By: Laura Jamison
Backstreet Boys
One by one, the five Backstreet Boys arrive at the Presidential Suite in Indianapolis's Canterbury Hotel for their noon TEEN PEOPLE photo shoot, each accompanied by his own bodyguard. A policeman is stationed outside the room too, and with good reason: Fans have been staking out the place since the Boys' arrival. This morning several teenage girls roam the halls, hoping to get a glimpse of the band. One girl, accompanied by friends and her mother, clutches a homemade, bare-chested Howie Dorough doll, complete with ponytail and leather pants.
When Nick Carter, 20, the last to arrive, straggles in bleary-eyed, he leaps onto A.J. McLean, 22, wrestles him onto a bed and smooches his pal on the cheek -- much to the chagrin of A.J., who makes a "leave-me-alone" face. He and the other guys are exhausted on this mid-March day, having gone out the night before to bowl and play paint tag to celebrate the end of their sold-out Millennium tour, which wraps up next week.
Although the Orlando fivesome has been actively promoting the 12-million-selling Millennium for almost a year now, there's no sigh that things are cooling down. Even the announcement that cousins Brian Littrell, 25, and Kevin Richardson, 28, have both become engaged seems to have done nothing to temper Backstreet fever. Congratulatory signs pepper every venue. "I've gotten a few 'Marry me instead' [signs]," says Brian. "But those are OK too."
Crazy Sexy Cool
Backstreet Boys also have been extremely well received by fans for their physical attributes. Kevin was declared the "Sexiest Pop Star" by People magazine -- to the great amusement of his mates. "They call me Mr. Sexy," he says, rolling his eyes. One European magazine gave the others even more ammunition by dubbing Kevin "Mr. Body Beautiful." "We still bust his chops about it," says Howie, 26.
But, of course, golden-boy Nick still comes first with the fans. "All I can say is, it's very flattering," he says, appearing uncomfortable. "I try to make myself look as normal as possible because I like people to relate to me." But Nick is no slave to his fans' expectations: "If I feel like cutting my hair, I'll do it," he says, running a hand through his new short 'do. At the Billboard Music Awards in December, he gelled his hair straight up, an idea he came up with en route to the ceremony. (For long-locked Howie, hair-raising experiences can be traced back to high school: "I let my mom relax my hair my junior year, and I went to school and everyone thought I had a toupee on my head," he remembers.)
Now that more eyes than ever are focused on the Boys, one might expect their image to become even more important to them, but A.J. insists the opposite is true. "You get up at seven in the morning, you get on the [tour] bus, and there are fans outside. You just don't care what you look like. But," he emphasizes, "you must brush your teeth. That's a must."
When recalling his own prefame years, A.J. says, "I was a geek. Every day I would go to school with a different style: One day I'd wear something really ghetto fabulous and one day I would get all prepped out." Today, he says, "tons of kids come to me and say 'I like your style because you're different.'" (His tattoo count is now up to eight).
But enough about their looks. The compliments from fans are fine, but, says Howie, "We really want them to respect our music first."
Not to worry. Simply being cute doesn't get you six Grammy nods (for the 1999 and 2000 ceremonies combined) -- and some wonder whether it was the band's youth appeal that prevented them from taking home a single trophy from the February awards. Nick says they weren't bothered by the shutout. "Just to be able to perform at the Grammys and to be nominated against people like Santana -- it's an honor to be in his category," he says. "I would have liked to take [an award] home, but everyone get their time to shine. Maybe [our will be] in 30 years, like Santana."
Magic and Loss
The Grammys favor serious artists, and Millennium certainly has its share of serious singles. The video for "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" couldn't be more earnest. "We wanted to make [the video] really deep," says Howie, explaining that the song was the last they'd recorded with one of their first producers, Denniz Pop, who died of stomach cancer in 1998. They aimed to show fans that life as a member of one of the world's biggest pop bands is "not all glamour," says Brian, whose May 1998 heart surgery is dramatized in the clip. "Everybody has to deal with tragedies and loss."
For his part, Howie drew upon the experience of losing his 37-year-old sister, Caroline, to lupus in 1998. (He's since established a foundation in her name, the Caroline Dorough-Cochran Lupus Memorial Foundation.) "To me [the video] was a tribute," he says. "She's making me be the strong person in my family, the one that goes out there and makes a difference."
Kevin drew upon emotions from a tragedy of his own for his scenes: He lost his father, Jerald, to cancer in 1991. "At first I was angry because he was 49 years old and he was such a good, generous man and a good father," he says. "The only thing that helped me get through that was the fact that in the hospital, there were, like, five- and six-year-olds dying. I was like, 'You know what? At least my dad got 49 years.'"
The Boys are now hard at work on their third U.S. release, scheduled to drop in October. They plan to be more involved in the songwriting and producing; A.J. says that a double CD is even a possibility. To write it, "we're going to take a trip to an island for a few weeks, just us five and studio engineers," he says. "We're trying to go a little more edgy, but that doesn't mean we're going to totally change our style."
Brian -- who cowrote Millennium's "Larger than Life" and "The Perfect Fan" -- nods in agreement. "The chemistry and feel of the previous album will be the same, just a little older. And productionwise, we're looking for a natural, raw feel, where everything isn't perfect. We want to go with a live-sounding studio band, kind of like the Beatles."
