Backstreet To The Future
From Profile of Entertainment
Backstreet Boys: FEEDING THE FRENZY
The Backstreet Boys are Back - and I bet you didn't even know
that they had gone
away! Just four months after their last sold-out Canadian tour,
the photogenic
fivesome has returned with Backstreet's Back, the follow-up to
their self-titled,
multi-platinum debut which has sold over six million copies world-wide.
(In
Canada, Backstreet Boys has been certified eight times platinum,
with Quebec
residents snatching up 400,000 copies alone.)
When I catch up with Nick Carter - the youngest Backstreeter at
17 - he's in a van leaving New
York City, where the group held a press conference the day before
to announce the new album and
an extensive world tour which will bring them back to Canada sometime
around the start of 1998.
Now they're heading home to Orlando, Flordia, where they will
continue rehearsals for their
upcoming European tour, which will see them performing in front
of some 350,000 adoring fans
over two weeks.
Comparing this record to their debut, Nick comments, "I think
it's a little bit more mature. Not too
mature but it's a step. Of course we still have the same feeling
as the last album - with the up-tempo
(songs) and the ballads. Personally, my voice isn't as high. But
we've pretty much stuck to the
same thing because when you have something that works, why change
it?"
Their smooth blend of r&b-inflected vocals, youthful good looks
(none of the Boys is over 25) and
tightly choreographed dance moves certainly worked for the millions
of pre-teens and adolescent
girls around the world who made Canrter, AJ McLean, Howie Dorough,
Kevin Richardson and
Brian 'B-Rok' Littrell stars in almost every country except their
own. With Backstreet's Back,
however, the Boys are hoping to generate the same intense reactions
in America as they have
internationally.
"That's what we've been hoping for," Carter reassures, "to have
just as many fans (in America) as
around the world. At the same time, we're not going to leave our
(international) fans in the gutter,
who were there for us in the beginning. The plans we have right
now are just to basically be
ourselves, do what we did everywhere else. Why change anything
just for one place?"
As much as he might want a rest and savour his hard-earned success,
Carter knows that chances of
that are slim as the Boys prepare to conquer America the way they've
conquered the rest of the
world - by extensive touring and promotion. "We've pretty much
been in and out of studios,
travelling around the world, going to California filming music
videos. We're non-dtop! It's kinda
like one of those things where you just gotta keep going," the
youngest Backstreeter explains. "But
I think after two albums, we're probably going to take a little
bit of a break. Not any time soon.
Maybe sometime in the future." Before the end of the century?
"Maybe," Carter laughs. "Who
knows?"
One break the Backstreet boys would like is from the critics who
have written them off asa New
Kids On The Block for the 90s. "We're not a band," Carter admits,
although he balks at
suggestions that they're just a bunch of pretty faces with no
talent. "The critics are going to say
whatever they want to say. People are going to have their opinions
and you can't change that . If
what they say is helpful, then use it. And if it's not helpful,
then you take it with a grain of salt."
(Critical respect is important to the band, though, Carter admits.
To combat suggestions that the
Boys cannot write or play instruments, Littrell has written one
song off the new album, 'That's
What She Said', which the band co=produced. They've also discussed
preforming a version of
their hit 'Quit Playing Games' on their upcoming European tour,
with all of them playing
instruments as well as singing.)
Ultimately, it's the fans that the Backstreet Boys want to please
most. "They're the ones who make
us who we are," Carter insists. "They're the ones who go out and
buy the albums; they're the ones
who spend all their time coming to our concerts. They've made
the Backstreet Boys."
As for the fans in Quebec who first picked up on their music,
the boys reserve much love. "I think
it's all about the music itself," Carter says when asked to explain
their astounding success in La
Belle Province. "If I go over to Japan (and) I hear a song in
Japanese, but if it sounds good, why
should I not like it? And it would be the same anywhere else.
Music is music, wherever you go."
In the meantime, Carter and the rest of the Backstreet Boys are
enjoying the sucess all their work
has won them. All their families have been very supportive, Carter
says, and no one treats them any
differently at home than they did before they became international
pop starts. "We're still their
sons," Carter says, "and all you need is a lot of support form
you family." Navigating the cutthroat
water of the music business had been a lot easier with their friends
and family behind them. "You
just have to have the right people helping you out," Carter concludes.
"The right management, your
family has to be there for you. You just have to keep your head
on your shoulders and your feet on
the ground!"
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