Date: Dec 28, 2004
Source: Ability Magazine
Actors of television and film, recording artists, sports figures, stars of reality television, all are thrust into the limelight. For some it is a fleeting 15 minutes, for others a lifetime. The ways they respond to the public's attention are as varied as the performers themselves. It is no secret that America places a very high value on celebrity, and when such a person begins to speak we tend to listen. Invariably, all who have achieved high-profile status find the opportunity to use their voices, or their images, to make a difference. For some, the causes and organizations drawing them to dedicate their time relate to very personal experiences or deeply-held passions.
Kevin Richardson, best known as the bass vocalist of the Backstreet Boys, has long been concerned about issues affecting the environment. Now he has also taken the opportunity to turn the very personal loss of his father into a chance to raise public awareness of colon cancer and the need for regular testing. ABILITY Magazine's Chet Cooper recently sat down with Richardson in his Los Angeles home. Together they discussed his career, his father, the importance of screening for colon cancer and the foundation he's started to help save the environment
Chet Cooper: Is it true you grew up in a log cabin?
Kevin Richardson: Yes. It was like one of those Lincoln Log homes that come in a kit for you to put together. In fact, our bedroom floor and a bar in the entertainment room were made from refurbished barn lumber. We had a barn that was falling down, so we tore it down the rest of the way and reused the wood. Once you plane it and put linseed oil on it, it comes right back. There is nothing like old-growth wood.
My father worked for the Diocese of Lexington, an Episcopal church... although we weren't Episcopalians... and he ran a summer camp in Eastern Kentucky. The camp was in the Appalachian Mountains, in the Daniel Boone National Forest. I was a hike leader and camp counselor, and my brothers and I mowed the grass, cleaned the toilets, helped out in the mess hall and participated in the camps.
It was a church camp, but all types of groups would use the facilities... children's community groups and different religious sects. A group from Iran of the Bahai faith came there one time. They all had to leave their country because Iran was systematically killing the Bahai. There was a huge sect of them here and they came up to the camp. We had the Boy Scouts. Anybody could rent the camp, so we hosted a lot of people from all over the world.
CC: Did you have running water in the cabin?
KR: Oh yeah, absolutely. It was from a natural spring, though. My grandparents still have it. It's the best tasting water, so sweet and full of minerals.
CC: Do you ever go back?
KR: I haven't been to the camp since my father passed away in 1991, but I go back to Kentucky all the time. I want to live there eventually. In fact, I was just there for my brother's 40th surprise birthday party.
CC: He didn't know he was 40?
KR: (laughs)
CC: How did you make the transition from living in the woods to where you are today?
KR: I just moved to Florida to seek out opportunities.
CC: Why Florida?
KR: I figured it would be a good place to start instead of New York or Los Angeles, and I wanted to get my feet wet. Florida has tons of entertainment opportunities because Walt Disney World and Universal Studios are there. There is also a lot of production that goes on. Quite a few movies are starting to film in Florida.
CC: Before moving to Florida, had you been involved in high-school theater?
KR: I did theater. I also played in bands and played football.
CC: So you already knew you had some burgeoning talent?
KR: I had been singing all my life, but I started acting in high school. I wasn't originally taking drama, but the drama teacher asked me to audition for Bye, Bye Birdie. I did and got the lead role. Initially I was kind of scared, but once I did it I got bitten by the bug and loved it. I did Chicago on Broadway the year before last. That was a great opportunity and I had a blast.
CC: You've been singing your entire life; do others in your family sing?
KR: My grandfather was in a barbershop quartet and my grandmother was in a gospel quartet with her sisters. My mom sang in high school choir and so did my father. I sang in church choir all my life, through elementary school, junior high and high school. I started playing in the band and learned to play piano by ear.
CC: By ear? Did that hurt?
KR: Yeah. Sometimes it did. (laughs) At Christmas our house is like a Donnie and Marie Christmas Special.
CC: Have you seen Donnie and Marie in concert?
