"I was born on October 3rd in Lexington, Kentucky at Central Baptist Hospital. At the time, my family lived in Lexington. My middle brother... I guess he was four years old and my oldest was about seven. My mom was a [stay-at-home mom], and my father, I think at the time, was a fireman. Then for awhile, like a two-three month period, we moved to Tampa, Florida. We moved back to Kentucky, but this time we moved to Harrodsburg, which is a small, historical town probably about 45 minutes from Lexington. We lived there on a 10-acre farm... with a garden, horses, cows, chickens and pigs. We weren't farmers, but we raised a cow... On the farm we rode dirt bikes, horses, played out in the woods, stuff like that. I had a wonderful childhood... great memories! I lived in Harrodsburg until I was about nine years old. We would play cowboys and indians because we had ponies and horses. We built forts and stuff and did a lot of sleigh riding in the winter. School was great, I played Little League and football - things were good. I was singing at church in the youth group and my mom and her friend sang in the church like every other Sunday... so I guess that's where I started really singing hymns and stuff. My whole family is just really musical; my mom, my dad and my brothers could all sing. In the car, going places, we all sang and stuff. My mom sang at weddings. Before we moved to Harrodsburg, I went to Mercer County Elementary School... until I was like just starting 4th grade. I remember being in the general music class - oh my gosh, I used to love that! We would get in there and sit on the floor and the teacher would play the piano, all these songs, and we would just sing, and sing and sing! I do remember one time the teacher singled me out and really complimented me or something. I can't exactly remember what she said but I know that I really enjoyed going to music class in elementary school. My father was a construction worker and he did a lot of travelling across the state of Kentucky and sometimes out of the state. He'd help put up skyscrapers and buildings and powerhouses and stuff. He eventually switched to a job of managing and running a summer camp. We moved to a place called Beattyville, it was in Lee County in the Daniel Boone National Forest, which is in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky. It was beautiful up there, small foothills and mountains. We lived about a mile away from the county line, so I went to school in another county. They had a football team and our county didn't. Me and my brother, Tim, both played football ever since we were little, so that was important to us...I had my 10th birthday at the camp my father ran. Until I was 18, we lived in a log cabin right on the edge of a big cliff overlooking a valley. It was beautiful! Our home had 17 rooms! We had three bedrooms, two baths, a big loft, a dining room... it was huge! We would have a boys' camp and a girls' camp - those were two seperate stayings. The boys camp and the girls camp were from ages like 7 to 12. Then they had a junior conference, which was junior high school kids. They had dances practically every night. They had senior conferences, which were for high-school aged kids. Usually they were there for about two weeks... It was weird growing up at a camp, because it was sorta like I had two lives. I was way out in the country. In the summer I didn't get to see my friends at school because I would just stay at the camp. There was no reason to leave at all - all these people coming up to talk to, play with, to meet kids from all over the state and some of them even came from other states. I met so many people, and I don't know, I think it helped me a lot as far as talking to people, meeting people. There were lots of cute girls, yeah... I'd get my heart broken every summer, because I would find a girlfriend and she would leave and I wouldn't see her. That was tough. The first time I fell in love, I think I was like 11 or 12. Then my brother [Tim] ended up with her... it just broke my heart. Tim was the brother I was most competitive with... now we're great friends. When I was little, really little,my brother Jerald and I got along great. Then when I was around 13, 14, that's when he and I had, I guess, the most friction, just because of those age differences. He was a senior in high school or something like that. I was 13 or 14 and he graduated and it was just rough. But then he left and went to Dallas, Texas to pursue a modeling career. Little boys when they're 13, 14, they think they know everything and... we irritate people sometimes, going through those growing stages... Junior high was an interesting time. When I moved from Harrodsburg to the Beattyville area, I went to a school called Owsley County Middle School. I was involved in the football team, chorus - and I had played basketball in elementary. I didn't play basketball in junior high because in elementary, I was always big and tall, but in junior high I stopped growing and got a little chubby. I mean just a little chubby. But it was just a stage I went through, it took care of itself, I didn't have to diet or anything. It was good for football! Junior high was great. Things were good there. I was playing sports, singing in the chorus, doing musicals and stuff like that. The summer of my 8th grade