What ever happened to O-Town?

After getting their start on the 2000 reality series Making the Band, O-Town released two albums. As Billboard outlines, their musical achievements in multi-platinum sales were initially no joke, with their 2001 self-titled effort selling 1.7 million copies; their two biggest hits, "Liquid Dreams" and "All Or Nothing," reached No. 10 and No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

However, the group's meteoric rise to fame came near the end of the reigning boy band era, and they suffered a dramatic sophomore slump. Their massive popularity had already begun to drastically fade by the time 2002's O2 was released, and the record failed to garner much in the sense of commercial success, selling only 257,000 copies. According to Billboard, the leading single "These Are The Days" came in at only #64 on their Top 100 chart.

Due to this and an undeniable change in the music industry's climate, they were dropped by J Records less than a year later, as the Daily Beast recounted.

Following the group's quiet disbandment, Ashley Parker Angel remained the highest profile former member. May 2006 saw the release of his solo album, Soundtrack to Your Life, which debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. It marked a stark musical departure, featuring a slightly more mature pop rock sound, heavier, more personal lyrics, and a more hands-on approach to the songwriting.

The lead single, "Let U Go", preceded this release. Co-written by Angel with pop music heavyweights Max Martin and Dr. Luke, the song became the third highest debut that year, at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

In March 2012, Angel endeavored on a musical project with songwriter-producer Xandy Barry called Mansions of Arcadia. The duo teased snippets of their work on Twitter in the lead up to the release of "Don't Let Me Down."

Angel's now a songwriter for EMI Publishing and hopes to one day release his sophomore album, as he revealed to Out Magazine in 2014: "Over the past few years, there have been a couple of songs that I've written that I haven't given away, just sort of tucked away in my back pocket."

From 2007 to 2008, Angel had a hugely popular run playing Link Larkin in Hairspray on Broadway. His performance was initially announced on Broadway.com, and he soon received positive reviews, with the New York Post declaring he had "real pop glamour" in the role. Due to the overwhelming success of his casting and heartthrob appeal, BroadwayWorld.com confirmed that the show's producers requested he extend his contract four times.

In 2014, Angel returned to the stage in the national touring company of Wicked, as announced by Playbill, in which he played another leading man, Fiyero Tigelaar.

Angel caught the acting bug, and in addition to his work on stage, he's also starred in several movies. According to the Gazette Review, he earned his first major role on the big screen in 2009 in Wild Things: Foursome. His next role came the following year, as Frankie Muniz's co-star in Pizza Man. 2013's straight-to-DVD movie, Amelia's 25th, was his third film effort. And most impressively, he shopped around his own short film, Trona, at several film festivals in 2014.

Since 2003, Dan Miller fell in love, started a family, and branched out into several other areas of the arts. He's worked hard behind the scenes, honing the varied crafts of artist, songwriter, producer, and designer. Following the breakup of the band, Miller detailed to fans his move to Orlando, where he's since worked on various projects out of his home studio. And over the years, he has kept his loving fans up to date on all of his creative endeavors through his Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Similarly to the majority of O-Town, Miller also tried his hand at a solo career. In August 2005, he released a pop rock EP that featured a more mature, singer-songwriter sound called Slower Than A Gun.

While Miller is the most family-oriented member of the group, he also seems to be the most keen on keeping his personal life private. However, as mentioned in Glamour, he and his wife celebrated their 10-year wedding anniversary in 2014, and the happy couple now have two beautiful children, a boy and girl.

Upon the band's break up, Jacob Underwood disclosed to O-Town fans that he had just completed building his home in San Diego. At the time, he also served as an honorary firefighter.

In 2005, he returned to music, leading a country band called Jacob's Loc. Glamour revealed later that he had relocated to Nashville, where he recorded via Loc'd Up Records. The group released their first album, The E.P., in February 2006, and their last single, titled "Whiskey Callin'", was released in 2011.

In the same interview with Glamour, he opened up about the differences between this experience and O-Town: "I went through a rough patch and got beat up a lot, so I think humility is the strongest lesson that I learned. I appreciate the little things in life now. Even stepping out of the limelight for a little bit allowed me to fall in love [with music] in a whole different way again. It is such a blessing getting to do what we do."

He also retains a frequently updated Twitter account to keep fans informed of his projects.

As the now-quartet told Billboard in March 2014, this is more than just a typical boy band reunion. "We started this reunion purely for the fun of it. We had discussed a summer tour to perform our old songs and finally give the fans what they've been asking us for the last 10 years," Underworld revealed.

He then added, "However, once we began working, what developed was something a little more ambitious. The ideas kept flying and we couldn't help but start making new music." As Underwood continued, "We are blessed to be able to apply what we've learned to create something stimulating and beautiful, that we can call ours. This isn't just a reunion for us. It's a new beginning."

Recorded over the course of those three years, their third album, Lines & Circles, was released in the summer of 2014. The slow ballad single, "Skydive", came out around the same time. These efforts were released internationally via All About The Melody, and featured a simpler, more mature sound than that of their earlier days.

Penick described the leading single to Billboard as "a dramatic song…It starts with a simple piano and vocal, and by the end you hear a seventy-piece orchestra, and all four of us belting it out in 4-part harmony.

Fast forward to October 2016, when Us Weekly exclusively announced plans for O-Town's fourth album. This time around, they opted to go rogue and record without the influence (or, indeed, the support) of a record label. Underwood confirmed as such in the following statement to the publication: "We're ready to put out new music, and the fans have made it known they're ready for it too. For the first time in our musical careers we're faced with no label or funding to help us deliver."

On September 30th, the band had announced that the record would be funded through Kickstarter, exclaiming: "This time we're going to do it better, smarter, and we'll allocate funds where we've proven they will be most effective. We can only hope our fans will be as supportive as they always have been!"

As Bustle reported later that month, the band impressively surpassed their goal of $47,500 in just seven hours. And by the October 30th deadline, 514 backers had pledged a total of $81,040 to fund their favorite boy band's latest musical effort.

Underwood confessed to Bustle, "I had high hopes, but nearly zero foresight when it came to how the Kickstarter would go. Reaching the goal in only seven hours was absolutely unexpected and enormously encouraging."

He continued, "It told me one thing: That we have fans out there that want us to continue to make music as OTOWN, and that's exactly what we're going to do. Our fans truly bless us."