Title: A bigger brother: Aaron Carter matures with a new R&B album
Date: Friday, September 15, 2000
Author: JANE STEVENSON
Source: Toronto Sun
Source: http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicArtistsC/carter_aaron.html
Topic: 2000 Article/Interview
Want the inside scoop on the Backstreet Boys' new album, due in stores Nov. 21? Ask a relative, albeit a biased one.
"It's like the same music they were doing, but it's more of an 'everybody' audience," said Aaron Carter, the 12-year-old younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys.
"It's not just like NSYNC. It's all kinds of music. There's some type of Latin, there's a lot of ballads and there's a lot of really cool hip-hop songs."
Enough about the Backstreet Boys, who, by the way, Aaron said will tour either next year or in 2002.
It was Aaron's Party (Come Get It), his second album, that brought the singer to Toronto this week. The record hit stores Tuesday and hopes are high it will reach at least platinum (100,000 copies sold) in Canada, as did Aaron's self-titled 1999 debut.
"I love Canada, I want to move here when I'm older," said Carter, who's also thinking about quitting the music business when he turns 16 and going to college to study marine biology. (He got his scuba diving certificate when he was just eight years old and has his own boat.)
"I want to move to Halifax 'cause I love the country and it's really beautiful there, and I would love to go there. But I'd love to have a little apartment here in Toronto."
For now, the outgoing Tampa native conducts his own autograph session today at Fairview Mall's Main Court (1800 Sheppard Ave. E. between Don Mills and the 404) between 4 and 5 p.m. He won't tour until next February.
"I love singing, this is what I want to do, this is what I picked to do. You know a lot of people, they say, 'Oh, since your brother's in the Backstreet Boys, you get it handed to you on a silver platter.' But it's not exactly like that. It took me five years to actually get where I am."
And the difference in Aaron's sound and looks from his last album to this one are obvious.
"I'm trying to break into a different kind of style, a different kind of music. And, of course, I'm getting a lot more mature," the singer said yesterday, seated in a Toronto hotel restaurant where he had just polished off a steak for lunch. He later bid me goodbye with a kiss on both cheeks.
"My music, it's R&B. The pop thing kind of got a little old." That might explain one of the new album's covers -- Bow Wow Wow's I Want Candy, which contained lurid overtones when it was a New Wave hit back in the early '80s.
Contrast that song choice with the last time Aaron was here for a Massey Hall show in 1999. He was still being called "the little prince of pop," his hair was a blond mop, and he answered most interview questions with a "yep" or "no."
Now he speaks in complete sentences and has moved on from his younger self.
"It's hard to listen to my voice back then. It's hard to see the clips, when I go to TV stations, because of the way I look now. It's very embarrassing because I look at myself and say, 'I looked like that?' "
But now, "My hair's cut, my teeth are getting closer together, I've grown six inches, my feet are getting bigger, my voice is changing."
So, one day, just maybe, he'll be as tall as Nick?
"I hope so," he said with a smile. "My hand is almost as big as Nick's. Nick sprouted up at about 14. I'm hoping I will too. My dad's 6-foot-2, Nick's 6-foot-3."
It's clear Aaron misses having his older brother around all the time, and with both on the road it makes it hard for them to be together.
Aaron said, "It's like one in a million when we're in the same country. I try my hardest. If I hadn't seen Nick for like four months, I'd pay with my own money just to go see him for one day."
