New Kids on the Block announces reunion tour

In this undated photo provided by The New Kids On The Block, the group is pictured in Los Angeles, from left to right, Joey McIntyre, Jonathan Knight, Donnie Wahlberg, Jordan Knight and Danny Wood.

BOSTON - They may be pushing 40, but the New Kids are returning to the block. The Boston boy band New Kids on the Block, which sold 70 million albums in the 1980s and early 1990s, has reunited and plans to release a new album and go on tour.

The reunion comes 20 years after the release of the group's multi-platinum album, "Hanging Tough."

The group released a new photo Wednesday and reportedly will appear on the Today show Friday morning -- the same time an unmarked countdown clock on http://www.nkotb.com ends.

"The fan response to this has been incredible," band member Donnie Wahlberg told the Boston Herald.

Wahlberg said he was convinced to get back together with his former bandmates -- Joey McIntyre, brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight and Danny Wood -- when they decided to record new music. Wahlberg said he wrote 80 percent of the new material with McIntyre and Jordan Knight.

"I had no interest going out on a nostalgia tour and singing the same material," said Wahlberg, 38.

But he added, "We absolutely will do the old songs for sure."

Producer Maurice Starr formed the group in Boston in the 1980s, hoping to recreate the success he had with another teen group from the city, New Edition.

At the height of their popularity, New Kids sold out world tours, marketed millions of dollars in merchandise and spawned a Saturday morning cartoon.

The group disbanded in 1994. Wahlberg has acted on television and in movies, while Jordan Knight, McIntyre and Wood released solo albums. Jonathan Knight became a real estate developer.