KR: It was the first concert I ever went to. At the time my cousin was the only one who could drive and he took me and my brothers. From where we were standing in the nosebleeds you could hardly see them on the stage. Actually, my first concert was Ike and Tina Turner when my mom was nine-months pregnant with me. I felt the vibrations! It's been in my bones ever since.
CC: Did watching the Osmonds make you think, "That's what I want to be doing?"
KR: I've always loved music, not necessarily just the Osmonds. I remember lying on the floor of the living room with headphones on when I was four or five years old, listening to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Chuck Barry, Fats Domino, Ike and Tina Turner, Donnie and Marie, Elvis Presley, Dean Martin.
CC: No kidding, Dean Martin?
KR: Yes, I loved Dean Martin. He was one of my father's favorite singers. He was so smooth. I like him better than Frank Sinatra. But I would lie on the floor and analyze everything. I'd listen to all the strings and the background vocals on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and try to pick out the different instruments. I was fascinated. At night I would fall asleep with the radio on. Music was always a part of my life.
CC: Do you have a desire to pursue television or film?
KR: I would like to when the right opportunity presents itself. I have been taking classes and I'm familiar with stage, but I'm not as familiar with acting on camera. In musical theater you have to be very big and very animated, while film and television are more toned down. I have been reading scripts, going to auditions and looking for the right opportunities.
CC: Have there been offers?
KR: I've had offers, but I want to [choose a project] because I am passionate about the script or project, not for the money.
CC: What types of movies have you been pitched?
KR: They wanted to do a movie about the Backstreet Boys. I actually auditioned for Josie and the Pussycats, but I decided not to do it because I want my first film not to be connected with music, so people can see me in a different light. Eventually, I'd also like to produce. My wife Kristin and I are developing quite a few ideas. Kristin is an actor as well and has performed on Broadway.
CC: Where did you and Kristin meet?
KR: We met at Walt Disney World when we both worked there almost 13 years ago. We dated on-and-off for about eight years and we have been married for four.
CC: No children?
KR: No children.
CC: Couple of dogs?
KR: Couple of dogs. (laughs) We are going to start working on children soon, hopefully.
CC: You mentioned your father passed away in 1991.
KR: He died of colon cancer. Ten months after he was diagnosed he passed away. By the time they found the tumor it was huge, almost the size of a grapefruit, and already at stage four. They operated and he went through chemo, but it was too late.
CC: How old was he?
KR: He was 49.
CC: Did he not experience any symptoms?
KR: Once colon cancer becomes symptomatic, nine times out of ten it is too late. If you catch it early enough through a colonoscopy, while it's still in the polyp form, you can treat it and essentially defeat it, with a 99 percent recovery rate. Both of my brothers just had colonoscopies and they found polyps.
It is recommended that if a person in your family has had colon cancer, you should begin getting checked ten years prior to the age he or she was diagnosed. Men and women should get checked as soon as they turn 40 anyway. This disease is nondiscriminatory.
CC: People typically associate colon cancer with men. Do you know what the male-female ratio is?
KR: Men and women are equally affected.
CC: What organization are you working with to promote awareness?
KR: The Colon Cancer Alliance... or CC Alliance... asked me if I would be interested in helping them, and I said, "Absolutely," and I am honored. If my father had gotten screened he probably would not have died of cancer. The same holds true with breast cancer; if you get screened and they find it early enough you generally survive, you win. I want to help raise awareness because for most people it is an embarrassing topic; you don't generally sit around the dinner table and discuss it with your family.
CC: Was your father the private type?
KR: Our father was old-school. He had a very high pain threshold, and he was a southern man who didn't complain a lot. He was an outdoorsman, a construction worker, a fireman. His last job was as a manager of The Cathedral Domain a camp in eastern Kentucky. He was the kind of guy who would cut his hand to the point he should have stitches, but just get one of those butterfly band-aids and use Neosporin and alcohol to treat it himself. He rarely went to the doctor's office. There are a lot of people out there like him.
CC: We often become experts on an illness when it affects a close family member. How educated have you become?
KR: Working with the CC Alliance I have learned a lot of interesting facts about colon cancer. For example, colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Every four minutes someone is diagnosed, and every nine minutes someone dies. Cancer is just a horrible disease.
