In an industry that is comparatively harder to break into than Fort Knox: One question unsigned artists can ask themselves while watching Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Making The Band is "How far would you go for a record deal?"

The recent cast members of this hit reality-based show, were forced to prove just that, before signing with Diddy and his notorious Bad Boy Records.

After the long, band selection process was over in the cold winter months of New York City, the audience of MTV’s Making The Band watched as the final selected members, Robert, Will, Que, Brian and Mike record their album and deal with stresses, under one mansion rooftop in Miami.

With their label-mates and MTB alumni, Danity Kane, topping the charts with the platinum sales of, both, their debut and sophomore albums - Day 26 are now hoping that their millions of television viewers will also translate into sales of their debut self-titled album, Day 26.

At the Midtown, Manhattan offices of Bad Boy/Atlantic Records, HipHopDX.com sat down with the five latest, talented MTB recruits, to hear about how their lives have changed and what it means to be a Bad Boy.

HipHopDX: Tell me where the group name, Day 26, came from?
Will: Day 26. The band was made on August 26, which was the finale last season. We had a whole list of names and that was just something that just kept coming back up. We wanted something that meant a lot to us, no matter what people want us to be called. People want us to be called something plain like “Exclusive.” We just wanted to think outside of the box. Something that really meant a lot to us. We didn’t really care if it meant we’d have to explain. We’ll explain it a million times. August 26 is the day we made the band and that was the day that changed our lives. Day 26, we love it.

DX: That night, on August 26 when you first made the band. What’s one of the first things you all, as a group, said to each other?
Will: Let's do it. Lets make history.
Robert: We always say he couldn’t have picked a better five dudes to do this.

DX: Reality shows notoriously build storylines with editing and sometimes planned conflict. How much of Making The Band is real?
Entire Group: Everything’s real!
Will: Everything’s real and I’m not lying at all. Some people stuff people can’t believe, but, Man, everything’s real. Everything they show on there really happened.

DX: Diddy doesn’t get a little extra when the camera’s come on?
Will: I don’t know about him. He could be a little extra. However, the stuff that comes from us is real.
Que: It's all real. MTV got the rights to edit it however they want to. But everything they show is what happened.
Robert: If anything we might even tone down when the camera’s come around. You know, until you get used to them. When they around you all the time, where you just forget about it.

DX: Are you now able forget about the cameras being around?
Mike and Brian: Yes.
Will: Yeah, especially this season.
Q: I know I forgot about the camera’s a lot of times and have been like, ‘Oh, did I just do that?’.
Robert: I show exactly how much I forgot about the cameras.

DX: What something that you’ve learned about Diddy that would surprise us?
Brian: That he’s humble.
Que: That he’s actually a cool cat. I think that’d surprise a lot of people. He’s Puffy, Sean John and all that, but the person that we know behind the cameras is a cool cat. We been to his house and watched to the Super Bowl with him. He’s cool cat, real down to earth, but I don’t think the world will ever see that. But if they ever got to see that, that’d see he’s cool.

DX: You have a large female following from the show. What kind of girls do you tend to like?
Que: Doesn’t matter, thick or skinny, dark skinned or light skinned.
Robert: Interviewers! [Laughs]
Brian: Especially interviewers!
Will: Writers with long blonde hair and big hoop earrings in a tan leather jacket sitting across from me. [Laughs]
Que: And you smell good too. Whatchu wearing?

DX: [Laughs] Q, we’ve watched the unfolding of your romance with Dawn of Danity Kane on the show. On the recent finale, you both kissed on camera. Are you guys a couple?
Que: She’s a wonderful woman. I would love to be with her. She’s great.

DX: [Laughs] When fans of the show approach you, what’s the something you hear repeatedly?
Que: They just tell me I’m sexy. I don't know, I hear that a lot.
Robert: I always get, “Why did you let Diddy cut your hair?”
Que: I get a lot of good complements, people telling me they love me and they praying for me.
Mike: I get a bunch of different criticism. Continued on page 2 »