance Bass (1:48)

Oh yeah.

Zach Sang (1:49)

Like what is, like, your story is really interesting. I mean, I would be telling more people about that.

Lance Bass (1:55)

Well, you know, I didn't get a cut of it, no.

Zach Sang (1:57)

But it was a TV show you had.

Lance Bass (1:59)

Yeah, so I created a show, it was kind of like American Idol before American Idol, which I think they might have taken my format, but that's okay, you know.

But it was for MTV, it's called Freelance Search 2000, where I had a management company that I wanted to help new artists be discovered. And so I created this show to get my first artist. And the guy who won that show was Ryan Tedder.

And I shopped him around everywhere. I swear, I ran into Ellie Reed at dinner like two weeks ago and he was like, hey. And then I kept bringing it. I was like, remember when you passed on Ryan Tedder? Remember that? Yeah, yeah, that still hurts a little bit. No one would sign him. No one would sign Ryan Tedder back in the day.

Zach Sang (2:40)

What do you think it was? Like, what were they afraid of?

Lance Bass (2:43)

The note was no solo white guy will ever make it in America right now. That was it. And then all of a sudden Justin Bieber blows up, then Justin Timberlake. I'm like, oh, so those solo white guys really kind of did it, didn't they?

Zach Sang (2:55)

It just took Ryan with a bunch of other white guys.

Lance Bass (2:58)

I mean, this is just no one wanted that right at the time. And he was such an, he was already an amazing writer too. I'm like, well, why don't you just want his publishing? Come on.

SPEAKER_2 (3:07)

Yeah.

Lance Bass (3:07)

I mean, he was such a talent. He's still is. I mean, he's so great. One of the best writers we have.

Zach Sang (3:11)

True. I mean, like genuinely one of he has contributed to pop in ways that will feel for literally.

Lance Bass (3:17)

It was actually my mom that discovered him. I mean, seriously, she and my mom's not in the business. She's a teacher, but I was on the road when I was trying to get a lot of tapes in, to do the show. And she was in Nashville, and they were auditioning, and she was one of the people that they would audition for.

And she was like, this guy, I'm telling you, it's just, he is incredible. So she sent me a tape of it and like, dang, he is good. So yeah, we found him in Nashville.

Zach Sang (3:43)

I gotta say, you're very cool and you're very creative. And I think that moment post-Nsync, there's qualities that you tap into within yourself that you're still exploring today. Yeah, that's fair, right?