12/06/00
Article courtesy of Backstreet.net
Date: November 20, 2000
Rolling Stone Article
AJ McLean, who is one-fifth of the Backstreet Boys teen-pop supergroup and the one with both the most tattoos and the most rakishly cut sideburns, is sitting inside his hotel room recalling a warning recently passed on to him by management. "What management said is, `Watch out for this certain girl who is obsessed with you and will not be happy unless she pulls a Romeo and Juliet and kills you, then kills herself,' and I'm like `Jesus, now I gotta go onstage after you tell me that? Just great.'" That girl has some problems! He pauses, shuffles his hands through the pile of fast-food containers in front of him, finds his pack of cigarettes and lights one up. French fries or cigarettes.....hmmm....eating something really good or inhaling a stick of shit lit on fire. So many decisions...what to do, what to do. So much for quiting...Exhaling, he says, "I mean, I'm singing pop music. I don't want to worry about some psycho girl. What do you do? Or, what can you do? You can't do shit. You're stuck. So you live in a bubble." Shouldn't that girl be in jail, or at least in the nuthouse for threatening someone? Can someone please explain to me why she's out there waiting to make her move? That really scares me and I'm not the one she's after. Now now now.. don't worry the police are waiting till she SLITS HIS THROAT!
Today, the bubble has expanded to take over much of the thirty-seventh floor of Le Parker Meridian hotel, in Manhattan, not far from the sun-flooded greens of Central Park. Inside it are the five boys besides AJ, there's Kevin Richardson, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell and Nick Carter plus their five bodyguards, three stylists, a hair groomer, a PR Lady, a manager-type lady, a girlfriend (AJ's named Amanda -Amanda Slutona?)Wow..AJ named her...I would have named her Clown-whore... and a few others. They've been in New York for a week so far.Of course they are always in New York! They don't go anywhere without their bodyguards. If they do, strange, disquieting things happen. Once, at a mall back in Orlando, where the group got its start, AJ allowed a beautiful female fan to cozy up next to him for a photograph. Suddenly, she started quaking, like she was having a grand mal seizure. When she calmed down, AJ said, "If you don't mind my asking, what the hell happened to you?" The girl said, "I just had an orgasm." AJ said, "Well, OK, now
" And then he got the heck out of there. Ewwww......
So, they spend most of their time looking at the world from the thirty-seventh floor, living out of suitcases, surrounded by half-eaten McDonald's cheeseburgers half-eaten? Where the hell is Nick? and Big Bertha golf clubs that don't get swung often enough. At the moment, they are awaiting the release of Black and Blue, their third record. In the balance hangs the future of boy bands everywhere. Should it flop yeah like that's going to happen, word will spread that such groups are on the way out. Should it sell, then long live not only the Boys but all the other teen acts currently trying to make it, as well as already successful acts like 98 Degrees and `N Sync.
Of course, in some ways, the Backstreet Boys wouldn't mind if `N Sync dropped out of sight. Those of us who aren't blind, deaf and stupid wouldn't mind that either. I pray for that every night =) The boys were the first of the new crop of boy bands, their first two U.S. releases, Backstreet Boys and Millennium, huge multiplatinum hits, altogether selling some 60 million copies. Then, earlier this year, along came `N Sync's No Strings Attached album, which sold 2.41 million copies its first week out, breaking the record held until then by the Boys. Now the Boys have a chance to win back the honor. And it looks like they might: Record stores have pre-ordered 5 million copies of Black and Blue, and industry observers are making deeply positive predictions. Why didn't those 5 million buy their copy the first week? Dumb mother fuckers... Says Tom Calderone, an MTV senior vice president, "The anticipation is there." Says Louise Barile, editor of teen fan- mag Tiger Beat, "We used to think boy bands had a two-year life cycle, but I think the Backstreet Boys are going to keep going." You think? They've been around seven years and you're just now coming to the conclusion that they will last longer than two years. Tell me again why you're not the editor of Time magazine?
