Joey Lawrence Interview on the Set of Melissa & Joey #ABCFamilyEvent

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Melissa & Joey on ABC Family

Melissa & Joey is a half-hour comedy that follows Mel, the grown-up former wild child of a political family, who is now a local politician herself. When her sister ends up in prison and her brother-in-law flees after a scandal hits, Mel must take responsibility for her teenaged niece, Lennox, and nephew, Ryder. Help comes in the unlikely form of Joe, who moves in and becomes the family’s manny.The series stars Melissa Joan Hart as Mel, Joey Lawrence as Joe, Taylor Spreitler as Lennox and Nick Robinson as Ryder.

About Joe Longo

Joe, an unemployed commodities trader, is desperate for work. His life took a turn for the worse when his former employer, Mel’s brother-in-law, left the country in a hurry due to a company scandal. Now his wife is leaving him and he has no place to live. All he has left is his Porsche… oh yeah, he’s losing that too. In a last ditch attempt to stay afloat he’s able to convince Mel to give him a chance as her new family’s “manny.”

You read all about my Melissa & Joey set visit on the blog last week (if not – go read it now), now it’s time for my Melissa & Joey interviews. From singing (Joey) to new clothing lines (Melissa), I think we covered it all. So grab a drink and take a peek at everything that we covered during these fun interviews. You can read Melissa’s Interview here.

As the 25 of us (bloggers) sat in the bleachers watching the rehearsal involving Joey Lawrence, Melissa Joan Hart, and Taylor Spreitler we prepared for our two interviews on the set. First up, Joey Lawrence. He joined us up where the audience sits during taping and we started in with the questions.

Interview with Joey Lawrence on the set of ABC Family’s Melissa & Joey

After starting out answering some of Joey’s questions for us about if we were ready for the upcoming holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, etc.) – we weren’t ready for the holidays in case you were wondering – we started asking him all the questions y’all want to know.

We have already seen the winter premiere of Melissa & Joey that airs on January 14th at 8/7c on ABC Family. You’ll definitely want to see what happens in this “honeymoon” episode, but we asked Joey about this episode and the upcoming season.

Oh yeah honeymoon…or not so honeymoon.  Every week it’s been a honeymoon week.  I swear to God Melissa and I have been in bed every week. It’s been a dream come true for her.

[that’s a joke, in case you couldn’t tell]

I don’t think that we would get away with it [on broadcast networks].  I’ll just tell you that there’s one opening to a show that when we read it at the table we thought there’s no way that they’re gonna let us do this.  And the writers put things in that, that are just so salacious that you know just to push the buttons of Standards & Practices (S&P).

We not only shot it, but it actually made it to the cut.  It’s unbelievable how the show begins.  People are gonna go, “What!” But it’s true.  You guys will have to watch to find out what that is, but it’s pretty amazing. It’s gonna be a fun season.  Lots of sex and arguing and make up sex. It’s called married life.

Since we heard him singing on the set during rehearsal, we wanted to know if he sings on set a lot. He has such a passion for music I’ll mention here that I still have an original audio cassette of the Joey Lawrence album in my stash.

I do.  I like to sing period.  I’ve been singing for a while, but working actually on some new music for the first time.  I did a big band song actually because Joey’s Angels, (my Twitter followers, who are extremely passionate).

[…] I don’t really Tweet that much because […] I love being able to talk to them, but I don’t think they need to know what Latte I’m drinking.  They coined themselves “Joey’s Angels” and they are so passionate it’s unbelievable.  So we had a little contest and we gave away–  I said you know choose the genre.

I’ll write an original song and we’ll put it up on iTunes and we’ll give it away.  They choose big band. I had to write an original big band record, we recorded with an 80 piece orchestra at Capitol Records and we released it.  I mean if I had sold it it would have been really sweet.  I probably should in retrospect. It was 129,000 downloads in 4 weeks. Which is pretty incredible.

It got me thinking that we should do some music for real.  So me and my brothers, believe it or not,  for the first time ever.  Because Andrew, who’s the youngest, is one of the most amazing guitar players that you’ll ever hear.

We have our tastes. I think Andy [Lawrence] comes more from the Indie Rock world.  I come more from like the Classic Pop world and Matt [Lawrence] comes more from like the urban Sam Smith’s vibe.

