November 6, 2025 • 22 mins
Welcome to a special episode of Encore where we take a look at some of the iHeartRadio team’s favourite Canadian songs that you may have forgotten about. We’re calling it CanConCore… get it?
This week we have the story of B4-4’s “Get Down”!
Remember the year 2000? If we weren’t worried about Y2K and the millennium bug bringing on the collapse of society we were likely just sitting in our rooms listening to all of the great boy bands that were topping the charts. Because 2000 was the year boy bands reigned supreme. *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, Westlife, O-Town… They were everywhere. And while it’s fair to say that most boy bands came from either the United States or the United Kingdom, I’d like to think Canada had a very memorable boy band of its own.
This is the story of B4-4's 'Get Down' with newly unearthed footage from the band themselves.
Written by Cam Lindsay for iHeartRadio.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Get ready to frost your tips. This week we have
the story of B44's Get Down. You know the songs
just making people feel something. It's been a pleasure to
work on this song with her, but do you know
the history? It's a struggle making any kind of record?
I don't always have the direction or concept. This is Encore,
an in-depth look at the stories behind the music. Here's
(00:21):
iHeartRadio's Ruby Carr.
I'm Ruby Carr and welcome to a special episode of
Encore where we take a look at one of the
iHeartRadio team's favorite Canadian songs from the past. We're calling
it Can Concore. Do you get it?
Remember the year 2000? We were no longer worried about
(00:42):
Y2K and the millennium bug bringing on the collapse of society.
We were just sitting in our rooms listening to all
of the great boy bands that were topping the charts,
because 2000 was the year boy bands reigned supreme, and Sync,
Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, Westlife, O Town, they were everywhere.
And while it's fair to say that most boy bands
(01:04):
came from either the United States or the United Kingdom,
Canada had a very memorable boy band of its own.
They were called B44, and they had one of the
greatest teen pop songs of all time. Now the video
is insane, and I have so many questions, but we'll
get to that.
B44 were a trio based out of Toronto featuring identical
(01:27):
twin brothers Ryan and Dan Kowarski, originally from Cincinnati, Ohio,
and their friend Ohad Einbinder, who was born and raised
in Jerusalem, Israel.
The name fit the standard teen pop template of having
both a meaning and a unique spelling. If you think
about it, it's pretty clear. How do you spell it?
Just 3 characters and a hyphen. What comes before 4? 3.
(01:50):
How many members of before 4? 3. It's simple mathematics, really.
Ryan and Dan grew up with music in their home.
Their dad was a world renowned professional musician and opera singer,
so they had music in their blood. As a matter
of fact, their older brother too would become an opera singer.
Ohad also grew up with music. His mother was a
(02:11):
famous singer in Israel, and all three began singing at
a young age, but wouldn't meet until their adolescent years
when they quickly became friends.
Their shared love of music inspired them to try singing
together as a vocal group. Listening to top 40 radio
as well as Motown, they learned how to harmonize together
with Ryan singing the soprano, Dan singing the tenor, and
(02:33):
Ohad singing the bass. Now B44 really only existed when
the three members would sing in their parents' basements. They
hadn't actually performed or recorded any material, but they knew
they had talent, so one day they decided to take
the next step.
They plan to visit Speaker's Corner, a video booth outside
of the MuchMusic headquarters near where I'm standing right now
(02:55):
to record this podcast, actually. You could pop a loony
into the slot and sing in front of the camera
to try and get on TV. Now, we know it
worked for the Barreaked Ladies, if you can recall from
our episode on their song.
One week, but they had decided to try another idea.
Here they are telling much music.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It was actually last year when we just woke up
and we said to ourselves, no more singing in the
basement because we've been singing since we met, and we
just decided to just go into the car and just
be noticed somehow. So we wanted to actually come here,
Speaker's Corner.
And uh on the way we just said to ourselves,
let's let's go straight to like a record label, so
we just said Sony, I don't know why. Sony to
this day we don't know what. So we rolled down
(03:34):
the window, asked the taxi driver where Sonny was, and
he told us where he was. The next thing we
know we're sweet talking the secretary to let us in.
And like uh 20 minutes we're like sitting there and
she's like, Sony Music, Sony Music, Sony Music, we couldn't
talk to her. So the vice president happened to walk
out with the engineer and they overheardheard us talk to
the secretary, so he's like, sing to us. So we
just sang to them and.
(03:54):
They give us, yeah, we got a record deal. And
so they brought you in and then what, what happened
after that? They signed you, yeah, just, yeah, we just,
they got our record deal right on. We saw a
few things. They took us into the sound stage there, yeah,
we saw a cappella there. Yeah, I just, we were
like going crazy at that point. Oh it's like pinching
me and we're like walking. I was like, pretty funny. Well,
I mean, did you, I mean, did you imagine all
(04:15):
of this that day?
Um, we didn't know what to expect. We really didn't.
We just walked in and we just said, let's see
what happens.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
It goes without saying that what happened to B44 is
not something that happens to most artists or any artist really.
These impromptu visits to record label buildings where you roll
up and ask to see an executive, they rarely pan out.