And yet they worry. They worry that the album will fizzle, that their fan base has dried up or been swiped by their competitors, that when they go to MTV to drop off the video for the new album's first single, "Shape of My Heart," only a few fans will show up to witness the well-publicized event. We've been out of the mix for so long," says Nick Carter, tremulously, "maybe it'll be only fifteen people."If we lived anywhere close to New York, you'd have two more fans out there. Does anyone else feel like starting a petition to move MTV to California?? Hell yeah!!! And it won't be in San Diego! Frankly, that's one of the things about the Backstreet Boys: They can be pretty big worriers, about their legs being too skinny, about their stomachs getting too big, about being singled out by Kevin as the group's most enthusiastic masturbator. By enthusiastic, do they mean loud? But that's the way it is inside the Backstreet Boys' bubble.
For the most part, of course, it's been a beautiful if not altogether easy glissando of a ride to the top. The Boys were living in Orlando in the early 1990s, all sons of the middle class (or lower), eager to make it as entertainers in one of the nearby theme parks or in any other similar theatrical enterprise. BLAH BLAH BLAH They meet middle-aged aviation tycoon and major-league dreamer Louis Pearlman(asshole), who thinks that with his backing the lads can become the new New Kids on the Block. Starting in 1993, he drops about $3 million on their careers. In return, they give him their lives. They play shopping malls, Sea World and high schools nationwide. Yes they played schools. Damn my parents for not having me a year earlier. They get a contract with Jive Records. They can't make any headway in grunge-loving America, so they go to Europe. The youngest back then is Nick, 13; the oldest is Kevin, 20. Kevin was 20? 20 years old? That would make him and Nick seven years apart. Kevin must have an accelerated aging process considering he is now 29 and Nick is only 20. Nine years apart for those of you who are a little slow at these things. They conquer some of Europe. They conquer more of Europe. They conquer Europe again.They conquered it again? Is that possible? If your conquer something then its yours? Why would you conquer it again? Okay I'm confused...NICK MOMENT! Am I right or am I right? You're right. They are moneymaking gods in Europe. Eventually, in mid-1997, they release "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" in the U.S. It's a smash. They take heat for probably being little more than talentless, soulless lip-syncers.
They also wake up one day and realize that, for all their efforts and all their touring, they each have less than $100,000 in the bank. Plus, behind their backs, Pearlman has formed another all-boy band, `N Sync. Feeling betrayed, Brian a regular churchgoer who knows a thing or two about right and wrong calls in lawyers. Because he goes to church, he knows a thing or two about right and wrong. riiiiiiiiiiiight.... Church....Lawyers...same thing right?Suits are filed, against Pearlman and two other managers Pearlman has hired. The Millennium album is being recorded. The Boys are about to go on tour. The suit, rancor-filled and corrosive, threatens to screw this all up by bogging down the Boys in a legal ruckus. So they decide to settle. The settlement gives Pearlman one-sixth of everything the Boys make. The Boys think this is grotesquely unfair. "It's ridiculous," says Brian. "He's doing no work." But the show must go on. And anyway, the money galls them less than the presence of `N Sync as chart-busting rivals. "It's not `N Sync itself but where `N Sync comes from that digs me, digs me, digs me and gets me, still and to this day," says Kevin one afternoon, morosely.Has anyone else noticed that when Kevin says the word "Nsync" on TV shows and awards shows, he always uses a gay voice? That cracks me up every time. "Mr. Pearlman was always speaking loyalty and preaching loyalty, saying `I love you guys; you're like my sons.' ::coughing:: Bull shit! And I'd lost my father to cancer. So I looked at Lou like a father figure. Awwwww... poor Kevin But I was naοve, and he's a liar. We'll always remember him for helping us get started. But we'll also remember him for screwing us blind and building another group behind our backs." I don't want to picture that fatass screwing anything. It's like that scene in Austin Powers with Fat Bastard. It's just wrong.
That's one reason why the title of the new album is Black and Blue, for the way Pearlman bruised and hurt them. That's the first time I've heard that theory. I thought the album was called Black and Blue because they couldn't come up with anything and they were doing a photo shoot all in black with a blue background. That's also why, in the official Backstreet Boys press-kit bio, there is no mention of Pearlman. It's as if he never did anything for the group. He has been expunged. "We're on to bigger and better things," says Brian. "And we're better men for it."