Seeing my father, a big, strong, burly man of 6'2" and 215 lbs., just deteriorate in a hospital bed... it was sad and unfortunate, and I don't want anybody to have to go through that. So if people will pay attention to what I say because of our success as a group, I am going to use that.
CC: I understand you are also passionate about the environment.
KR: Definitely. I was in a press conference when we were asked, "If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?" Because of where I was brought up, I feel I have a close connection with nature and the outdoors. I believe as human beings we are out of balance, out of synch with the earth. We can have technology, prosperity, nice homes and cars, but at the same time we must be conscious of what we are dumping into the water, the air and our food.
I truly believe the reason cancer rates and stress levels are rising is all the toxins we are absorbing through our food, air and water. We need to change soon. We need to make it a priority to just be more aware. I am not a tree-hugger and I don't think mine is an extreme point of view. I feel it is logical. If you take care of your home and you take care of your car, why wouldn't you take care of the planet? The ocean is in bad shape. I wanted to help raise awareness, so I created an environmental foundation called Just Within Reach.
CC: What is the focus of the foundation?
KR: We have been concentrating on educating the young. If we can get kids talking about conservation and doing it, they can have a great influence on their parents by lecturing them and pointing the finger. If a kid says, "Well, Mom, why aren't we recycling?" that will have a positive effect.
We also give out scholarships and have been doing small fund raisers. It's been a tough year because of where the economy has been since 9/11, and the current administration is not very focused on the environment.
CC: Have you been working with the schools?
KR: I did an educational video with National Geographic a year and a half ago, and it will be distributed to a few thousand schools around the country. Prior to that I testified before the Senate subcommittee addressing mountaintop removal.
CC: Mountaintop removal?
KR: In Michigan, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Virginia and Pennsylvania, instead of digging tunnels and mining coal through the mountains, they get about 15 heavy-machine operators and some demolitions experts, and they take down the top of the mountain and dump it into a valley. It's called mountaintopping. All the rubble goes directly into the streams, rivers and natural springs from which thousands of people get their water. The only way to stop some of this from happening is to use the Clean Water Act, which says you can't put pollutants into a river or stream. The current Bush administration was trying to circumvent the Clean Water Act by having the Army Corp of Engineers change the definition of valley fill.
CC: How widespread is this practice of mountaintopping?
KR: They're ripping down the Appalachian mountain range, destroying thousands and thousands of acres. I took Bobby Kennedy Jr.... he is the head legal council for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)... on a flight over Eastern Kentucky, and when he saw it he said, "If the American people knew about this, there would be an outrage."
I am working with a few local groups in Kentucky... Commonwealth, NRDC and the Riverkeepers... and we are trying to raise awareness about what is going on, because it's devastating.
CC: I'm surprised we haven't heard more about it.
KR: Coal companies have a lot of power in the media, and unfortunately a lot of information doesn't get out. After they remove the coal, they wash off arsenic, ammonia and tons of toxins into a huge pond, which they call a slurry pond. It is actually not a pond, but rather a 20-acre lake of this sludge. One slurry pond was located over an abandoned mine, and the bottom burst and it flooded an entire community, ruining a few hundred miles of river and streams. It was twice the size of the Exxon Valdez spill, nearly 250 million gallons of sludge and slurry. People came out of their front doors and it was waist deep! That never got to major news media outlets because the energy companies shut it down. They were standing in front of the road with trucks and not letting the media in to investigate. The energy companies are very powerful.
The coal mining industry is very destructive and it doesn't have to be. Of course we need coal right now, and although there are plenty of alternative fuel methods to investigate, we haven't come up with one yet. We're not saying that you don't need coal, but when you do mine the coal there are responsibilities to it. It may cost a little more, but it is the right thing to do...
Date: Dec 08, 2004
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader
FRANKLIN, Tenn. - Backstreet Boys member Brian Littrell signed a deal Wednesday with the Christian label Provident Music Group's Reunion Records.
"This has been a dream of mine every since I was a little boy, singing in church in Kentucky," said Littrell who was accompanied at the signing by his wife, Leighanne.
