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Z100 Interview Transcript, Oct 6, 2000
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Date: Oct 07, 2000 Elvis: C’mon in! Nick: What’s up? Elvis: Wait, someone’s missing. Nick: There’s two of us missing. One’s in rehab right now. Kevin’s in rehab. Honestly. He tore his Achilles tendon. Brian: No, his ACL. Nick: His ACL. He tore his ACL. Brian: He just had reconstructive surgery. Elvis: What’s that? ACL? Brian: You know, like a football injury. When you blow your knee out. Howie: It’s the band between two leg bones. Elvis: Look at me, do I look like I play football? Jon Bell: It keeps the knee cap in place. Nick: Actually, if AJ’s listening right now, he slept in. He was supposed to come. Brian: AJ’s not listening now. He’s sleeping. DJ: AJ! Rude! Howie: We had a late night meeting last night with our record company. So we got like two hours of sleep. So we might sound a little like this (speaks in a funny voice). Elvis: So the 3 Backstreet Boys who really care actually showed up today, and I think you all should be applauded. (claps) Jon Bell: They are the real stars of the group anyway. (laughs) Brian; Hey, we didn’t say that! Elvis: Listen guys, I know it’s early. You know what. No one should be allowed to wake up this friggin early anyway, so we really appreciate you coming in. Howie & Nick: Thank you. Elvis: There’s no makeup on, you’re not ready for the cameras, you’re just raw you. Brian: Raw? Elvis: And I’ve gotta tell you….(calls) MAKEUP! (laughter) Nah…I’m kidding. We have a couple of things we want to talk to you about, including the music. We’ll get to you next. Let’s play it. Shape of My Heart.
Elvis: Awww…there it is. Backstreet Boys. (In reaction to background noise) What are you doing? Are you singing? Brian: It should have been, at the end, when he’s singing (sings) “Show You the Shape of My Heart” It should have been (sings) “And I’m asleep in my room at the hotel…” Elvis: Seriously, well you know what, thank you guys for caring. Howie: Oh yeah… DJ: Yeah, why does he get to sleep in. (One of the Z100 crew who is portraying a security guard comes in yelling through a megaphone) Elvis: T, we don’t need security now. Howie: That’s what we needed to wake up AJ. Elvis: Turn that thing off. By the way, Greg T (?) is in charge of security here today. Howie: We heard him on the radio. Greg T: Is everything OK in here, Elvis, because I’ll chance them out. Elvis: Everything is OK.. Greg T: They’re supposed to be here. Elvis: Yeah, they’re supposed to be here. DJ: And we work here. Elvis: T, Get Out! Greg T: Some of their bouncers aren’t staying in line. Elvis: I guess, you know what. We were talking earlier about the hype. About you know what, you guys are so popular, you’re music is excellent. Howie: Thank you. Elvis: But there’s more to the Backstreet Boys, as you know, than the music. I mean you’ve got the posters, and you’ve got, you know, the look on stage and everything, and we’re trying to get people to go look, close their eyes, forget about what everyone looks like, just think about the music, listen to what they’re saying. You try and explain this to them and they’re like “I know, but they’re so cute!” Nick: We just made a step for the next album, Black and Blue. Elvis: You did what? Nick: We’re not putting our picture on the front of the album. Elvis: Oh, see. DJ: You’re not putting your picture on the album? Howie: Not on the front. On the back … Brian: The record company wanted it. Nick: There’ll be pictures on the back. We’re going to have pictures inside and everything. Elvis: Is this the reason why? Brian: Well, we want the music to, you know… Howie: Speak for itself. Yeah. DJ: Damn Jon Bell: That’s cool. That’s cool. Elvis: Cuz, you know what? A friend of mine once said you can always test the beauty of someone by bringing a blind person in to meet them and let them determine of you’re a beautiful person or not, cuz that’s what it’s all about. Brian and Howie: That’s cool! Elvis: So you know what, I’m not asking everyone to gauge their eyes out, just to have a true way of getting to know people. (laughter) DJ: Please don’t Elvis: Alright, here it comes, a new single. Tell us what’s going on in your lives, CD-wise. What can we expect? Howie: Well, we just had an A&R meeting last night with the record company and we narrowed it down to 13 songs for America, and a bonus track that’s going to be on the Walmart, first mil-and-a-half that go out. Elvis: Walmart? How come they get that? Howie: We did a deal with Walmart. DJs: Ah-ha! Howie: (laughing) little side deal here! DJs: ching, ching. Brian: a lot of places in Middle America, I mean, that’s all they have to shop at. We’ve been on tour 6 or 7 years ago, when we were happy to find a Walmart where we could get video games or something. Elvis: Walmart’s cool, like if you need an emergency bathing suit or something. It’s like “break glass…emergency” Walmart’s