Inside the bubble, (enough with the bubble!!!!!) up on the thirty-seventh floor, in a room cluttered with the anonymous but functional belongings of the seasoned, rootless traveler, and with the shades drawn on both the light and the darkness of the outside world, AJ McLean, 22, is saying, "Nick and Kevin probably have the quickest tempers, but I probably have the worst temper. I just go off. Like when I broke up with my ex-girlfriend, and our song came on the radio, I just grabbed a baseball bat and beat the crap out of the damn machine. Hmm...evil idea forming...someone should find out what song it was that threw him over the edge and slip a tape recorder that repeatedly plays that song into Amanda's purse or jacket or something. I'm sure that would have amusing results. When I get stressed out, I get really violent toward myself and just say, "Screw the group! To hell with everything!" There have been times when I wake up like that and think I don't want to do this anymore. My..my..my...can we say temper tantrum? But then I sit back and think further, and then I'm like, I do want it. I live for it. These guys are my best friends. They been there for me, and I've been there for them."
He lights a cigarette and shrugs. "Anyway," he goes on, "I've been in this business for twenty years. since you were 2? I don't know anything else. I don't want to know anything else. I live, eat, sleep, breathe, shit whatever this business. That sucks if you had to eat and breathe shit...This is my life."
Part of his life today also revolves around his girlfriend, Amanda, who used to be part of the girl group Innosense and is sleeping in the next room, sheets tucked up around her neck. Pervert reporter went in and looked at her. They have been together for about two and a half years. BLAH BLAH BLAH She's truly gorgeous. ha! In AJ's opinion, she looks like him "with tits" or "exactly like Elizabeth Hurley." Which means, of course, that AJ himself must look exactly like Elizabeth Hurly without tits. Yeah right...except Elizabeth Hurly doesn't look like a clown whore... To a blind man, maybe. Actually, he's kind of rougher-and-tougher-looking than Elizabeth Hurley (though his legs are skinnier, much to his dismay). He's got a gravely smoker's voice. He favors black watch caps pulled down snugly over his wiry red-tinted hair; likes to cuss; and doesn't want his fans to think that just because he smokes, it's cool to smoke (he plans to quit before the Backstreet Boys tour begins early next year). good idea. Keywords...plans to quit...he didn't say he would quit he just plans to quit... He's also friendly and forthright. You want to know how old he was when he lost his virginity? No not really. He was sixteen. Gee thanks. Anything you want ot talk about, he's willing to talk about, too. really...
"Sure, there's temptation on the road," he says. "I'm gonna look, but you don't want to grab, funny...with me he looked and grabbed. because it's going to be on your conscience the rest of your life. Anyway, Amanda and I, our relationship, especially physically, is beautiful. I mean, we're not physical in a sexual way every day and every night. THANK GOD!!!!! Kissing to me is more sensual and more sexual and intimate than bing-ba-da-boom, I'm done. That's just retarded, man. I agree. I don't think you should have sex with her anymore at all.
"It's really, really terrible how this world revolves around sex," he continues. "I don't profess to be a pastor. I go to strip clubs every so often. I'm a guy. Thanks for pointing that out...I do the normal guy shit. But people aren't focusing on the bigger, better issues, such as love, which is the kissing and the holding and the walking with hands together and the arms around each other the more romantic things." Awwww....I didn't think he could be anymore perfect, but he proved me wrong.
The things that seem to be at the heart of all their records? He smiles broadly. "Exactly!"
The product of a broken home, Broken Hooooommmmmee, all aloooooneee....sorry, brought out a little Papa Roach there. AJ moved with his mom from Kissimmee, Florida, to Orlando when he was in the seventh grade, to further his already strong interest in performing. Pretty soon, he was cast in a Nickelodeon show, which led to roles in numerous musicals and plays and, eventually, when he was fifteen, to the Backstreet Boys. Those years, especially in Europe, were difficult. He was lonely. He missed his mom. Awww....he missed his mommy. At times, he got pretty depressed. "The minibar at the hotel was paid for by the record company, and after the show, I would sit up there in my room," he recalls. "I couldn't go down to the bar; there were too many fans downstairs. I would just sit there and watch a movie and drink a shot of Jack or beer, whatever." How sad. All that alcohol and nobody to share it with. Is this when he was 15?
