Eleven-year-old Akayla is growing ever more excited as, one by one, the five Backstreet Boys come out to meet the contestants who won backstage passes to the group's Spring, Texas, show. First to appear is Howie Dorough, 25, the sweetest one (he kept the tour bus waiting on the way to the show because he couldn't bear to leave the hotel without signing autographs for some fans.) When he touches Akalya's shoulder as they pose for a photo, she trembles. Then comes Kevin Richardson, 25, the most serious one, who hardly cracks a smile through the entire meet-and-greet. Happy-go-lucky Brian Littrell, 23, hams it up with the fans, singing and dancing. AJ McLean, 20, the group's "bad boy", comes out with his spiky hair dyed bright red, wearing gold hoop earrings and a white tank top that shows off the tattoos on his upper arms. As each Boy enteres, Akayla, a dark-haired dynamo in baggy jeans and a tank top, jumps up and screams, then tentatively approaches for an autograph, staring up in wonderment. When the last Backstreet Boy, the youngest-tallest-blondest-cutest one, Nick Carter, 18, appears, she can't take any more excitement and bursts into tears.
After Carter leaves, Akayla wipes a few tear-soaked strands of hair from her reddened face and, trying hard to act grown-up, says to her mother and father, "Does it look like I was crying?"
A year ago, like most of America, Akayla had never heard of the Backstreet Boys. But now the Florida-based band has the third-best-selling album of 1998, Backstreet Boys, and a single "Quit Playin' Games (With My Heart)", that went all the way to No. 2. They're selling out arenas across the country. Prepubescent girls stake out their hotels and chase their tour bus. And according to the Web site searchterms.com, during the month of July, the Boys were cited in Internet searches more frequently than any musical act besides the Spice Girls.
Although the Backstreet Boys are just being discovered in the American heartland, they're practically senior citizens in boy-band years. The group released its first single in 1995, when grunge was the rage and teen popstars like New Kids on the Block, were fading memories. It bombed. So the band's managers, Johnny Wright (who not so coincidentally also managed NKOTB) and his wife, Donna, took the Boys to Europe, where boy bands - prefabricated vocal groups featuring cute clothes, and simple, choreographed dance steps - were still all the rage. Overseas the Backstreet Boys filled arenas, sold 12 million albums and won the 1996 MTV Europe Viewers Choice Award. "We had some crazy things happen in Europe," says Dorough, "like fans stowing away on the bus, girls climbing over barbed-wire fences and showing up in our dressing rooms with their skirts cut up."
The Backstreet Boys stood out from their slick, manufactured competitors in Europe. For one thing, they can actually sing. Their songs have an R&B edge. And most important, they weren't calculatedly constructed by producers more concerned with packaging than with talent. Dorough, McLean and Carter met in the early '90s on the Orlando, Fla., kiddietainment circuit, auditioning for Nickelodeon, MGM and Universal TV shows. A friend introduced them to Richardson, who was playing Aladdin and a Ninja Turtle at Disney World, and he recruited his cousin Littrell, who lived in Lexington, Ky. Despite the Boys' quick stardom in Europe, they kept their eyes on what they considered the ultimate prize. "I never looked at success internationally as success until we made it here," says Littrell. "We'd sit in dressing rooms in Europe and wish we were in America playing a 30-000 seat auditorium. Now those dreams are coming true."
Behind the fence next to the Boys' tour bus, a group of young girls waits, hoping to catch a glimpse of their idols, breathlessly asking anyone who passes by, "Do you know the Backstreet Boys?" The bus is equipped with Nintendo 64, a VCR (playing a karate movie) and bunk beds. McLean's bunk is filled with panda bears that his fans have thrown onstage. They're his latest obsession. "I've getting a panda tattoo," he says. "Pandas represent a nonracist frame of mind, because it brings black and white together." McLean, an only child, is a bit of a maverick. His mother, Denise, a publicist for the band, and his father, Robert, a computer technician, divorced when he was 4. McLean didn't see his father again until earlier this year, when he discovered that he was living nearby. "He recognised me as soon as he saw me," McLean says. "He had a bunch of Backstreet Boys stuff. The first thing I had to ask was, 'Why didn't you get in touch with me?' He said he was sorry. I still blame him for a lot of things."
Standing in the aisle, Littrell, who started singing gospel when he was 5, at his Baptist church (his parents, Jackie and Harold, are also singers), spontaneously breaks into Minni Ripperton's "Lovin' You", and the others join in, in five-part harmony. It's impossible to tell that just 10 weeks ago, Littrell had open-heart surgery for a congenital ailment that almost killed him when he was 5. "I have a medic backstage and oxygen for whenever I get short of breath," he says, flashing his no-worries smile. "The last couple days, I haven't needed any help."
When they reach the high note of the song, the Boys wait for Dorough, who sings falsetto, to tackle it, but all he can manage is a shriek, and they collapse in giggles. No matter - every time someone opens the door, the girls outside reach that note just fine.
Carter excuses himself for a doctor's appointment. He's not feeling well, and perhaps it accounts for his aloofness. The fact that the Leonardo DiCaprio look-alike gets more attention from fans than any other Boy might also be to blame. "When he first started, I got a little bit of animosity from the other guys," he admits. As the youngest member, he also gets teased a lot. "Since I turned 18," he says, "I want to be treated like an adult, but they treat me like a baby." Fortunately, now that the band's opening act is his 10-year-old brother, Aaron, who sings light teen pop, there is an even younger Carter boy to tease. (Their mother, Jane, is Aaron's manager; their father, Bob, has his own business, repairing boats.) Later the doctor will tell Carter he has strep throat, but the show must go on.
In a practice that goes back to boy-band prehistory, any notion that the Backstreet Boys have relationships that would put them beyond the reach of their lovesick fans is quickly quashed. "They don't want to talk about that," says one publicist. "The fans own them." When a young blonde is referred to as Littrell's girlfriend, Richardson immediately snaps, "She's a friend. We don't have girlfriends. You really can't in this business." When Carter is asked about a puppy he and his girlfriend bought the day before, he is apoplectic. "Who said it was my girlfriend?" he says. "That was my cousin. Right now my love is the music." But backstage, just before the Boys go on, Carter turns to his platinum-blond "cousin", embraces her and gives her a long, deep kiss.
Only the nonconformist McLean talks frankly about his love life. He just booked a flight to see Amanda Latona, 18, of the Orlando-based girl group Innosense, when they have a day off between concerts. "We were with each other every minute of every day for the month before the tour," he says. Just before Valentine's Day, he ended a five-year relationshipw with Marissa Jackson, the daughter of manager, Donna Wright. "We parted on bad terms," he saus, "but now we're best friends."
It's nearly showtime. Every time a crew member walks across the stage or a curtain shakes, thousands of girls scream hysterically. Suddenly the lights go down. As white fireworks shoot into the air, the Backstreet Boys pop up from under the stage. No one can hear them sing over the audience's screams, which barely let up for the two-hour show. They all wear jackets and gloves (it's 98 degrees outside), but these layers are stripped off item by item as the show goes on. Girls mouth the words to the songs, clutching their hands to their hearts as if they believed everything the lyrics say - that boys are sensitive, sweet and romantic. The Backstreet Boys are living out a fantasy, too. Maybe they won't end up like every other boy band, sentenced to eventual oblivion. McLean says that being labelled a "boy band" is one of their "pet peeves - when you're 30, you're not a boy anymore". Deep down, though, they realise a long-term success is a long shot.