here. Elvis: OK…so does this mean it’s time to like work really hard again. Like have you guys had some time off to think, to sleep on your own pillow? Howie: To get married? Brian: Yeah, to get married. (Laughs) Elvis: To get married, like have a life, I mean. Howie: Yeah. Nick: We’ve had a lot… How long have we had about? Maybe like hmm…. Brian: It’s been off and on the past couple of months have been like umm… Nick: the last six months we’ve had. Brian: Well yeah, some of the guys have shown up some places, and you know made appearances, but not really as all 5. DJ: You’ve been laying low about 6 months, you’ve said? Howie: On and off. Yeah. On and off. DJ: And Brian, when was your wedding? Brian: It was September 2nd DJ: Has everyone seen the pictures in all the magazines. They look so beautiful. And of course, I had to be the chick here, and go over and see his wedding band. It’s very nice! Elvis: Getting married. Good grief. Other guys laugh. Elvis: I didn’t mean it that way…I mean just getting there. Jon Bell just recently got married. And you know what…did your friends do what we did to Jon and give you a billion reasons not to do it. C’mon man…you can date her, you can hang out with her, but you don’t have to marry her. What are you doing?. Brian: I mean there’s finer things in life than being in a successful group, and being a Backstreet Boy. There’s aspirations that I have for the future, and I’ve got to get on with my life. Jon Bell: I like that! Brian: I can still sing and perform but you know… DJs: Right. Yeah. Sure. Brian: You happen to agree with me that there’s finer things. Elvis: Now you’ll be singing and performing with someone yelling at you about your driving being so bad. DJ: Pick up your socks, Brian! (laughter) Willie from Brooklyn on the phone. A father, 32 years old. Elvis: do you have some fatherly advice for the Backstreet Boys? Willie: Ohhh…keep up the good work! I’m very proud of them. My children love them. My wife is a member of the mature fan club. Howie: Cool! Elvis: Wow! The mature fan club? Willie: for the Backstreet Boys, yes. Brian: over 21. Elvis: And that’s what it’s called? The mature fan club? I had no idea. Willie: yes, she’s on the computer all night! Elvis: Willie wants his wife back. Line two…Diane from Rockaway (definitely an adult)..exchange hellos. Brian: You’re awful chipper this morning. Diane: (Laughing) yeah…I’m happy. I’m going down to Orlando, Florida today. So I’m up bright and early. Howie: O-Town Elvis: You have something you want to say to someone. Diane: Yeah Howie, I just wanted to say I love you. You are such a great singer and you inspire me so much and I just want to tell you thank you. Howie: Well thank you. Thank you, very much. I appreciate that. DJ: Just tell me about this Lupus cruise that he’s doing. Cuz you know, he did that Lupus concert that did so well. The benefit. So now he’s doing a cruise. Howie: Yeah..it’s December 18th. It’s with Carnival Cruise. They’re donating about 400 cabins of proceeds to my foundation. We’re going from Miami to Key West. Elvis: Very cool. You know, Lupus walks are going on all this weekend. Howie: Very cool. Jon Bell: You guys have changed my entire diet. I have a little boy at home who drags me to Burger King about 5 times a week. (laughter) I swear, I’ve got more Howie D’s all over the house. You guys are everywhere, man. And you know, he needs like 3 of each action figure. And he changes his name. He literally went to school last week and asked the teacher if he could change his name to Howie D. He’s Nicky for 3 days. He’s AJ for 2 days. So, it’s unbelievable what’s going on, man, but it’s really cool! When I get over my Burger King diet, I’ll let you guys know. Elvis: Let’s get to business. We have Burger King. We have Walmart. Who else are we doing business with. Nick & Howie: That’s it for right now. Nick: That’s it for right now. I mean, when we start doing our world tour, we’ll probably bring somebody in. We don’t really…. Elvis: Well alright..let’s talk about the world tour then. Brian: What you call it? SFX is doing it. Howie: Yeah…they’re doing it. Elvis: Oh, the concert company. Oh, we own them! We just bought them. Brian: You basically own us right now, huh! Elvis; No I don’t. Brian: Do you know how much you’re paying us, then? I’m not going to tell. (laughter) Nick: We just signed with you last night. Elvis: Oh, was that the meeting? I sent the boys out to meet with you. Didn’t it work? (laughter) Seriously, we just bought SFX and I’m in charge of all final deals, so whatever you need, come to Big Daddy. Howie (laughing): We’ll talk, we’ll talk! Jon Bell: What that really means that we’ll be lucky if we get tickets to the concert. Brian: You can have a stack of mine. DJ: Thank you. Brian: I promise you on that, you can have mine. Elvis: Oh, I’ll take your tickets. You heard it live on the radio. He offered 18 million tickets. Nick (laughing): See! Brian: I