Scheananigans with Scheana Shay - Let’s Talk 90’s with Dave Holmes

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

In this episode, Scheana is joined by former MTV VJ, TV Personality and Podcast Host, Dave Holmes. Dave talks about his start in his career with MTV, the best and worst interviews, TRL, and meeting Tom Cruise. Scheana and Dave discuss the true meaning of success and how fame and fortune don’t always lead to happiness. He then shares his experience working with Britney Spears, gives his thoughts on the FreeBritney movement, and shares his hopes on society having more grace. Scheana talks about her first time getting recognized after Vanderpump Rules’ debut and how she feels about fans coming up to her now. And of course - Backstreet Boys vs NSYNC – who is their favorite?! Tune in for all this and more! Be sure to check out Dave’s 10-episode limited series podcast called “Waiting for Impact” which talks about the history of the band ‘Sudden Impact’ and fame in the 1990s music industry.     It’s all happening for Scheana Shay. Get insight into what it’s like behind the scenes of a reality show, hear some hilarious stories, and be part of a live Q&A where nothing is off the table.Special appearances from other Bravolebs to be announced soon. This is a show Good As Gold that you won’t want to miss!   Follow us: @scheananigans @scheana   Produced by Dear Media See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a parent shapes us. Through insightful conversations, I hope to create a guide for listeners in all stages of life and break many stigmas often associated with fertility. Follow along as I take you through the journey towards the fertile life. Y'all, I am so excited to announce it is finally all happening. Shenanigans is going live May 12th in New York City at City Winery. Tickets are available today. You can get them for $25. We're also doing a VIP meet and greet photo op package for $50. And I am just so excited to meet you guys, finally take the show live and get into some shenanigans. But first, here's today's episode.

From Vanderpump Rules to Motherhood and everywhere in between, it's time to catch up with Sheena Shea. This is Shenanigans. And now, here's your host, Sheena Shea. Because we're good as gold. Because we're good as gold. Because we're good as gold. Hello, hello, everyone. Today, we are joined virtually by former MTV VJ, TV personality, and host of the podcast, Waiting for Impact, Mr. Dave Holmes. How are you? Sheena.

Sheena, thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being here. Honored to be here. I was so excited when I got the ask for you to be on my show, and we've been trying to make this happen for months, and we're finally doing it. It's finally happening. I was thrilled that they reached out. This is great. Yeah. It's good to meet you. You as well. So where are you today? Well, I'm at home. I'm in my office that I've barely left in two years. But I am in what I am told is the nexus of the Vanderpump Valley. I think I am equidistant from all of the big white houses.

No way. I know for sure that Jackson and Brittany are right around the corner from me. Uh-huh. And then I guess the others are scattered around the area. We haven't met. Vanderpump Valley. Yeah, I was just there this past weekend for a birthday party, and we went from one house to the next.

And I mean, you could walk. It's so close. Yeah, that's what I'm told. I only know for sure where the one is. They're all within like a block or two of me. You possibly walked right past my house. I probably did. Exciting. You know, I'm thrilled that they've jazzed up the neighborhood. Yeah, no, it's so nice. It really is. It was kind of sleepy before, but now hot, hot, hot. Yeah. You got cameras hopefully rolling again soon. So

I guess so. Yeah. We'll see. This all happened like right around at the start of lockdown. So we started doing a thing in early lockdown where we would just like put chairs and a table on our front lawn and make a martini and wave at our neighbors. Yeah. And then slowly, you know, because in L.A. you don't really know your neighbors all that well. But one by one, people would stop by, you know, when they were out walking their dogs or, you know, out, you know, with their stroller or whatever. And we would find that the Nalgene bottles were full of gin and tonic. And, you know, little by little, we got to know our neighbors, which was a pleasure. None of the cast members have we met yet, but I have seen J's driving around on, on what looks like a cooler on wheels.

Yes. Yes. It is a, an ice chest cooler on wheels. It's exactly right. That's the kind of ingenuity I can get behind. Definitely. Well,

thank you for taking the time to sit down and talk to me today. I've got to tell you, I have Motown Philly in my head because I was just watching the music video to see this part, this three second clip of this band, Sudden Impact, because I wanted to understand where your fascination with them came from. So for those of you who don't know, this has been what, three decades in the making. It's been a good 30 years. Yeah. Yeah. Plus, as you said, Boy, three decades in the making. It's been a good 30 years. Yeah. Yeah. Plus, as you said, Boyz II Men have their big debut video.