Littrell, 29, said that singing with the Backstreet Boys was a "12-year stepping stone" to making this decision, and he hopes the Backstreet Boys fans will realize through his music "that standing up for what you believe in is what's important."
Littrell will release the single, "In Christ Alone," on an upcoming WOW Christian Music compilation album next year. That will be followed in fall 2005 with the debut of his solo album on the Franklin-based label and concerts.
Littrell also plans to tour with The Backstreet Boys, who are scheduled to end a three-year hiatus with a new project in March 2005.
The five-member group's last album was "Black and Blue," which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in 2001. Their manager, Johnny Wright, said that the group isn't breaking up but just taking an opportunity to do solo projects.
Nick Carter is the only member to release a solo album, "Now or Never" which came out in 2002.
A.J. Maclean also has expressed an interest in singing Christian music, Wright said. The other members, Kevin Richardson and Howie Dorough, are leaning more toward film and TV.
Date: Nov 04, 2004
Source: Ireland On-Line
The Backstreet Boys have taken another step to assure fans they are still together, by announcing the first single from their anticipated album.
The singers are currently working on their first album in over three years, and many critics have been casting doubts over a return.
But six weeks after announcing plans for a world tour, band member AJ McLean's mother Denise declares their new song has been chosen and it's called Poster Girl.
She says: "The boys are now in Stockholm recording with Max Martin, and will be back to their respective homes at the end of this month. As far as my son tells me, the first single is still due out at the end of the November."
Date: Nov 04, 2004
Source: yahoo news
Mon Nov 1, 8:19 PM ET
Dave McNary, STAFF
The American Federation of Musicians has reached an agreement with Zomba Recording in which the label will be covered under the federation's sound recording labor agreement for all product recorded on or after Jan. 1.
Pact, signed by Zomba and BMG Music, covers all current Zomba subsidiaries and labels including Jive Records as well as subsids and labels that may be added to Zomba in the future. Among the artists covered by Jive are Britney Spears (news), R. Kelly, Justin Timberlake (news), Backstreet Boys (news - web sites), 'N Sync (news - web sites) and Aaron Carter (news). Negotiations were triggered when BMG Music corporate parent Bertelsmann acquired a controlling interest in Zomba. The pact's terms are part of the federation's collective bargaining agreement, which expires in February 2006.
"Musicians engaged by Zomba will now receive for the first time the full range of benefits and protections provided by federation collective bargaining agreements, including scale payments, working conditions, pension contributions and residual payments from several special payments funds," said org president Thomas Lee.
Source: El Universal online
They arrive Backstreet Boys at Mexico
The American quinteto was received by a group of fans that waited for its arrival in the aerial terminal of the City of Mexico; they will offer two concerts in the Palace of Deportes
EFE Universal online the City of Mexico Thursday 14 of October of 2004
The American pop group Backstreet Boys today arrived at the Mexican capital three years after its last concert in this country to offer two concerts like part of its world-wide tour.
The quinteto integrated by Nick Carter, A.J.Mclean, Howie Dorough, Brian Litterell and Kevin Richarson, was received by almost a hundred of youngsters who, with flowers, placards and cameras in hand, waited impatient the arrival of the group from yesterday.
The exit of the artists of the aerial terminal of the City of Mexico, counted on the collaboration of the personnel of security of the airport before the commotion that was by its presence.
The interpreters of "Everybody", "Shining Star" and "What Makes You Different", among others, they had to hide itself in the migration offices to avoid the congregation of some peculiar ones that surrounded to them.
The quinteto will appear today and tomorrow in the Palace of Deportes where they will interpret the songs that made them reach the considered fame to the being like the most successful group in recent years.
The Backstreet Boys has published until the moment four albums of which they have sold more than 30 million copies: "Backstreet Boys" (1997), "Backstreet Back" (1998), "Milennium" (1999) and "Black and Blue" (2000) in addition to a collection of great successes.
