Almost 5 years ago now, music magic happened. It all started with ou Pearlman's dream of having a pop-group. He started holding auditions for a "New-Kids type" vocal group. The first member of the group was AJ. Then came Howie, who at the time had the stage name of Tony Donnetti. Next, Nick was offered a part in the group. He had to choose between either BSB or the Mickey Mouse Club, evidently, he chose BSB. Lou, along with the three boys felt they needed more voices to make the harmonies richer. Kevin was working at Disney World at the time and his friend told him about these three guys who were starting a band. He went and auditioned and got in. They still needed one more voice so they held auditions. When they still hadn't found anyone Kevin called on his cousin Brian, back in Kentucky. They paged Brian out of his class to tell him the news. The next day Brian hopped on a plane to Orlando to auditioned. He got the part and that was the begginging of the biggest success story of the year. They still needed to find a record label. Before they could do that, Lou brought them to music managers Donna & Johnny Wright of Wright Stuff Management. When Johnny heard the boys perform he knew there was something there. They set up appointments with record labels everywhere. If a label couldn't hear the guys sing personally, Donna would hold up her phone so they could hear them perform and hear the crowd's enthusiastic reaction. They soon became a local phenomenon. At one school gig in Ohio, Donna held up the phone to David McPherson of Jive records. They were signed right after that.
How They Got Their Name
They explored many possibilities for a name. They knew they wanted to have "boys" on the end. There was a popular hang-out for teens, locals and tourists called the Backstreet Market. They took "Backstreet" threw "Boys" on it and the rest is history.
Backstreet Boys Then & Now
