MTV: Why did you decide to call the album "Revelation"?

Nick: Over the last two and a half years, having been on the road and gone through so much, seeing an album start to finish and now doing another one, we've seen a lot and we've learned a lot. It's all, to each of us and as a collective group, been really a revelation. We've had our eyes opened to a lot of things and learned a lot, and we feel like all that is reflected both in our abilities and in our perspective in this album. [RealAudio]

MTV: How involved were you guys in the writing and recording process?

Nick: We were involved in every aspect of the album, from picking the cover of the album to what the inside artwork was going to look like to the songs on the record. Writing the songs on the record, producing, co-producing on the record. This definitely is our baby, our project, and the label was kind enough to give us some room to do what we wished with the album. We're really happy with what we turned out. We wrote quite a bit -- 75 percent or higher of [what wound up on] the album.

Drew: Ten out of the 12 songs.

MTV: It's a much more personal effort for you.

Drew: Oh, definitely. I think when you write a song, you definitely have much more of a closer bond to it. You saw it from the first note, the first lyric, all the way through to the final product, through to the album. I don't want to say it's like having a child. It's your pet, it's your progeny. It's what you put your blood, sweat, and tears into.

MTV: Was there a song on the album that was, say, more difficult to record than the others, or songs you wrote that just didn't turn out right?

Drew: There were a couple, and those songs didn't make the album. [Laughs] No, different songs come in different ways. I mean some songs just seem to write themselves, and other ones you have to go back six or seven times to tweak lyrics and change a melody here and there. But honestly, the songs that are on the album, they kind of just appeared. I mean, not that we didn't have to work for them and really work hard on them, but they did just come easily. We worked with some great people, some people that helped really bring out of us our songwriting skills and our production skills and stuff, and our skills as vocalists too. I want to credit the people we worked with on this album a lot for helping it happen so easily and quickly.

MTV: Is there one theme in particular that runs through the album, either lyrically or musically?

Nick: You know, in general, 98 Degrees is known for doing love songs, but I think this album in particular has some different things going on. We try to go some places that we haven't gone, and [there are] some themes that we haven't really touched. But for us, lyrics are really important, and we take pride in the lyrical content of our songs. [RealAudio]

MTV: But you're not abandoning your emphasis on love songs.

Drew: Absolutely, yeah. We wouldn't abandon that, 'cause not only is that what we feel is kind of our forte, but it's also our passion. We've always been... "balladeers" sounds so corny, but we've always been balladeers and really loved that dimension of what we do. Definitely, that's a big part of this album. But we felt like we knew how to do that. We've been successful at that. We need to branch out and grow and expand into more up-tempo, upbeat stuff, so we're trying to incorporate that as well.

MTV: Any special guests on this album?

Drew: We were honestly supposed to work with Tito Puente on "Una Noche." He was supposed to play percussion, and the day he was supposed to go to L.A. to record, he actually had to go into the hospital. Unfortunately, music lost a legend. That was the only collaboration we had scheduled, and we really didn't try and fill that spot with anything else. We let that one go and got a really good studio percussionist, but other than that, we really didn't set out to have a collaboration. We just kind of let the album take the course that it was going to take, and if a song came to us that said, "Hey this would sound great if this artist did it," then we would have done it, but we did just what the album did naturally.

Nick: There's still a ton of people that we'd love to work with, everyone from Brian McKnight to Babyface. There's a long list of people that we still want to work with and we're hopeful that in the future we'll be able to do some projects together, but for now, this album is all about 98 Degrees and who we are. Really, it's our truest album yet, as far as us being very hands-on and really giving our heart and soul. [RealAudio]