From the throngs of screaming people who crowded New York City's Times Square, you'd have throught it was New Year's Eve, 1999. Not quite, although they were there to welcome the new millennium – BSB's album Millennium, that is. Here's what the boys had to say about dedicating an anthem to their fans, their plans to act on the big screen and what the album was almost called.

You wanted to give the new album a bit more of an edge. Do you think you've succeeded?

KEVIN: "I Want It That Way" is kind of reminiscent of our last album – we chose it for the first single because it's a familiar sound. I think the production is just like how we planned. We're all very proud.

How do you feel you've grown since the last record?

HOWIE: Even though we've had a lot of success this year, it's been one of our most trying times as a group with all the changes business-wise and all the personal stuff. I think at the same time, it's helped us grow stronger as a group. Sometimes you have to take a couple of steps back in order to go forward – that's one of the reasons we titled this album Millennium. Being at the dawn of another century feels like a rebirth – and this new album is like the rebirth of us.

Apparently, you had a rough year. Can you tell us a little more about that?

KEVIN: '98 was definitely one of the most successful years of our lives. From the outside, it probably looked like we were just having a great time, but there was a lot of internal stuff going on. Brian, my cousin, underwent heart surgery. And then Brian and I lost our grandfather to cancer. We also lost one of the producers we'd been working with for the past four-and-a-half years to cancer. Howie lost his sister to lupus. We were in legal battles with our past management. Mentally, we were just going through so much. I think we've learned a lot and grown a lot from that.
BRIAN: You know, it's really easy for us to get caught up in our lives sometimes because everything moves so fast. Our schedules are always changing and we're constantly moving, just trying to please our audiences all over the world. But when there's a death in the family or you're facing heart surgery, that hits home, and you realize that all of this is nothing. It means absolutly nothing to me if I can't be healthy and have a proper mindset about something that I love. When you face things like we faced last year, it gets to a point where performing isn't fun anymore, you just have to get out on stage and sing. It gets a little emotionally distressing. But now that's behind us, and we're very, very excited, and proud of our new product.

Sounds heavy. So does that mean that you'll be changing your name to Backstreet Men?

A.J.: I just turned 21 and I feel great. I don't think we'll ever change the name from Backstreet Boys. We've been boys since we started and it's kind of a slam term for us. Look at the Beach Boys: They're all in their 50s and 60s, and they're still boys. When we turn 60 and 70, we'll still be Backstreet Boys – maybe not dancing as much, but we'll do our best.

You've been around the world a few times now, but is there one place you've missed that you'd really like to see?

NICK: There are actually a lot of places around the world we haven't been yet – Russia, South Africa, Iceland, the Middle East – we can't even think of all the names. Our main priority is to hit a lot of those countries on this world tour. We realize there are a lot of Backstreet fans around the world, and we want to make sure everybody gets a piece of us.

What with you and 'N Sync, Orlando seems to be the place to be if you want to kick off a really successful career.

KEVIN: Hmm… I don't know whether Orlando's the place to be. I think there are millions of talented people around the world, and it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, some luck and a lot of hard work.

Do you feel like you've hit a pinnacle, or do you feel like you still haven't made it?

HOWIE: I don't think there's ever a time when we're going to say, "OK, this is it, it's exactly where we want to be". We still have a lot of goals set for ourselves, and we're constantly striving to make each album bigger and better. We're very fortunate to have the success that we had with the last album, selling 28 million copies worldwide. It's very hard to top that, so if we come anywhere even close with Millennium, we'll be very content. Hopefully, this year, we'd like to maybe see an American Music Award or a Grammy or a World Music Award. We always aspire to winning one of those, because that would mean our music is really appreciated and respected by the industry itself.

Give us a sneak peek at your upcoming tour – what goodies do you have in store for the fans? NICK: We don't like to give out all of our secrets, especially with concerts, because we like people to come to the show and be surprised. But we're doing 18 songs, it'll be about a two-hour show. And we're doing it in the round, on a circular stage – that's a new challenge for us. Our last tour was very successfull, but we want to set trends on this one, to kick ourselves up to the next level.

And speaking of millennium fever, what are your plans for New Year's Eve?

KEVIN: Well, the past six years we've pretty much been working ever New Year's Eve, and we haven't really decided what we're going to do yet. We're trying not to plan things too far in advance. It might be kind of nice to spend this one with our families. With all the rumors about Y2K bug and everything, I don't know if we want to be flying. So who knows?

Do you guys find it difficult to keep your personal lives out of the public eye?

A.J.: We try to keep our personal lives as personal as we can, but obviously, we have to realize that's not always going to be the case. In this business, you have to realize that every time you walk out of your hotel room, you're going to work. You're looked at differently. So if you want to come out and say that you have a girlfriend or you,re getting married or doing something off the wall, then that's your prerogative. But if you choose to keep that stuff personal, then it should be kept personal. We're five normal guys and obviously, we're going to have girlfriends, we're going to have personal lives. We'd all love to have families one day and settle down. We're not just going to live by some rule that says we're not allowed to have girlfriends, we can't go out, we can't do anything, because that's just not healthy. It doesn't make us happy.

Any plans to branch out into acting?

HOWIE: We've had a couple offers for some films and some TV shows, but right now concentrating on our music means that we don't really have too much time to do a major film, with all five of us. But you might see a couple of us doing some acting here and there. Just keep your eyes open [Winks]!

What are your favorite tracks to perform off of Millennium?

A.J.: Hmm. For me, in dance rehearsal and in band rehearsal, I'd say "Don't Want You Back" is probably my favorite song, just because the choreography is great and the whole vibe onstage is really cool. The song itself is the complete opposite of what you've heard from the previous Backstreet Boys albums – it actually talks about not wanting to be with someone: "I just don't want you back, get out of my life, goodbye, see you".
BRIAN: There are a lot of potential singles off this album, so it's going to be a tough call in terms of what we'll release next. We have a lot of powerful mid-tempos and a lot of good, strong ballads. I can't really pinpoint one song in particular that's our favorite to perform because we haven't done the show yet. But we did have the chance to do a Disney Channel special here in New York City, where we performed "Perfect Fan" for the first time ever live, and we had an opportunity to sing it with the Boys' Choir Of Harlem. So that was kind of the icing on the cake for me. It was such an experience to see something that you've worked on so hard come to like in that way.
KEVIN: A song I like a lot is "Larger Than Life". That song's kind of an anthem to our fans around the world who really are larger than life to us., thanking them for their love and support.
HOWIE: They're there for us, for our ups and downs. We were actually thinking of titling the album Larger Than Life. Then we thought, well, the Backstreet Boys, larger than life… people might think, OK, now they've got a big head.
KEVIN: Right. And, like A.J., I love "Don't Want You Back". There's an edgy, funky groove on that. In terms of singles, I think our fans' reactions to the music will really dectate what we release next. That's going to be fun . It'll help us out.
NICK: If I said I liked the whole album, that'd be too politically correct, wouldn't it? I think "Don't Want You Back" is a very good song, and I like "Larger Than Life", because I love rock music and that's the closest thing we've come to doing rock. And "Spanish Eyes" has a really unique sound.
HOWIE: I'd probably say my favorite songs on the album are "Spanish Eyes" and "Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely". Both of them have a Spanish acoustic guitar sound. Since I'm of Hispanic descent, those two take me back a little to my Latin roots.

Teen Celebrity, by Amanda Myers, September 1999