I’d say coming together it’s a combination of Coldplay meets probably Sam Smith I’d say. It’s probably where it’s landing.  We’re using a lot of live instrumentation.  It’s got great hooks, but it’s definitely got more of a Rock vibe to it, but it’s really good stuff. We’re gonna’ give it a shot and see what people think.

We were interested in finding out if being a parent influences his role on the show.

It doesn’t really.  Joe Longo found out that he was a parent, but he’s not really a parent.  You know this show is definitely not for kids.  My 9 year old cannot watch this show.  She watched the Christmas episode, [she can watch] the one-off shows.

It’s not for the 9 year-olds.  It really is for teens and for young adults and for people that are our age, in their middle to late 30’s.  It doesn’t really affect it too, too much.  Honestly I keep my private life and my work life separate.  I’m not one of those actors that loves to bleed the two together.

I don’t think that one goes with the other.  That’s just me personally.  I don’t take my kids to premieres.  I don’t post pictures on Instagram of myself, my kids. It’s all about me, my work and my fans, and the relationship that I have with them.  I want my kids to live normal lives and I don’t know why they [personal and work] have to go hand-in-hand.

A lot of the idols that I look up to they don’t. So the path that I want to emulate is like the George Clooneys and Bruce Willis and Harrison Fords.  These guys – they still to this day you don’t hear a lot about their personal lives.

He says his daughter (almost 9) is interested in acting, but he’s not pushing it on her and he recorded her and sent it in without her knowing. She got the part! So, even though he wants to keep personal and work separate, he still is letting his children follow their dreams.

Now she doesn’t know that because I just wanted her to experiment. It was a hobby and it was one of these more youth oriented TV shows and I don’t want her to get caught up in that system.  Beccause it’s just not what it used to be.  When I was growing up it’s just so different now. I know that sounds cliché, but it really is so different.  I just did not want her to be one of these like, “Oh my– ” you know.

I just didn’t because that’s all that’s out there for a lot of these young actors today.  It’s like the parents are just idiots.  Why are the parents such idiots?  In every child’s TV show I hate them.  So we go back and we watch shows that the parents actually had something to say because when I last checked parents know more than kids.  Because we’ve been here and we’ve made the mistakes.  That’s how we figured it out.  It’s not that we are just gifted because we know more, it’s because we’ve been through it and we’ve made the mistakes. That’s how we can pass on the information to them.

Something he mentioned about sitcoms these days resonated with me because my children are young and we don’t tune in to many kids shows if they aren’t cartoons. But, Joey was talking about watching shows with his children, that aired when he was growing up (some even farther back than that).

So we go back and we watch you know the Full Houses and the Brady Bunch, Happy Days and Family Ties […]. Where it’s like they had something to say.  Parents were fallible, but they weren’t idiots. Whereas today literally the kids always know more than the parents. It’s like, “Oh dad.” “Sorry sweetie.”  You know it’s like what is a bumbling idiot, like always.

On growing up in the limelight.

I really didn’t even know that I made money until I was about 14 or 15 and was talking about cars and trying to get a car.

I’d love to see her [my daughter] transition into it [acting] after college.  Maybe even during college, 19, 20.  Where if she does something great she’ll be respected for it quickly.  […] Instead of being pigeon holed as a young thespian and not being able to continue on.

That’s brutal.  You know I’ve been through that and I had to go through 3 of these transitions.  All, already from little moppet, to young adult, to teen sensation, to young man to man. It’s tough, it’s not easy. So if I can eliminate some of that for her I’d like to do it.

On directing episodes of Melissa & Joey.

It’s tough you know.  I’ve directed like 7 or 8 now each but it’s always tough.

I love to direct. I don’t love being in it and directing.  I don’t really love that.  I think it’s super tough to do that.  A lot of responsibility and something has got to’ suffer a little bit.  So it’s just tough to keep it all together.  But, I do love to direct you know.  It’s something that I would love to do. Films too, but later.

I want to thank both Melissa and Joey for being gracious enough to let us have a few minutes of their time to ask the questions you wanted answered. I’ve already watched the winter premiere that debuts this week, but let me tell you that you’ll see a lot of bedroom action in this episode. Tune in and let me know what you think!

Check out my full interview with Melissa now.

Watch full episodes of Melissa & Joey on ABCFamily.go.com.

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Don’t forget to tune in to ABC Family on January 14th at 8/7c for the winter premier of Melissa & Joey.