Source: Orlando Business Journal
Pearlman ordered to pay $15 million to lawyers
An Orange County Circuit Court judge has ordered boy band guru Lou Pearlman of Trans Continental Records Inc. to pay $15 million to the lawyers who successfully represented him in litigation against music groups 'N Sync and The Backstreet Boys. Judge Frederick Pfeiffer ordered that Orlando attorneys Cheney Mason and William B. Pringle be paid for their work in representing Pearlman against the two bands he founded.
The attorneys argued that they and Pearlman had agreed to contingency fees based upon the attorneys' results in a settlement with the two bands. In issuing his ruling, Pfeiffer said Pearlman had the expertise to understand the agreement with his legal team.
Source: mickeynews.com
ABC Family will air THE HOLLOW as an Original Movie Event premiering Sunday, October 24 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT). A modern version of the Headless Horseman legend, THE HOLLOW stars Kaley Cuoco ("8 Simple Rules"), Nick Carter (Backstreet Boys) and Stacey Keach ("Mike Hammer").
Source: XFM Online
Top 50 Bands Of All Time Named
Following its well-established tradition of having a list of ?World?s Greatest Bands, Songwriters, Singles, Gigs, Singers or Albums? Q Magazine has now announced its Top 50 Bands Of All Time list.
Q Magazine?s regular lists seem to be designed specifically to enrage people and promote furious rages whenever they arrive (U2?s ?One? as the World's Greatest Song anyone?) but with their Top 50 Bands Of All Time list the magazine has tried to be more scientific.
Each band's placing has been allocated according to a points system that measured sales of their biggest album, the scale of their biggest headlining show and the total number of weeks spent on the UK album chart.
As such Pink Floyd nab the top spot. Their 1979 concept album 'The Wall' has sold 23.3 million copies so far (figures for their 1973 opus 'Dark Side of the Moon' ? which has almost definitely sold more - were rejected because of inaccurate records), their largest live show was 125,000 at Knebworth Park in 1975 and they spent 911 weeks in the UK charts.
"I must say I suspected it might have been Queen at number one,? Q editor Paul Rees confessed, ?But then when you think of the huge sales of 'The Wall' and 'Dark Side of the Moon' it would have to be Pink Floyd. If you look at the top 10 you would expect those bands to be in there. It's slightly more surprising that the champagne corks are popping for bands such as Erasure [ranked 47] and Hootie & the Blowfish [40]. I was genuinely stunned to see them in there."
Surprisingly The Beatles only got to eighth place behind the Rolling Stones, U2, Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band, a result put down to a lack of recent gigs (ahem) and a finite number of album releases.
While the list contained all the expected acts (The Eagles, Oasis, Red Hot Chili Peppers) there are a couple of surprises. Wham! get a creditable 38 placing, The Backstreet Boys are at 22, the 42 spot is filled by Status Quo and The Shadows are at
02. Led Zeppelin
03. Rolling Stones
04. U2
05. Queen
06. Dire Straits
07. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
08. The Beatles
09. Bob Marley and the Wailers
10. Fleetwood Mac
11. The Eagles
12. The Beach Boys
13. Oasis
14. Bon Jovi
15. Guns N' Roses
16. Nirvana
17. Genesis
18. Bee Gees
19. Metallica
20. Boston
21. R.E.M.
22. Backstreet Boys
23. Red Hot Chili Peppers
24. AC/DC
25. The Police
26. Steve Miller Band
27. ABBA
28. Santana
29. Simply Red
30. Supertramp
31. The Carpenters
32. Journey
33. Spice Girls
34. Def Leppard
35. Deep Purple
36. UB40
37. Aerosmith
38. Wham!
39. Pearl Jam
40. Hootie & the Blowfish
41. Status Quo
42. Simple Minds
43. Wet Wet Wet
44. 'N Sync
45. Eurythmics
46. Duran Duran
47. Erasure
48. The Shadows
49. Boyz II Men
50. Van Hal
Source: China Daily
The boys are back (Shanghai Daily)
Three years ago, the US mega-selling Backstreet Boys were scheduled to perform in Shanghai, but September 11 attacks changed all that. Now the wait is over and on Sunday night, they make their debut at Hongkou Football Stadium.