They've been signed by Michael Bivens of New Edition and Bill Biv DeVoe, who is starting kind of his own entertainment company as part of Motown. And so Boyz II Men, he signs. A group called Another Bad Creation, who have a couple top ten hits, he signs. A group called Another Bad Creation who have a couple of top 10 hits he signs. And then like his third act and his like three artist development deal is a boy band called Sudden Impact. And they get a little cameo in the video for Motown Philly, which becomes, you know, one of the biggest videos of the year. Totally. Yeah. Unescapable. And it's like it's a big debut. Their name is literally in lights over their heads and they like point at the camera real bold, like, you know, here we come. Yeah, we're the next big thing. We're the next big thing.

And, you know, it was you could believe that they would be, you know, New Kids on the Block were big at the time. Obviously, Boyz II Men exploded and became the biggest selling R&B group of all time. So in the back of my mind, I was always like, whatever happened to Sudden Impact? And like in 1991, we had no internet really. So there was kind of nowhere to like research them. If they did any kind of interviews, it was for like a newspaper and that'd be on paper. And that went away. So it was just kind of one of those weird little mysteries. You know, we're in this time when there's really no such thing as like arguments about facts anymore, because everyone has a computer in their pocket and you can, you can always find out, you know, what happened to whoever, you know, in the blink of an eye.

And there's stuff that happened just before that, that I think is really interesting. And that was one of them. So, you know, we're now living in the world of the podcast where I can actually like swindle someone into paying me money to like do 10 episodes looking into this story, which I did. For me, it's like, there's so much around it. You know, it's a music industry, not quite rise and fall because they, you know, there, there wasn't much of a rise. There's a music industry story there, but then there's also, you know, there's stuff to think about the nature of success and failure and what happens when you have a big dream and it looks like it's about to happen and it just doesn't. There's just a lot of story there.

So I got to tell it. Ten episodes. They're all out now. That's so awesome. It's like taking investigative journalism to a whole new level. Exactly. You know, we're living in a really interesting time. Like you can kind of just get a crazy idea and then go do it. And that's, I don't know, that's a thrill.

So you see the band set an impact for a second in the video. You also see the other band, Bad Creation. So what happened to them? They blew up. They had two hit songs. They had Aisha and Playground. You know, they released a few more albums and I, you know, they probably do a reunion tour every couple of years, but they, you know, they had a moment and they made, you know, they made some money and they sold some records. If you search for another bad creation, you'll find them. If you search for Sudden Impact, you get the Clint Eastwood movie and that's about it. And that's about it. So, yeah, I'm fascinated by the moment just before the Internet came and kind of ruined our brains when you could have like a moment in the spotlight and then just kind of disappear. Totally. There's no disappearing anymore. Yeah, that's such an interesting thing because I remember with dial up in the late or like mid 90s. I think I was in maybe junior high at the time when the internet came

around. But anything before that, it's like what you have to go to the library, you have to find old papers. So that's got to be so hard to research. Well, it was kind of, but I had a lucky break, which was that as Michael Bivens expanded his sort of empire that he was building at Motown, he signed a bunch more acts, and most of them didn't really release anything either. There was a group called 702 that had Where My Girl's At. Oh, I remember that. Yeah.

From the front to back. Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. Is he feeling that? Put one hand up. Yeah, can you repeat that? Yes. Trying to take my mancy.

I don't need that. So don't play yourself. We could reconstruct it all day long. I loved that song. And when one of the gang has a karaoke party, let's duet on that one. Definitely. Because I'll go. I'll crash it if I'm not.

Monday nights at Rockin' Riley's. Oh, is that where it is? Yeah. My friend Jesse Montana hosts a karaoke night. So as soon as I'm back in LA, I'm going to let you know, and we're going to do it. Yeah. Boom. Great, great.

I'll do my vocal warm-ups. We'll be ready to go. Perfect. But another young singer who he signed, who Michael Bivens signed in around 1991, 1992, who I found out through my research, her name, she recorded under the name Yvette, but we know her now as Yvette Nicole Brown, who is, you know, Emmy-nominated actress. She's been on every sitcom in the world. And she's like, you know, she's kind of in my orbit.

She's friends of mine. So I was able to track her down and talk about her, you know, secret life as a pop star for a moment in 1991. And she kind of got me deeper into what was known as the East Coast family that Sudden Impact was part of. And so luckily I had an in. Thank God. Yeah.

Yeah. How fun. It was a ball. It was just a ball. So what do you hope that people take away from this podcast? take away from this podcast? We do a weird and kind of cruel thing to ourselves and to each other when it comes to, you know, like having a big dream and like, and reaching for the brass ring and, you know, trying to be a star or whatever. If it doesn't work out, then we call, we call the people who it doesn't work out for has- has been or also rants or, you know, these kind of demeaning, dehumanizing names. We're so addicted to the idea of success, meaning fame and fortune and be constantly hustling to, like, get that money and become famous. And as life goes on, that doesn't guarantee happiness.

