By Jonathan Reyes

Bright-eyed, persevering, and working hard is how the guys from “Making the Band 4” come back for their second season to complete their debut album. Before Diddy’s boy band kick off their debut with a promo tour and a slew of performance rehearsals, the fearless five linked up with Rap-Up.com at Atlantic Records for an exclusive interview. Brian Andrews, Mike McCluney, Qwanell Mosley (aka “Q”), Robert Curry, and Willie Taylor give readers a peek into their Bad Boy lifestyle. From discussing what makes their set different to the band name every fan has been yearning to hear, the “MTB4” guys are hinting and telling. With all the love connections and personal turmoil these young men have gone through, rest assured they might just have their most scandalous and intriguing season to date. Catch the season premiere Monday, January 28th on MTV.

How was it filming this time around not having to compete with one another?

Will: I feel it’s still a competition, not among us, but [Diddy] put us up against [Danity Kane] and Donnie to see whose album would come out first, who’s going to headline a tour. So the competition is still there. We have to battle because we’re a little group and he put us against platinum-selling Danity Kane; that’s a struggle within itself. The competition is still there, it’s still in the show.

Did you notice any interesting habits while living with the ladies?

Robert: It’s funny how we do photo shoots and we have the photo shoots at the same time. They got to start early, early, early in the morning, way before us to get ready—and we’re still done before them.

In the “Making the Band 4” trailer, audiences saw Q and Dawn, a Danity Kane member, hook up. What’s going on there?

Q: Me and Dawn are just friends. I believe you all saw a kiss but it was in the heat of the moment. Tension was rising; things were getting hot, so we kissed. That’s all. We’re just friends—crazy chemistry though.

How about some crazy fan stories? You have to have some of those being a boy band and all.

Q: I get crazy e-mails from a lot of female fans saying some crazy stuff. It’s cool with me. [Laughs].

Robert: The ones that stick out in my head the most is when people be crying because I don’t really know how to handle that. Just last night we were at [a restaurant] and me, Q, and Big Mike walked by and [a fan] wanted to take a picture with us as we were going up the escalator. She didn’t think we heard her so she just went about her business. We turned around. She saw us coming down and she just starts going crazy. She was crying! She couldn’t even take the picture! We didn’t know what to do. I was looking at Q, Q was looking at me. We were like, “It’s OK.” [Laughs]

What’s the craziest thing that happened this season that you would tell a fan so they watch?

Mike: Can’t tell you! All I got to say is we all should get an Academy Award.

Have you guys picked a name for the group?

Q: It’s a secret. Hush hush.

Brian: January 28th you’ll find out.

Did you see any of your favorite music shape the new album?

Will: We learned how to make Q’s style, Brian’s style, Robert, Mike, myself [combine to create] this unique sound. [Brian] likes to call it…

Brian: I like to call it “Raw&B.” It’s raw talent, there’s nothing out there like this, and there hasn’t been nothing out there like this.

Considering Danity Kane went through the whole process of recording an album on television, did you guys go to them for some advice?

Robert: [Danity Kane] gave me a lot of advice as far as the show goes. Maybe not as far as the music end of it goes, but as far as how to deal with the cameras and everything like that. They gave me a lot of insight on that ‘cause I needed it this season. This season was kind of rough for me, but yeah, they helped me a lot.

What kind of issues?

Robert: Both [external and internal issues].

Put-together groups in music tend not to last long term. How do you guys plan to overcome that stigma?

Robert: People always say Diddy did a good job picking this band because of [vocals]. I say it for reasons beyond that. That’s why a lot of these put-together groups fall apart because [they’re not] all on the same mind frame. You got one person that maybe just tried for the first time to be a singer at this audition, never really put the struggle in and the grind. Everybody [here] is hungry.

The debut album from “Making the Band 4″ is due out March 11th. Visit their MySpace page at www.myspace.com/mtvmtb4.