only get a stack of like 4. Elvis: And you’re like lucky to get those, you’re like “Thank-you” Don’t take them away. Elvis: Let’s talk about the tour. The World Tour. I mean this is a lot of work getting up there, and doing this, and traveling around and like I said before, sleeping on other people’s pillows. I mean is this something you have to psyche up for, or are you like “here we go again..” What’s it like, about to do something like that again? Nick: It fun because I mean the last tour we just did, we did it in the round, and we’re going to go back to an end stage, so we’re going back to the old style. And it’s always fun to recreate and do new things. You know what I’m saying. It’s a part of the creative atmosphere. Howie: And we love that. Brian: For all of December and all of January, we’re going to be rehearsing. So, we’ve gotta prepare ourselves mentally and physically for anywhere from 90 to 114 shows next year. DJ: Wow! That’s incredible. That’s busy Howie: We’re starting off in America Elvis: You’re starting here? Howie: Yeah. DJ: How about wardrobe for you guys? Anymore man-skirts in the future? Howie: Man-skirts! (Laughter) Brian: Kevin! Nick: If you’re listening Kev… Howie: No man-skirts here! Brian: I don’t know if he’s in his skirt rehabilitating. Elvis: There’s nothing wrong with man-skirts. You know, I started a trend last year with man-purses. Remember that? There’s nothing wrong with wearing skirts and carrying a purse. Everytime you talk to someone about your man-purse, they think it’s something dirty. “There’s the dude with his man-purse”. Alright…when you’re on stage, is there one song that really gets the crowd going more than any other song? I mean, obviously you have a front row seat where you are. Is there one song that makes them louder than any other song? Nick: Probably like Larger Than Life. Last tour, Larger Than Life. Howie: Yeah. Nick: We opened up with Larger Than Life and you know that’s song that’s dedicated to the fans, so I mean, they love those songs. And we got another one on this next album. Elvis: What about people who are always begging to come backstage? See, everytime you guys are here in concert, we get not only people begging for tickets for the show, but they’re begging for backstage. Jon Bell: Backstage is big. Elvis: And we try and tell them it’s more fun in the audience. Backstage is… Nick: Oh it’s crazy. Jon Bell: Crazy man. Howie: It is crazy. Jon Bell: People shoving stuff around and instruments and all kinds of equipment. You know, and everybody pushing you out of the way. It’s no fun back there. Brian; What people don’t realize is that we have, well on the Millennium tour, we had a crew of like 120 people with us, just the production staff. So as the stage is being set up throughout the course of the day, once they get done, we have a bunch of crew people in the back. So all the time there’s like 20 million people there. Elvis: And they’re in a bad mood because they’re never sleeping well. Jon Bell: And they’re rushing and hurrying and trying to get things done. Elvis: Even as performers, do you guys ever get pushed around..like “Get Out of the way” and you’re like “Okay”… Howie: I still get asked from the security people, “where’s your security badge”. (laughter) Ummm…I’m kinda one of the guys. Nick: Kinda, not really. Elvis: How has your music evolving? You were just talking about agreeing last night to some new songs and stuff. What are you doing now that’s different from what you started out with? Can you see some changes creeping in? Howie: I think just umm from the last like 5-6 years we’ve been together, we’ve learned a lot about our music. We’ve toned in our craft. I think we’ve got a really good style that we’ve worked at and on this album here, we’ve actually written about 5-6 songs. Elvis: Very good, very good. Howie: And co-writes…the five us wrote two songs together and then individually we also wrote as well. We worked with Babyface on this album, Rodney Jerkins, and the Cherion crew as well. Nick: It’s gonna be nice. Elvis: Very good. You guys look sleepy. Nick: Oh no…not at all. Elvis: You know, I feel bad waking you guys to come in here. (laughter) (someone lets out a loud yawn.) Brian: Actually we suggested coming in here. Elvis: Oh you did? Guys: We did. Elvis: Because you know we own SFX!! So you want to come in. (laughs) Elvis: Did you guys ever have a chance to catch that show, what’s it called, Making of the Band? It was on ABC. DJ: O-Town, Making the Band. Elvis: Now, was your beginning anything like what that show was about? Brian: No; Howie: No; Nick: No Brian: I look at it as kind of making a mockery of what we do. DJ: Oh really? Brian: That’s my feeling. DJ: What about 2gether? MTV’s 2gether. Brian: I haven’t seen that. Howie: Those are some funny guys. DJ: that’s more like a mock, you know, of the boy band type of thing. Nick: You know, we take what we do really seriously. It’s our livelihood. And