They happen to be the right group in the right
place at the right time though. With a record deal
in place, Ryan, Dann and Ohad began working with songwriters
(04:42):
Jason Levine and James McCollum, who were in a.
Pop group of their own. Chances are if you're listening
to a podcast on B44, you are familiar with the
popular cartoon Canadian pop duo Prozac. Well, before even they
were formed, Jason and James were in the Juno winning
Toronto-based R&B group The Philosopher Kings. But Prozac became their
(05:03):
outlet to write catchy, hyperactive dance pop bangers, and they
did it under the guise of animated characters named Simon
and Milo using fake English.
Accents. Prozac released their first album Hot Show in 1998.
Thanks to hit singles like Sucks to Be You and
Strange Disease. The album went triple platinum in Canada. I
(05:24):
loved that album. Prozac were pretty big in 1998, 1999,
so it made sense for Sony Music Canada to team
these guys up with a fledgling act like B44. Jason
and James would co-write and co-produce about half the songs
on B44's first album.
But they were fully responsible for the album's first single
(05:44):
Get Down, an effervescent, overexcited slice of boy band pop
that shared its name with a Backstreet Boys hit from
4 years earlier. James would later tell CBC with B44,
everybody was clear about what it was. This is a.
Boy band and we're going to write the biggest hits
we can for boy bands to get on the radio,
and that was a very clear agenda. The guys in
(06:06):
Prozac would admit that they were feeling pretty cocky coming
off the success of their own album and felt they
could take some liberties in the songs they were writing
for B44.
Get Down was a perfect example of this. Once they
heard it, Ryan, Dan, and Ohad were super excited about
the song that would be their first ever single.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So Prozac,
Prozac wrote that song, as, as you probably know, and
they brought us that song and we flipped out right away,
like party song, you know. Yeah, we flipped out, it
was unbelievable. And uh and we thought it was a
great way for an introduction.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Get Down would certainly be an introduction, alright.
If you get down on me, I'll get down on you.
I will do anything that you want me to. It's
a game of give and take to make it through,
so if you get down on me, I'll get down
on you tonight. And let's not forget, gonna make you
come tonight over to my house.
(07:00):
No, not some kind of kinky erotic poetry. Those are
the lyrics to B44's Get Down, so kind of racy, yeah. Well,
that's not how the members of the group saw it.
In fact, here they are explaining just who they felt
the audience was for their music.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We basically wanted
to have different flavors on the album, like, like you've
Got a Friend, you know, so it's kind of like
towards the adults and then like go, go and get
down towards like little kids and like slow songs which can.
Relate to everyone,
Speaker 1 (07:29):
so sure, I can understand how Get Down could be
for the kids. It followed the NSYNC template of fun
and bubbly pop music with a big chorus full of
bubble gum hooks. Heck, even Justin Hawkins, front man for
glam rockers The Darkness, agreed that it was a song
for children when he dissected Get Down for his podcast,
Justin Hawkins Rides Again.
(07:49):
It's basically a melodic refrain that references things that you
used to sing in the playground, so this is definitely
aimed at.
Younger audience, I need to play this to a child
just to see how they react to it. I've got
a feeling it would go over pretty well because it's bouncy,
it's up, you know, they're
(08:10):
There is a kid in the video for a kickoff, um. Yes,
the kid in the video. Look, we'll get to him
in a bit, OK? But I can't get past those
lyrics because they were very questionable, so much so that
much music had to ask about it.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Now I
gotta ask you about some of these lyrics here, a
little racy, a little sexy, such as, I wanna know
every inch of your body.
The song, uh
I.
Uh, oh, do you wanna, do you wanna take, I'll
take that one. Basically the song is about give and
(08:46):
take in a relationship, you know, you can't take without
giving in a relationship, so
Speaker 1 (08:50):
get down is an expression, and it can mean a
lot of things. I mean, you know, that is an
interesting take, and while B44 would.
Continue to push the innocence card, everyone knew what the
real expression was. Get Down was a song about oral sex.
Even James McCollum, who wrote the song, told CBC that
he and Jason Levine were being quote, pretty tongue in
(09:11):
cheek when we wrote it.
They wouldn't admit it at the time, but anyone over
a certain age knew exactly what these three bronzed muscle
men were singing about. In fact, even sock puppets knew.
On an episode of MuchMusic's Fromage, host Ed the Sock
called it a sugar-coated fellatio fest. Gross.
(09:32):
And yes, years later when they were interviewed by Vice,
Ryan and Dan finally came clean about Get Down, that
it was in fact very sexual in nature. Here's what
they said. The record company was quite scared back then.
They didn't want to release Get Down first, and they
also wanted to make sure that in interviews we didn't
say that it was about sex. We said it was
(09:53):
about the give and take in a relationship. Looking back
at it, the song was about sex. The song is
about oral sex, obviously.
There was nothing to hide, you know, that's something that
we do regret. It's better to just be honest and
say what the song is about and be real. We
had mothers not so happy because their daughters were singing
If You Get Down on Me, I'll Get Down on you.
