Nick Carter
Brian Littrell
Howie Dorough
Kevin Richardson
AJ McLean

The first words Nick Carter uttered when he plopped down in a chair to chat with me were: "It will be a long interview, huh?" Of course, realizing that Nick must be completely exhausted from his hectic touring schedule, I didn't get offended. Instead, it just maade me more aware of the misconceptions that people have about Nick: that he has some serious superstar attitude.

"People think that I'm, like, 'famous.' People don't treat me like I'm a normal human being, and so are the other guys, and I make mistakes and they make mistakes and I just try to live my life to the fullest. I try to have fun, and that is all I'm doing right now."

After talking with Nick for nearly two hours, I understood his frustration: This soft-spoken singer has not one ounce of star attitude. When talking about himself and his success, Nick bore an embarrassed grin and pulled his baseball cap down low over his face, clearly uncomfortable with boasting about his accomplishments. In fact, the only thing this soon-to-be-18-year-old (his birthday is January 28) was comfortable boasting about is his tight-knight relationship with his family. "My family comes first before anything," he proudly said. "They are everything to me."

And Nick's not exaggerating about his family ties. When I asked what depresses him, he was barely able to mutter his response: being away from home. "I try to just not think about it," Nick shared. "The problem that I have is that I don't call home as much as I should, and it's kind of like it's my excuse, because it makes time go by when I don't talk to them." I guess for Nick's family, the less they hear from him, the more theny know he misses them.

While Brian may be a way-extroverted mover and shaker when he's on stage singing with the rest of the band, I discovered that this adorable 22-year-old is super-sweet, completely polite and even a little shy one-on-one. If you ever want to bring a boy home to meet mom and dad, Brian's definitely your man!

In person, Brian is even more handsome than he is in photographs - although you can't convince him that his boyish good looks are a major asset! He gets a little bummed that people mistake him for being much younger than he really is, admitting that a lot of the time he passes for 16 or 17. "Right now, I wish I looked a little older," Brian told me. "But I guess there's nothing I can do about it."

Not only is he incredibly cute, his soft Kentucky accent is absolutely to die for! Being super-thoughtful and intelligent, Brian really thinks before he speaks, and you can just tell by the way he looks at you that he's giving you the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Of course, when he's talking about how much he loves his family (whom he showers with presents - he gifted his little bro with a car and his mom with a piano), it makes him that much more drool-worthy!

Before you start thinking Brian's too serious, though, he definitely showed me his goofy, playful side, too. He got a big kick out of sitting at my desk and pretending to be a BOP staffer, and when Nick came in to visit after finishing up his interview with Staci, the two kidded around like brothers. Brian told me that he and Nick are incredibly close. "We're like Frick and Frack," he gushed in that honeyed accent. Cute, sweet, kind and talented - too much!

This was my first time meeting the Backstreet Boys, and I was thoroughly impressed by how polite, sweet and cute all of them were, especially Howie! He was the perfect gentleman throughout our interview and answered all of my questions with such energy, you would have never known he'd been working on only a few hours sleep due to the group's schedule.

I don't mean to be partial, but Howie was definitely the best dressed out of the five. He had on a sparkling clean pair of white 501 jeans with a form-fitting navy-blue shirt that resembled the top of a diver's wetsuit. And having only seen him before in pictures, I was amazed at how long his hair actually was.

Howie's been in the entertainment business since he was only 6, so he's used to interviews by now. However, once he found out that we were the exact same age - 24 - he immediately kicked up his heels as if we were old friends. (I guess he originally thought I was way older. Hmmm...maybe that explains the best-behavior thing?!)

One of the most interesting tidbits he revealed to me was the surprising misconception people often make upon first meeting him. "A lot of people think I'm shy," he disclosed. "But once they get to know me, they realize that I'm shy at all."

I certainly didn't think he was shy, especially when he gave me a hug and kiss on the cheek before saying goodbye. So all in all, I definitely have to say that Howie was the most fun interviewee I've had at BOP yet!

Stuck-up and self-centered - that's what Kevin Richardsonn worried that I would think of thim when we were introduced at BOP HQ. "Sometimes when people meet me, they may think I'm stuck on myself," he confided in me later. "I think I give people a bad first impression. They may interpret my shyness as being snobby of being high and mighty. That's the last thing I want people to think of me, so it concerns me."

To be totally honest with you, "stuck-up" is the last thing in the world I would call this soft-spoken, Southern singer who showed up wearing a clean white sweatshirt, a baseball cap and velvety navy-blue sweatpants. He sure didn't dress like a self-absorbed star. In fact, with his sincere smile and his calm, thoughtful way of speaking, the 26-year-old singer comes across as more of a modest kind of guys than a self centered snob!

One of the sweetest things I discovered about Kevin (aside from his way-cute Kentucky twang) when we sat to chat together is that when you're talking to him, he only has eyes - and ears - for you. He looks straight into your eyes and pays close attention to your every word. Kevin also thinks carefully before he answers you: He leans back in his chair and gazes silently in space, gathering his thoughts before he speaks.

It wasn't long after we sat down that Kevin was talking a blue streak, laughing about his junior high-school girlfriends and sharing private childhood memories. What happened to that shy guy who was so worried that I'd think he was snobby for not talking? "Well," he admitted to me with a grin, "I'm not shy once you get to know me!"

AJ glowed with excitement as he sat in my office, telling me about the new love of his live - Delilh, a Rhodesian Ridgeback Boxer puppy dog. "I was goming home from rehearsal one day - and I never should have done it - but I stopped at the Humane Society just to look," AJ told me.

Of course, this outwardly tough Backstreet Boys is actually a softie who can't resist the charms of a pretty little thing when he sees it. "There she was sitting all by herself, going, 'Buy me!'" said the recent 20-year-old, who went and did exactly that.

The name Delilah is unusual, so I asked how he came up with it, and he explains that Brian actually suggested it while they were atching TV. "Brian is like, 'What about Delilah?'" he recalled. "And I was like, 'Delilah?' And when I said it, she perked up, and I went, "I guess it's Delilah!"

AJ told me that Delilah is very protective of him, but strangely, only around other girls. "Any girls that come by, it's like she knows they're girls and she's jealous," he told me. "If it's any of my guy friends, she's all over them like a big flirt."

While we're on the subject of names, I noticed that AJ's bandmates call him Bone, a name given to him during his beaded-necklace fashion phase. (He's into gold now.) One day, as he was buying more beaded jewelry in England's Camden Merkey, the nickname was born. "Our chief of sercurity was like, 'Why are you buying all these voodoo-looking things?'" AJ said. "He was making fun of me and started calling me Bones. Plus, I'm skinny, so Bone just kind of stuck without the s." Bone or AJ, whatever you want to call him, he is one sweet guy!

- BOP

March 1998