You know, when when you start like when I started out in my career, I just wanted to be a part of it. I just wanted to like write or produce or just work in the, in the world of TV somehow. I just wanted to be inside and help make it. And then, you know, as, as you start to get a little bit of work and, and you make a bit of a name for yourself, this thing takes over where it's like your vanity makes you, you know, like you don't just, now that once you're in the room where it happens, then it's like, well, now I want to be in the VIP section

of the room where it happens. And then it's like, then I want, you know, then I want my name, you know, in lights on the marquee at the club and whatever. Yeah. You like forget what got you into it, which was just a desire to make art and to like be where it's happening. I a desire to make art and, and to like, be where,

be where it's happening. I talked to the guys in the band, spoiler alert, but I find, I find one by one, uh, the guys in the band, but I also talked to a bunch of other people who I'm interested in, who had success in the early nineties. And then, you know, then just it sputtered out or they decided they didn't want it and they went in another direction or whatever. And it's we really kind of drill down into like, what does success mean? And if you know, if you're not Rihanna, are you a failure? Like if you if you don't sustain a massive career, does that mean that you were bad or not talented or that you did something wrong? Or is it just like kind of switched gears and you recalibrated and you moved on and that's like fine, too.

You know, you can still be happy. The objective of this life is to be happy, not to be, you know, not to necessarily be Rihanna. We've got one and she's doing great. Yeah. Well, speaking of careers, you had an amazing career with MTV. I remember watching you on my TV for so many years, whether it was MTV news or TRL or any of the, you know, New Year's Eve, you've hosted so many things. So how did your career start with MTV and just in general? Like, did you go to school for broadcast journalism?

No, no, I, um, I did when I was in high school, I, I, um, I lied. There was a really good college station very near where I grew up and, and I listened to it obsessively. And, uh, and when I got, in fact, I think a little before I got my driver's license, I think I might've ridden my bike to it and lied and said that I was a freshman. And I got, I got an on-air shift. I had a Saturday afternoon shift for the rest of high school. And then I kind of, then I put it away because I felt like if I didn't become a star that way, then it would be like shameful to pursue that line of work. I didn't know, I didn't know how to like have a respectable career, um, doing, you know, doing anything artistic. And I had always been an actor and

a writer and all that kind of thing in college. I really put it away to try to be more practical and be what I thought a man should be. And I graduated and I worked in advertising in New York for a few years and tried to be normal and it just did not work at all. And I was sad and angry. And so I went to MTV to, um, they, they did an open call for VJs in 1998. And, and I called in sick from work and I stood in line and I auditioned and then I made like the top 10 and from the top 10 forward, it was all televised. It was all on live TV and, uh, and dwindled us down to like a top five or six. And then like on a live Saturday afternoon show, there was a call in vote to, you know, who should you know, it was called want to be a VJ. So it was like the viewer got to vote on who got it.

And I did not get it. I came in second. Who was first? A guy named Jesse Camp. OK. He was if you remember, he was like a punk rock sort of character. Like, see, I don't remember him. Very skinny.

He was like a big character. See, I don't remember him. Very tall, very skinny. He was like a big character. He was a very wild person. He was like 18 and a character in a way that I am not. So he got the job. And I guess I was 26 or 27 at the time. And I was like, I am not going to let this like slip through my fingers. Like, you know, the people there kind of know who I am and maybe I can get a writing job and maybe I can get a production assistant job. But I'm like, I'm not going back to this advertising job that sucks my soul out of my body.

Like, I am going to like call all of the people that I met through that experience and just keep nudging them until they either give me a job or say we're calling the police. And luckily they gave me a job. And it was a writing job at first. And then because, you know, I was around the studios, I got I screen tested for a show and that got picked up and it ended up working out, which is shocking. And I was there for four and a half years. Wow. And then suddenly it was like, you know, I went, I kept my roommates. It stayed in the same place.

But like my day-to-day job was like, you know, oh, it was, I was talking to Tom Cruise today. And next week I'm going to the Bahamas for the summer. Whatever. Just like, just, it was crazy. Yeah. My life just got bananas overnight. Oh my God. Which I would imagine you understand. Yeah.

Very different though. Because I mean, I remember being in high school and literally being an MTV VJ was a dream job for me. Oh, totally. I started studying broadcast journalism in college. I've always truly had a passion for hosting. And so just like watching all of your careers start on MTV was just so awesome because that's something, yeah, I've just always wanted to do. I still hope to do one day. Caduce is a good friend of mine. I've known him for many of years. And I remember when I met him, it was like,

