Matt Wells vs. Donnie Wahlberg

June 19th, 2008

So 6am Monday morning (the day after the MMVAs) I went away for 2 days and didn’t check email. I came back to about 50 emails asking the same question: “Dude, what’s up with you and Donnie Wahlberg?”

I guess a lot of people watched my interview with New Kids on the Block that’s on MuchAXS and a lot of people also heard rumblings of my New Kids encounter. So here it is:

What you do see on AXS is Donnie egging me on a little and trying to make things a little cooler. What you DON’T see is why he was doing that. Let me preface this story by saying I have done close to 1000 interviews since my first on Going Coastal and have NEVER had a problem with anyone, until there was Donnie Wahlberg.

I asked them if after selling 70 million albums (the majority in a time when the industry was SO different), did they walk away from it safely and with a pocketful full of loot?

In my head I was thinking about bands like TLC who sold MILLIONS and went bankrupt…even U2 came back from the Zooropa tour and lost money. Perhaps I should have prefaced the question with that thought because…

Donnie got pissed and asked, “Would you ask the Rolling Stones that question?” and continued to tell me that it’s just because they were young. I was assuming that meant they were not smart with the business – which wasn’t the case – but he was like a bulldog and I didn’t back down which didn’t make things any better. I told him I thought it was a legit question, refused to back down and, well, my face in the remaining moments of the interview tells the rest. I finished the interview because they deserved to have a good one (as any artist who comes through here), and you deserve to see it. But, my friends, I wanted to walk SO FU#$ING BAD.

I don’t want to be a jerk about it, but I will be. At the end of the day, this wasn’t a career making interview for me, nor a highlight, but the following was my thought process before AND after the interview: they will have a successful reunion tour and make a pocketful of loot – just don’t ask Donnie about it if you see him.

Hang tough,
=mw

Posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 11:28 am by Matt Wells and is filed under Celebrities & Pop Culture.