PITTSBURGH (TNS) — Chris Kirkpatrick has always thought of himself as “the roadie who made it,” even while touring in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a member of the ultra-successful boy band ‘N Sync.
”Even though I was in a band and did pop music, I’m a blue-collar kid,” the Clarion native said.
Kirkpatrick will soon be back in town hanging out with Western Pennsylvania-based fans of his music and acting work at Steel City Con, the massive pop-culture celebration that will take over the Monroeville Convention Center Friday through Sunday.
Steel City Con co-owner Bob Stein has put together a lineup of celebrity guests that in addition to Kirkpatrick includes Marisa Tomei (“My Cousin Vinny”), Andy Serkis (“Andor”), Katey Sagal (“ Sons of Anarchy”), Billy Dee Williams (“The Empire Strikes Back”), William Shatner (“Star Trek”), Linda Larkin (voice of Princess Jasmine in “Aladdin”), Martha Plimpton and Garret Dillahunt(the Pittsburgh-shot Amazon Freevee series “Sprung”), a slew of “Smallville” alumni and more.
This won’t be Kirkpatrick’s first Steel City Con. He tries to do a few conventions a year and loves to “hear these stories and the personalization of the things” fans tell him about their relationship to ‘N Sync. He recalled his genuine amusement as a convention-goer in San Antonio described how “it was like a battle zone in her cafeteria” between the ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys faithful — which, as he put it, “that’s some serious boy band love right there.”
He was born in Clarion, raised in Oil City and spent his high school years in Ohio. Kirkpatrick always gets a kick out of his high school friends flocking to his Cleveland concerts while the audiences for his Pittsburgh shows are almost always packed with his family members. Part of the reason he left Florida for Nashville was to be closer to Pittsburgh, which he believes has always possessed “a northern mentality with a southern vibe.”
Fun fact: ‘N Sync played both the final concert at Three Rivers Stadium in July 2000 and the first one at Heinz Field in August 2001. Kirkpatrick is a huge Pittsburgh sports fan and has gotten to sing the national anthem before multiple Steelers games. He mentioned recently teasing fellow Western Pennsylvania-born musician Bret Michaels for getting excited about the Pirates’ early-season success with the pointed barb, “You sound like a Browns fan.”
Kirkpatrick grew up pretty poor and said he will never forget what it was like to be on welfare and not know how he would get his next meal. Every chat with an admirer of his work means the world to Kirkpatrick, though getting to have those talks with Rust Belt-based fans and “connecting on a personal hometown level” is an understandably even more powerful experience.
”When I meet someone from Western PA, it’s always really good conversations,” he said. “They kind of perk up a bit because they understand it’s not just some LA rich kid walking around starting this band and getting to do all these things. It’s one of them.”
Anyone coming of age in the 2000s may also remembered Kirkpatrick as the voice of pop star Chip Skylark in the Nickelodeon animated series “The Fairly Oddparents.” As a SAG-AFTRAmember, though, Kirkpatrick is currently not permitted to discuss that and other projects he did for companies involved in the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
In case you were wondering, SAG-AFTRA members are still allowed to attend conventions like Steel City Con as long as they aren’t “on behalf of or to promote companies we are striking against,” according to official strike guidelines. Stein said that the strike never affected his ability to plan this particular pop-culture convention and that Steel City Con is “supportive of their cause and we hope it works out for the best for them.”
”It’s an interesting time,” he continued. “It’s new. We’ll get through it, they’ll get through it and we’ll get back to business as usual. Nothing can be worse than COVID, right?”
