Boys to Men

Boys to Men
Backstreet's back -- older, wiser & finally living in harmony
By David Schmeichel
November 06, 2008
Winnipeg Sun

Their days of sold-out stadium tours and multi-platinum record sales may be behind them.

But former teen-pop sensations the Backstreet Boys had no trouble drawing a crowd to one of their most recent performances -- singing the national anthem at the World Series opener in Tampa.

And despite what a few crabby Internet critics had to say, the Boys delivered a totally decent rendition, eschewing the typical over-the-top high notes for subdued streetcorner crooning.

The scaled-down arrangement played to the Boys' strengths, while serving as a reminder that -- beneath all the goofy choreography and calculated sex appeal -- most boy banders possess the ability to hit a harmony right out of the park.

"I do think sometimes that true talent is overlooked," says BSB member Brian Littrell, now 33, from his home in Atlanta, Ga. "When it comes to boy bands and things of yesteryear ... people like to remember only certain things. And the things they choose to remember are the hype and the blown-out-of-proportion success that the Backstreet Boys had been able to achieve in the past. But sometimes people overlook the raw talent of just being able to sing."

Certainly the Backstreet Boys -- Littrell, Howie Dorough, Nick Carter and A.J. McLean (Littrell's cousin Kevin Richardson bowed out in 2006) -- know how it feels to be overlooked.

Even while reaping the rewards of their mid- to late-'90s fame -- a period when they ruled the teeny-bopper roost on the strength of singles Quit Playing Games (With My Heart), Larger Than Life and I Want It That Way -- they were also regular targets of those who dismissed pre-fab pop as just another passing fad.

Some 15 years after their debut, that fad is still going strong (these days, commandeered by Disney commodities Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers), though Littrell says he and his Boys aren't as concerned with currying favour.

"There was a time in our career, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when we felt like it was our job to force people to respect us," he says. "It's not that way anymore. The older we get, the less worried we are about what people think of us. As long as we're comfortable doing what we do, that goes a lot farther than trying to be something we're not."

For a while there, the Boys' career arc was marred by some decidedly uncomfortable growing pains: Littrell was nearly sidelined by heart complications in 1998, Dorough lost his sister to lupus the same year, McLean went public with drug and alcohol addictions in 2003, and Carter racked up a trifecta of public embarrassments (dating Paris Hilton, being charged with drunk driving and appearing in a short-lived reality show with his constantly squabbling siblings).

And of course, there was the controversy surrounding former manager Lou Pearlman, the boy band mogul who first brought the Boys together, and who was later sued by the group (along with labelmates 'N Sync) on charges he'd swindled them out of millions.

Pearlman is now serving prison time on a series of unrelated fraud convictions, and while the Boys aren't keen to revisit the subject, they have been known to sing snippets of Justin Timberlake's hit What Goes Around ... Comes Around when pressed for comment.

As for Littrell, he'd rather discuss the Boys' 2007 album Unbreakable, which marks a return to their dance-pop roots, following the pop-rock terrain explored on 2005's Never Gone.

"The Backstreet Boys wanted to get back to doing what we feel we're pretty good at," he says. "If you see our show, you'll notice the Backstreet Boys haven't changed a lot. We've grown up, but our sound is still very signature to who we are."

Having earned the begrudging respect of those who'd dissed them in the past, the Boys now find it easier to live in public -- something that wasn't possible when their images were still plastered on the cover of Teen Beat.

"We've grown up in the public eye, but I think there's a different sense of who (we) are today," says the singer, a devout Christian who released a faith-based album in 2006. "When I go out in public to eat with my family, and people recognize me or look at me funny ... I think they have a little more respect for who I am as a person, rather than just being a flashy pop star."

That sense of respect also exists among the Boys themselves, whose history hasn't always been harmonious, despite outward appearances.

"The Backstreet Boys of today are more together than we ever have been in the past," says Littrell. "When I was with the guys in Tampa doing the World Series game, we all got up together and had breakfast at the hotel. The Backstreet Boys of 10 years ago -- we never did that. Our lives were too crazy and too far apart, and we all had our own agendas going on because our success level was at such a crazy high. But today, you'll find we have one of those bonds ... that will stand the test of time -- the good times and the bad. We need each other and we know that, so we're happy to be doing what we do."