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Kids these days
By COLLEEN JENKINS, Times Staff Writer
Danny Wood's new album title, Second Face, says it all. A generation of preteen girls spent the late '80s and early '90s pining after Wood and his four New Kids on the Block band mates. We wore T-shirts plastered with their faces, we bought their trading cards packaged with a stick of pink gum, we danced to their music videos and adorned our bedrooms walls with their posters. They were our idols, our version of the now commonplace boy band motif. Now Wood, 31 and all grown up, wants those former dreamy-eyed teeny boppers to embrace his solo album with both our matured tastes and deeper pockets. Like three of his Kid counterparts, he's venturing back into the limelight that once sent the group to the top of the music charts before the public backlash in 1994. But unlike Jordan Knight and Joey McIntyre, now modestly successful pop soloists, Wood wants his musical reincarnation to hit a different chord than his first time around the block. "I feel like I have a lot to prove," he said, calling from his home in Miami. His second face is more rock than pop and, so far, the sound has been a hit on Citrus airwaves. Crystal River's WXCV-FM 93.5 debuted Wood's single, When the Lights Go Out, in early March -- the first radio station in the country to play it -- and the song has been the top pick of The Neiko Night Show listeners 15 days and counting. "I get astronomical votes" choosing the song as No.1, said the night show's disc jockey Chad Zimmerman. "He's knocking people out like No Doubt and Coldplay. It's incredible, absolutely incredible." For Wood, the quest for renewed success has been slow and methodical. After the New Kids' bitter end, the Boston native turned to writing and producing TV shows and independent films. He also worked on music projects for McIntyre, Mark Wahlberg (brother of former Kid Donnie Wahlberg, now an actor) and the pop trio LFO. Then life got in the way. His mother, Elizabeth, lost her fight against breast cancer. Wood fought and eventually won a custody battle for his son, Daniel. For three years, music was on the back burner. When the tough times past, his passion reignited, Wood said. "I had a lot to talk about," he said. "It really inspired me to write and do this album." He's spent the last two years creating it. Financially secure from his New Kid days, he produced and paid for the album himself. But finding a music label to distribute it was tougher. Most labels didn't like his association with the bygone pop group. That frustrated Wood, the guy described by his former band mates as the hardest working and most consistent member of their group. "When you hear my record, nothing's going to remind you of a New Kids song," he said. "It's a mature record. I just wanted to make a record that I would listen to." Finally, the chief of Empire Musicwerks, which is distributed by BMG, decided he wanted to listen too. The first single, When the Lights Go Out, is due out April 22, Wood said. The entire album will be released in late May or early June. The songs are personal. The first single deals with interracial relationships; Wood's son is racially mixed. Other topics include problems in suburbia, failed relationships, stressful lives, imperfections and betrayal. It's not exactly the mushy love stuff of the New Kids' repertoire. "You can see why he waited so long and took his time on it," said Zimmerman, who met Wood in 1991 when he was the opening act for a New Kids concert in Iowa City. "He's not only going to rekindle the old fan, but he's going to pick up fans that he never expected to pick up. Probably every song on this record is a potential radio single." But Wood, who is married and has four children, said he doesn't long for the mind-boggling fame he once knew. He's traveling to Citrus County with a four-piece band of guitars, bass and drums, and the desire to thank the local fans supporting his resurgence, he said. It will be his first trip to Citrus County. "This is going to be the first real gig," he said. "My vision is hopefully just to get my music heard. It doesn't have to be on a huge level. I just want people to hear it." After Citrus, Wood heads to concerts scheduled in Orlando, Atlanta and Texas, and then Europe this summer. But he'll be back to visit the local crowd again August 1 for WXCV's Splashdown party in Homosassa. Will he dust off any New Kid songs at the shows? Wood chuckled. "If people want to hear it, they can get up on stage and sing it," he said. Whatever gets them to the show. -- Colleen Jenkins, who traded New Kids on the Block cards with her friends when she was in the fifth grade, can be reached at 860-7303 or cjenkins@sptimes.com. At a glance Former New Kids on the Block member Danny Wood 9 p.m. today at The Zone, 7855 W Gulf to Lake Highway (SR 44), Crystal River. Tickets are $5. Former American Idol contestant AJ Gil will open. Call 795-9912.
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