ALL-4-ONE Discuss Their Upcoming Las Vegas ‘I Love the 90’s’ Residency, Plans for New Music and More!

Anyone who has ever been in love has heard the name All-4-One as well as their timeless songs “I Swear,” “I Can Love You Like That,” “So Much In Love,” “I Turn To You,” “These Arms,” “Beautiful As You,” and more.  The Grammy Award Winning R&B group is internationally known for powerful songs which have sold over 22 Million records.  All-4-One and their massive hit song, “I Swear” remain on Billboard’s top 100 biggest artists and singles list of all time, Billboard’s Biggest Hits of All:  The Hot 100’s All-Time Top 100 chart.

 Celebrating their 25 year anniversary, the four original members of All-4-One — Jamie, Delious, Tony, and Alfred —are a staple in the history of R&B music for making legendary music that draws audiences from all over the world.

All-4-One’s first single, “So Much In Love” (from their self-titled debut album), scaled to RIAA Gold Sales and achieved a spot on Pop Charts’ Top 5. The California-based quartet soon established their place in the industry as premier balladeers. Their follow-up single, “I Swear,“ claimed the “Billboard Hot 100” #1 spot for 11 consecutive weeks, and sales skyrocketed the song to #1 selling single status in 1994 — the third most successful single of the rock era. “I Swear” is still on Billboard’s “Hot 100”as one of the most successful singles of all time. It has been named by ASCAP as one of the greatest love songs of the 20th Century. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, “I Swear” is the biggest selling single of 1994.

The groups second album, And the Music Speaks, was highlighted by “I Can Love You Like That,” a mid-tempo which also reached the Top 5 on Billboard’s “Hot 100.” They have released a total of eleven albums and sold over 22 million records worldwide. They have also been recognized by a multitude of top-tier awards including The Grammy Awards (One win and three nominations), The American Music Award (One win and three nominations), The Blockbuster Award, and countless international awards while embarking on multiple world tours.

All-4-One’s pop culture influence has also reached into the world of cinema. Their music is featured on several multi-platinum soundtracks including Walt Disney Pictures animated feature film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame with the main theme song “Someday.” They are also featured on the Space Jam Soundtrack, a five-time platinum album with their song, “I Turn To You.”   Additionally, they are featured on Tapestry Revisited: A Tribute to Carole King, with their rendition of “Tapestry,” which sold over a million copies; they are also featured in the soundtrack of the movie Mi Familia with the song “One Summer Night,” a 1960’s remake and the 1996 Grammy Nominees album, with “I Can Love You Like That.”  This Grammy-winning album is a compilation of songs nominated for song of the year and has sold over one million copies. All-4-One’s songs are frequently licensed for commercials, music compilations, television shows, and major motion pictures such as Despicable Me, Earth to Echo (the hilarious Ryan Reynolds comedy), Just Friends, The Social Network and Nothing to Lose.

This iconic quartet continues to tour the world with all four original members, exhibiting vast array of talent and performing their collection of hit songs.  This year, in celebration of their 25^th year anniversary, the group is touring the US and Southeast Asia and will embark on a career milestone, a Las Vegas residency billed as I Love The 90’s with Salt n Pepa and Rob Base at the Paris Hotel. This residency kicks off October 12th!

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Learn more about All-4-One in the following All Access interview:

So can you talk about how this Vegas Residency will be different or similar to the tour that you’ve been on with everybody, The I Love The 90s tour.

Well the biggest difference in my opinion is, when you come to Vegas it’s about putting on a show and not just a concert. When we’re on I Love The 90s, and we’ll be doing shows this weekend in Georgia, everybody does their set. So we come out, we do our 15-20 minute set and somebody else comes on and does their set. But in Vegas, it’s going to be a lot more interactive. You’re not going to just see us come out and sing for 15-20 minutes, we’re going to come out and do a song and then we’re going to leave the stage and then Salt n Pepa might come out and then Rob Base.

We may join one of them for a song. So it’s put together more like a show.

How has this 90s tour been like for you guys? Do you feel like you’ve just been having the time of your lives getting to perform these songs for people?

Yeah it’s been amazing. For us, we’re celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. We’ve had the opportunity to perform these songs for so long for so many people. What’s been really cool is being back home because we go overseas quite a bit especially in Southeast Asia. But for the last three and a half years to be home and go out to all these places that we haven’t been to in a little while and just seeing people our age coming in ready to just have an amazing time and throw their cares to the wind. Just for that hour, hour and a half just let loose and not worry about what’s waiting for you at home.

You don’t have to worry about your kids, you know they’re taken care of. They’re being watched. Just having people come and just really, truly enjoy themselves. When you’re on stage and you’re doing what we do and we see the joy that’s coming back at you, it just gives you that much more energy and it just makes you want to do that much better and put that much better of a show on.

