Backstreet Boys Grow Up For Studio Revival


Just when you thought it was safe to take out the earplugs - Backstreet's Back. Yes, our fave boy band, the Backstreet Boys, have reunited and are headed to the Bay State to work on their new CD.

The Boys - who are grown men now - are fresh off a three-year layoff and back in the studio.

Word is, the band will put the finishing touches on its album at member Kevin Richardson's revamped Blue Jay Recording Studio in Carlisle and our spies say the reunited band will pop up at the KISS Concert May 22. (We hear Nick Carter is expected to have his S.O., Paris Hilton, in tow.)

``Can the million-CD-selling sound be recaptured?'' pondered KISS marketing maven Joe Mazzei. ``Will the band let the past splinter the group?''

Oh, the drama.

You may recall that the BBs were in Boston when members Richardson, Carter, Brian Littrell and Howie Dorough staged an intervention that resulted in bandmate A.J. McLean's celebrated trip to rehab.

A cleaned-up McLean recently told Oprah Winfrey that, at the height of his hard partying, he was drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels a day, snorting an ``eight-ball'' of cocaine a night and gobbling a fistful of Xanax to go to sleep.

It was during those wild-and-crazy days of 2001 that the band landed in Boston. The Boys, then at the height of their popularity, were scheduled to throw out the first pitch at Fenway Park. A.J. told Oprah he was too hung over to make the game - the straw, apparently, that broke the Backstreets' back!

Kevin Richardson took great umbrage at A.J.'s slacker ways and broke down McLean's bedroom door at the Ritz-Carlton.

``(Kevin) called me every name under the sun,'' McLean recalled. ``Told me he'd never trust me again. Told me he hated me, and that was it.'' With that, A.J. decided to Quit Playing Games, and checked into rehab.

The Boys' friendship survived - four of the five were photographed at the Kentucky Derby over the weekend. The big question is: Are their legions of fans still willing to Get Down with the ex-boy band?

``The typical Backstreet Boys fan was 12 years old in 2000. Now they're 16,'' Tom Vickers, a music consultant and former Capitol and Mercury Records executive, told Knight-Ridder. ``Are they going to have the same reaction? `Oh, Brian is so cute!' No. Now they're into the Strokes or the White Stripes.''

Meaning, we guess, the gals are going to show the Boys The Meaning of Being Lonely!

Wanna Leave?

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