Seventeen years after the chart-topping Backstreet Boys formed, they're about to play their first New Zealand show.
When the Backstreet Boys formed in 1993, no one anticipated the group would have the success or longevity they would achieve - least of all whomever named the group.
After newspaper advertisements and auditions in 1992 and 1993 and the departure of three early members, the five who would go on to stardom - with pop ballads such as I'll Never Break Your Heart, As Long As You Love Me and I Want It That Way - were found.
Now aged in their 30s, the Backstreet Boys have been through one rumoured stint in rehab for drug addiction, an open-heart surgery and a lawsuit against former manager - and the group's creator - Lou Pearlman, who the group sued for cheating them out of earnings.
Their lineup has also changed again (their fifth member, Kevin Richardson, left in 2006) but despite all the changes that came with growing older, their name will stay the same, member Brian Littrell says.
"One of the very first questions we ever got when we first started the group was 'when you guys get older are you going to change your name to the Backstreet Men or the Backstreet Guys or whatever' and the answer was no then, and today, 17 years later, it's still no. We'll always be the brand known as the Backstreet Boys."
With bandmates Nick Carter, AJ McLean and Howie Dorough, the group is about to perform in New Zealand for the first time, as part of their worldwide This Is Us tour.
"I think we stopped in there - this sounds really bad - I think we came there one time like 11 years ago and we popped in so fast, we were probably there for 20 minutes," Littrell says.
"We've never performed live there with the band and the show so we're really, really excited to come and see what the fans' response is gonna be."
The group is "doing just fine" and "moving fullsteam ahead" as a four-piece, Littrell says.
"The door is always open for Kevin if he wants to come back but at the end of the day the Backstreet Boys, from now till whenever he does decide to come back, we're a four-member group now and we're just continuing on."
A naive 18-year-old when he joined the Backstreet Boys, Littrell is now 35, with a wife and son, and calls the southern state of Georgia home.
Back then, he'd planned to go to Bible School on a vocal scholarship, make Christian music, and maybe become a teacher.
"I thought I had my life planned out. I was going to go off to college and live a normal life and not really pursue entertainment, but still be involved somehow with music because music was going to pay my way through school. That would have been my path."
He says the industry has changed greatly since the group first rose to fame, largely because of the internet and music downloading, and the creation of shows such as American Idol.
"With the internet, with downloading, I don't think that the Backstreet Boys will ever sell a million records the first day. It's probably impossible for anybody other than, say, a Michael Jackson or somebody like it.
"Things change all the time, it's inevitable that we're gonna get older, our fans get older, the industry changes, it gets faster and faster...
"Our rise to fame wasn't easy and we've really worked hard for the things that we have."
Littrell laughs when told of a plan by gossip blogger Perez Hilton and music manager extraordinaire Simon Fuller, who created the Idol franchise, to find "the next generation Boy Band".
"Are you kidding me? Really? Wow. My advice is good luck. It's a lot tougher than people think it is.
"It doesn't matter if you have Perez Hilton or Simon Fuller [although] I'm sure that in a way having someone like that behind you, they will be very very successful. But my advice to them is good luck and be prepared to work, and work hard, because it takes a lot, it takes a whole lot."
As for the Backstreet Boys - they plan to continue on as long as there are still fans buying their records and coming to their shows.
"It's fun doing what we do, travelling the world, putting on shows, singing a lot of the old hits but also introducing a lot of new music, and that's important to us.
"If it ever got to the point where I hated it, then I wouldn't do it anymore but right now I don't see why we couldn't have a consistent balance of homelife and pop stardom for the next 10, 15 more years."
The Backstreet Boys perform at Vector Arena in Auckland on March 11.
No comments:
Post a Comment