Backstreet's Back, All Right?

Back - Index - Submissions - - What is RSS? Date: Oct 30, 2000 Source: Launch.com Submitted By: Melody By Karu F Daniels The scene was, frankly, surreal: members of one of the biggest music groups on the planet hanging out at a world-famous amusement park. The place was the Universal Studios & Theme Park in sunny Orlando, Florida, and the group was the Backstreet Boys. Marking their recent foray into cyberspace via a very sticky multimedia, Stan Lee-produced Internet portal (www.BackstreetProject.com) and a megamillion-dollar endorsement deal with Burger King--which includes BSB comic books and action figures--members of the best-selling supergroup upped the promotional ante a few weeks ago by treating members of the media, key tastemakers, and hordes of screaming adolescent fans to a full-fledged concert at the newly opened Hard Rock Live on the Universal lot. (They also took advantage of preferential treatment by catching a private ride on some of the most elaborate rollercoasters in the country.) Although most of those in attendance would probably have been happy even if the guys had just come out onstage and said hello, then stood for the obligatory photo op with high-powered execs, what BSB offered was more than the eager crowd bargained for. For starters, pop newcomer Pollyanna (Backstreeter Howie Dorough's older sister) performed a few flamenco-inspired numbers to warm up the audience. Then Howie, A.J. McLean, and Nick Carter took over the stage and performed solo sets, which included covers of George Thorogood & the Destroyers' classic "Bad To The Bone," Santana's "Maria, Maria," the Commodores' "Brick House," and Bryan Adams's '80s nugget "Heaven." While A.J.--in his alter ego Johnny No Name's getup--busted out on a hard-edge rock tip, Howie tapped into sizzling R&B and Latin influences, and Nick--who played some mean drums on each set--mixed hearty vocal bravado with old-fashioned mainstream pop sensibilities. Missing members Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrell were both off enjoying newlywed bliss, but the show that the rest of BSB put on made up for their absence. The Universal appearance took place shortly after BSB wrapped production of their eagerly anticipated third album, Black & Blue, which is due to arrive in stores on November 21. The album's first single, "Shape Of My Heart," has already jump-started the Backstreet hype, gaining instant airplay on radio airwaves nationally and racing up the Billboard charts. Some industry insiders are predicting that the album will be the biggest-selling chart debut of the year, and that wouldn't be much of a surprise. After all, BSB's last album, Millennium, broke first-week sales records and went on to sell more than 21 million copies worldwide, spending more than a year on the charts thanks to the high-powered singles "Larger Than Life," "Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely," and "I Want It That Way." While all the other Boys were taking care of business elsewhere, LAUNCH got a chance to briefly sit down and chat with Howie Dorough, who gave us the scoop on Black & Blue. "We recorded 15 songs," he reports. "A lot of that is stuff we actually wrote, together and collaborating with other artists, writers, and producers. And we got a lot of great stuff from Max Martin, from Sweden. It's really good, exciting--it took us a little over two months to record. It's not so much a different direction...we realize with each album, we want to grow. You listen to Millennium versus "Backstreet's Back"...hopefully our plan is to grow with each album. We luckily got over the sophomore slump with the last album, so I think, this time around, the third album, everyone is like, 'Okay, what do you have now to show us? Are you delivering the goods or what?' So we were very critical, making sure we had the right material. "At the same time," Howie continues, "we wanted to get more involved, we did a lot of writing. But we didn't want to do all the writing. It's still very new to us, even though we learned a lot within the last five years. There are a couple of songs all five of us wrote together, there's some stuff I wrote with other writers, and A.J. wrote a song with another writer. The material is a little edgier than Millennium; we have a couple songs with a hip-hop sound, we've got seven songs that have a 'Don't Want You Back' feel, to the next level. We've got a song called 'Get Another Boyfriend,' telling the girl to get another boyfriend [because] her man is not good for her. Then we've got a song that has a marching beat--BOOM, BOOM, BOOM--and that's called 'The Call.' It's about a guy trying to be a player, and he's made a call to his girlfriend saying, 