Since then, he's figured out what he needs to do to keep himself happy. He needs to stay busy. After the end of last tour, and on behalf of VH1's Save the Music charity, he went on the road solo, called himself Johnny No Name and had a ball belting out tunes by Stone Temple Pilots and Rage Against the Machine, punctuating his set with the kind of pelvic thrusts and old-fashioned floor humping that would make the typical Backstreet Boys fan blush. It didn't make me blush. It made me wish there wasn't a big metal fence type structure holding back. Or if I just had some kind of Go-Go Gadget arms, it would have been cool. *click* *click* *click click click*
He also bought himself a 10,000-square-foot house near Orlando, where he can race around in one of his two Sea-Doo jet skis, the fastest money can buy. He's got Vegas and Jack Daniels, a couple of four-pound Yorkies, to cuddle when he's not cuddling Amanda. So does this mean he is with the dogs 24/7....=) I just got the mental image of AJ scratching Amanda's belly and giving her dog biscuits. "Who's my good girl? Who's my good Amanda?" He recently picked up a fancy CL 600 Mercedes, with a fat V12 engine, and tinted windows that just happen to be illegal in Florida. "Sure, the windows are illegal," AJ explains breezily, "but if I get stopped, I say `Look, this is who I am; if you still want to give me the ticket, that's fine, but I'm doing this for my own protection.' It's a dangerous business I'm in, when you think about it." Ooooohh so that makes him easier to find....look for the only car with tinted windows in Florida. Hahahahaha.
But even with all this stuff to occupy his mind, he still loses it sometimes. This last happened a month ago, while he was sitting in a car outside an Orlando pool hall. He started crying, and he couldn't stop. "I just started freaking out, thinking about my relationship with Amanda, and is that going to last when I go on the road, We can only hope that it won't. and is my mom going to be OK and all this other stuff. I mean, issues engulfed me. And I just sat there for about thirty minutes and cried and yelled and swore at the world. And then felt better."
Slurping on a soda, he says, "Amanda is a big help. She can actually speak in tongues. I caught her doing it once. It's fascinating. Wow...thats great...I speak Melmacian....no big deal..
We're all strong believers in God, but she's helped me get closer to Him. When I'm pulling my hair out, she'll say `Sweetheart, let's sit down and pray, and everything will be fine.'" Hmmm...she almost seems a better match for Brian than AJ. I'm sure they "prayed"...if thats what their calling it these days..."praying"...
So there's AJ. Clearly, he's got some things going on. He seems OK, though. Really, he does. Except that he soon throws all such judgments into doubt by confessing that he's a huge fan of The Golden Girls TV show, featuring the often-randy high jinks of those withered old bats. It's okay AJ. I watch reruns of Who's the Boss sometimes.
If any Backstreet Boy has derived strength from God these days, however, it's Brian Littrell, 25. With his choirboy face and crinkly smiling eyes, the boy just oozes probity and moral strength. I don't think he oozes...thats kinda gross And it's true. For instance, let's say you wanted him to pose for a photograph with the rest of the Boys, surrounded by nearly naked women. He wouldn't do it, even if it would be a tasteful photograph. A tasteful photograph?? tasteful? As in the photo at the top of this page? Riiiiiiight......Wouldn't do it even if the rest of the Boys begged him. Good Brian. I swear...Leighanne better appreciate him...there is no other guy out there who wouldn't pose in that picture....
"I know the body is a work of art," he says, "but I'd rather not open myself up to criticism. I understand we're a group, and we normally stand together, but there are going to be cases where I just can't disrespect myself and stoop to that level." Very good Brian.
In a sense, then, Brian is the prig of the band, the guy who doesn't go clubbing and explains, "I'd rather be watching ESPN in my hotel room. with me =) And I was that way even before I got married." And he is still with me even after he got married...
