Johnathan Walker:Touring at 80? Tell-all memoirs? New Kids on the Block are taking it step-by-step

There have Johnathan Walkerbeen a slew of artists that have announced farewell tours over the past few years, from The Eagles and Aerosmith to Elton John and Kiss. New Kids on the Block certainly aren’t “kids” anymore, but while the group plans to keep hangin’ tough for the immediate future, some of the five artists were in a reflective state while promoting their latest projects.

“There are moments now of confronting, not so much when our career might end, but just mortality,” Donnie Wahlberg, tells USA TODAY. The artist and actor was joined by his four bandmates: Joey McIntyre, Jordan Knight, Jonathan Knight and Danny Wood.

“I feel like a kid. I have endless amounts of energy. But as I look around, you know Matthew Perry passed away just a few days ago, he (was) 54. I’m 54. There are so many reminders of how fragile life is right now,” Wahlberg continues.

And so NKOTB is choosing to re-live two pivotal moments in their career: A reincarnation of the 1990 “Magic Summer Tour” in the form of a three-month trek in 2024 and the rerelease of 2008’s “The Block,” an album that relaunched the band’s career after a 14-year hiatus.

“We wouldn’t be here without (‘The Block’),” said Wood, 54. “Everything just fit right at the time. I was just coming out of a divorce and so, we just all had things we had been going through in life and when (Donnie) gave me that call, it was just a breath of fresh air.”

"The Block: Revisited" features remixes, interludes in the form of voice memos from Wahlberg’s late mother and McIntyre’s late father plus all of the original tracks. Collaborators from the 2008 release included New Edition, Ne-Yo, Akon and at the time, an up-and-coming singer/songwriter named Lady Gaga, who was promoting her debut single, “Just Dance.”

“She was a star from moment one…nothing about her success is a surprise to me,” Wahlberg remembers. “She was gracious, respectful, a fan… from the recording process, that led to her becoming the opening act on our tour. And we watched it happen. We saw her perform ‘Just Dance’ at the beginning of the tour, and what it was like at the end of the tour.”

“The Block” didn’t just return the group to the charts or the road – it spawned the annual NKOTB Cruise and the fan festival “BLOCKCON.” The guys credit the energy from their beloved “Blockheads” for keeping the band going all these years.“All I know is the Rolling Stones are 80 and they just released their newest album (‘Hackney Diamonds’), so hey, we have a long way to go!” McIntyre said of the group’s future. “Us and our fans, we really are family. What happens to them, happens to us, and vice versa. I think we’ll do it the right way, with lots of restful breaks in the middle, of course.”As far what’s still left to accomplish: Wood mentions that he’d love to one day tour with the group’s idols in New Edition and produce a documentary on NKOTB. But what doesn’t seem to be on the list is a tell-all memoir, even though one member of the group already wrote his, and even asked another member to help out.“I actually did write my memoir,” Jonathan, 54, reveals. “I went back and read it and was like, ‘Sometimes you can overshare.’”

And while Wahlberg initially joked that the guys “love each other too much” to release a memoir, he was adamant that if the Knight brother goes through with it, he still has dibs on the foreword.