EW

Ryan Cabrera. Photo: 

Erik Johnson

Ryan Cabrera is turning back the clock to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his first album, Take It All Away — and he’s enlisted what he calls a team of “TRL all-star alums” to help him.

Entertainment Weekly has the exclusive premiere of the new version of the singer’s iconic 2000s pop song “On the Way Down,” re-recorded with NSYNC’s Joey Fatone, Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean, Hanson’s Taylor Hanson, Drake Bell, Walk the Moon’s Nicholas Petricca, and Hot Chelle Rae’s Nash Overstreet. Listen to it below.

“I got to have a bunch of my friends whose music I love join me on a song that basically started my career,” Cabrera tells EW. “It’s weird because I still think TRL happened yesterday, but it’s super cool that I’m able to do a new spin on this song that meant so much to me.”

But Cabrera didn’t originally plan on assembling the Avengers of early-aughts pop for the milestone anniversary of his debut single, which peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 4 on the TRL chart. He wanted to revamp “On the Way Down” on his own, but he struggled to do it “without losing the essence of why people loved it in the first place.”

“Finally, I just so happened to be talking to my buddy Nick from Walk the Moon, and I’m like, ‘Are you in L.A.? I’m in the studio right now, on like the 11th version of trying to figure out how to re-record ‘On the Way Down,’ if you want to come by and just lay down some stuff,'” Cabrera recalls. “So he swung by the studio and came up with this part, which is the top of the song, and it’s on the top of the choruses, and it’s very Walk the Moon.”

That riff changed everything. “I was like, ‘Dude, that’s the spark I’ve been waiting for,'” Cabrera says. “After that I was like, ‘Maybe I can get some other friends to do a part.’ I wanted to hear a song I wrote, but somebody else’s take on it.”

The roster of featured artists grew as Cabrera recorded last year. Hanson was the next recruit, and then Cabrera casually invited McLean to join the song while they were golfing together.

“After we golfed, we went straight to the studio and AJ did his Backstreet Boy thing on it,” Cabrera says. “I’ve always known that AJ can sing his ass off, but I didn’t know the extent of how crazy his vocals are until I saw him in the studio going nuts.”

Cabrera actually convinced Fatone to sign on by playing McLean’s vocals for him. “AJ and Joey toured together last year, and I got the chance to open some of the shows DJing,” he says. “But when I played this for Joey — I was like, ‘Joey, AJ did it, so now you’ve got to do it’ — he hears it and he’s like, ‘Damn, I didn’t even know he can hit the falsetto like that.'”

Cabrera loves how the track ended up totally different from the original, and he hopes fans feel the same way. “I do the first chorus, Taylor does the second verse, Drake does the second chorus, Nash is the third chorus, AJ’s just riffing, and Joey’s doing the bridge,” he says. “And then Walk the Moon is the top and the bridge. It’s a cool journey of different vocals on a song we’re celebrating 20 years later.”

Whether they’ll all ever get to perform the 2025 version live together remains to be seen — you try coordinating the schedules of a bunch of grown-up aughts legends. “That would be really tough,” Cabrera says with a laugh. “But you never know. I have some shows in L.A. coming up, so I’ll definitely hit up some of the boys, and hopefully they have enough time to come by.”

Even if he can’t get the rest of the guys to sing it with him, Cabrera plans to include “On the Way Down” on his set list for every show. “The fact that I’m not tired of it is what I’m the happiest about,” he says. “I don’t know why. It’s a song I’ve sung probably over 20,000 times, but I still enjoy every single time I get to perform it and watching people sing along. I’m also the guy who can watch the movie Hitch a hundred times and annoy my wife and everybody around me. But I love it.”

Fox23

The auditions have been submitted and narrowed down, it’s almost time for the 2025 edition of the Big Show Off benefitting the Tulsa Day Center we are joined this morning by the three returning judges from last year, Miss USA 2015, Olivia Jordan, Zac Hanson from the band Hanson and rapper, art director and executive director of the Outsiders House museum and our good friend, Danny Boy O’Conner, thank you so much for being with us.  Let’s start with you Olivia, you actually went through competition yourself, with judges before you, what do you bring in to this, as a judge, having been on the other side of it?

I think because I’ve been on stage before, as we all have, I really see that there’s an X-factor that we’re looking for, a confidence and energy that we’re looking for and honestly I feel like that is what grabs your attention first. So I’m looking for who grabs our attention, you know. I like being on the other side.

Zac, what are you looking for in terms of the talent and you know obviously lots and lots of talent up there on that stage in different categories.

Ultimately, we’re not the ones doing the voting, it’s the audience, and so for us, I think it’s just trying to add a little bit of technical know how, talking about what people are doing, what it takes to sing that way or perform that way, looking at kind of their set up and going hey guys this is the full story trying to pull a little more out so for the audience can really get a perspective on how hard it is to really do what these people are doing on stage.

And of course this benefits the Tulsa Day Center, such a fantastic organization, you’ve been involved with them so much since you’ve been in town.

It’s an incredible asset to the community and then this is their fundraiser so this is why I got involved being a judge the second year is fantastic and then we have a new judge who is the contestant last year who won, which is Joleen Brown and she’s incredible so it’s going to be interesting to see her go full circle and come on this side of the table and see what she thinks, it’s better on this side. I think she’s going to love it. The talent is great. For me, it’s the authenticity that I find here, it’s just different than Hollywood energy or New York energy, there’s just such a raw like you know we were just sitting with somebody who worked at the Chamber of Commerce who also has an album coming out and she has an incredible voice, I’m like ‘what?’ so you just walk among people who have no idea that they have real jobs but they also have this hidden talent so this thing is kind of like pulls out that talent and pulls it on front street for these contestants.

For people that want to come out and see the show, kind of set the scene, what’s the evening like for him?

It’s such a fun event. Honestly, this is a show and we’re highlighting Oklahoma’s greatest talents. So it’s a fun thing to get behind. And there’s also food, there’s drinks, there’s a great community of people coming together to server a worthy cause and I think that at the end of the day that’s why we’re all here, that’s why we show up because the day center is phenomenal. They serve almost 300 people a day, they’re open 24/7, it’s just such an important cause and that’s why we’re so excited about it and that’s why people will be excited to be in that crowd.

Of course, tickets are still available.

Thanks so much for being with us. This is such a great cause and such a great event.

Saturday February 1st. Tulsa Ballroom at Cox Business Center $500 for an individual ticket

Wide Open Country

Hanson- “MMMBop”

Nothing quite defines bubble gum pop quite like Hanson’s “MMMBop” does. Had people in the 90s not spent so much time relegating the kids to punchlines, people would remember them as more than one hit wonders. However, something about these children and their long blonde locks triggered the masses and kept “MMMBop” as merely inescapable for the moment and kept them from ever going much further. It’s a shame because Hanson were legitimately great.

Perhaps it’s the sourness and gray despondency that reeks from modern pop music. But something about this trio spewing scats and nonsense over DJ scratches and a pretty safe and suburban guitar is utterly infectious. Their joy is something that melts even my most cynical heart. In a world that isn’t so poisoned by irony, Hanson’s “MMMBop” is more than just a one hit wonder.