photo by steed media service

The Disney name is not necessarily synonymous with R&B music, so when teen heartthrobs B5 were featured in the entertainment giant’s original movie, High School Musical, and on the television show “Hannah Montana,” it seemed the industry was ready to write them off as just another bubblegum boy band. But with a gold plaque for their self-titled debut, a new deal with Bad Boy Records and two years of growth, Dustin, Kelly, Patrick, Carnell and Bryan Breeding are ready to show they’ve matured physically and musically.

Recently the boys released their new album, Don’t Talk, Just Listen, a testament to their transition from young tykes on a cute song to grown men creating their own music. “I think [growing up], it’s harder on everybody else than us,” says 16-year-old Patrick. “People still think we’re these tiny kids until they see us perform or we come and do an interview and they’re like, ‘Wow, you guys are actually getting older now.’ ”

This time around the Breeding brothers recruited the services of Bryan-Michael Cox, Scott Storch and will.i.am to help them tackle more mature subject matter and give their new disc an older sound. They’re hoping the masses will embrace the present B5 — not the group that performed their first video on a school bus in their ultra-poppy first single, “All I Do,” more than two years ago. “We’re always going to do us, regardless of what people say because that’s what makes us who we are,” says Dustin, the group’s elder statesmen at 19. “We don’t want to be like anybody else.” - gavin philip godfrey

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