Interviews with Brian

Brian was on one of the the local radio stations here in 
Pittsburgh, B-94 on March 3 around 4:20 pm. Here's the trans-
cript from the interview for backstreet.net:

March 3, 2000 4:20 pm 

Jonny Hartwell (The DJ): We’re here with Brian from the Backstreet Boys 
(or some sort of intro…I didn’t get that part on tape) 

Brian: Hey. Long time no talk, huh? 

Jonny: Really? Yeah! I, five, five and a half years, ago had an oppurtunity 
to talk to you guys, you specifically, you were promoting “We’ve Got 
It Going On” 

Brian: Oh Wow. 

Jonny: Do you remember promoting that CD? 

Brian: I do, actually. 

Jonny: And back then you were being compared to Boyz II Men and All 4 One
and those bands, and now you’ve pretty much marked out your own territory, 
haven’t you? 

Brian: Well we’re trying. We’re working hard at it. 

Jonny: B-94 listeners would beat me about the head and shoulders if I didn’t
ask you this question. Are you ready? 

Brian: I’m ready. 

Jonny: Are you ready? 

Brian: I’m ready. 

Jonny: Cause I’ll continue to ask the question until you give me an 
affirmative answer. 

Brian: (Laughs) 

Jonny: Are you ready? 

Brian: Yeah, I’m ready. 

Jonny: Are you ready, Brian? 

Brian: I’ll do my best. 

Jonny: Are…the Backstreet Boys coming to Pittsburgh? 

Brian: Are we coming to Pittsburgh? 

Jonny: Ya gotta say yes! 

Brian: Well, of course we are! (He said this somewhat sarcastically) Of 
course we are! 

Jonny: You…You’re not making that up, you are. 

Brian: No, of course we are. We have to, uh, before we come to Pittsburgh, 
we want to make a new album, for the Pittsburgh fans. 

Jonny: Oh really? 

Brian: Yeah. 

Jonny: And when is that coming out? 

Brian: This particular tour that we’re on right now, ends in about two 
weeks, and then right after that, we’re going to take a little down-time 
and rest, see our families… 

Jonny: Do you remember those people? 

Brian: Uh…occasionally. (Laughs) After that we’re banging out another 
record in the studio. So you’ll see it this year. 

Jonny: This summer? 

Brian: Uhhhh…probably fall. 

Jonny: FALL?! 

Brian: Probably fall. Don’t mark me to it, I know we’re live on the
air, but uh…(laughs) 

Jonny: Please, just do me a favor. Just do me a favor. Just so, you know, 
I can keep my ratings in Pittsburgh, say, “I, Brian, from the Backstreet 
Boys promise we’ll come to Pittsburgh.” 

Brian: Oh man. You’re gonna put it on me, huh? 

Jonny: Please! Come on! They’ll kill me if you don’t! 

Brian: (Laughs) I, Brian Littrell from the Backstreet Boys, will do…will do
anything possible… 

Jonny: Brian, you’re skirting the issue 

Brian: Anything possible to get the other four fellas, including myself,with 
our management staff, there in Pittsburgh to perform for the lovely 
Pittsburgh fans. 

Jonny: Brian, Brian. I will play the Backstreet Boys 24 hours a day until… 

Brian: (Laughs) People are gonna get sick of us! 

Jonny: No! No! No! No! No! Ya gotta promise! Just say, “I promise!” 

Brian: I promise to do my best 

Jonny: (Sounding upset) There. Ok. Hey- I actually got to see you, I was 
backstage at the Grammy’s, and I really earned a new respect for you 
guys. I saw your rehersal at the Staple’s Center. A lot of people may 
think, you do a little song, you do a little dance, boy you guys have a
long, arduous day, don’t you? 

Brian: Yeah. It’s pretty busy. It’s pretty grueling sometimes. People 
don’t really realize until you’re there, and I’m glad you got to realize it! 

Jonny: Phew! That’s a lot of work! Now, first of all, you did a great 
job at the Grammy’s this year. 

Brian: Well, thank you.

Jonny: Who came up with the idea to do the medley before you actually 
did the, did your, doing, “Lonely” on the Grammy’s? 

