Ok, this first article is from the July issue of SPIN Magazine. I don't like this article but I figure that everyone has a right to know what is being said about the guys. So here it is. Nick fans I know will not like this.
Tiffany is, like, shaking. She just smelled a Backstreet Boy. "He was wearing cologne!" she shriekd, as she pogos outside Disney World's House of Blues. The venue itself, where the Backstreet Boys will later perform to a soldout crowd whose average age is 12, is more than apt: An antispetic franchise inspired by similary successful ventures, it's pratically a metaphor for the Boys themselves. But to the girls who swarm around Tiffany on this bright florida afternoon, Backstreet inspire nothing less than reverance. "I was close to Nick once," says a solemn 15-year-old named Jana. "But I was so shocked I couldn't say anything."
Having borrowed liberally not just from now-defunct, sexually nonthreatening Euro boy bands such as Take That and East 17 but also from the American daddy of them all-New Kids on the Block-the Backstreet Boys have emerged as the teenybopper band of the moment. "I've tried everything to meet them," says a shy, chubby fan named Katie, who would really rather worship from afar; she's happy to sit with her copy of Hangin' With the Backstreet Boys: An Unauthorized Biography, and reread factiods about Nick. "We have alotin common," she says, readjusting her wire-rimmed glasses. "We both like to play Nintendo, and we both like sports, and....ooooh, he's fine!"
Eighteen-year-old Nick Carter is by far the most popular Boy-he's the youngest and looks a lot like Leonardo DiCaprio. Then there's 20-year-old AJ "Bone" McLean, who-with his three tatoos, wacky facial hair, and 200 pairs of tinted sunglasses-is either a cliche or kinda dangerous depending on you age. Howie Dorough, 24, answers to Howie D. or Sweet D. He lives at home, and aside from a Corvette Stingray, his most extravgent post-fame purchase has been central heat and AC. HOwie hooked up with Nick and AJ back in 1993, when they were all auditioning for TV shows here in their native Orlando. Kevin Richardson, now 27, responded to an ad placed by a talent agency; he then called ihs cousin, Brian Littrell. Unlike the others, who were looking to get famous any way they could, 23-year-old Brian has nursed dreams of singing professionally. IN fact, back in high school, he'd wander the halls crooning New Kids tunes. "People looked at me like it was a sissy thing," Brian says, "but I didn't care. I would've given anything to do what they were doing."
Today, thanks to their manager, Johnny Wright, he is. Wright had just come off tour four years as the New Kids road manager when, in 1993 he heard about a wuintet of pretty white boys who could harmonize like an R&B group. He immediately saw the possiblities. "It was all hip-hop and alternative music then," says Wright, "but I knew that the girls who had been New Kids fans had little sisters."
Though they may be five men who dress alike, pop-and-lock in sync, and routinely dodge stuffed animals onstage, the Backstreet Boys-and Wright- predictably run from and and all comparisons to NKOTB. Still, while creating and refining their image, Wright called ex-New Kid Donnie Wahlberg and asked him to give Backstreet advice. Wahlberg passed. "Johnny Wright learned alot from us," Wahlberg says ruefully. Now 28 years old and cobbling together an acting career, Wahlberg understands all too well the ups and downs of being a teen heartthrob. "If there's any resistance to the Backstreet Boys," he says, "it's probably because of us."
That is all I have time to put up today, but I will gt the rest up tomorrow or later tonight!!
