How do you follow up an album that features cameos by porn star Chasey Lain and a high-on-crack Pac-Man?

Well, if your adopted surname is Pop, then you recruit the hottest bands at the opposite ends of the pop music spectrum to guest star: say hooray for 'NSYNC and Weezer.

Notoriously naughty rap-rockers the Bloodhound Gang are actually friends with the clean-cut 'NSYNC, according to Gang leader Jimmy Pop, who recently attended one of their concerts and invited them to collaborate on his group's next album.

"Personally, I'd rather hang out with them than most bands," Pop said Tuesday from his home studio in Philadelphia. "They're really down-to-earth people. I thought it would be fun to mix it up and see what happens."

'NSYNC have yet to record with the Bloodhound Gang, but Pop is optimistic it will happen. "They're cool with it; we just need to make sure their people are cool with it," he said.

Pop's potential collaboration with Weezer singer Rivers Cuomo may be included on the follow-up to last year's Hooray for Boobies, or it may turn into a separate project.

Pop recently worked with Weezer on a trance remix of their hit single "Hash Pipe," spurring a discussion with Cuomo about starting a dance band. Pop described the proposed side project as "a Pet Shop Boys for 2001 that's not gay."

"That's probably a better outlet [for my dance music dabbling], because the rest of the guys in the Bloodhound Gang would beat me up if all my songs sounded like Eiffel 65 or Alice Deejay," he said.

Whether or not Pop gets the dance project going, he said to expect some Euro-house influences showing up on the Bloodhound Gang's as-yet-untitled next album.

"We spent so much time in Europe, now everything is beginning to sound like Linkin Park meets the Vengaboys," Pop said. "We've always done hip-hop and punk, and throwing trance into it makes it sound a little more like Refused, but not as angry. Instead of being about the corruption of capitalism, it's about poop."

The Bloodhound Gang, who formed in the early '90s and built a following with such releases as the Dingleberry Haze EP (1994) and Use Your Fingers (1995), recently returned to the studio to record five tracks they wrote last month in Orlando. They will return to Florida in August to write the remainder of the record, which should be out by January.

Famous for such tastelessly clever song titles as "I Wish I Was Queer So I Could Get Chicks," Pop and crew are borrowing a page from Van Halen (remember For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge?) on a new track titled "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo."

"If you're an airplane pilot or a fireman, that's how you would spell 'f---' over the CB," Pop said. "You know, like when cops read off license plates?"

The new album will differ from Boobies, which featured the hit single "The Bad Touch," in that Pop has finally moved on from his '80s music influences.

"When you're talking about music, the sounds you use are what make it sound '80s," Pop said. "[For this album] I got a bunch of German synthesizers, and the Germans build synthesizers like they build war machines. It'll probably end up sounding like 'Sprockets,' like a 1938 German cafe feel."

Fans also shouldn't expect cameos from any adult entertainers on the new record ("Strippers aren't very good at performing," Pop said), though Pop hopes porn specialists Vivid Video will release the band's two upcoming home movies.

After shooting more than 500 hours of tour footage since the release of 1996's One Fierce Beer Coaster, the Bloodhound Gang have finally put together a pair of two-hour videos. "One Fierce Beer Run," from their 1996-1997 tours, and "Hooray for Groupies," from 1999-2000 outings, will be released this year, Pop said.

"We tried to put everything in there, whether it be sex or us getting in fistfights on the bus," he said.

In other Bloodhound Gang movie news, a possibly cleaner movie, "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," will feature the band's "Jackass" on its soundtrack (see [article id="1444716"]"'Jay And Silent Bob' Lure PJ Harvey, Bloodhound Gang"[/article]). The tune was originally recorded for the "Jackass" television show's soundtrack, which was canned, and it was also at one time slated for the "American Pie 2" soundtrack.