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 factoids about Nick. "We have
a lot in 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 A.J. "Bone" McLean, who-with his three tattoos, wacky
facial hair, and 200 pairs of tinted sunglasses-is either a cliché or
kinda dangerous, depending on your age. Howie Dorough, 24,
answers to Howie D. or Sweet D. He lives at home, and aside from a
Corvette Stingray, his most extravagant post-fame purchase has been
central heat and AC. Howie hooked up with Nick and A.J. 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 his cousin, Brian Littrell. Unlike the
others, who were looking to get famous any way they could,
23-year-old Brian had 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 four years as the New Kids' road manager, working under
über-Svengali Maurice Starr, when, in 1993, he heard about a quintet
of pretty white boys who could harmonize like an R&B group. He
immediately saw the possibilities. "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 any 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 a lot 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."
THREE HOURS BEFORE THE SHOW, THE HOUSE OF BLUES
OPENS its doors to 17-year-old Leslie, who is confined to a
wheelchair. The band's tour publicist, Denise (who is also A.J.'s mom),
had mentioned the Boys would be busy entertaining "a little
handicapped girl" before the concert, but Leslie isn't the one. She
doesn't care; it's her birthday, and she's just spotted Nick roaming the
hall. She's so rattled she inadvertently crumples her Backstreet Boys
calendar. As Nick perfunctorily wishes Leslie a happy birthday, he
spies two able-bodied girls lurking not five feet away, and he's off.
Later, as he passes Leslie on his way backstage, she goes for it
again: "Nick! Nick!" she implores, hands clawing air. Nick, who
possesses a finely calibrated sense of detachment, pretends not to
hear her. "Oh," Leslie whispers to herself. "Bye."
Back in the dressing room, Nick and the others huddle with Wright. It
was Wright who devised the plan of attack that broke Backstreet:
While the alt-rock revolution was raging in the States, Wright took
them to Europe and slapped them on every boy-band bill he could,
exploiting their all-American wholesomeness. ("At one point I had
them run across the stage with the American flag," he says proudly.)
At home, Wright was forced to go the direct-market route, quietly
dispatching the Boys to theme parks and junior highs across the
nation. "Teenage male vocal groups were not going to meet with
acceptance in America," says Jeff Fenster, VP of A&R at their record
label, Jive. "So the idea was to make a record that would appeal to
the global marketplace." Fenster hired Swedish writing/producing duo
Denniz PoP and Max Martin, who had penned hits for Robyn, and
produced Ace of Base and Ireland's version of Backstreet, Boyzone.
The Euro strategy worked: Backstreet's self-titled debut album, a slick
collection of New Jack posturings, went on to sell 12 million copies
overseas. Eventually, pop groups such as Hanson and the Spice
Girls eased Backstreet's reentry Stateside (their album is now
quadruple platinum here); likewise, their success has spawned a slew
of harmonizing teen hopefuls, such as 'N Sync, Five, No Authority,
and 911-none of which have yet to register with the kids. As the Boys
can testify, winning over the jaded youth of America can be a bitch.
"Those were the most intimidating, cruelest crowds," says Kevin of
the band's days on the junior-high circuit. "Little teenage dudes
coming up to us saying, 'Backstreet Boys? Who are you?'"
Though Wright maintains that the Boys are "very much in control of
what they do," both Kevin and Howie have flinched over Wright's
tactics. "We don't wanna be in a certain situation," says Howie,
gently alluding to the New Kids' career trajectory, "but we have links
to certain situations." After making the video for "Quit Playing Games
(With My Heart)," Kevin, aghast at the sight of himself bare-chested
and wet, demanded a reshoot. The record company shooed him
away. After their album was finally released here last August, Kevin
called the president of Jive and griped that all the
merchandising-Sweet Valley High inserts, throw pillows, bandannas,
key chains-was out of hand. He was told to suck it up. "There's
always gonna be a market of little girls who wanna hang cute boys on
their walls," says Dave McPherson, Jive's assistant VP of A&R, who
signed the Boys in May 1994. Wahlberg is even less tolerant of such
whining: "Look, if you're lucky enough to be in the right place at the
right time, you're gonna tap into a frenzied marketplace," he says.
"Teenage girls have an insatiable appetite."
Despite the short shelf life of most boy bands, Backstreet plan on a
long-term career. They're all learning to write and play instruments,
and McPherson says they have a shot. His major issue is with their
lyrics, which are pure Hallmark. Only one line on their album remotely
smacks of do-me abandon ("Am I sexual?"), and when they deliver it
in Orlando, the girls roar and pound the floorboards so violently two
roadies rush to secure the speakers. Still, the real highlight of any
show comes during "I'll Never Break Your Heart," when Howie,
Kevin, and Nick-in a move conceived by Wright-serenade three lucky
fans, pre-plucked by security. As the girls tremble under spotlights, the
Boys, swathed in white, gallantly seat each at a small table, then fall
to their knees like lovesick troubadours. Tonight, Howie and Kevin
pull it off with aplomb; Nick, however, is laughing so hard he's
reduced to lip-synching. He gives his girl a buddy pat on the back;
she shoots him a quizzical look, but he keeps his head bowed. He's
still laughing.
