NICKS STORY ~~~ IN
HIS OWN WORDS
"It all started in a small town in Upstate
New York called Jamestown. I was born
in the same hospital as Lucille Ball of I
Love Lucy fame. There was a lounge called
the Yankee Rebel, which my father and
Grandfather both owned- it was a small
place. My sister B.J. was born up there ,but
my other brother and sister were born
in Florida.
We had a house on Webber road: I used
to love it up there: it was fun! My
grandparents all lived up there.
We had a little dance floor at the
Yankee rebel, and my dad used to be a DJ and
play records. When I was real small I'd used
to get up there in my diapers and
dance around. I have pictures of me with
headphones on that were bigger than my
face. I was just a little chunk; everybody
used to call me Charlie Brown. This is all
before B.J. was born.
One day my parents thought they lost
me, they were walking around looking for
me saying, "Where's Nicky, Where's Nicky?" We
had an old Pac Man game and I
had pulled up a stool; There I was in my
white diaper, sitting at the stool playing
the game. That was where my love for video
games began! My parents thought maybe it'd
be cool to move down to Florida and
start a
different business, so they packed up their
old Cadillac Eldorado and loaded all our
stuff into a little trailer. I was about five
or six then. The performing bug didn't
really hit me until I was about six or
seven....'maybe I can sing,
maybe I can do
this, maybe I can do that'.
So we made it to Florida, and we're
moved into our first house. I guess it was a
retirement home, because that's where my dad
started working. We lived there for
maybe a year. It was about for 16 people but
we built into it. My
sister and I
used to play with frogs and stuff around
there! I have a picture of us all in the mud
and we have frogs on our heads! We got into
some paint one time! We were painting a chair
for our father and we were joking around and
we started painting
each other. And so we had to take a bath in
one of those little swimming pools.
We, me and B.J., used to get into so much
mischief, it was so funny. One of my
favorite things to do in the backyard was go
swinging on the hammock. I'd have
her on it, and twist her up in it, let her go
and watch her spin. She kept spinning
and she'd get all dizzy and tell mom. This
was a big backyard and the senior
citizens really didn't care. Another thing my
sister and I liked to do was sword fight
with wood sticks. We would do that all the
time. We got friendly with a few of the
older people. My sister got
really close to a
woman named Millie, then Millie passed away.
They used to be real good friends;
Millie would buy her stuff. Being around
older people, I learned to respect people
and that also helped me.
When we moved to another place, I met
one of my best friends, his name was
Brent and he and I used to get into trouble
and all that. In all, I'd say my family and
I have lived in about five different
houses down
here. We kept the same business, we just kept
trying to live closer to the retirement
home without living there. Eventually we did,
we moved very close to it. My mom
was a cook at the retirement home, an
excellent cook. My mom's a really good
cook! My brother, Aaron, and my sister, Angel
(they're twins), were born at
Tampa General/Children's Hospital. Leslie was
born at the retirement home. She
wasn't born in the hospital.
I had to cope with my mother giving
Leslie more attention than me and B.J. We
would talk to each other and say, "Gosh,
she's getting all the attention." My
grandmother would spoil her. We get along
now, because Leslie gets treated the
same as us now.
When the twins came, that really
affected everybody. Leslie got jealous too! I
was excited to have another brother! The
twins really didn't change my life that
much, but I guess you could say it was a
happy change, because now I have lots of
siblings! My dad, who's an only child, got
all the attention, but had to make
friends. I make friends, but always have
someone to play with and hang out with.
My first school was Miles Elementary.
Miles was my favorite school, I loved
that school! I was there for four years. That
was when I did my first play, The
Phantom of the Opera. My teacher helped me
get into it. What happened was she picked
someone for the role, but he couldn't sing,
so he sort of
strayed off. She needed to find somebody and
luckily I was there. I was real
nervous about my first play, but I pulled
through. I felt good about it. Being
on-stage is my life!
Next year, I went to Orange Grove. I
had favorite teachers there too. This was
elementary. I missed a lot of school, because
I did a lot of acting then. I started
when I was about nine years old, right after
Phantom of the Opera. We were kind
of tossed between the acting, dancing or
singing, so I kind of dabbed in a few of
them. I did plays and commercials and sang in
a few places. I did commercials for
the Lottery and the Money Store (I was about
10), a lot of that kind of stuff. I
really decided what I wanted to be when I was
singing. I auditioned for the Mickey
Mouse Club and Backstreet Boys. And the
Mickey Mouse Club said they wanted
me! I had a feeling that that was going to be
my good acting year- everybody has a
good acting year! I had to chose between the
two of them... Backstreet
Boys or
the Mickey Mouse Club!"
"My siblings loves coming with me [to
auditions] and stuff. The little ones were so
young then, they didn't really know what was
happening. My first commercial was
for The Money Store, I was about ten. Then I
got called by the Mickey Mouse
Club and the Backstreet Boys all at the same
time. It just changed my whole life- I
was twelve going on thirteen. Of course, I
turned the Mickey Mouse Club down
for the Backstreet Boys! It was kind of
scary,: there were meetings and talk about
when Backstreet Boys were going to get a
record deal... But we did
quickly
become local sensations! We did malls and
worked around in local places. I was
the youngest, the next oldest was AJ, next
oldest was Brian, next was Howie and
the oldest was Kevin. I was probably closest
to Howie, Brian and AJ at the time.
When we began traveling together and rooming
together, I turned out to be the one
who liked to sleep the most. AJ ate the most
-- and I pulled the most
practical
jokes!
I brought my Super Nintendo with me
too for whatever free time I had. In those
days, when I was at home, I went to Universal
Studios a lot -- I like
to ride Jaws!
I'm actually afraid of sharks for
real! I had a dream one time, the worst dream
in the world: I was on the back of a big
cruise ship, and I leaned over the rail. We
were in the Bahamas and the water was crystal
clear. This lady pulls up on a red
jet-ski and we're talking to each other.
Suddenly, there's this 26-foot Great White
shark! You could see it's shadow underneath
helm and I yelled to her. I said,
'Jump!' and 'Watch out!' She jumped and
grabbed on to the pole, where I was
leaning over and I tried to pull her up. The
shark jumped out of the water and
grabbed her and pulled her down under. That's
like my worst dream ever! That's
the only thing I'm most afraid of.
Years ago, when I was showing off on
my bike and broke my right arm, it didn't
scare me as much as the though of sharks --
and I did a 360 in the air
and landed
right on my arm! I'm generally not a scared
kind of person. I try to be funny, but I'm
not really funny that often -- I just keep
quiet a lot. I'm
interested in girls, but it's hard to find a
girl who doesn't just like me for what I do,
but for who I am. I don't really test the
girls, you can just tell. When I was in
school, I used to come home with letters --
this was when I was really
young. It
was so funny, my mom kept all these letters
that I came home with in my book
bag! These girls, I can't remember how young
we were, but they would write stuff.
They could hardly even write their names, but
they were writing 'I love you'! It
was so funny in a sweet way! I was looking
back on it, and they had like hearts all
over the paper... My family keeps me humble
though, I still have to
clean my room
and put my dishes in the sink and stuff. My
room's got a lot of posters in it, my drum
set, my bed, a VCR
and a TV. It
looks like an old 60's room. I enjoy the
times when I can get home with my family,
but Backstreet Boys are my family now too --
and we want to stay
together."
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