Reunited, energetic but a little more mature, the band is set to release their first album in three years early next year and the five members say this time they have "lower expectations."
"It's inspirational and a breath of fresh air for me especially because I'm sober and clear headed, and our work ethic is so much better," says AJ Maclean when asked what it's like to return after a long absence.
The ride-to-stardom for the group started in high school when Maclean, Nick Carter and Howie Dorough decided to start singing together after running into each other at auditions in 1992. Soon after, Kevin Richardson and his cousin Brian Littrell joined the group when they moved to Florida from Kentucky.
Success for the Backstreet Boys came quickly in Europe and by late 1996, with the release of the album and single "Quit Playing Games (with my Heart)," they had broken the charts in Canada and the United States.
The group hold seven platinum albums and "Millennium" sold more than 1.3 million copies in its first week around the world. In 2000, "Black and Blue" debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart, selling 1.6 million copies in its first week. But in 2002, the band decided not to continue with their next album because they were in different places in their lives, and their hearts and minds were focused in other areas.
"Going for almost nine years straight, it was nice to have some down time," Brian says. "It was a pity that we hadn't come to China at that time, we know we have a lot of dedicated fans there."
"Their 2001 concert would have cost US$1 million, which was then too high for the Chinese market," says Yu Suqin, general manager of Shanghai Arts Corp, the Shanghai concert agent.
Yu believes that compared to many other concerts, the price for Backstreet Boys, ranging from 120 yuan (US$14.46) to 1,208 yuan, is "acceptable."
While the market is flooded with groups like the Backstreet Boys, they seem relaxed about the future. "It's not about how many we sell in the first week anymore," Maclean says. "It's about longevity."
The upcoming concert will feature four songs from their new album, which includes collaborations with Boys II Men and Take 6. "Some songs from our new album have a R&B vibe, some a rock vibe while others are just great pop songs," Brian says.
"Of course we will not let our fans down, we will perform 13 old songs and make the night at Hongkou Stadium an unforgettable memory for them," Kevin says. Nick says the band's future success rests with the ability to focus.
"The only secret is making good music and having goals to strive for, nothing else," Nick says, who released a solo album and toured during the two-year band break.
Despite the time off, there's no regrets and it appears the Backstreet Boys are back for good.
"I wouldn't trade this gift of being a Backstreet Boy for anything in the world," Howie says. "It's a blessing from God and I thank him every chance I get for the opportunity."
Source: undercover.com
Backstreet Boys Comeback In China
By Paul Cashmere
4 October 2004
The Backstreet Boys went out of town to warm up for their next tour ? way out of town. On September 24, Backstreet Boys played Beijing, China.
The group attracted 40,000 fans to the Beijing Stadium, although that is only half capacity for the venue.
The group have been in the studio since April working on their first new album since Black and Blue in 2001. "We are very excited about being back together" says Nick Carter. "It has been quite some time since we have been on stage together and recorded a CD. We are very excited about the material we have recorded. It is a positive growth from where we were in the past".
He says fans the differences on the new album. "As long as we experiment and bring something new to the table every time and be trendsetters, I think that will be attractive for people who don't know our music"
Date: Oct 08, 2004
Source: Daily Yomiuri
Paul Jackson / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
"Backstreet's back!" This was the main point Nick Carter of Backstreet Boys wanted to get across at a press conference attended by the hugely popular boy band in Tokyo last week.
Carter and his four harmonizing partners in song were in Tokyo to perform five straight nights at the 10,000-plus capacity Yoyogi Stadium. The performances represented the start of a comeback by the group, which has taken an extended timeout for the last three years.
With all the nights sold out, according to promoter Kyodo Tokyo, it seems that the group from Orlando, Fla., have pretty much picked things up where they left off--in Japan at any rate.
"Our last concert of our last world tour was here in Japan so we decided to come back and start our world tour here because you guys have been so great to us," said Howie D of the group, who described their Japanese admirers as the "greatest fans in the world."