I don't get starstruck by like big celebrities. I've met so many celebrities.. And I remember when I met him, it was like, I don't get starstruck by like big celebrities. I've met so many celebrities. Although when I saw Elton John at a Craig's one night, that was like, Whoa, it's Elton John. He was standing a foot away from me. And I was like, Oh, do I say something? Do I not? And then he had like security around him. I didn't, I just stared at him in admiration. And I just, I didn't want to bother him. Like we're at Craig's and you know, you don't go there to be bothered by a fan. There's paparazzi outside. So I didn't, but that was the one time by a big celebrity that I was like truly starstruck. But I remember when I met Caduce, I was just like, Oh my God, like I've been such a fan of you and like every MTV VJ since as long as I can remember, like Vanessa Manilow and.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's wild. And it's such a different kind of thing. And I would imagine it's similar to like, to what you get where it's like you're, in my position it was, you know, there were scripts to read and there was work to do,

but I was essentially just being myself, right? There was a lot of live TV where it was just kind of, it depended on my personality and like and you are you're you on the show yeah and I do fans like walk up on you like they know you oh all the time you have no idea how about this I was at Tom Tom the other night and we're talking to fans like the entire night. At one point, don't know if it was a fan or just a random person, but I walked away to the bathroom and I announced to my friends, I'm leaving my purse right here. And someone, I don't know if they thought they knew me well enough that they could just go in my purse, went in my wallet and

stole three of my credit cards. Stop it. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So that was a bad experience for me at Tom Tom, somewhere I go to meet people and I just have such a good time. And, uh, yeah, that happened. But, um, but normally they don't steal from us. Yeah. So that was a, yeah, no, it was crazy. But all the time, I I mean people literally where I live I'm on the sand um in San Diego we live on the beach and I'll just be standing out there sometimes and people will be riding their bikes and like oh my god is that Sheena I'm like hi but I mean I love it yeah because if we don't have fans you know we don't have a job we don't have a show so exactly I appreciate all of that was it real quick I mean like did you notice like one day like hold on people are people are

staring at me or people are whispering yeah I think it was like when we started probably filming the second season it was already popular so quick because our first season when it aired I remember Stassi and I went with Lisa to New York and we were on The View and I'm like wait what what is this this is a show I watch with my mom and now I'm on it like what and then I remember being in New York and a hotel and someone came up and recognized me and from there the show just got even more popular that now it's, it was weird in 2020 when like that didn't happen for a while and we're wearing masks and I'm in a hat and I'm at Walmart and like someone didn't come up to me. And then the second, you know, things started lifting when people would come up to me. I'm like, oh my God, do you have COVID?

You don't have a mask on. Ah, but now I feel so much better about it and now it's just nice that the world is opening back up again the mask mandates have dropped and people i say you know yeah i've been fast it did it really did yeah like the day before the the mandate got dropped i went there's a new arrow on down cold water in the vanderp Valley. And, uh, and he went in and nobody had a mask on. Yeah. I think it was like a combination of like, you know, Erewhon people being like, I'm healthy enough or just like that sort of like wealthy Valley person entitlement or what, but it was just like, suddenly after two years, I was like, I'm seeing strangers faces. I got emotional. Yeah. I know. I mean, there was a one time where I had someone

in my house and when I walked downstairs, this was for like our gender reveal. And when I walked downstairs, I was like, who is this person in my house for a very intimate moment? And it was my acupuncturist who's now a very good friend of mine. Also, she was a very close friend of my fiance's and I had never seen her without a mask. Once she spoke and I heard her voice, I was like, oh my God, it's Monica. But I remember walking downstairs and I'm like, who is in my house for this intimate moment? And I was like, wow, I had for five months I had been seeing her and it was like, I never saw her without a mask. So yeah, to be able to see people's faces again. So nice. Are people nice when they approach you? Yes. That's the thing. They're not nice on the

internet, but they're always nice when they approach me. Do you engage online when people are? I do when people are wrong. I enjoy putting people in their place and giving the full story. So when someone comments on something and they're incorrect, I will correct them. If they're just talking shit, I'm just like, whatever. Sometimes I would block or restrict. Now I just pretty much ignore. But when someone's incorrect about something, I'm like, well, let me just tell you all the facts.

And then if you still don't like me, then it is what it is. Okay. And does that work? Usually, yeah. And I get a lot of apologies or like, Oh my God, I didn't think you would ever see this. I'm so sorry. I'm like, then why did you say it? If you didn't think I was going to see it, you just needed to vent. So you're venting to me about me. Or they just believe on some level that you don't actually exist. That you are like a, a character. Totally. I know. It's not a real person. Yeah. That's weird. I know. It's

crazy. Yeah. I always wonder that with, uh, so I will, I will tell you this. I worked, this was probably 2019. Okay. 18, 19. Um, I did a, uh, a show for Bravo that was originally called Real Men Watch Bravo. Yes. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, me and jerry o'connell and michael yo and brendan shob so i like crammed as much bravo as i could in in before we did those three episodes and then it didn't get picked up and i was i wasn't like bitter but i was like bravo i need a break yeah so we've been on and then during lockdown i was like i don't have the emotional bandwidth for anything like longer than a music video or whatever. So I've been catching up. I've been catching up. Just watched you guys at, uh, at Sunstone. Oh my gosh. We were

up in Santa Ynez for my birthday this past weekend. Nice. We were like ships in the night. Yeah. Right. I know we're going to have to a karaoke night. That's where it's going to happen. A wine fueled karaoke night at a, at a house in Santa Ynez. Yes. Oh, I would love that. Absolutely. I'm in.