And you know what, sidebar, I was one of those
(10:15):
daughters horrifying my parents singing that one in the car.
They went on to say, the truth is they were
probably right to a point. I don't know how good
that was to have all those young kids singing lyrics
like that. Now, before I
Go any further, it's important to point out B44 definitely
had a look. I know every boy band had some
kind of style, but these guys were different. Showing off
(10:38):
their jacked arms was a priority, uh, but I've got
to say it was the twisted, spiky hairdos that made
them stand out. Here they are telling much music about
how to achieve that look, so take notes.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Um,
how you guys style your hair, it's amazing. I tried
so many times, but it doesn't work. I think it's
the best style. It's called KMS.
Paste, KMS paste and actually your spike is a little
it's it's that's good because it doesn't make it like
hard or anything and like, you know, yeah, it's it's
like actually I bought that actually. I try it. You
got to twist. You got to just like twist and
just like mess it up. It takes about 3 or
(11:11):
4 hours. It takes like 5 minutes. All right, you
guys are awesome though. You guys are
great.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
In case you missed that, they recommended using KMS molding paste,
which is still available in case you're looking to achieve
the B44 look.
Anyway, the first place most of us witnessed this look
was in the video for Get Down.
Now, how do I summarize this short piece of cinematic wonder?
It is weird as hell, like, I just watched it,
(11:39):
and honestly, what did I just watch? I didn't remember
the video, but it truly is worth watching when you
finish this episode, OK? I, uh, where do I start?
Let's start at the start, I guess. Um, the video
starts with an adolescent boy, like 12 years old, uh,
who finds one of those old View-Master toys. Do you
(12:00):
remember those? Uh, he finds it in the trash in
a sketchy alley, like you do. He looks into it,
and then he's magically transformed this beach full of bodybuilders
and bikini clad women, but not before B44 starts singing,
see me.
To the little boy, I will be the one to
(12:21):
love and comfort you from now until the day I die.
I will take you places that you only think about
when you're asleep at night, like, pardon me? What? Why
are you singing to a child right now? Who made
this music video? So anyway, then we're at the beach.
The boys from B44 are also there. Um, there's some
beach football being played and some flirtatious exchanges made between
(12:42):
the little boy and the grown women.
Naturally, like I said, this video is so weird. Um,
then it shifts to an urban basketball court where the
boy schools these much larger men on how to ball. Um,
the kid does an actual tomahawk dunk. Meanwhile, B44 do
their choreographed dance on the court and in the rain,
(13:04):
no less.
It's Snowing. Honestly, it's kind of hard to tell. Anyway,
and then it just gets even more inappropriate, as if
it could. The boy somehow acquires one of those plush
kind of cowboy hats that pimps wear in movies and
a yellow convertible, which of course attracts all of these women,
giving the whole thing this like pimpy, like, I don't
(13:26):
know vibe as B44 are singing about getting down on
a girl. It's actually horrifying.
And then it's all revealed to be a dream, um,
but by dream I, of course, mean a nightmare.
According to Ryan, Dan, and Ohad, the video was not
exactly fun to shoot. Here they are telling much music
about that experience.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
What
was it like making the video? Freezing. I froze. My
feet were like going to break in half. They did,
they did the video here and you know it's, it
was freezing, freezing cold. It was pouring the first day
it was locked on a beach. All the sand was
like they brought in feet heaters for us.
So we were like sitting there. That's how you know
(14:08):
you made it, preheat. The first, I mean the first
day was freezing. Second day it was like pouring rain
the whole day, and it was, it was nuts.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
In May of 2000 when Get Down first started airing
on stations like MuchMusic and YTV, it definitely caught the
attention of virtually everyone who saw it. This was a
bizarre video, even for boy band standards, but the song
was a hit in Canada. It reached number 4 on
the Canadian.
Singles chart and MuchMusic played it constantly. Get Down also
(14:38):
helped the band's self-titled debut album debut in the top
40 and sell more than 200,000 copies, which is a
lot for a new pop artist in Canada. B44, of course,
made the customary appearances at malls across Canada. Check this out.
This is the sound of their loving fans screaming for Ryan, Dan,
and Ohad to take the stage at the Eaton Center
(14:59):
in Toronto.
I should add that those screams were just from watching
the threesome come down the escalator. It got even louder
during the performance. Proper gigs followed, beginning with their first
show at the SkyDome in Toronto, singing in front of
10,000 girl guides. Yes, that is real, but they had
(15:20):
some other big shows opening for Christina Aguilera in Calgary
for the Corn Pops Rocks 2000 concert, which also featured
Canadian pop acts like Soul Decision, McMaster and James, and
The Moffets.
I love that that show was sponsored by Corn Pop Cereal.
It is the most year 2000 thing I have ever heard.
B44 even scored some dates on the Western Canadian leg
(15:42):
of MTV's Total Request live tour, opening up for Destiny's
Child along with Sugar Jones. And let us not forget
the YTV Psycho Blast tour with Snow, Wave, and Soul Decision.
I am just having some major Canadian pop flashbacks right now.
Perhaps the coolest gig.