we love what we do. Brian: It’s our job. It’s how we make a living. So. Howie: They’re cool guys, though. On the line…Donna From Mahopac… I’m fine. Holding on for the Backstreet Boys. Elvis: Well they’re here. Say hello. Donna: I just wanted to say hi from Mahopac. You have a lot of fans up here. I happen to be a mother of 2 girls, Joanna from Mahopac High School and Paula from Mahopac Middle school. They left about 10 minutes for school, and they wanted me to call to say how much they love you. And you have a lot of fans here, like I said, and as a mother, well I’m old enough to be your mother, and I wanted to let you know, I wanted to thank you for being such good influences. I never have to worry about… Guys: Thank you! That’s so nice. Elvis: That’s a very good point. Do you guys really have to keep an eye and monitor yourselves, and make sure you’re doing the right thing when a camera’s around? Always making sure you’re saying the right things when a microphone is on? Nick: We don’t proclaiming to be perfect. Howie: We’re not….. Brian: yeah…we’re not perfect. I mean we’re being as close to ourselves as we possibly can. And the older you get, you realize that you can’t live in a shell your whole life. I mean, the compliment she was giving us, is one of the biggest you can give us because there’s nothing better than to stand on stage and see like a mom and a dad and a son and a daughter. Donna: Believe me, there are a lot of screaming moms out there. Brian: Oh, I know. Nick: Yeah. Howie: Thanks. Elvis: But the fact that you’re glad to let your kids go and see Backstreet Boys is what they are talking about. Is that you feel comfortable because they have the kind of image and reputation and personal lives that you want your kids to look up to. Donna: It’s so true, I have a teenager and I have a pre- teen. Especially with the pre-teen, there’s a lot of influence out there and you know how many times she’s listening to you guys or reading anything about you, I never have to worry. Guys: That’s so cool! Elvis: Donna, do you go with your kids to the Eminem concert? Donna: (laughs) No, I take them to the Backstreet Boys concerts. Elvis: Just making sure! DJ: That’s true, though. I was at the last concert, and Nick, you flew over our head, and the moms were screaming louder than the kids. Nick: They’re crazier than the young ones. Brian: Yeah, the moms are the worst! Jon Bell: Or the best. Elvis: I’m sorry, you’re calling the moms crazy? Nick: No, no, no…a good crazy. Elvis: My point is, you’re harnessed up and flying around. Who’s crazy here? Nick: I did not want to do that, actually. I got outvoted, okay. The groups is a democracy, and I got outvoted. Elvis: How scary is it when you’re flying up there like that? I mean, are you…no, you’d never get me up there. Nick: I can’t stand it, honestly Howie: It’s cool. Nick: It was cool, but.. Howie: I was doing flips all over the place. DJ: That’s who outvoted you. Nick: Howie outvoted me. Kevin outvoted me. Brian outvoted me actually. Brian: No, I didn’t. I did not want to do that. I’m scared of heights, man. DJ: Well, leave these two on the ground! Brian: I didn’t want to lose my lunch before we had to come out to sing. Nick: It was a great effect for the show, and it turned out really good. Elvis: I gotta be honest. I’m afraid of just standing on the ground. Don’t put me in a harness. Commercial announcing the #1 song on last night’s interactive 9 at 9 was Shape of my Heart. Then they played IWITW from last year’s Take Over…”Piscataway is thata way”. Nick: I forgot. What is that? DJ: It’s a town in Jersey. Nick: I’m sorry. Elvis: Let me ask you something. Is each new day a clean slate for you. You don’t remember singing Piscataway. Nick: We live life day-to-day. I do, at least. Elvis; Who am I? Why am I here? It’s like a goldfish. The goldfish has a retention time of how long? Jon Bell: 3 seconds Elvis: So every time the goldfish goes around the bowl it’s like a brand new world. Oh look there’s that couch. Nick: So you guys are comparing me to a goldfish, huh? Elvis: No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, when you’re busy, when you’re successful, you lose your brain cells. Nick: I get you. Elvis: Backstreet Boys in the house. Black and Blue, by the way, will be in the stores November 21st. Black and Blue…as an interviewer, I try not to ask the obvious questions, like (in a funny voice) “so what’s the inspiration behind the name of the album?” But I’m a little curious, what’s the inspiration behind the name of the album? Brian: You want to hear the genius inspiration was we were at photo shoot a couple of weeks ago, and we were all in black and we were standing on a blue background. Elvis: Oh, there’s got to be more than that. Brian: It’s more or less how it evolved. We were racking our brains to try and figure out the title of the album that would stick. When you‘ve got 5 different guys in a group… (in a funny voice)…We’re