'I'm gone with my friends,' and actually he's out with someone else. We also have some good ballads." The Boys worked on Black & Blue outside of the U.S., recording in Sweden and writing in the Bahamas. "That was lots of fun," Howie says of the latter trip. "We took two weeks down there, and we wrote six songs--I had a song already written that I came to the table with. It was the five of us and the five security guys. We said, 'No girlfriends, no fiancées, no family.' We wanted just the five of us to get away. It was almost like a bonding moment again." Originally, BSB had discussed the possibility of making the new album a double-disc set. "That was our goal for this album, to do a double-CD, one group one and one individual one. Two songs [for] each person, and each one taking a different style--like me, I'd do the salsa/Ricky Martin kind of thing, Brian would do his gospel feel, Kevin would do his Elton John kind of feel, A.J. would do R. Kelly, and Nicky would do rock. But because of time, we weren't able to do it this time around, so hopefully [we'll do it on] the next album. We want to show the fans, besides being a group, we're also five individuals." "We got over the sophomore slump with the last album, so this time around, everyone is like, 'Okay, what do you have now to show us? Are you delivering the goods or what?'" A collaboration with Michael Jackson may also be in the works for the future, according to Howie: "It's not official yet. We did the whole song already--we recorded the whole thing in case Michael can't do it." In addition to his Backstreet duties, Howie's been doing some acting, but it looks like that'll stay a sideline for a while. "I did an episode of Roswell, the last episode, the cliffhanger, and they want me to come back this season. They want me to be a recurring character; they introduced me as an alien leader. I've had some offers to do some movies, but with the Backstreet Boys' schedule, it didn't work out. And we all realize, we want to give each other space for our individual things as well, to grow, but we've all made a commitment to make sure Backstreet Boys is first. That's the only way for us to stay together as a unit, because if not, we have too many different individual projects." And how does it feel to be immortalized in comic and action figure form? "This comic book, this was one of Nicky's biggest dreams," Howie says. "He's always drawn cartoon characters of us, with our heads bigger than our bodies; he's an artist and one of his passions has always been to have a comic. And when we did the last tour, we were kind of like in futuristic superhero outfits, but obviously the comic book came after the tour--if we'd planned it earlier, maybe we would have dressed more like our comic book characters. It's one of those things...we've delicately tried to choose our path with our management. There are so many things we could have totally cashed in on, all these opportunities to go out and sponsor this, and show this product and that one, but we're trying to be picky and choosy--we don't want this to be the kiss of death. And that's why we said we didn't want to have dolls of us, per se. That's why, with this superhero thing, okay, it's a different identity. And it wasn't the most comfortable feeling at first. Burger King originally wanted to do these actual figures of us on skateboards for the Kids' Meals, something with our faces on it, and we're like, 'No, no.'" Momentary discomfort aside, Howie's optimistic about the prospects of the BackstreetProject comic book and portal. "Hopefully," he says, "we'll grab a lot of guys who weren't necessarily fans of Backstreet Boys, [but] who are comic fans. And the girls who are into it--cool!" Speaking of girls, the recent weddings of Kevin and Brian prompt the obvious question: Is there a special lady waiting in the wings for Howie? "You know," he responds, "now, because of the fast pace going on with everything--I haven't found the right one yet, and honestly, I'm not really looking to find the right one yet. I think you can see within the group, you can see there's some married, and each of us has different personalities, and different wants and desires in life. Ideally, I was hoping to get married at 30, because that's when my brother got married, but that's only in three years from now. I'm now kind of pushing it until 35. I think timing, for me, is everything." And the timing certainly seems right for BSB to conquer the world. Comment on this item. Recent Comments Submitted by: markus http://imrdsoacha.gov.co/silvitra-120mg-qrms Comment on this item. Next Item: Boys To Keep Their Faces Off Cover Of 'Black And Blue' Prev Item: Backstreet Boy Talks About Extensive Black & Blue World Tour