They got though was performing in front of a crowd
(16:04):
of thousands at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver for the
final concert scene in the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats.
So if you know the movie, uh, well, all of
the concert footage was actually taken from the free show
Before 4 put on. So using movie magic, they just
made it look like Josie and the Pussycats were performing
their song Spin Around, when in fact all of the
(16:26):
teenage girls were just crying over B44's Get Down.
To add to these milestones, B44 were also recognized at
the 2001 Juno Awards, receiving a nomination for Best New Group. However,
they did lose, but it was to Nickelback.
Looking back, B44 had a big year throughout 2000 and 2001,
(16:48):
but as we know in this cruel, cruel industry, it
wasn't meant to last.
Despite selling 200,000 copies of their debut album, B44 were
dropped by Columbia, AKA Sony Music. Boy bands were kind
of on their way out come 2003, so it did
make sense, but the guys weren't gonna let that stop them.
(17:09):
They signed a deal with Polydor Records in Germany, and
in an interesting twist to freshen up the brand, they
changed the spelling of their name, getting rid of the
cutesy letter number combination for the proper spelling of.
B E F O R E F O U R. Um,
things seemingly looked up for the group. They signed on
(17:30):
with Lou Pearlman, one-time manager for Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and
Britney Spears, who told them, little girls are never gonna
stop loving these guys. Like, ew, did these people not
think before they speak? I can't. Um, here they are
talking about working with Lou Pearlman with much music. And
so I
Speaker 2 (17:49):
have to bring up Lou.
who you're working with, how did you hook up with him?
How did he find before 4 in Toronto? You weren't
in Orlando, were you? Oh yeah, we flew down to
Orlando just like we walked into Sony sued again right
now for this comment. You guys keep talking about being
sued and suing in lawsuits. We've got to be careful
what we say because I don't know, you know, everyone's
always after us. So what can we do? You know,
(18:10):
nothing that we can do. Excuse my language, but we
went through a lot of shit for the past two years. So,
and is it all sorted out now? I don't know.
Work stuff with labels or I know it's, I mean
everything's cool and we're on good terms, but you know
there's always obstacles you have to cross and that's how
we look at it and we're just doing what we
love to do and it's never good. It can't be.
You didn't answer the question. So Lou, yeah, how did
you meet Lou? We actually flew down to Orlando to
(18:31):
meet him. We actually called his secretary. That was kind
of like how you were discovered. You went to Sony
Music Canada. That worked for you, so you found Lou.
We called like for two months straight. We called his
secretary and she's like, I can't let you guys in,
blah blah blah blah, and you got to call and
you got to keep calling and.
Just no one let us through to him, so we
just flew down there and met him and he was
really interested and that's how it
started.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, they did manage to release their second album In
Your Face in 2003, although only in Germany.
And they did get to open up for Britney Spears
at her Toronto show as part of the Onyx Hotel tour,
but not long after that, Lou Pearlman was caught fronting
what would be called the longest running Ponzi scheme in
American history, defrauding investors out of more than $1 billion.
(19:15):
So he was sentenced to 25 years in prison on
charges of conspiracy and money laundering, among other things, and
that was kind of that. B44 came to an end
soon after in 2004.
Four years later, Ryan Kowarski would reflect on his time
in B44 to the Regina Leader Post, admitting it was
quite frustrating to us in the B44 days. We were
(19:37):
playing to a lot younger audiences, and the focus would
be on our hair and our clothes. We had come
from a very musical family. My father is an opera
singer and my older brother is an.
Opera singer, so we grew up very focused on vocals
and orchestration. We weren't happy doing pop music for young kids.
So Ryan and Dan pivoted to music that young kids
(19:57):
would definitely not want to hear. They formed a duo
called Ryan Dan, their names as one word, and sang
opera-styd vocal pop music. Their first album was actually a
big hit, going gold in Canada. I'm certain your grandmother,
maybe even your mom owns a copy.
The twin brothers put out another a few years later,
performed with Shania Twain for her Still the one show
(20:18):
at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and then called it
a day on their singing career around 2014. Ryan and
Dan still work together though to this day. You love
to see it. They own and operate a doggy daycare
and spa called Camp Cookstown in Esa, Ontario. Um, I
feel like they need to interpolate Get Down into an
ad for their business, don't you think?
(20:40):
If you book at Cookstown, your dog will thank you.
I mean, that works, right? Should they do this? If
they don't want to do it, Ohad actually could. He
is currently the CEO of a company called Circa Homes
who build prefabricated sheds, ADUs, and custom homes in the
Beverly Hills area. Actually, according to his Instagram, he knows
(21:01):
Brad Pitt. Remarkably, Get Down is still popping up in
various corners of the internet. TikTok and YouTube videos of
people reacting to the.
Music Video are the most common type of content. And
let me tell you, Gen Z, were not prepared for it.
I mean, I wasn't prepared for it and I was
there when it was a hit. As I already mentioned,
the best one, however, though, belongs to Justin Hawkins and
(21:24):
his Justin Hawkins Rides Again podcast. So let me end
with a clip from his episode he called Was Music
from the 2000s really This Bad, where he simply tries
to explain, Get Down.
