DOB: May 4,
1979On May 4, 1979 the world was introduced to James Lance Bass. Lance was born
in Laurel Mississippi and raised in Ellisville by his parents Jim and Diane,
with his older sister Stacy. They moved to Clinton, Mississippi at the ripe old
age of 10. He loved living in the small town environment where, “Everyone knows
everyone,” he says, "I was born in a really small town in southern Mississippi
where you didn't have to keep your doors locked and you didn't have to worry
about murders and things like that. As a kid I was very secure. I wasn't scared
of anything." One thing Lance certainly was not scared of was singing in front
of a crowd. By age eleven he had joined the community choir, and was starting to
take voice lessons. Soon he became involved in the children’s singing troupe
called Mississippi Showstoppers, and was clearly exercising his
talent.
In school, Lance was a good student, but liked performing more
than studying. While in high school he joined the show choir Attache. However,
Lance never saw a career in singing, and was hoping to go to college and study
aeronautics with the dream of one day being an astronaut. When he was 16 his
voice coach called and mentioned something different to him. The coach had been
contacted by one of his other students named Justin Timberlake, who was in a
group with four other guys in Orlando, Florida. They needed a young bass voice
to complete the group. After some deliberation, Lance saw the opportunity as a
chance he could not pass up, and temporarily moved to Orlando to begin
rehearsing with the group.
Lance gave his voice and his work ethic to the
group, as the guys headed to Germany, where they cut their first album and went
on tour to build a fan base. It wasn’t long until they were touring across
Europe, as one of the hottest acts in town, and starting to build a reputation
that would carry them back across the Atlantic to the U.S.
The band, now
calling themselves *NSYNC, released their album in the U.S. and almost
overnight, the group became one of the most successful acts in the world. With
the hit single “I Want You Back,” the guys became mega-celebrities, and repeated
their success with the follow-ups “Tearin’ Up My Heart,” “God Must Have Spent a
Little More Time on You,” and “Drive Myself Crazy.” The album went diamond, and
the guys became pop icons.
Two albums followed, as well as two of the
biggest tours the world has ever seen. While all of the whirlwind success was
sweeping the band across the globe, Lance developed his own entertainment
company Freelance Entertainment, now known as Lance Bass Entertainment. He also
became one of four partners in a production company called A Happy Place. In
2001, they began filming, “On The Line,” a movie which starred Lance, and
co-stared Joey. Both guys worked simultaneously on the movie, while meeting up
with their bandmates to create their third album.
The Celebrity album was released in the summer of 2001, and “On The Line,”
was premiered in October nationwide. Lance and the guys then embarked on their
most epic tour to date, with the POPODYSSEY Tour. With hi-tech sets,
state-of-the-art sound, and cutting edge lighting, *NSYNC gave audiences a
performance that was out of this world.
While on tour, Lance was invited
to be a part of a project that would allow him to be the youngest person in
history to have ever traveled into space. In February of 2002, knowing that
following the tour the band would soon be on hiatus for the remainder of the
year, he began negotiations with the Russian Space Agency, in an attempt to
fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming an astronaut. He passed the initial
medical tests, and once the tour had ended, he moved to Russia to begin
cosmonaut training. Lance finished his training in mid-October and returned to
the states a certified Cosmonaut, making him officially eligible for space
travel aboard a Russian Soyuz Capsule. Due to a number of logistical conflicts
his mission was scratched., Although his first attempt at space travel was
halted, he has yet to give up on his dream, and knows that one day, he will be
in orbit.
With all the members of *NSYNC regrouping in the studio in the
fall of 2003, Lance is preparing to bring his latest award with him. In August,
the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame inducted Lance Bass as a
singer/songwriter, an award he could not be any more proud to have accepted. He
has been writing for the new album as well as working on a number of production
projects for his newly formed, Lance Bass Productions and A Happy Place. He has
appeared on the WB sitcom 7th Heaven, a guest judge on Star Search, and most
recently lead judge on NBC’s hit series “America’s Most Talented Kid”. He is in
pre-production on a pilot episode for a FOX music show to be announced shortly.
Lance is very happy with the success that he has had so far, and
continues to work just as hard today, as he did eight years ago, when he moved
to Orlando on a “whim.” “The Sky is the limit,” he says. Nicely put!
Courtesy of Nsync.com
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