Yeah. I remember that show. Cause Jerry O'Connell, he's obviously been on like watch what happens live so many times. And he's a big Bravo fan. We've met before. He's on my bucket list of podcast guests. So I need to reach out to him,

but I was so reach out to him. But I was so excited for this show. And then, yeah, it just, what the hell, Bravo? Well, you know, I don't know. I think maybe at that particular moment in human history, it was maybe not the best look to have like an all-male panel. Yeah, but it's a thing like real men watch Bravo, like that's on their shirts and yeah, they literally sell t-shirts. Yeah, that was not the best title in the whole wide world. And to be honest with you, I was not like the biggest housewives guy to begin with, but I auditioned. I just sort of like I watched a few and I wrote some jokes and it worked out.

Yeah. But it could have been fun. Yeah, it could have. It was a fun three weeks. Yeah. So you've done so many interviews. Do you have one that stands out as your best and as your worst? Ooh.

Hmm. Oh, God. I don't know. Do I want to, like, blast anybody off? You don't have to say necessarily who. You could say who the best one is, but the worst, you could just tell the experience. necessarily who you could say who the best one is but the worst you could just tell the experience honestly i feel like right now i'm starting to get um now i'm an editor at large for esquire and so i get to like i talk to different people than i did when i was at mtv and i get to get

into it more deeply and and i find that really really satisfying like it's not it's not as glamorous but it's it's really satisfying i just got to uh this is not a sexy answer but i got to interview uh anthony edwards from er and top gun and yeah um and all that who's like an actor who you know has been in my life for decades such an interesting guy and he opened up about being a survivor of uh of sexual assault when he was a kid and and the the things that he's doing to like help destigmatize that for for other, you know, for other men and for, you know, people in the in the military and whatever. And it was just it got way deeper than I was ever able to get with, you know, Jessica Simpson. Right. You know, 45 seconds to talk to her in between videos or

whatever. I'll tell you, I mentioned Tom Cruise before. So I came out to LA to do, it was right around the time Mission Impossible 2 came out and there was like a Limp Bizkit video from it and whatever. And we interviewed him as part of the junket for that movie out here at the Four Seasons in West Hollywood. And he had him in a room and there was a little tiny studio audience. And I was there with a couple of producers who were friends of mine. And he came in and like the energy in the like the molecules in the air started to like vibrate differently. Like it was it was so like everybody was kind of dumbstruck. One of my producers greeted him, said, hey, hey money and then like brought him to his his seat and then like he and i tom cruise and i talked for like 10 minutes and he did that big

tom cruise laugh anytime i said something that he thought was a joke and and it was so he was so intense and so into it that i was like i'm best friends with tom cruise like we're gonna when this is over we're gonna like go to the hotel bar and then we'll do karaoke. Like, I was like, this is, this is real and this is happening. And then our 10 minutes ended and the crowd like applauded and he was just gone. Like off to do it again in another room. And my producer was like, did I call him money?

I've never called a human being money in my life. Like there's just something, he does something to you that it's weird. It's charisma. It's just like truly charisma. So I probably didn't do the best job in that interview, but he really made me feel like I did. That's key.

Did you ever get to interview Britney Spears? I sure did. Many times. Yeah. In fact, like real early. I don't know if I was, if it was me when we premiered baby one more time. It was either her like first or second visit. I was there. Yeah. And yeah. And that was. Yeah. And she was what I remember from her was like 100 percent the professional.

Like I you know, going on to live live tv i always had a little bit of nervous energy and anxiety but she was like she just was cool as a cucumber and like you know at the center of a million record industry people and and publicists and stylists and all that you know a lot of pressure on her shoulders but you would not you would never have known it. She was very poised. You know, there's a lot going on that we didn't know about, but you know, in those early days, it really, she, you know, she really seemed like she was very much in control, which I think in the early days she kind of was, and then, you know, everything kind of changed. Yeah. I mean, now, you know, she's free. Britney has been freed. The conservatorship has dropped. What did you think about that for how long it went on for her family, just for how that all went down?