Uh
I don't know what to do about this. What am
I supposed to say?
I'm Ruby Carr. Thanks for listening to Encore. We've got
(21:44):
more Can Concore coming your way, some ones that I'm
very excited about, so looking forward to sharing that with you.
Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a moment.
Encore is an iHeartRadio Canada podcast. Download the free iHeartRadio
app and subscribe. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming.
Get ready to frost your tips. This week we have
the story of B44's Get Down. You know the songs
just making people feel something. It's been a pleasure to
work on this song with her, but do you know
the history? It's a struggle making any kind of record?
I don't always have the direction or concept. This is Encore,
an in-depth look at the stories behind the music. Here's
(00:21):
iHeartRadio's Ruby Carr.
I'm Ruby Carr and welcome to a special episode of
Encore where we take a look at one of the
iHeartRadio team's favorite Canadian songs from the past. We're calling
it Can Concore. Do you get it?
Remember the year 2000? We were no longer worried about
(00:42):
Y2K and the millennium bug bringing on the collapse of society.
We were just sitting in our rooms listening to all
of the great boy bands that were topping the charts,
because 2000 was the year boy bands reigned supreme, and Sync,
Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, Westlife, O Town, they were everywhere.
And while it's fair to say that most boy bands
(01:04):
came from either the United States or the United Kingdom,
Canada had a very memorable boy band of its own.
They were called B44, and they had one of the
greatest teen pop songs of all time. Now the video
is insane, and I have so many questions, but we'll
get to that.
B44 were a trio based out of Toronto featuring identical
(01:27):
twin brothers Ryan and Dan Kowarski, originally from Cincinnati, Ohio,
and their friend Ohad Einbinder, who was born and raised
in Jerusalem, Israel.
The name fit the standard teen pop template of having
both a meaning and a unique spelling. If you think
about it, it's pretty clear. How do you spell it?
Just 3 characters and a hyphen. What comes before 4? 3.
(01:50):
How many members of before 4? 3. It's simple mathematics, really.
Ryan and Dan grew up with music in their home.
Their dad was a world renowned professional musician and opera singer,
so they had music in their blood. As a matter
of fact, their older brother too would become an opera singer.
Ohad also grew up with music. His mother was a
(02:11):
famous singer in Israel, and all three began singing at
a young age, but wouldn't meet until their adolescent years
when they quickly became friends.
Their shared love of music inspired them to try singing
together as a vocal group. Listening to top 40 radio
as well as Motown, they learned how to harmonize together
with Ryan singing the soprano, Dan singing the tenor, and
(02:33):
Ohad singing the bass. Now B44 really only existed when
the three members would sing in their parents' basements. They
hadn't actually performed or recorded any material, but they knew
they had talent, so one day they decided to take
the next step.
They plan to visit Speaker's Corner, a video booth outside
of the MuchMusic headquarters near where I'm standing right now
(02:55):
to record this podcast, actually. You could pop a loony
into the slot and sing in front of the camera
to try and get on TV. Now, we know it
worked for the Barreaked Ladies, if you can recall from
our episode on their song.
One week, but they had decided to try another idea.
Here they are telling much music.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It was actually last year when we just woke up
and we said to ourselves, no more singing in the
basement because we've been singing since we met, and we
just decided to just go into the car and just
be noticed somehow. So we wanted to actually come here,
Speaker's Corner.
And uh on the way we just said to ourselves,
let's let's go straight to like a record label, so
we just said Sony, I don't know why. Sony to
this day we don't know what. So we rolled down
(03:34):
the window, asked the taxi driver where Sonny was, and
he told us where he was. The next thing we
know we're sweet talking the secretary to let us in.
And like uh 20 minutes we're like sitting there and
she's like, Sony Music, Sony Music, Sony Music, we couldn't
talk to her. So the vice president happened to walk
out with the engineer and they overheardheard us talk to
the secretary, so he's like, sing to us. So we
just sang to them and.
(03:54):
They give us, yeah, we got a record deal. And
so they brought you in and then what, what happened
after that? They signed you, yeah, just, yeah, we just,
they got our record deal right on. We saw a
few things. They took us into the sound stage there, yeah,
we saw a cappella there. Yeah, I just, we were
like going crazy at that point. Oh it's like pinching
me and we're like walking. I was like, pretty funny. Well,
I mean, did you, I mean, did you imagine all
(04:15):
of this that day?
Um, we didn't know what to expect. We really didn't.
We just walked in and we just said, let's see
what happens.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
It goes without saying that what happened to B44 is
not something that happens to most artists or any artist really.
These impromptu visits to record label buildings where you roll
up and ask to see an executive, they rarely pan out.
They happen to be the right group in the right
place at the right time though. With a record deal
in place, Ryan, Dann and Ohad began working with songwriters
(04:42):
Jason Levine and James McCollum, who were in a.
Pop group of their own. Chances are if you're listening
to a podcast on B44, you are familiar with the
popular cartoon Canadian pop duo Prozac. Well, before even they
were formed, Jason and James were in the Juno winning
Toronto-based R&B group The Philosopher Kings. But Prozac became their
(05:03):
outlet to write catchy, hyperactive dance pop bangers, and they
did it under the guise of animated characters named Simon
and Milo using fake English.