Such a description is not at all surprising given that Backstreet Boys owe part of their initial success to their fans in Japan, and also in Europe, who supported them in their early years before they broke in the United States in 1997. The group has gone on to sell more than 70 million albums worldwide, becoming one of the biggest boy acts of all time.
In addition to embarking on a new world tour, Backstreet Boys also announced they will release a new CD as they seek to reestablish themselves.
"The new album will be coming out next year, and we're pretty much almost done with it. (We'll complete it) certainly in the next couple of months," Howie D said.
A sneak preview of three tracks from the album--"My Beautiful Woman," "Climbing the Walls" and "Poster Girl"--suggested that the group is looking to embrace more of a rock sound than in the past, an influence acknowledged by Carter, who also referred to the presence of an R&B influence and "a small amount of hip-hop" in their new sound.
"We've really taken some time on it. We've done like 40, 45 songs and we're still not done yet," Carter said of the album. "We're never really satisfied when it comes to being in the studio. So what we did was we took the big adventure of experimenting and trying to do things, and we've been recording for the past eight or nine months with different producers."
Of the producers, Carter mentioned Teddy Riley, Billy Mann, the Underdogs and Max Martin, who has often worked with Backstreet Boys and has penned huge hits for Britney Spears and NSYNC.
"The one good thing about the music is it still sounds like the Backstreet Boys. We have five-part harmonies on top of new music, but our voices haven't changed...well, mine maybe a little bit," said Carter, who was only 13 when the group formed.
Kevin Richardson believes the time off has given the vocalists more perspective and respect for what they had achieved together, something that was necessary for them to reestablish.
"We had pretty much reached a point of some burnout," Richardson said. "It wasn't as joyous as it had been in the past, and on our last tour a lot went on in the world, with 9/11 happening while we were on tour, which made it kind of difficult, and A.J. going through rehab.
"The fact that we have taken time off has been so beneficial for all of us, and A.J. got the time to really work his recovery program like he needed to, and we all got time to recharge our batteries."
A.J., whose dark glasses, baseball cap and tattoos clearly mark him out as the "bad" boy of the group, reportedly spent time in rehab for drinking and depression.
But this has not been the only development during the group's timeout.
In the meantime, Carter launched a solo career with limited success and his own label--the mention of which earned a scowl from A.J. at the press conference.
Howie D, who "does shabu shabu, sukiyaki, teppanyaki and sushi" when he comes to Japan, spoke of how all the band members have become far more aware of the money side of their careers over the years and how they are now investing their money more carefully.
Brian Littrell, meanwhile, became a father and admits that changing diapers has become a form of relaxation for him.
"From a personal standpoint fatherhood has definitely changed my life. Before, Backstreet Boys had always been so important and No.1 in my life," Littrell said, adding that taking on his paternal role had also helped him to take a more responsible role in the band.
Fathers, businessmen and reformed pop stars--these are not words commonly bandied around with the concept of a boy band. And with Howie D and Richardson both in their 30s now, it is clear that Backstreet Boys will have to reinvent themselves to a certain extent if they are to register the sales they have in the past.
Clearly, the 55,000 fans who saw them last week in Tokyo believe they can.
But what if they don't?
"Being a pop idol is one thing," Littrell said. "But being my son's hero--I would take that over anything."
Source: Wright Entertainment Group
From wegmusic.com
Backstreet Boys' (original and now new) managment company~
Hi Everyone,
We just wanted to take a second to update you on what we have been up to. All five of us went back into the studio this past February and have been working to create what we think will be our best album yet. It has been really great being back together working on our music. The album will be released this summer and we will be touring in the United States this fall. We have been getting a lot of emails and letters from all of you about our website and we want you to know that we are working on getting it back up and running as soon as possible. So make sure you keep checking back and in the mean time, if you want to be added to our official email list when the site launches send your name, mailing address and email address to:
Backstreet Boys Email Blast
C/O Wright Entertainment Group
PO Box 590009
Orlando, FL 32859
Feel free to drop us a line to let us know what you want to see on the site. Our website is one of our favorite ways to keep in touch with our fans so it is important to us that it's a community that you guys can enjoy!
Talk to you soon.