It's what's wild to me is, is how it became like the free Britney movement when I first became aware of it, which by the way, was started by a couple of friends of mine, Tess Barker and Babs Gray had a podcast called Britney's Graham. And then, you know, the story now, like an anonymous attorney gave them all this information and, and then the free Britney movement kind of grew out of that. And it was, there was so much like analysis, like deep, granular analysis of her, of her Instagram and her captions and like to me i called it gay q anon right because it just seemed like it seemed just like there's you're going too deeply into it pretty much everything has like borne out as fact yeah so i just hope that i i hope that we can leave her alone now you know and i'm not i'm not holding out a lot of hope

because you know whatever it was 12 years ago when she went into this thing we weren't all carrying you know cameras and video equipment in our pocket the way that we are now or at least it wasn't as sophisticated and now it's like everybody can get that shot and and as much as i i would like to think that we've grown as a society, I still think people are going to be looking for that one picture of her looking a little fucked up or something. And I just, you know, I hope that we can like be, have more grace than that, but I'm not super optimistic about it.

You got to interview her on TRL. And I just got to give a shout out to that You got to interview her on TRL. And I just got to give a shout out to that show, man. I miss TRL. I mean. You know, it's wild to have been there like when that thing was built, you know. And like I started in the summer of 98. And there was the countdown show called Total Request.

And there was MTV Live, which was the daily live show. And then that autumn they like merged them. And like, you know, it was this thing that happened in the afternoon that, you know, barely anyone watched and there was no one out in Times Square. And then like six months later, the police are like monitoring the situation in Times Square so the kids don't get hit by a bus and the ratings are through the roof and like these new stars are being minted. And it's it was completely insane. And like I, you know, I was a big MTV junkie when I was 12, 13, 14. And, you know, that was like the mid 80s. So it was all, you know, Madonna and Prince and Michael Jackson and all of that stuff and all of their like MTV appearances and those like the stuff that I saw on that network is like indelible. And it made me want to get out and like be an artist of some kind. the 12, 13, 14 year olds of the TRL era are like in their thirties and are, you know, some of them really are running LA.

And when I have a meeting and people like, you know, have like strong and specific memories of things that happened on TRL, it's like, what, what a, what a privilege, you know, to, to like have just sort of been a part of that for someone, you know? So awesome. Yeah. It was. And even at the time, even when it was, you know, annoying or whatever, it was still, everybody was really grateful for like, for the fact that we were there. Like it was wild as hell. Totally. I mean, music television has changed so much since those days when it was actually music television. Now on MTV, you know, it's 16 and pregnant.

It's Jersey Shore. It's so much reality TV that we've lost the music television aspect. You have to go on YouTube or Vimeo or wherever now to watch music videos so much that I don't even watch music videos anymore. Yeah, I largely don't. But here's the thing. We what happened when YouTube

happened and when the streaming services happened is you were never not in charge of what comes next. Right. Like if you a thing that we have started doing in lockdown is my boyfriend put up like a projection area in our backyard and we'll have our friends over and I'll make a collaborative YouTube playlist and everyone gets to add a few things and it's music videos and live performances and comedy sketches and whatever. But basically like we're, we direct it. Right. And when you sit down to watch a bunch of YouTube stuff, you're in charge. And when you make a playlist on Spotify, you're in charge of what comes next. The, the idea of like letting someone

else curate your experience for you, especially a stranger, you know, in like some suit in a building is like, that was how I grew up and how you grew up, but it's not how the kids are coming up now. And like, they're not, there's no interest in, in them giving that control back to someone else. Yeah. You know, the internet and all this stuff, it's great and it's very convenient, but it killed what music television is. Like even radio. I don't know anyone who listens to like the radio anymore. No.

Do you? My mom, but I finally have upgraded her to Sirius. So now she's like, how could I ever go back to radio? Oh, exactly. Exactly. A major leap forward yeah with my mom so i've got this podcast now and it's she is so from the the age of radio that it's like i can not make her understand that there's no such thing as missing an episode she's always like oh

did i miss it like no you didn't it's just it's a podcast. It's going to be there. Right. Okay, what channel? There's no channel, mom. It's just going to, it's in your pocket. It's in your pocket when you're ready for it. But that's like, that is so much a part of her identity that it's like she can't shake that. And on the, you know, on the flip side of that coin is like the kids who just kind of wouldn't watch an hour of music videos if you put it in front of them.

Apple TV tried to do something like that, and I couldn't do it. Some of the best music videos, I feel like used to be all of the boy bands in the 90s and the early 2000s. Sure. Who was your favorite? I was going to ask you the same.

So were you NSYNC or Backstreet? I'm giving a slight edge to NSYNC. Yeah, same. Same, right? Yeah. So NSYNC was, well, first, if you're going to ask my favorite, it would have started with New Kids on the Block. I remember.

Well, of course. Well, I guess maybe, I don't know if I can really remember when I was like three or four, but I do still to this day have two of the New Kids on the Blocks. I have Jordan and Donnie. I have their Barbies in my case that's in storage. Like I still have those Barbies. And I remember Jordan had like the braid, like the rat tail, and I didn't like it.

