NIU will get a little Texas charm tonight when MTV “Real World Austin” stars Wes and Johanna will make an appearance at Bar One, 1000 W. Lincoln Highway, to sign autographs and take pictures with fans.

The Northern Star caught up with Wes when he called us from his Kansas City home Wednesday night to talk about living in Austin, being on the “Real World” and life after reality television.

Northern Star: Where are you at right now?

Wes Bergmann: Right now I am in Kansas City. I am at home. I am actually going to downtown Chicago tomorrow to a couple of different clubs and then on Friday night we will be at Bar One.

NS: Are you excited about coming to the area?

WB: I am so excited. Chicago is my favorite city. I really, really want to live there and I am working on finding a place to live there. I know that a lot of past Real Worlders and Road Rulers live up there and it’s kinda cool to hook up with them because they kinda understand you a little bit better than some other people. It is a fun place. It’s got everything. The way I look at it, the way I describe Chicago is it’s got everything and anything that Los Angeles and New York have only you have Midwestern people. You don’t get nice people like them in Las Angeles and New York for the most part.

NS: How many different places have you been on the tour?

WB: I think we’ve been to probably 50 different places in probably around 40 different cities.

NS: When did the tour start?

WB: It probably started probably around, oh, hard core around September when school started back up again. We were doing some things this summer but, one, we weren’t very popular because our show hadn’t been aired for long yet. Two, the colleges and bars that are more popular and book us didn’t have business.

NS: So is it just you and Johanna doing the tour?

WB: It is just me and Johanna. I am really excited about it. She’s such a cool girl to be able to go out and hang out with and party with and stuff. She is my girlfriend right now.

NS: What have you been doing since the show, besides this bar tour?

WB: The tour is a norm on maybe Wednesdays, but Thursday, Friday and Saturday almost guaranteed for the rest of the year and so there are a lot of times when our Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays don’t get booked. So we switch off between her and I going back to Phoenix, which is where I go to school at Arizona State, or back with me in Kansas City or me going to Los Angeles with her. So we switch off going back and forth, just hanging out with each other. I’m still living in my fraternity house for the most part at ASU.

NS: So you’re still going to school then?

WB: I’m not in school because this has taken up such a large portion of my time, but I hope to go back as soon as possible. It should be pretty fun.

NS: How did you get originally interested in being on the show?

WB: To be perfectly honest, I came back from my fraternity house late one night and I was talking to this girl and she was like, “Yeah, I’m trying out for the ‘Real World.’” So I was, like, thinking in my mind, “What do you mean you’re trying out for the ‘Real World?’” I had no idea. She was like, “I got asked.” So I was like, “Man, I want to hook up with this girl.” She kept saying she had to go home and go to sleep because I have to get up early for the try-outs. So I was like, “Oh yeah, I’m doing that too.” And I completely bald-faced lied and so I was like, “Why don’t you stay up all night with me, we’ll get really drunk and go to the try-outs early in the morning, we’ll pull an all-nighter.” And that’s what we did, and I showed up and they interviewed 10 people at a time so she was in my interview group. The next thing I know, I was asked to stay and fill out paper work and stuff and she was sent home. The rest was history.

NS: Did you enjoy being in Austin? Was it a fun city?

WB: Austin, like my roommates, was a fun place in small doses. I would never want to live there, I would never want to settle down and raise a family there. I would never even want to go to college there. It’s kinda like a spectacle, it’s the surface of Texas. It’s just a bunch of hippies and weird people. I do have to admit, I met a lot of really cool people there that I’ll be friends with for life down there and I had a lot of really good experiences. I can’t really imagine my experience in too many other places in Texas. It was definitely a fun time though.

NS: Were you able to take anything with you from the house when you moved out?

WB: We had to leave everything. But a funny story about Danny. Danny was trying to steal [stuff] from the house, even though we weren’t allowed to take it. He was taking bags full of random stuff that he had been sneaking in to his bags for weeks. Then they finally come out and check everyone’s bags and he had to take it all out. But he got so pissed that he took a marker and he starts walking around the house like an hour before we are ready to leave. If you notice in the final episode, he’s walking around the house with a marker. We literally had to take the marker from him because he was autographing everything. So he was walking around autographing everything.

NS: Do you have a contract with MTV that makes you do stuff for a certain amount of time?