Oh, well, what can you do? But the good thing is, he's not smug about his goodness, nor does he give the other guys grief about their (relative) badness. It's just the way he was brought up. From the time he could walk he attended a Baptist church back in Lexington, Kentucky, where he sang in the choir. Actually, in those days, he had a lot to thank God for. When he was five, he developed a staph infection from which doctors said he wouldn't recover. Then came a bacterial infection; if he survived that, doctors said, it would be in a vegetable. Actually I believe they told Brian's parents to start thinking about funeral arrangements. Insensitive bastards. He beat both illnesses, as well as open-heart surgery in 1998 that took care of a cardiac defect, and so he often says, quite rightly, "I tell you, I am a walking miracle!" Yes he is...
Today, though, on the thirty-seventh floor, he is ghostly pale and suffering from a bad early-fall cold. He's sniffling, and his smooth Southern twang is somewhat muffled by nasal crosscurrents. Even with a cold Brian sounds better than Justin Timberfag...Amen to that. Nonetheless, he seems to enjoy recounting again the now nearly mythic moment, on April 19th, 1993, two weeks shy of the end of his junior year in high school, when he was pulled out of history class to take a call from his cousin in Orlando. Kevin said, "Why don't you come and, you know, sing with these guys down here? I'm in this group and, you know, we're going to make records and be famous." And Brian said, "OK." Thus were his plans to one day attend Cincinnati Bible College scotched and an entirely different future assured.
He shakes his head, still seeming somewhat amazed by the serendipity of it all and goes on to give a rather dreamy-sweet declaration of just what it is that he likes best about being a Backstreet Boy. "We're blessing people's lives with a song. We didn't intend on doing that, but it happened. I think it just comes with the quality music and the quality show."
Because of his brushes with death, he says he tries not to get wound up about anything anymore. It's better to take it easy. He's got a wife to think of (actress Leighanne Wallace, whom he married last September).So even if this new album stiffs, yeah right well, he can handle that, too: "I went from singing in front of twenty people in a church to singing before 70,000 people at the Georgia Dome. If that's as big as it gets, and that's it, then I've touched people's lives and maybe that makes a difference. That's the way I look at it."
Isn't there anything wrong with this fellow? no Doesn't he have any bad habits, besides taking four sugars with his coffee and biting his fingernails, which doctors have told him he must stop lest new germs find their way into his body? Doctors don't know anything... Doesn't he harbor some secret life-in-the- bubble anger, like AJ, the stereo-system killer? LOL. "The Stereo System Killer Strikes Again--Circuit City estimates damages of at least $4,000 dollars as mystery assailant slips through their fingers again" He thinks about this for a moment. He can't come up with anything. He doesn't even swear a lot, pretty much confining himself to such words that appear in the Bible. "I'll say damn and hell and is shit in the Bible? I don't know if shit's in the Bible. No," he says at last. Well I guess it doesn't matter if "shit" is in the bible because you just said it twice. "So, its just damn and hell and ass." and fuck. don't forget fuck. Isn't he allowed to say bitch because it only means female dog? It does? I thought the exact definition of bitch was "Leighanne."
A while later, though, after Brian joins the rest of the guys for lunch, another possible truth emerges. They're talking about a subject near and dear to many young men. Farts. Kevin has singled out Nick as the group's most frequent farter. That seems fitting somehow, as he tends to eat the most. I wonder how many times Nick farts on stage? "I want it ::fart:: that waaaayyyy... Tell me ::fart::" =)
"Like all human beings," says Kevin, "we're pretty nasty sometimes, but Nick's consistently funky." how attractive.
Nick's eyes bulge. "Oh, come on!" he shouts.
"You even pull your cheeks apart," says Brian. "You lean over to do it, man! One time in Europe, we were onstage, and Nick let one go, and it was like a green film. I was singing, `I'll never break your argggg!'" LOL. I bet it's every teenybooppers dream for Nick to be singing on stage, come over to them, grab their hand, and let one rip.
"Hey, man, we all fart," chimes in Howie, merrily. "We're men. We do it loud and proud!" greaaattt
"But Nick does it especially when we're eating," complains Brian. "Splat! I'm like, `Doggone, can't you wait until we're done?'" Doggone...