And I cut it off. Okay. I think that was a smart aesthetic move. Yeah. But so it started with new kids on the box. Good eye from an early age. Right? Yeah.

And then NSYNC, Backstreet. I mean, but then I loved 98 Degrees when they came out. And then, you know, LFO was around briefly. Yeah. You know, here's the thing with like 98 Degrees and LFO. Were you ready at that age for that degree of arms for that, for that, like kind of a Chippendales moment.

Cause like Backstreet and NSYNC, they were, they were all in shape and stuff, but like you kind of had to, yeah, you had to like, you had to create the image in your mind. 98 degrees just busted out in tank tops.

Oh, totally. You know, fresh off of Arm Day. And how was that for the young gal of the late 90s? I mean, I think that probably made me more interested in men with muscles because my first boyfriend in high school had the arms and ended up getting the tattoos just like the guys in 98 Degrees. So maybe that's where it started. It could be. It could be. Set a type. Yeah. You mentioned New Kids on the Block. Joey McIntyre is on Waiting for Impact. He's in episode, I think, four.

Because he's somebody I wanted to talk to because, you know, they were on top of the world. They did get that like massive success that Sudden Impact was going for. But then it talk to because, you know, they were on top of the world. They did get that, like, massive success that Sudden Impact was going for. But then it all kind of, you know, Nirvana blew up and the culture changed and they, like, they dropped off sharply. And he has so much good stuff to say. He's a really interesting guy. And they have a new song out and I really like it. Really? Yes.

See, I love that the bands are all getting back together. We need an NSYNC reunion. Do you think Justin Timberlake will ever do it? I can't imagine. I can't imagine. I know. He's given us a little taste in his, I don't know,

was it at the Video Music Awards? Yes. Or at his halftime show or something? There was a brief reunion, like the way Beyonce did with Destiny's Child. But it was just kind of like, okay, do the Running Man real quick and run in yourself. Yeah, I did it. There you go. Yeah, I can't imagine. I can't imagine.

You know, he's an interesting case because, you know, in this year where we're kind of reimagining the way or revisiting the way that we treated Britney Spears, a lot of people's attention is on like, well, Justin Timberlake was kind of a D-bag in that moment. Totally. He did some questionable stuff and like the statements that he's made in recent years have been a little clunky. And like the statements that he's made in recent years have been a little clunky. Yeah. So, you know, honestly, actually, maybe as like, you know, as a way to sort of rehabilitate his image, maybe, maybe we will get a brief NSYNC reunion. But yeah, I can't, I don't, I don't know. The Backstreet tour, a reunion tour in Vegas. That, did you get to see the show at all?

No, I didn't. Oh my God. It was incredible. It was so good that I was like, am I sure I was team NSYNC over Backstreet? Because it was just such a good show. Yeah. Okay. I would imagine they would put on a good show. Who did you like in Backstreet? Ooh, I think Nick was always my favorite. He was the youngest. They were all a little older than myself. So Nick was my favorite. My mom always liked Kevin.

She thought Kevin was so sexy. And last year, my fiance Brock got to play in a golf tournament with Kevin and I was the cart girl, right? So I'm driving around and I'm like, Oh my God, Kevin Richardson is on Brock's team. Like I need to go and like deliver them cigars and alcohol and I want to meet him. And so I just like had a fangirl moment. I was like, I don't care. I'm 36 years old. I'll, I'll fangirl for a minute. And I was like, Hey, I was like, I'm Sheena. I was like, this is my fiance. I said, um, you guys were so great back in Vegas. I got to go backstage. I have like photos with you. I got to meet you, blah, blah, blah. And Brock is like, who is this guy she's talking to? And he kind of pulls me aside and he goes,

who is that? And I was like, Kevin from the backstreet boys. You don't even know who you're playing golf with eyebrows. I know. Look at those eyebrows. Yeah. And so now we're friends with him and his wife. We're invited to their tour that they're doing this summer. And I'm like, how cool. Who would have thought that like in high school you would become friends with these

people you idolized in bands. It's just, it's so wild. It's real weird. Yeah. It's strange. You know? Like it's so wild. It's real weird. Yeah, it's strange, you know? Like it's, I will catch myself being that way. Having to remind myself that like some of the people I know in real life are people. Like every now and then I do get a little carried away

with the fanboy, you know? Okay, NSYNC, who was your boy in NSYNC? So fun, fun story here. JC, I loved JC. I also liked Lance. Justin was not my fave. He was my third. It went JC, then Lance, and then Justin.