WB: As far as the contracts go, I am not supposed to do anything else that isn’t on MTV such as movies and such without their permission.

NS: Are you expected to do any “Gauntlet’s?”

WB: As far as the “Gauntlets” and stuff goes, those are all optional and you have to be invited to do so. And even though you watch those shows and you think, holy crap they invite about 20 to 25 people to do the last challenge and you’re like, yeah everyone can get on a challenge at some point. But you have to realize that there has been 16 seasons and they just showed the previews of the 17th season of the Real World. That is seven people a piece, and then all the “Road Rulers,” I mean that’s a lot of people. They’re optional, but most of the time you don’t even get invited to do so.

NS: Would you do it if you were invited to compete?

WB: If I got invited, I would probably do it. It would depend on when it was and where it was being taped because I am trying to go back to school and I’m not going to let a reality show keep me from school again.

NS: You followed Hellogoodbye and Hellifax. Did you guys really get to pick those bands or did MTV influence the decision?

WB: That’s kind of shady as to how things worked out. To be perfectly honest with you, like Lacy and Rachel would probably have a better indication as to how that worked out. I just did not care at all. So I would wake up at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. and they would tell me what the scoop is but I don’t know how that exactly worked out to be honest with you. I know we were told we could pick whoever we want. So they narrowed it down to 10 different bands for us. But I don’t know, I don’t know the truth about that.

NS: Nehemiah and you were the best of friends on the show. Do you guys still talk a lot?

WB: Yeah actually we do. He lives down in Arizona with me. So when I’m back in town, which isn’t often, he’s usually there too and so we get to see each other all the time and hang out on a regular basis. He’s actually really good friends with my friends, so now that I’m gone, he’s usually hanging out with those guys. He’s a good friend and will be for life.

NS: Is there anyone that you don’t talk to from the show?

WB: I talk to everybody. Lacy I probably talk the least and not because I dislike her or not because I don’t have time, it’s just you call up Lacy and you say how things are going and you are happy that things are going well for the most part. She’s a cool girl, she’s smart and intelligent, but we just don’t have that much in common. After the normal, quick five minute conversation about how things are going, you don’t have much more to talk about. I probably should call her more often.

NS: People always make assumptions after watching shows like this. What do you want people to know about you that they didn’t necessarily see on camera?

WB: The thing is, if they didn’t see it on camera, I don’t want them to know it. There are certain things in my life, especially things that I am guarding and I want in my future, that I want to keep private. And those things weren’t on the show because I didn’t share them either through casting or on the show or with my roommates cause that stuff is all on camera. My goals in life are all private things and those kinds of things that I didn’t share on the show, I don’t want people to know about me. I want people to only know one dimension of me because if they really care, then you know you are good friends with them if they know all of the dimensions about you and not just that one. The fact that the show only portrays me as one dimension, is a perfect example as to who actually knows you.

NS: What advice would you give to college students today, obviously you’ve been there, done that, what advice would you give them?

WB: That’s a big one. Well I mean, this is the conclusion of your youth right now. Because of that, you not only need to live up your youth as much as possible, it’s almost like the “Real World,” you only have a short amount of time to have a crazy experience and college is just your last hoorah at that so make it a good one. When you look back at your youth at your fun and at the stories on your life, you’re going to look back on the last part of it, the crazy stuff. That way you look back and you don’t regret, because the second you start regretting things, the second you are not going to be happy with your life at the present moment.

NS: What is your definition of the “Real World?”

WB: As in the show or as in ‘the real world?’

NS: Both. Either or.

WB: My definition of the “Real World” as far as the show goes would probably just be, about putting a bunch of people in a house that are going to be entertaining to watch. No, my definition of the “Real World” as far as the show goes is they cast a bunch of people who have interesting lives and at the same point are able to open up their lives to millions of people to watch and experience at the same time. My definition of the real world in life would just be about experiences and stories. I’m the kind of guy that wants to do everything once. I mean I’m not a traveler, but I want to be able to say that I’ve been to this place, this place, this place, one time. I can always go back, but I will never know if I like it until I’ve been there or if I did that. Like everything from bungee jumping to playing a certain Nintendo game, I want to be involved in every single story that my friends are talking about that way I can say, ‘Yeah, I’ve done that too or I’ve see that.’