Accents. Prozac released their first album Hot Show in 1998.
Thanks to hit singles like Sucks to Be You and
Strange Disease. The album went triple platinum in Canada. I
(05:24):
loved that album. Prozac were pretty big in 1998, 1999,
so it made sense for Sony Music Canada to team
these guys up with a fledgling act like B44. Jason
and James would co-write and co-produce about half the songs
on B44's first album.
But they were fully responsible for the album's first single
(05:44):
Get Down, an effervescent, overexcited slice of boy band pop
that shared its name with a Backstreet Boys hit from
4 years earlier. James would later tell CBC with B44,
everybody was clear about what it was. This is a.
Boy band and we're going to write the biggest hits
we can for boy bands to get on the radio,
and that was a very clear agenda. The guys in
(06:06):
Prozac would admit that they were feeling pretty cocky coming
off the success of their own album and felt they
could take some liberties in the songs they were writing
for B44.
Get Down was a perfect example of this. Once they
heard it, Ryan, Dan, and Ohad were super excited about
the song that would be their first ever single.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So Prozac,
Prozac wrote that song, as, as you probably know, and
they brought us that song and we flipped out right away,
like party song, you know. Yeah, we flipped out, it
was unbelievable. And uh and we thought it was a
great way for an introduction.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Get Down would certainly be an introduction, alright.
If you get down on me, I'll get down on you.
I will do anything that you want me to. It's
a game of give and take to make it through,
so if you get down on me, I'll get down
on you tonight. And let's not forget, gonna make you
come tonight over to my house.
(07:00):
No, not some kind of kinky erotic poetry. Those are
the lyrics to B44's Get Down, so kind of racy, yeah. Well,
that's not how the members of the group saw it.
In fact, here they are explaining just who they felt
the audience was for their music.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We basically wanted
to have different flavors on the album, like, like you've
Got a Friend, you know, so it's kind of like
towards the adults and then like go, go and get
down towards like little kids and like slow songs which can.
Relate to everyone,
Speaker 1 (07:29):
so sure, I can understand how Get Down could be
for the kids. It followed the NSYNC template of fun
and bubbly pop music with a big chorus full of
bubble gum hooks. Heck, even Justin Hawkins, front man for
glam rockers The Darkness, agreed that it was a song
for children when he dissected Get Down for his podcast,
Justin Hawkins Rides Again.
(07:49):
It's basically a melodic refrain that references things that you
used to sing in the playground, so this is definitely
aimed at.
Younger audience, I need to play this to a child
just to see how they react to it. I've got
a feeling it would go over pretty well because it's bouncy,
it's up, you know, they're
(08:10):
There is a kid in the video for a kickoff, um. Yes,
the kid in the video. Look, we'll get to him
in a bit, OK? But I can't get past those
lyrics because they were very questionable, so much so that
much music had to ask about it.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Now I
gotta ask you about some of these lyrics here, a
little racy, a little sexy, such as, I wanna know
every inch of your body.
The song, uh
I.
Uh, oh, do you wanna, do you wanna take, I'll
take that one. Basically the song is about give and
(08:46):
take in a relationship, you know, you can't take without
giving in a relationship, so
Speaker 1 (08:50):
get down is an expression, and it can mean a
lot of things. I mean, you know, that is an
interesting take, and while B44 would.
Continue to push the innocence card, everyone knew what the
real expression was. Get Down was a song about oral sex.
Even James McCollum, who wrote the song, told CBC that
he and Jason Levine were being quote, pretty tongue in
(09:11):
cheek when we wrote it.
They wouldn't admit it at the time, but anyone over
a certain age knew exactly what these three bronzed muscle
men were singing about. In fact, even sock puppets knew.
On an episode of MuchMusic's Fromage, host Ed the Sock
called it a sugar-coated fellatio fest. Gross.
(09:32):
And yes, years later when they were interviewed by Vice,
Ryan and Dan finally came clean about Get Down, that
it was in fact very sexual in nature. Here's what
they said. The record company was quite scared back then.
They didn't want to release Get Down first, and they
also wanted to make sure that in interviews we didn't
say that it was about sex. We said it was
(09:53):
about the give and take in a relationship. Looking back
at it, the song was about sex. The song is
about oral sex, obviously.
There was nothing to hide, you know, that's something that
we do regret. It's better to just be honest and
say what the song is about and be real. We
had mothers not so happy because their daughters were singing
If You Get Down on Me, I'll Get Down on you.
And you know what, sidebar, I was one of those
(10:15):
daughters horrifying my parents singing that one in the car.
They went on to say, the truth is they were
probably right to a point. I don't know how good
that was to have all those young kids singing lyrics
like that. Now, before I
Go any further, it's important to point out B44 definitely
had a look. I know every boy band had some
kind of style, but these guys were different. Showing off
(10:38):
their jacked arms was a priority, uh, but I've got
to say it was the twisted, spiky hairdos that made
them stand out. Here they are telling much music about
how to achieve that look, so take notes.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Um,
how you guys style your hair, it's amazing. I tried
so many times, but it doesn't work. I think it's
the best style. It's called KMS.