This spring they also began work on individual projects. A.J. was the first to break away from the group, launching a mini solo tour in March as alter ego Johnny No Name to benefit the VH1 Save the Music Foundation, which helps restore music programs in public schools. "The kids, I think, were really proud that one of us finally stood up and did something on our own," says A.J., who performed material by the likes of Prodigy and Stone Temple Pilots. "I guess the fans were waiting to see which one was going to be the first to have the guts to do it. As always, the first one to do something off the wall was me." He also joined Howie in writing and producing songs for pop trio EYC. On his own, Howie cowrote the song "I Like It" for Mandy Moore's platinum debut, So Real. Meanwhile, Nick is moonlighting as a writer and potential producer for a still-unnamed rock band made up of friends.
Love and Marriage
Kevin and Brian have side projects of their own to attend to: weddings. Last November, Kevin grabbed a quiet moment with the father of his girlfriend, Kristin Willits, at a BSB concert and asked him for her hand in marriage. Kristin, 29, a dancer, was on tour with Cher in Europe at the time. "We've been going out off and on for eight years," says Kevin, who would like to tie the knot "sooner rather than later" but has yet to set a date. The two met while working at Walt Disney World. "I was a tour guide, a Ninja Turtle, Aladdin, all that," he says, "I met her in the cafeteria. It was the first time I went up to a total stranger and asked her out." The pair dated for six months before she left to work on a cruise ship. Since then, it's been long-distance love. "We ended up breaking up for a little while," he says. "It's been hard."
The breakup made the proposal even more unexpected. "We were going from Kentucky to Kansas, where her family lives, for Christmas," says Kevin. "I was like, 'We've gotta go to Orlando' -- I have a house there -- 'I've got some Christmas presents there.' So we went, and we went to a place on the beach where I first told her I loved her. She freaked out. She thought I got [the ring] out of a gum-ball machine."
A few days later, on Christmas night, Brian proposed to Leighanne Wallace, 30, in Marietta, Ga., presenting her with a canary-yellow diamond engagement ring. They met three years ago when Leighanne, an actress, was an extra in the video "As Long As You Love Me." "She was there in the beginning, when things were just beginning to take off," Brian says. "She was the second face I saw when I woke up from heart surgery. I saw my grandmother's first, then Leighanne's."
With Backstreet's intense work schedule, married life won't be a piece of cake, but the future grooms are optimistic. "Our fiancées know we got here through hard work and perseverance," says Brian, "and they're behind us all the way."
Teen People's "Hottest 25 Under 25" (2000)
Brian Littrell, 25
When five-year-old Brian Littrell's heart stopped beating for about 30 seconds, then started again, his family probably thought that was enough of a reason to call him a miracle child. But it was just the beginning: He went on to become an international megastar as part of Backstreet Boys, helping the group sell 11 million copies of their second album, Millennium (always the southern gentleman, he co-wrote the album's ode to mothers, "The Perfect Fan"). After coming through 1998's heart surgery with flying colors, Brian celebrated in a big way: Last Christmas, he proposed to his girlfriend of three years, Leighanne Wallace. "I woke up one day, and I thought, 'Let me get a jump start of the wonderful life that I have," he says. "There's not reason to wait when you're in love." With renewed health, an upcoming wedding, and another BSB album in the works, 25 is looking pretty awesome. "I'm good to go," Brian says with a grin.
Backstreet Boy Weds
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Backstreet Girl (www.abc.com)
Band Member Brian Littrell Marries Longtime Love
Sept. 3 — Wedding bells were the music of choice for the Backstreet Boys Saturday, as another one of the teen heartthrobs tied the knot. Band member Brian Littrell married actress Leighanne Wallace at Peachtree Christian Church in the brides’ hometown Atlanta. White and black stretch limousines brought about 300 people to the ceremony, which was kept quiet enough to avoid the usual mob of young fans that follow the chart-topping band.
Teenage girls may soon be looking for another set of bachelors to dream about, as this is the second Backstreet wedding of the summer. Littrell’s cousin, Brian Richardson, married his longtime girlfriend, dancer Kristin Willits in early June. Both engagements were announced on MTV in February, just after Valentine’s day.
Littrell and Wallace bought a house earlier this year in an Atlanta suburb. They met in Los Angeles in 1997 when she appeared in the Backstreet Boys video As Long As You Love Me. Wallace has also appeared in films including My Fellow Americans.
New Album This Fall
The guys have been out of the spotlight a bit lately, with fellow boy band ’N Sync commanding the charts and the attention of the MTV audience this summer.
That could all change later this fall, when Backstreet Boys release their yet-to-be-named follow up to Millennium which was the best-selling album of 1999. The album also set a new record for first week album sales, with fans snapping up over a million copies.
The record has since been broken by ’N Sync’s No Strings Attached which sold 2.5 million albums in its debut week in March.
The new Backstreet Boys album is expected in stores November 21, but for now fans clamoring for more can check out a cartoon version of the band as they pose as cyber-heroes in a Web series from Stan Lee Media. New installments of The Backstreet Project cartoon are posted on their home page every two weeks.
Backstreet Grows from Boys to Men -- Review of Black and Blue
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