'NSync's sophomore album "No Strings Attached" signaled a changing of the guard in the boy-band scene. The nine-times platinum album, which sold 2.4 million copies in its first week of release, has dominated the music charts and helped the group unseat the Backstreet Boys as the teenybopper kings.

The group performs Tuesday at the Charlotte Coliseum as part of a 90-date tour that could make the group one of the top-drawing acts of the year. 'N Sync's Justin Timberlake and Chris Kirkpatrick talked about upcoming projects and the real deal with ex-manager Lou Pearlman in the following edited Q&A with several journalists.

Q: What kind of game plan do you guys have for the future?
Timberlake: Hopefully we'll just evolve with our audience. We've kind of found our sound within the past year.

Q: Your new record has such a wide variety of sounds. Do you think you're reaching a new audience besides teen-age girls?
Kirkpatrick: Every record, we try to reach a new audience. We've taken pop music and turned it into something different.

Q: You guys each are going to do some type of solo venture.
Timberlake: They're all different types of things like business ventures. Chris has his own clothing line.
Kirkpatrick: It comes out the day after Thanksgiving, in Nordstrom.

Q: Justin, what are you working on?
Timberlake: I don't know yet. I'll probably just be writing some music. Maybe I'll get into some onscreen stuff. I can just flip it like that.

Q: Who might be the first 'N Sync singer to do the solo thing?
Kirkpatrick: I don't know. It's all a matter of timing. We're going back into the studio at the beginning of next year to do another 'N Sync album.

Q: Have you guys done any writing for the new album?
Timberlake: We've been doing a little. We don't have a lot of time. Some of the tracks that I've heard are going to take our sound to the next level.

Q: It's a little surprising you guys haven't done any recordings with Britney Spears. She's on your label.
Kirkpatrick: The Backstreet Boys are on the label too; I don't see us doing anything with them anytime soon. We're still making our own identity. We don't do that many collaborations.

Q: What advice do you have for aspiring performers?
Kirkpatrick: Get a good agent, get a good manager, don't let anybody take all of your money.

Q: What exactly was Lou Pearlman's input?
Kirkpatrick: He had the Backstreet Boys, but through some logistics he was losing them. I had a group I was singing with in college. He knew one of the guys in our group because the guy had auditioned for the Backstreet Boys. Initially things didn't work out. I kept in contact with him. When I got Justin, JC, Joey and Lance, I approached him again.

Q: So, it was just the money?
Kirkpatrick: It was an investment, we said that all along. The only thing that shreds us is people said, "Yeah, he used to tell you guys how to sing." He was just the money. It was our group.

Q: So, the "No Strings Attached" thing was getting out of his control from the money?
Kirkpatrick: We are a group, we were a group before your money and it will be a group after your money. It's really sad that it went down like that, because at first he said he wanted it to be like a family. In this business, when it comes to money you can't trust anybody. We learned that really quick.