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Date: Nov 05, 2000 Smash Hits: Is there pressure on you for your new album ‘Black and Blue’ after the massive success of ‘Millennium’? Brian: I think there’s just pressure to make good quality music. I think we took some time and tried to put together the best album possibly could. We can’t really compare it to anything before ‘cos when you start thinking about numbers, everything turns into a blur. Smash Hits: So do you judge your success of the album before it is even released? Brian: Well we kinda analyse it song for song. It doesn’t really matter how much it sells or how many are out of the box in comparison to the two previous albums before. We just base stuff on the music – making sure the music is good, follow up with a good tour, good production staff and see how it goes. Smash Hits: Tell us about your new single ‘Shape Of My Heart’? Howie: It’s the first single of the album. Personally, it’s our bridge – kinda like ‘I Want It That Way’ was from the last album to this album, from ‘Backstreet’ to ‘Millennium’. I think it really has an edge to it. Smash Hits: ‘Black and Blue’ is the first time you guys have written a song together, ‘Time’ – what was that like? Kevin: We did a writing trip together. We just took some engineers and a couple of musicians to help us program and get our idea across but we went to the Bahamas for almost two weeks. We just got down and wanted to see what we could all do it, all working together. We’ve all written songs on our own for albums in the past. But all of us working together worked out great and we came out with eight songs. We are going to do it on the road. We are going to take a portable studio with us and get all our ideas out as they come. We’ve had alot of ideas built up inside us and been talking about them with each other for a while and we finally got them out. Smash Hits: Are you finding your fans are maturing as the band matures? AJ: Yeah, as we grow, our fans are growing. The context of the music is getting more mature. The pictures inside the album are getting more mature. It’s not a drastic change – but it’s enough to show the growth from the first album to now. It’s almost a 360 vibe wise compared to ‘Millennium’ which was very futuristic – lots of bright colours. Visually this album is darker. It’s not morbid – it’s just a little bit more artsy. A little bit more grown up. I think our fan base has expanded age wise I’m sure. I’m sure we still have the young 12 and 13 year old fans. And maybe we’ve got more 25 and 26 year old fans. We’ve been seeing alot more families coming to our shows and alot more guys coming to our shows. Which is really cool ‘cos we don’t want it to be for girls, young girls. We want it to be for every age, every race, every sex, genre, everybody – it’s good quality music. Smash Hits: You’ve dedicated songs to your fans – what is your attitude towards your fans? All: (nodding) Yeah, we wouldn't be here. AJ: They are very receptive, very understanding, very support of us as individuals and as well as a group. They are always there for us. They take the time out to make the signs, to give us gifts, make us gifts. They are always be there for us, and stand up for us if we are in a rut or in the media. Our fans are great. Smash Hits: Howie you once said you liked Gummi bears – have you been haunted ever since? Howie: (laughing) Not so much haunted. We went over to Europe about five years ago and I said in a magazine in Germany - ‘cos when I was younger I used loved them so much and we went over to Germany, that’s where they are made - so that was one of the first things that I did was get me some Gummi bears. And I said that to one of the magazines. Then the next thing you know every concert... Kevin: We've been picking gummy bears out of our shoes ever since. Howie: We’ve got lots of shoes damaged from having them thrown up on stage. Nick: Stop trying to digest the shoes! Brian: You should have said you’d like an exotic car back then. AJ: Park a Lamborghini at the back of the show. Howie: Yeah, VCR’s, TV’s... AJ: You don’t want anyone throwing a TV at you on stage! Smash Hits: What are some of the weirdest things you have ever received from fans? AJ: I got a cheese burger thrown up on stage, back in the day. Nick took it and shoved it in my show. Nick: He got really mad! AJ: I had to do a thee song medley of three uptempos in my socks ‘cos I had a cheese burger in my shoe. Thank you Mr Carter! But we get all kinds of weird things. Kevin: Panties, bras, condoms, you name it. Brian: I get hit with basketballs. They hurt sometimes too. We were in Chile and I got hit in the lower rib with a box of Kraft macroni and cheese and man, it hurt. It was really heavy. I was like “Thank you very much”. AJ got hit in the mouth with a rock. AJ: I thought it was a teddy bear or something flying – I couldn’t tell what it was. So I just stood there, I didn’t move. Brian: That’s probably your number one fan! AJ: I just figured it was a teddy bear and if it hits you in the face, it hits you in the face. But the next thing you know, bam! And my lip swelled up to the size of my foot! Brian: We were playing at a snow lodge and we were hit with snow balls. Snicker bar! Kevin: It was raining and somebody threw a big mud clot with a rock in it and hit AJ. He turned around and he had a bunch mud and blood all over his mouth. And we were like what happened? (talking weird) "Dude, I got hit by a rock" AJ: Eggs, all over the back of our shirts. Brian: Eggs thrown up in the rafters. Howie: You could see yolk hanging from the back. Nick: Does anyone have a skillet? (pretends to cook) Smash Hits: Nick, are you still the resident prankster? Nick: I, erm, I... AJ: He used to be! Nick: I’m getting a little better. But you’ve just reminded me. I’ll have to catch up on my skills. Howie: Last time he put some itching powder in Aj’s underwear. Luckily AJ didn’t wear the underwear on stage. Nick: That was last tour we did. No, I put it in his whole suit. We have these Batman looking fight suits and they are made out of rubber and they get really hot and sometimes they get itchy too. But I put this itching powder inside his suit. And it didn’t work! I was watching him the whole night. Brian: I remember Nick telling me he did that. And he was saying "Keep your eyes on Bone, keep your eyes on Bone – he’s going to be itching. He's probably going to try and take his thing off". So we're all out there doing (singing) “that makes your larger than life”. And we're all looking over at AJ and he didn’t even notice Smash Hits: What is the favourite part of making music for you guys? AJ: All of it has got good qualities. Touring is the most fun - travelling the world, all over Europe, all over Asia, Australia - all the different counties we’ve been to aside from being home in the US where everything is pretty much the same. But the recording sessions are actually fun. Especially working the guys up in Stockholm. They are just a hoot! They are the greatest bunch of guys. They let us have alot of input - production wise, vocal wise. We can just go in and sing the song from top to bottom and sing it how you feel it – it’s not line by line by line. Smash Hits: Do you guys get much input with the records? Kevin: We’ve always had input. We won’t do it if we don’t feel it. People submit songs but if we aren’t feeling that song is for us we don’t do it. Now that we’ve learnt alot as far as the recording process - we are producing and arranging the background vocals ourselves and even on some of the tracks we are playing instruments. As we learn more, we’re taking control more. Smash Hits: Did you play in record company foyers to get a deal? Kevin: Where ever people would listen we would sing. AJ: Wal-Mart parking lots. Brian: We sang over the intercom of a plane one time. (makes static noise and announcer type voice) "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Backstreet Boys want to..." Kevin: It was our first trip to New York to try get a record deal. We were so excited and told the flight attendant “Yeah, we’re off to New York to try get a record deal”. And they were like “Really? You guys are singers?”. So they got us on the intercom and we sang a cappella. Everybody was like “Yeah right, who are these guys?”. Smash Hits: Is it harder to play at the Georgia infront of 75,000 people or infront of a few people at a record company? Nick: Singing infront of record companies – those were probably the most intimate. They both probably have their moments. We used to travel all around Europe and the US and do school tours and we’d play infront of small crowds. And those type of crowds are really scary to play infront of. Kevin: Those crowds are more intimidating with a smaller crowd ‘cos you feel their eyes right on you. Howie: (whispers) They see and know everything. Kevin: I enjoyed the Georgia Dome – I thought it was awesome that we got to perform infront of that many people. But to me, you lose the intimacy. I feel so far away from the crowd. I feel dwarfed in those places. I don’t feel the audience gets as much out of it ‘cos they’re way up in the rafters. Smash Hits: You guys came to Australia in 1996 for a promo tour. You were just starting out – it’s about time you got back. Howie: We are very excited. We are coming down. We are doing a world tour in two days and our first stop is Australia. Or is it Japan? Nick: No, it has to be Australia because we go straight up across the time zones. Smash Hits: What did you think of Australia? Brian: It’s beautiful. We loved it. Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne are beautiful places. AJ: I saw my first koala bear in Australia. Kangaroos, koala bears. Kevin: The little koala bear was up a tree chewing on that...err... Nick: We went to that zoo... Kevin: ...Eucalyptus! He was like “Yo man...” Brian: I was just on my honeymoon in Fiji and it’s like four hours from Australia and we met several honeymoon couples that were from Sydney and Brisbane. Kevin: (speaking very slow) Can I just say that for the first time we want to take our tour to Australia. We’ve never taken our full band and tour to Australia or to South East Asia (stops and glares at Brian and AJ who are laughing because he’s talking so slowly). Are you tripping on me? Brian: Haahahahah! Kevin: Sorry, I’m on pain killers so I’m a bit... Smash Hits: Yeah Kevin, what happened to your leg? Kevin: I tore a ligament when I was dirt bike riding. We had some time off and I was on my KX250 and dumped it. I hyper-extended my knee and had to have corrective knee surgery. Smash Hits: Brian, what did your Mum think of the song you wrote her on the last album? Brian: She hated...no, she love it. It was something I had been working on for quite some time. I had been keeping it a secret for as long as I could until we actually did the first demo. Ever since I had left my original home in Kentucky when I became a Backstreet Boy and I moved to Orlando in 1993, I was kinda just picked up and taken out of school. I had alot of school mates and friends that were pushing me and behind me. And I always wanted them to sing on a record with me if I ever made it big. And it turned out to be that way. So I got my high school chorus teacher and helped him arrange everything and we got the same class mates I sang with years ago. It was alot of fun. It was a tributes to all our Mums. Smash Hits: You’ve all got BSB dolls now. What’s it like going into Burger King and buying your own Backstreet Boys doll? AJ: It’s so funny. I try to go to Burger King and if I want to get one of those CD’s for my Mum or Grandma, they say “Why are you going to buy it if you are on the CD? Why don’t you get it for free?”. I’m like “You know, I might as well buy it. It’s no big deal”. But it’s weird to see yourself as an action figure. Smash Hits: Did you guys always know that things would work out for you? Nick: We hoped and prayed. We had alot of hard times. We’ve been through alot. We’ve been together for a long time. Kevin: Not as long as the Rolling Stones, but we’ve been together for eight years now. Don’t think we jumped right into this. Brian: I’ll never forget recording at Platinum Post studio and seeing Whitney Houston’s platinum record up there and it said like 24 or 25 millions of ‘I Will Always Love You’ sold and I thought “How awesome would it be to sell that many records”. I could never have dreamed of having all the success that we’ve had. It’s been amazing. Smash Hits: Do you guys still pinch yourselves? Brian: We pinch ourselves all the time. Ping, ping (pinching his Burger King doll) Howie: It’s one of those kind of things, for me personally - I recall alot of it through telling people, like family. We are living it so much right now that it’s hard to step out of it. You almost really take it in when people around you talk about it, like “Wow, I saw you at this and I can’t believe you’ve done this many sales”. We’ve got so much going that we don’t really get caught up in it too much. I think that’s good for us though ‘cos it’s not going to our heads. We’ve got good families and we keep each other in check. Brian: But you’re conscious of it when you have to go to the grocery store at three in the morning. You’re conscious of it when people come u and say “Are you a...” Smash Hits: If this all ended tomorrow, what would you guys do? AJ: Cry alot. Lock myself in my room in my house and never leave. I would probably still be involved with music somewhere or another. Brian: We’d definitely still be friends. Maybe...(laughing) Smash Hits: You guys have started your own record company. Is that your way of putting something back into the industry or making some more money? Brian Hits: (laughing) I think it’s a way for us to really learn how to respect the artists that are out there. When you are a record company you take advantage. We’ve been taken advantage of in the past and we’ve grown and we’ve learned. But if there’s anybody that can learn from what we’ve been through then it’s us. If we are a little more positive and energetic about having artists on our own label and treating them the way they should be treated – then that’s a reward in itself for us. Because w know we gave back something that we learned from. Kevin: We believe you can have a record label and still have moral ethics. Smash Hits: Do you have a message for all your fans in Australia? Kevin: G’day Howie: Thank you to all the fans out there in Australia for all your many years of support. Brian: (in bad Aussie accent) Save some shrimp for the barbie! Howie: It’s been a while since we’ve been there. But we can’t wait to get over there! We’ll be there really soon! Kevin: We miss ya! We’ll see you soon. But we’re only going to be there for an hour!
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