How do you prepare for this residency and really for the tour? Are you guys constantly rehearsing and just getting yourselves physically and mentally ready for all of this?

We actually don’t rehearse a lot. We’ve been super blessed. We’ve all been able to just fall in place. We do rehearse, don’t get me wrong, but for the most part we have all been able to just, I don’t know we just kind of lock together. It’s been a real blessing to be able to have the chemistry that we’ve had for so long. Now if we’re adding some new choreography then yeah, we definitely have to rehearse because we’re a little older now ourselves. We got to put a little extra work in as well. But for the most part, we don’t rehearse as much as we probably should. It’s only because, like I said, we have a really special bond and special chemistry. Things just seem to fall into place really quickly.

Are you excited to be in one place and not be traveling as much?

Oh yeah. That’s actually one of the things we were all looking forward to. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to get the airline miles and we’re all executive platinum on American. But it is nice to be able to just be in one place for a minute. Know that every show that we do our sound is going to be what we know it’s supposed to be and the lighting is going to be great. Just to not have to deal with the jet lag-

Will your families, will you all come to Vegas to live there permanently while this run is going on?

I don’t know about permanently, we’ve all kind of been talking about it. I think everybody does. Just try it out. I know for me, two of my kids are in college. My youngest is in high school, so I’m going to bring my youngest with me. Just kind of try it out and see how we like Vegas.

Everyone’s doing it right? There’s so many shows there now. Everyone’s going to get Residency. So you’ll probably get a chance to go see other artists perform right?

Oh I’m definitely going to. Yeah I mean we’re friends with Boyz II Men. So I definitely want to go check them out while we’re there. As well as there’s a couple other shows, I want to see the Beatles Love.

I’ll probably go check that out. We were just there rehearsing. We were trying to go see JLO but we just weren’t sure exactly if our rehearsal schedule was going to allow us to go do that.

I was reading last night about all the different things that a few of you have done as far as solo careers. So I’m curious, what do you think year after year keeps you all in this group and makes you want to just be together and make music? What draws you together every year?

Honestly, we all are really good friends. I mean, it’s more like a family than a friendship. We are all involved in each other’s lives off stage. All our kids call either call the rest of us Uncle. We just enjoy being together. We enjoy singing together. I did do a solo project and the only thing that made me do the solo project is I wanted to make some music inside of me that maybe necessarily All For One wouldn’t necessarily record.

I did a gospel CD that was really kind of old school R&B. It’s just something that I really needed to do. I needed to express myself. But the thing was, even when I did that or even when Delious did some of his solo stuff, we’ve always had the understanding that All For One would be the base. We could branch out and do other things, we would always come back to this because believe it or not we all started out as solo artists in the beginning. The thing that worked for all of us, the thing that got us on the map was this. So it showed us that this is what God wanted us to do because it was the group that got blessed. It was the group that was able to get on.

So we all kind of know that no matter what it is we want to do in life, it all comes back to this.

How do you think that touring, all of this touring that you’ve been doing has changed the dynamics or how you all are as performers? How have you grown?

Oh man, I think that as a performer and it’s what I tell every younger artist that I get a chance to talk to when they come to me in the studio, I think that whatever it is you do in life that when you get to the point where you’re not learning anything anymore, you’re not growing, it’s time to do something different. You’ve won the game. You understand?

There’s nothing else for you to do or to win. So once you get to that point where you’ve done it all, you know it all, then it’s time to move on. I think we still are always learning. We still are always finding ways to try and improve, try to make our show better, try to make the experience for the fans better. That’s kind of our motto.

Do you have any plans to get into the studio and record some new music? Some new material?

Oh we already are. I travel with my studio everywhere I go.

So when we were just in Vegas rehearsing I had my full studio set up in the hotel room and we’ve been recording. So we had a record come out a few years ago called 20+-

It was kind of celebrating the fact that we’ve been together for 20+ years. But we’re planning next year, early next year, and maybe even possibly this year to release an updated version of that song. So we’re going to take the best songs off that album that we love and we’re adding a few new ones to it right now-

We’re going to release it as a 25th anniversary edition. So we’ve already been in the studio recording. Even, like I said, even in Vegas during the rehearsal.

So, at the end of the day what do you hope that fans that come check you guys out this Vegas Residency, what do you hope they leave feeling?

Honestly, we pray before every show. We’re all very religious people. Part of our prayer is that people will leave the show feeling better than when they came to the show. That’s always our goal. Music is such an emotional thing that it has a way of tying itself to not only your emotions but to your memories. Our whole goal is to try to create memories and things like that for all of our fans that come to see us. Things that they won’t forget. Things that, life is hard as it is, especially in these days with all the craziness going on.

We just want to try and create some memories for our fans and things like that that can help everybody escape that for a little. Just concentrate on love.

(Photography provided by All-4-One Publicity)