And when I was in college, I was at a club and JC was there. And I'm like, play it cool. Play it cool. Ended up talking to him. I didn't even have, I wasn't 21. I had a fake ID. Didn't tell him that I wasn't 21. I mean, I was still of age, but I was 20. We were in college and my girlfriends and I got invited back to his house for an after party. And I have a photo, it's in storage, but it's in my box of like photos because there were no iPhones or anything back then. I don't

even think I had a Blackberry yet. And we had like a digital camera and I have a photo with him dancing on a table in his house that was like up Mount Olympus area. And yeah, I have a photo dancing on a table with him that it was just like, what is my life? I'm just a college student studying broadcast journalism. And now I'm hanging out with JC Chazet from NSYNC. What on earth? Wow. JC is absolutely the right answer. And B, talk me through a JC after party. What kind of debauchery are we talking about? I mean, it was so small. It was only me, two of my girlfriends, and one, maybe two of his friends. And honestly, like to this day, I mean, I bet if I hit him up,

like we could still be cool and hang out. I ran into him years ago and I was like, he doesn't remember me. And he was like, Sheena. I was like, wait, what? We were at the Grove and we were both going to see, I think it was Inside Out, whatever year that came out. That was the last time I ran into him. And he totally remembered me. And I'm like, wow, I didn't think you would. But we had stayed in touch over the years, just a text here or there, maybe see him at an event. And yeah, he was always my favorite. And to just get to be in his presence and then get invited to an after party and then kind of loosely stay in touch for years was so cool. Incredible. Justin, um, the hair was rough at the beginning. The hair was hard to get

past the tight, tight curls. It was, it was too much. It was a little too much. He grew into it. Yeah. Uh, the, you know, the, the justified era, I mean, by then he had had it pulled together, but at first there were, there were some deficits to overcome. Yeah. Agreed. And I feel like boy bands today, it's just, it's not the same. Like, I mean, One Direction, love them, but you know, they don't do like the choreographed dancing and the matching and all of the stuff.

It's just, it's so different. Yeah, it really is. I got to go to SoFi Stadium down in Englewood late last year for BTS. Oh. I did a cover story on BTS. Yeah. Like the bummer is that it happened, you know, in high COVID.

So I didn't get to like actually go to South Korea and like do it properly. It was all over Zoom. But awesome guys, like super friendly and great to talk to and all that. But I went to their show and it was, I've never seen anything like it. They were like, the dancing was incredible.

The showmanship, everything about it was wild. And the crowd was old and young and male and female and everyone just, you know, flipping out. But it is, yeah, it's a very different world. There's still a lot of boy bands out there female and everyone just, you know, flipping out, but it is, yeah. It's a, it's a very, it's a very different world. There's still a lot of boy bands out there. It's just, you know, totally, it's just different, but yeah, they are the one I was thinking of that still they dance, you know what I mean? I went to so many one direction shows with my sister and I mean, they're great, you know, they put on a good show, but I just wanted to see them all do like a couple eight counts together. Come on.

You know? Yeah. Yeah. Give me something. Give me something. A little something. Stop a foot. Do something.

Yeah. So you are with Esquire. You've got your podcast, your passion project waiting for impact. What else do you have in the works right now? Good Lord. Um, I'm, I'm like grinding at all times. What else do you have in the works right now? Good Lord. I'm like grinding at all times.

I'm producing a couple TV things that are not like announced yet. But I also do a podcast called Homophilia with my friend Matt McConkie where we talk to awesome queer adults about their lives and the pop culture that they love and they're obsessed with and what their love lives look like. The age of the podcast allows us to have deeper conversations than we were able to have publicly even just a few years ago. Oh, totally. I love that. Yeah, so I do that. I have a sort of game show podcast called Troubled Waters.

Once we're back on stage properly, I do a comedy game show thing with my friend Scott Gimple, who was the showrunner of The Walking Dead and is now just sort of in charge of The Walking Dead universe. Okay. Called The Friday 40, where we answer 40 questions about the events of the last week while we all drink 40s of beer. Uh-huh. Fun. Called the Friday 40, where we answer 40 questions about the events of the last week while we all drink forties of beer. Um, and yeah, and then I'm like, I'm just like writing stuff all over the place. I'm doing a feature now for runner's world and I'm writing for AARP magazine and I'm like, I'm just, I'm busy trying to grind while the grinding is good. Yeah. I love

that. Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been so much fun. I'm so glad we were able to make it work. I am too. Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah. It's been a pleasure. Definitely.

We're going to karaoke? Yes, we are. All right, everyone. If you haven't already, be sure to check out Dave Holmes' podcast, Waiting for Impact, among his many, many other projects. Dave, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. That was so much fun. Thanks for listening to shenanigans with Sheena Shea. Download new episodes every week on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts looking fine and I got my girls with me with the boys at the table getting tipsy miss me kiss me

one more time get over here boy I'm gonna make you mine yeah do you want it let me see you shake that do you need it let me see you shake that do you want it let me see you shake that yeah come and get it let me see you shake that step in the club little black