NAMES IN THE NEWS : New Kids’ Goal: Role Models

New Kids on the Block, the hottest teen-age pop group since the Jacksons and Menudo, say they want to be role models for the youth of today.

“A lot of people associate musicians with drugs, and craziness, and being bad people,” said New Kid Jon Knight, 20. “But that’s not what we want to be with this group.”

Last week, New Kids was named Favorite Pop Rock Group at the American Music Awards. Their album, “Hangin’ Tough Live,” has sold 7 million copies and was named the Favorite Pop Rock Album at the awards show.

“Joining the group was something like basketball: If you play basketball you can stay off the streets, you can set a goal. Music has made a goal for us,” Danny Wood, 19, said in an interview published in The Tennessean Sunday.

The other members of the quintet are Donnie Wahlberg, 20, the group’s oldest member; Jordan Knight, 18, and Joe McIntyre, who was 13 when he joined in 1984.