Band History

The web of their friendship is dizzying. Flashback to 1995:
Pennsylvania native Chris Kirkpatrick was living in Orlando,
Florida, and working at Universal Studios as a doo-wop singer.
It was there he met and became friendly with Brooklyn-born Joey
Fatone. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., native JC Chasez and Memphis
boy Justin Timberlake had just wrapped a stint together on the Mickey Mouse
Club, also in Orlando. Justin knew Chris from auditions, and JC was friendly with
Joey whose high school buddies had also been on The Mickey Mouse Club.

Chris was itching to put a group together- a group who could
Take five part harmonies and translate into pop music. He contacted
Justin, who, he knew could sing. Justin enlisted JC, and soon old pal
Joey fell into the flod.

The foursome was ready to make a go of it, but they lacked
something important. Though Chris, JC, Justin, and Joey had wide
vocal ranges, not one of them felt he had asolid enough bass.

Justin immediately called his vocal coach back home in Memphis
hoping the coach would be able to recommend the perfect "low guy".
Enter James Lance Bass, a good natured country boy from Clinton
Mississippi. Lance jumped on the next flight to Orlando and, upon arrival,
instantly hit it off with the guys. Chris, Justin, Joey, and JC knew they had found
their final member.

Now all they needed was a name. They brainstormed for weeks,
but nothing seemed right; nothing seemed to fit these five fab fellows and their unique
Until, one day, Justin's mom remarked how "in sync" their harmonies and dancing were.
The phrase stuck with the guys. "In Sync" had a nice ring to it.

But Justin's mom wasn't sure the guys were convinced. Going back to the drawing
board she started playing around with their initials. She got nothing but gobbledygook
out of the initials of their first and last names, so she started to toy with the last letters
of their first names. After some shifting and scrambling, she came up with justiN, chriS,
joeY, lansteN, and jC. It was too eerie a coincidence. These guys were completely N Sync.
The name N Sync perfectly summed up everything about the band. Five huys with five diverse
backgrounds, from five different parts of the Untied States, with various musical influences,
somehow managed to make a sound that worked.

-as stated from "The official book"