year I shot back up, and then like between ninth and tenth grade, I really changed. I guess you could say I was a late bloomer. Ever since I can remember, we always had the radio on in my room, lip-synching and singing in front of the mirror... having a tennis racket and strumming it like a guitar... singing into a flashlight like it was a microphone. Me, Brian and Brian's brother Herold all did that! Every time they would come over... What really used to be a real hobby of mine was drawing. Me and Brian's older brother, he's really talented at drawing. So was my oldest brother Jerald. But I was pretty talented too and I can still draw really good, but I never really pursued it that much. It was something we would all do and we'd also play around with the tape recorder and sing and record stuff. [We] would pretend we were broadcasters or pretend we were singers and this was our album, etc. We'd pretend we were DJs and we were always doing crazy stuff like that... I guess it's been a dream of mine for a long time. When Brian and I were growing up. his older brother and I would hang out together and we would always torture Brian, the poor kid! I would always love for them to bring their toys and play. Up until I was nine, they lived about 45 minutes away. We'd get to see each other at least once or twice a month, we'd spend the night or spend a weekend. My mother and Brian's father are brother and sister. In high school, I was playing football, I was in the drama club and the chorus. When we moved from Harrodsburg, at the summer camp my father ran they had a lodge, and it had a piano in it. I went down there to mess around. I heard my dad telling a story a couple years back, where he heard some music and said, 'Wow, that's great! Where is that coming from?' He went in and it was me playing! I can play by ear. If I hear something on the radio or on tape and I sit down, in thirty minutes I can usually pick out pretty much any song. At the age of ten I started clunking around on the piano and keyboard, stuff like that. In high school I got really into it. My mom and dad got me a keyboard, it was a synthesizer, for Christmas. When I was really little, we would go to my grandfather's house, my mom's father, who we would call 'Papaw' - he loved to dance when he was young! He would put on records and we'd get up and dance all over the place. The summer camp had dances all the time... I would go to the senior dances at the camp where the kids were 16 to 18, I was only 12 or 13, and I just learned, you know. It didn't bother me. A lot of guys at that age would be embarrassed and wouldn't get out there and dance, but I loved it. I guess I've always been a very good dancer, it's just in my blood. My parents were good dancers - they've won contests! At class reunions, my dad taught me how to jitterbug and that's what got me into ballroom dancing. When I was 19, in Florida, I taught ballroom dancing and Latin dancing. But getting back to the camp days, I'd meet girls and it hurt me that they had to leave. Not only did I get my heart broken but I would meet someone and then two weeks later, they would leave. When I was 13, I met this guy Keith and we would write music together. We wrote our first song together, he played keyboards also. Mostly I used to help my dad out and he would pay a little bit. I'd mow all the grass, rakes the leaves, clean the pool, clear trails, chop down branches, cut firewood and all that good stuff. In high school, I did a lot of talent shows. I would play my keyboard and sing. In church I did the same thing. My friend's dad owned a restaurant and I would play there at night with him on piano; then I went by myself and played during dinner. I also sang at weddings. I would sing Endless Love, Always and Forever... stuff like that. I moved from Kentucky to Orlando, Florida in 1991... with one of my friends, Jimmy. We were working the same job and would talk about moving to Florida. At the time, I didn't know if I was going to go to school or not. I was just working and was in band at the time. Things didn't work out with my band and my parents told me about the cruse ship entertainers. Then I heard about Disney. My father kept telling us to go off, so we went! We picked up his car and left for Orlando. We had $800 between us when we left.When we got to Orlando, we filled out all these applications for stores in the mall. We then went to Disney and got hired, then found an apartment. When my job at Disney started, I was a tour guide for a year, then character entertainers like Ninja Turtles and Aladdin. Around that time, I went into community theatre in Orlando - I auditioned and got a job at a dinner theatre. I was also doing some modeling in Orlando and I was getting serious with that until I got into the group. I also did some extra parts in movies. At that point it was me, AJ, Nick, Howie and another guy my age, but he didn't work out - that's when I gave my cousin a call.I called him at school and he was shocked! I told him I was in this singing group and he said, 'I know.' I said, 'I was wondering if you were interested in auditioning for the group?' and he said, 'What?!' I said, 'We need another member and I told them about you." The next day he was on a plane down to Orlando and bam - he was in the group! You know the rest of the story..."