all like, I don’t like that…that sucks…lalala . Nick: It’s kinda too also, what like in 1975, rolling Stones had an album called Black and Blue also. Howie: We found that out afterwards. Nick: We found that out and we were like, cool, to have a career like them, you now, a nice long lasting career. Elvis: They’ve been around a million years. I wonder what the secret is behind the stones, behind the Elton Johns… Nick: It’s the water they have over there, man. I think. Elvis: Is it the water over there? We have people over here who last a long time. DJ: Like Aerosmith, Madonna. Nick: Well then, I don’t know how to explain it. Brian: They continue to re-invent themselves, like Madonna has done it for years. Elton John too. Jon Bell: They maintain a level of quality with the stuff they put out. I mean, they put out good stuff consistently and that’s what makes you last. Elvis: It’s weird to be able to interview someone like an Elton or a Madonna, and we do that from time to time, you look at them and ask them the same question. How is it you’re still sitting here? None of them have an answer. They’re like, I don’t know. I guess I’m lucky. Maybe I know the right people. Jon Bell: They say that, but you know what you find, they have the same energy for what they do 10 years later that they had at the beginning. Some people get bored, they get successful and then they get bored and they think they can just keep doing what they did the first year. And the people who last are the people who feel as enthusiastic…they want every single album to go to #1..they want it to be the best they can ever do. They don’t let down for a minute. Now that’s a lot of pressure on you for your career, but if you want to be here for 20 years, that’s what you’ve got to do. Howie: You know, we’ve met a lot of artists along the way, and a lot of those names you’ve said, Elton, Steven Tyler, Bon Jovi, and I can say those people, I know why they’ve been around for a long time is because they’re like so down-to-earth as well. They’ve got great personalities and you like want to give them respect. Elvis: that’s a good point because you know what, like I’ve said before and then you meet them too, we interview everyone. And Bell and I have been doing it for 22 years. And you know what, you meet everyone who has a song on your radio station, and I can tell you within 5 minutes of meeting them, who will be around. You just know. Jon Bell: They walk out the door, and Elvis will say “I give them six months”. Elvis: What is it we said about Natalie Imbruglia? Nick: What is it you said about us??? When we first walked in? Six minutes. Elvis: I knew you’d be here. I knew you’d be here. I gotta be honest. I’m surprised we’re still here. Nick: Does anyone here want to second that? Elvis: But listen, it’s coming out the 21st, Black and Blue, and we’ve heard one story how they got the title, but I’m sure there’s like several more, and next time you come back, we’ll hear more. Brian: You know, after we were successful, there were 20 of us, but that’s not the point. The point is anything that is successful, they come after you…you know, people in the industry. Jon Bell: But nobody buys a copy if they can get the original, guys. You keep doing good music and the other stuff will fall away. Brian: But the thing is that we’re still around. Nick: We’re still kicking it. We’ve taken the punches and the bruises. Howie: The whole big boy band thing that goes around with the bad connotation to it. We’ve gone through it all.. DJ: But Howie, you’ve got a great sense of humor about it, because we were talking about it off-the-air, and it’s just fun. It’s part of life. That’s the way to go. Howie: Yeah, I mean, you’ve got to just enjoy it for what it’s worth. I mean, you’ve got to be able to make fun of yourselves as well. We were on the MTV awards with Ben Stiller doing the Backstreet Boyz, you know, the sixth one, we were laughing our asses off. Elvis: Yeah, they were kind of cruel up there on stage. What are you going to do? Hey guys…thank you for waking up and coming in. Jon Bell: Thank you for being the 3 that care. Howie: We want to let everyone know that we’re going to be on TRL this Monday premiering our video, SOMH, so everyone come down. Elvis: You’re going to have such a huge crowd because not only will you be there, but school is out. Nick: We want to see everybody there. Brian: We didn’t plan it that way. Elvis: Of course you didn’t. Brian: I’m serious! Elvis: By the way, for the two that didn’t show up, we have a way taking your voices out of your songs. Seriously, we have all the tracks,. Brian: Are you serious? Cuz I’d love to hear it! (hysterical laughter) Nick: It wasn’t Kevin’s fault. Elvis: Of course not. Howie: I think Ax’s solo. Elvis: Don’t forget, the 21st, you’ve got to be in the stores to buy Black and Blue. Thanks you guys for coming in today. Guys: Thank you.
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