NSYNC Recorded Their First Demo at Shaq’s House ... Seriously

NSYNC might have never come to be if not for the Diesel himself, Shaq. In an interview with Billboard, the group credited the 7′ 1″ NBA star and top-notch talent scout with giving them their "first break."

Shaq discovered the boy band when they performed at an Orlando Magic game. "This guy heard us sing the [National] anthem, asked us who we were. We said we were a new group, and we were looking to put our demo together, and he offered his studio to us. It was a very generous offer, and we took him up on it. We used that demo to shop our deal," JC Chasez recalled.

Joey Fatone recently stopped by the ONE37pm Podcast to confirm Shaq's role early in their career. Listen to what he remembers from that experience in this audio snippet. 

Not only was that trip to Shaq's crib the first time that NSYNC worked in a professional studio but getting the big thumbs up from the Big Aristotle got the group thinking that they might actually make a name for themselves. "'OK, this is the first person that sees something,'" Chasez remembered thinking about Shaq. "'They see what we see. We feel like we have something, and now someone else recognizes it.' And that’s a good feeling.

If you're wondering why Shaq just happened to have an in-home studio, let's remember that Superman had a music career of his own. Shaq released 5 rap albums, a compilation album and is featured on a Michael Jackson song. He also DJs professionally and played a 15-date tour in 2018 that he dubbed "Summer of Shaq."

After getting a record deal from the four-song demo recorded at Shaq's house, NSYNC would go onto become one of the most successful pop acts of the early 2000s, selling over 30 million albums and 50 million singles.