Paste, KMS paste and actually your spike is a little
it's it's that's good because it doesn't make it like
hard or anything and like, you know, yeah, it's it's
like actually I bought that actually. I try it. You
got to twist. You got to just like twist and
just like mess it up. It takes about 3 or
(11:11):
4 hours. It takes like 5 minutes. All right, you
guys are awesome though. You guys are
great.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
In case you missed that, they recommended using KMS molding paste,
which is still available in case you're looking to achieve
the B44 look.
Anyway, the first place most of us witnessed this look
was in the video for Get Down.
Now, how do I summarize this short piece of cinematic wonder?
It is weird as hell, like, I just watched it,
(11:39):
and honestly, what did I just watch? I didn't remember
the video, but it truly is worth watching when you
finish this episode, OK? I, uh, where do I start?
Let's start at the start, I guess. Um, the video
starts with an adolescent boy, like 12 years old, uh,
who finds one of those old View-Master toys. Do you
(12:00):
remember those? Uh, he finds it in the trash in
a sketchy alley, like you do. He looks into it,
and then he's magically transformed this beach full of bodybuilders
and bikini clad women, but not before B44 starts singing,
see me.
To the little boy, I will be the one to
(12:21):
love and comfort you from now until the day I die.
I will take you places that you only think about
when you're asleep at night, like, pardon me? What? Why
are you singing to a child right now? Who made
this music video? So anyway, then we're at the beach.
The boys from B44 are also there. Um, there's some
beach football being played and some flirtatious exchanges made between
(12:42):
the little boy and the grown women.
Naturally, like I said, this video is so weird. Um,
then it shifts to an urban basketball court where the
boy schools these much larger men on how to ball. Um,
the kid does an actual tomahawk dunk. Meanwhile, B44 do
their choreographed dance on the court and in the rain,
(13:04):
no less.
It's Snowing. Honestly, it's kind of hard to tell. Anyway,
and then it just gets even more inappropriate, as if
it could. The boy somehow acquires one of those plush
kind of cowboy hats that pimps wear in movies and
a yellow convertible, which of course attracts all of these women,
giving the whole thing this like pimpy, like, I don't
(13:26):
know vibe as B44 are singing about getting down on
a girl. It's actually horrifying.
And then it's all revealed to be a dream, um,
but by dream I, of course, mean a nightmare.
According to Ryan, Dan, and Ohad, the video was not
exactly fun to shoot. Here they are telling much music
about that experience.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
What
was it like making the video? Freezing. I froze. My
feet were like going to break in half. They did,
they did the video here and you know it's, it
was freezing, freezing cold. It was pouring the first day
it was locked on a beach. All the sand was
like they brought in feet heaters for us.
So we were like sitting there. That's how you know
(14:08):
you made it, preheat. The first, I mean the first
day was freezing. Second day it was like pouring rain
the whole day, and it was, it was nuts.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
In May of 2000 when Get Down first started airing
on stations like MuchMusic and YTV, it definitely caught the
attention of virtually everyone who saw it. This was a
bizarre video, even for boy band standards, but the song
was a hit in Canada. It reached number 4 on
the Canadian.
Singles chart and MuchMusic played it constantly. Get Down also
(14:38):
helped the band's self-titled debut album debut in the top
40 and sell more than 200,000 copies, which is a
lot for a new pop artist in Canada. B44, of course,
made the customary appearances at malls across Canada. Check this out.
This is the sound of their loving fans screaming for Ryan, Dan,
and Ohad to take the stage at the Eaton Center
(14:59):
in Toronto.
I should add that those screams were just from watching
the threesome come down the escalator. It got even louder
during the performance. Proper gigs followed, beginning with their first
show at the SkyDome in Toronto, singing in front of
10,000 girl guides. Yes, that is real, but they had
(15:20):
some other big shows opening for Christina Aguilera in Calgary
for the Corn Pops Rocks 2000 concert, which also featured
Canadian pop acts like Soul Decision, McMaster and James, and
The Moffets.
I love that that show was sponsored by Corn Pop Cereal.
It is the most year 2000 thing I have ever heard.
B44 even scored some dates on the Western Canadian leg
(15:42):
of MTV's Total Request live tour, opening up for Destiny's
Child along with Sugar Jones. And let us not forget
the YTV Psycho Blast tour with Snow, Wave, and Soul Decision.
I am just having some major Canadian pop flashbacks right now.
Perhaps the coolest gig.
They got though was performing in front of a crowd
(16:04):
of thousands at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver for the
final concert scene in the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats.
So if you know the movie, uh, well, all of
the concert footage was actually taken from the free show
Before 4 put on. So using movie magic, they just
made it look like Josie and the Pussycats were performing
their song Spin Around, when in fact all of the
(16:26):
teenage girls were just crying over B44's Get Down.
