Title: In His Brother's Musical Footsteps
Date: Apr 17, 2001
Source: TV Guide
Source: Submitted By: Nic
Source: http://www3.backstreet.net/www.cgi?x=show&d=news&i=010417-0000-02&c=6
Topic: Article/Interview
At one time or another, most pop stars are called to perform under adverse circumstances. Inclement weather at an outdoor amphitheatre, for instance. But few have rocked and socked an audience just after a goopy green slime has been poured over their heads.
Aaron Carter can make that claim. He's done it twice on Nickelodeon's game show, Slime Time Live.
"He's young and adventurous," says Albie Hecht, the network's president of film and television. "Our audience really appreciates that."
That audience would be music fans between the ages, say, 6 and 11. Having made superstars out of the Backstreet Boys, they now have their collective eye on a Backstreet brother (Carter, 13, is sibling to Nick, 21, the group's youngest member).
Said audience has been sizing up the junior Carter's videos on Slime Time and his rendition of the 1980s hit I Want Candy on WB's Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and the Disney's channel's Lizzie McGuire. They've bought more than a million copies of his CD, Aaron's Party (Come Get It).
For his fan's benefit, Carter's clothing and food choices have been meticulously recorded during this interview at a Manhattan sushi restaurant: long-sleeved yellow T-shirt, Kickers jeans and sneakers; one Cali roll, some BBQ eel and tuna sushi and a bowl of edamame (boiled soybeans).
He is recounting a mortifying incident from five years ago, back when he was still separated from stardom by one degree.
"Nick used to invite me on tours overseas," he says. "One time, we were in a German Laundromat. And do you know they have jacket hangers? Brian (Littrel, one of the Boys) took me up, hung my jacket on there. and pit me inside and zipped it. So I was stuck."
Laughing, he remembers hearing his brother's voice outside: "Brian, where'd you put Aaron?"
On no other account has his older brother left him hanging. To the contrary, Carter says: "Without Nick, I don't think I could have made it where I am now."
When the Boys were getting started, then four-year-old Carter and his mom, Jane, served as their audience in a dusty Orlando warehouse. Soon, Jane was hearing a "Me too!" chorus from her younger son.
Vices lessons led to a makeshift rock band, Dead End - which Carter fronted for a couple of months when he was six until, he says, "It got too heavy metal for me."
Meanwhile, his brother's pop group set out to beguile Europe. Jane and husband, Bob gave up their retirement-home business in Tampa, Florida, taking turns as Nick's on-tour guardian and raising the rest of their five children. Carter often accompanied Nick too, accumulating some residual stardust.
"Everytime he'd go near the stage, the fans would call out 'Aaron! Aaron!" says Jane. "And he's up there doing cartwheels. I said, 'If you want to perform, you have to do it on your own.'"
Not yet 10, he returned to the States, wrngled a producer and recorded his first song.
Soon Johnny Wright, sugar-pop Svengali and then manager of the Backstreet Boys, came calling. Carter got his shot opening for the Boys in Berlin and quickly scored a European recoed deal.
His parents pulled him out of the third gate, switching to a tutor. (Does he miss anything about school? "Not really," he says. "I was kind of a geek in class.")
After showcasinghis pop songs across the pond, Carter signed with Jive Records last year. His ultimate pop destiny is now in the hands of Disney viewers, who will see him singing, playing sports with Nick and making mock videos with his 14-year-old sister, Leslie (also budding pop singer), at Walt Disney World. Not that Carter's worried; He's always gotten his biggest push via TV. (At this point, kids can only hear him on Radio Disney on the AM dial).
As he sees it, "Some stations don't like to play me 'caouse I'm so little. They're used to playing old people." Pausing, he disclaims, "I'm not saying they're old, you know."
He'd better not be, or he'll have five big Boys to cintend with. He is going to have probelms anyway, once he read his next quote.
Asked to name his favourite pop group, he rapid fires, " If I had to choose between Backstreet Boys and *N'SYNC, i'd pick *N'SYNC. They're awesome."