Brian: Well, actually it was our idea, we wanted to kind of collaborate 
I guess with all audiences. I think we were trying to appeal and touch base
 with like decades of music in the past, and instead of just singing, you 
know, certain years out, and stuff like that, we wanted to pick different 
acts and different groups that had really made an impact for a long,long 
time. 

Jonny: How did you get hooked up with Elton, Elton John? 

Brian: Wow. Elton is, Elton is actually a good friend of ours. We’ve known
him for several years now, and done some things with him, and it never 
really got televised or anything, but he asked us, he picked us out of 
everybody, to come up and sing, “Philadelphia Freedom” with him and so we 
were kind of ecstatic about that. 

Jonny: And it just blew everybody away. 

Brian: (Laughs) It was pretty breathtaking, from an artist’s standpoint, 
because we stand up on stage all the time and perform, but standing up with
him, was definitely a tribute. 

Jonny: Well, I know that we’re running out of time, so tell us a little 
about this comic book. You guys are, comics. Stan Lee- you hooked up with 
Stan Lee. What’s that all about? 

Brian: Yeah, “The Backstreet Project.” 

Jonny: Uh Huh. You guys are becoming super-heroes,now? 

Brian: Well, I don’t know if you consider us superheroes, but, uh, well, 
maybe so I guess, if Spiderman was a superhero. 

Jonny: (Laughs) Well, who’s the comic book fan of the group? 

Brian: Actually, Nick has, ever since I’ve known Nick, since 1993, before 
I met you even, you know, five and a half years ago, he’s always drawn,
like charactures of us as comic book characters. He’s a very, very 
talented artist, and people really don’t know a lot about his drawings,
but he actually designed the whole comic book. The whole script, the
whole structure of us as characters and our special powers, and it was a 
big thing for him. And, I mean, he’s excited about it, we’re all excited 
about it. 

Jonny: (Laughing throughout the entire thing) That’s funny. That’s funny. 
Well I promised your publicist, I’d only keep you five minutes, but real 
quick-just one more thing. 

Brian: Okay. 

Jonny: Just one more- “I promise…” 

Brian: (Laughs) I know you’re gonna edit me anyway! (He won’t say it!) 

Jonny: (Laughs) No, no, no. We’re really looking forward to it, and 
if you guys could just come up to Pittsburgh, you’ve been to State College, 
and Columbus, and Washington, but you skip over Pittsburgh every single 
time!! You’re killing us! 

Brian: We will do our best, I promise. 

Jonny: Alright. Hey Brian, thanks for taking time to talk with us. 

Brian: Thanks, Jonny. I appreciate it. 

Jonny: All the luck in the world, pal, thank you. 

Brian: Ok. Buh-Bye. (Hangs up) 

Jonny: There ya go! What do ya think? Huh? Once again, we’ve scooped the 
competition, and we’ve just demonstrated WE’RE GETTING SCREWED AGAIN!! God! 
The big rumor is that they were going to be in town over the summer, 
and he was like, “uhhhh…looks like fall” That’s what they’ve been saying 
for THREE FREAKIN’ YEARS! Alright, well, that was kinda cool to talk to him. 
So, anyway we’re running a little late on traffic… 

Jay Towers: I'm excited about the guest that we have on the telephone, 
that is Brian Littrell from the Backstreet Boys. Brian's coming back 
to town with the boys for the big show in Lansing, coming up next week, 
and Brian, it's good to have you on the show. You and I, last time you were 
in town spent some time together and we had a really good time. 

Brian: Yeah we did, how ya doin Jay? 

Jay: I'm doin good, it's good to have you on the show. And a new development 
since we last talked, a recent engagment, congratulations. 

Brian: Yeah, well thank you I appreciate it. 

Jay: How do you like engaged life? 

Brian: Uh, it's nice. I mean it's not really that much different than the 
dating thing but uh, you know, I'm looking forward to the wedding so 
it's exciting. 

Jay: You guys set a date yet, or are you still working on it? 