"Kevin always blames me," moans Nick. "I'm relaxing, everything's nice and calm on the waterfront, on the waterfront? and Kevin's like, `Nick, did you fart?' And then Brian's always like, `Dude, you shit?' and I'm like, `Man, why do I always have to be the one that farted?'"
"All right," says Kevin, taking charge. "Enough about the farting." Thank you Kevin, the voice of reason.
But it's too late. The cat's out of the bag. Seems that shit IS in the Bible after all. Who knew?
Kevin Richardson, 28, is brooding about Lou Pearlman again and the recent Pearlman-produced TV series, Making the Band, about the creation of a boy band, in which Pearlman presents himself as quite the musical genius. "When I saw that," says Kevin, "I about puked. So did I. I mean, the average person sitting there watching that show is probably like, `So this is how the Backstreet Boys came to be.' No, it's not. So Kevin thinks the average person is an idiot. All he did was give us money to go into the studio and work on our craft, which we are thankful for. But he's making himself to be the guy twisting the knobs, and it's just not so."
His leg is in a brace because he recently crashed his dirt bike and had to undergo knee surgery. ::Shakes head in disgust:: You rich people with your jet skis and dirt bikes. okay I'm done. He shakes his head, disgusted, Hey! I shook my head in disgust first. and hobbles over to a table to pour himself some juice. Returning, he swings the leg onto the couch and begins talking about what it was like growing up in the wilds of the Daniel Boon National Forest in eastern Kentucky, on the grounds of the summer camp that his dad ran. How many times are we going to hear this story...i grew up in a log cabin.. blah blah blah..It took him forty-five minutes to get to town, so he spent much of his time either tinkering with radios or helping his father around the camp. He had plans to become a jet-fighter pilot after high school but, at his parents' suggestion, ended up moving to Orlando. Then, in early 1991, his mom called to tell him that his father had cancer. "Honey, you may want to come home," she said.
Recalling this, Kevin takes a deep breath and starts to cry softly, his head bent. Dammit! Where's Kristin??? He obviously needs a hug and she's not there? What kind of wife is she? I think I'm going to have to take over. When he finally looks up, his eyes are wet and red. "It's OK," he says. "I don't mind talking about my dad." Ohh obviously not, blubber boy.
After his father's death, he stayed in Kentucky for a year, then returned to Orlando, where he met Pearlman he called him Big Poppa back then; he calls him Mr. Pearlman today and started hanging out at Pearlman's house (eewwwww) while they all went about getting the group off the ground. In those days, of course, if Kevin had wanted to get married, Mr. Pearlman would have had a cow, just as he had a cow when he learned that Kevin had gotten his bellybutton pierced. This is the first I heard about the bellybutton. belly button?? uuhhh... In the post-Pearlman world, however, Kevin can do whatever he pleases, and six months ago it pleased him to get married to his girlfriend of eight years, Kristin Willits. They've since moved to Los Angeles, where Kristin is an actress and where one day, Kevin may try his hand at directing, unless they decide to have kids, in which case they'll probably move back to Kentucky. Ha! People from hick states always think it's unsafe to raise children in California. All of us heathens out here will have a bad influence. We are just a bunch of little hoodlums...who surf all day and do drugs.. yup yup yup...
In many ways, Kevin has grown to become the most grounded of the Boys, but it took him awhile to get there. "In this business, it's so fast and there's so many parties. After a show, you're wound up. You can either go to your room and flip channels or go out to a club and chase women and get laid. I've been with Kristin for years now, but we went through a period where we'd get in fights, and we called it quits for a while. And then I did the party scene. It was great for a little while, but then it was empty and lonely."
Frowning, he says, "You're going to think this sounds stupid, but I would feel bad if I had a one-night stand. I would feel guilty. Some women, it's no big deal: `Hey, let's go.' But with others, I could see it in their eyes, that they were oh, I don't know. It's different for women, giving themselves. So I was feeling guilty." He laughs. "Hey, I have some morals. What can I say?"
Part 2
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