To add to these milestones, B44 were also recognized at
the 2001 Juno Awards, receiving a nomination for Best New Group. However,
they did lose, but it was to Nickelback.
Looking back, B44 had a big year throughout 2000 and 2001,
(16:48):
but as we know in this cruel, cruel industry, it
wasn't meant to last.
Despite selling 200,000 copies of their debut album, B44 were
dropped by Columbia, AKA Sony Music. Boy bands were kind
of on their way out come 2003, so it did
make sense, but the guys weren't gonna let that stop them.
(17:09):
They signed a deal with Polydor Records in Germany, and
in an interesting twist to freshen up the brand, they
changed the spelling of their name, getting rid of the
cutesy letter number combination for the proper spelling of.
B E F O R E F O U R. Um,
things seemingly looked up for the group. They signed on
(17:30):
with Lou Pearlman, one-time manager for Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and
Britney Spears, who told them, little girls are never gonna
stop loving these guys. Like, ew, did these people not
think before they speak? I can't. Um, here they are
talking about working with Lou Pearlman with much music. And
so I
Speaker 2 (17:49):
have to bring up Lou.
who you're working with, how did you hook up with him?
How did he find before 4 in Toronto? You weren't
in Orlando, were you? Oh yeah, we flew down to
Orlando just like we walked into Sony sued again right
now for this comment. You guys keep talking about being
sued and suing in lawsuits. We've got to be careful
what we say because I don't know, you know, everyone's
always after us. So what can we do? You know,
(18:10):
nothing that we can do. Excuse my language, but we
went through a lot of shit for the past two years. So,
and is it all sorted out now? I don't know.
Work stuff with labels or I know it's, I mean
everything's cool and we're on good terms, but you know
there's always obstacles you have to cross and that's how
we look at it and we're just doing what we
love to do and it's never good. It can't be.
You didn't answer the question. So Lou, yeah, how did
you meet Lou? We actually flew down to Orlando to
(18:31):
meet him. We actually called his secretary. That was kind
of like how you were discovered. You went to Sony
Music Canada. That worked for you, so you found Lou.
We called like for two months straight. We called his
secretary and she's like, I can't let you guys in,
blah blah blah blah, and you got to call and
you got to keep calling and.
Just no one let us through to him, so we
just flew down there and met him and he was
really interested and that's how it
started.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, they did manage to release their second album In
Your Face in 2003, although only in Germany.
And they did get to open up for Britney Spears
at her Toronto show as part of the Onyx Hotel tour,
but not long after that, Lou Pearlman was caught fronting
what would be called the longest running Ponzi scheme in
American history, defrauding investors out of more than $1 billion.
(19:15):
So he was sentenced to 25 years in prison on
charges of conspiracy and money laundering, among other things, and
that was kind of that. B44 came to an end
soon after in 2004.
Four years later, Ryan Kowarski would reflect on his time
in B44 to the Regina Leader Post, admitting it was
quite frustrating to us in the B44 days. We were
(19:37):
playing to a lot younger audiences, and the focus would
be on our hair and our clothes. We had come
from a very musical family. My father is an opera
singer and my older brother is an.
Opera singer, so we grew up very focused on vocals
and orchestration. We weren't happy doing pop music for young kids.
So Ryan and Dan pivoted to music that young kids
(19:57):
would definitely not want to hear. They formed a duo
called Ryan Dan, their names as one word, and sang
opera-styd vocal pop music. Their first album was actually a
big hit, going gold in Canada. I'm certain your grandmother,
maybe even your mom owns a copy.
The twin brothers put out another a few years later,
performed with Shania Twain for her Still the one show
(20:18):
at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and then called it
a day on their singing career around 2014. Ryan and
Dan still work together though to this day. You love
to see it. They own and operate a doggy daycare
and spa called Camp Cookstown in Esa, Ontario. Um, I
feel like they need to interpolate Get Down into an
ad for their business, don't you think?
(20:40):
If you book at Cookstown, your dog will thank you.
I mean, that works, right? Should they do this? If
they don't want to do it, Ohad actually could. He
is currently the CEO of a company called Circa Homes
who build prefabricated sheds, ADUs, and custom homes in the
Beverly Hills area. Actually, according to his Instagram, he knows
(21:01):
Brad Pitt. Remarkably, Get Down is still popping up in
various corners of the internet. TikTok and YouTube videos of
people reacting to the.
Music Video are the most common type of content. And
let me tell you, Gen Z, were not prepared for it.
I mean, I wasn't prepared for it and I was
there when it was a hit. As I already mentioned,
the best one, however, though, belongs to Justin Hawkins and
(21:24):
his Justin Hawkins Rides Again podcast. So let me end
with a clip from his episode he called Was Music
from the 2000s really This Bad, where he simply tries
to explain, Get Down.
Uh
I don't know what to do about this. What am
I supposed to say?
I'm Ruby Carr. Thanks for listening to Encore. We've got
(21:44):
more Can Concore coming your way, some ones that I'm
very excited about, so looking forward to sharing that with you.
Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a moment.
Encore is an iHeartRadio Canada podcast. Download the free iHeartRadio
app and subscribe. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming.
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