Brian: Uh, we have but you know, there's all kinds of talk over the internet, 
and all kinds of people got it wrong, but uh, I'm sorry to say I 
can't really tell ya. 

Jay: Oh that's alright, you know that's personal. I get hackled all the 
time because my fiancee and I have been engaged for 2 years, and we haven't 
nailed a date yet. It's like you know how people attack you all the 
time, like "What's the date?" And you're like, "Listen I don't know yet. 
Back off a little bit." 

Brian: We got one but uh, you know... 

Jay: But that's cool, you know, it's gotta be private. Some things gotta 
be private. Overall, how do you think the fans have reacted? 

Brian: I think the fans have reacted...uh, wonderfully actually. It was 
pretty surprising to me. I hadn't really thought about it in the intitial, 
like pertaking of doin it, um but when we got on tour, I had all kinds of 
congratulatory signs in the audience and I've read a lot of good things 
on the internet and I keep up with the website and what's goin on out 
there and what the chats are talkin about. And everybody seems to 
be very positive about it. 

Jay: You know what, you gotta be. Sometimes I think that people don't 
understand that everybody is a real person. Everybody's human. 
Brian from the Backstreet Boys can fall in love with a girl and marry her if 
he wants to, and it's not fair to say anything otherwise. 

Brian: Yeah, I mean it's just, it's life, you know. Life goes on outside 
of what we do on Tour, and it's nice. It's really a down own-type thing, 
and it's something I've always wanted to do, so. 

Jay: That's awesome. Something we've been talkin about on the air a lot, 
that my morning show and I are really excited about, just cause we're 
big Stan Lee fans, is the comic book stuff comin up. 

Brian: Yeah, we're excited about it. Uh, we just topped it off in, I 
think in Atlanta we did the Dome a couple weeks ago, and um, we like issued 
everything at the beginning there, and just to see what the fans thought. 
And we're comin out with some Webisodes over the web, uh, we're really really 
excited about the comic. We're getting great reviews about it, and a lot 
of people are interested in it, so. 

Jay: How does the comic work when people pick it up, is it the kind of 
deal where you guys play yourselves and then you turn into superheros, 
cause I haven't seen the design yet. 

Brian: Well, the whole concept is basically of our lives in a comic 
book as if we were on tour and uh there is an alien invasion kinda like, 
kinda like what happened in Larger Than Life...(laughs) 

Jay: Right. (laughs) 

Brian: And uh, there's some sort of alien invading and what happens is we 
get a hold of these little crystal like things. Actually Stan Lee 
and Nick designed the whole story. 

Jay: Wow 

Brian: Um, and designed the characters, like Nick has been drawing us as 
cartoon characters for a long long time now. And it's a big dream of his, 
so. We get a hold of these little crystal things with special powers and 
so we can do things like individual things like savin' the world. So here 
we go. 

Jay: That's awesome. Well you know, we're looking forward to you, you're 
comin back to town. You're gonna be in Lansing in a couple weeks and uh, 
DRQ's doing something exciting. We're giving a mother and a daughter an 
opportunity to get on stage with you guys, which is awesome. 

Brian: Cool 

Jay: I gotta tell you, the whole biggest fan record, I mean, the second I 
heard that, I put it on a cassette tape and mailed it to my mother. Boy, she 
wept. I mean, people in entertainment, it's not just singers, I mean what 
a great record for a mother. 

Brian: Well thank you, that's a big compliment to me. I know as a song writer 
and an up and coming song writer, that's a big compliment coming 
from a radio guy. 

Jay: Well it's important to love your mother. I call mine every other 
morning. (laughs) 

Brian: When you get those contest winners, you tell them I said hello and 
if they're first in line, we'll have our press co-ordinator, Leela put 
them first in line and they can walk up with me. 

Jay: Oh, that'll be awesome. That'll be great. We look forward to that. 
It's gonna be a lot of fun. Brian, thanks for doin the show. I know you're 
so busy gettin ready for this tour and all over the country right now, 
but we look forward to havin you back here near the motor city and we'll 
talk to you again soon. 

Brian: Yeah. Thanks Jay I appreciate it. 

Jay: Thanks Brian, we'll talk to you soon.