THAT'S WHEN LIZ ARANA PASSES OUT-NOT AT THIS SHOW,
but at this same moment. "Oh, that is so beautiful when they sing to
the girls," she gasps. Liz is a soft-spoken 15-year-old who, with her
sloped eyelids and slight heft, seems like the kind of girl who yearns
silently from her Long Island bedroom. But at last year's New York City
Backstreet Boys show, her first ever, she was drunk with adrenaline.
"Okay," she begins. "I pushed my way to the front of the stage, and
there was some 12-year-old standing in front of me on a crate!" So:
Liz knocked the girl down, climbed onto the crate, ripped off her bra
and threw it at Nick, and then completely lost it. "When they sang 'I'll
Never Break Your Heart,' I just burst out crying, and then I passed
out." Liz, who bursts out crying whenever she sees anything of theirs
for the first time-a video, a photograph, a TV appearance-says it was
awful. "I missed three songs!"
Liz spends suburban afternoons watching her compilation tape of
Backstreet appearances, or pasting photos into her Backstreet
scrapbook, or staring at her walls, which are plastered with
Backstreet pinups. The walls, she says, are a problem. "My mom just
painted them," she says, "and she wants the posters down. So does
my boyfriend." Robbie, whom Liz has been dating for a month ("He's
my first serious, serious boyfriend"), loathes the Backstreet Boys. "He
says they're faggots and they can't sing," she says. "I'm like, 'Your
point is...?'"
This is the first time Liz has ever been so enthralled with a band-she
says she has spent more than $1,000 on Boys merchandise-and she,
like millions of other girls before, is slightly embarrassed by the depths
of her passion. She only feels comfortable talking about it with other
girls, girls who, like her, are beginning to date real boys but who feel
safer longing for the unattainable ones-the Nick Carters. She cradles
a slip of memo paper and reads a quote of Nick's that she copied:
"Everyone wants a girl with a perfect personality; it doesn't really
matter how they look." Does she believe boys when they say stuff
like that? "Not all boys," she answers softly. "But Nick, I would
believe."
A COUPLE OF DAYS AFTER THE HOUSE OF BLUES GIG, THE
BOYS ARE IN NEW YORK City for a photo shoot. They hug-they
perform this ritual constantly, even after only a half-hour apart-then
circle a gaggle of models as though they've encountered unidentified
life forms. Johnny Wright says that during the junior-high tour, he
made sure that the kids knew that "A.J. loves cars, Howie loves
clothes, and Nick, Brian, and Kevin love sports. We wanted to show
that these are regular guys"-i.e., not gay. The courtship of teen girls
dictates that the Boys remain publicly unattached, and this makes
them sensitive to the notion they are anything but heterosexual.
Howie understands it's "not macho" to be into Backstreet, but says if
the band were black, they'd get compared to Boyz II Men or Shai,
and boys would be down. Here, too, Donnie Wahlberg can
empathize. "But instead of worrying about who's not paying attention
to them," Wahlberg says, "they should worry about who is. Because
once these girls get older and start drinking beer and piercing their
noses," he says, "theys (sic) are going away."
While the others chat up the models, Brian stands off in the back.
He's the only Boy who's not really comfortable schmoozing or even
accepting compliments; by nature, he's quiet and reserved. (While the
rest of the Boys went clubbing after the Orlando show, Brian hung
with his 50-year-old dad, who was visiting from Kentucky.) Right now,
he can't get his mind off the "little handicapped girl" A.J.'s mom
brought backstage in Orlando; she's actually battling two forms of
cancer. "I didn't know how to approach her," says Brian, whose most
vivid childhood memory is of doctors strapping him to his hospital bed
and beating his chest till he was in tears, hoping to break up a staph
infection that went straight to his heart. (About a year ago, Brian's
heart began leaking blood, and he underwent surgery last month.) "I
wanted to say, 'Listen, I'm getting ready to have an operation, too.' So
I went over to her mother and told her that, and her mother said, 'Oh,
my daughter could tell you a lot of things.'" His eyes widen. "Can you
imagine?"
THE NEXT MORNING, THE BOYS ARE ON REGIS & KATHIE LEE,
PERFORMING "As Long as You Love Me," a sparkly ode to
unconditional love. Nick shares lead vocals with Brian and sings to
his own image in the monitor. During the Q&A, Kathie Lee, eyes dewy,
offers to set Brian up with her niece, who's also had heart surgery. As
soon as the segment is completed, they clamber into a waiting van.
The garage door shimmies open, and girls begin crawling all over the
van, smushing their faces up against the glass. Nick turns to Brian.
"You know, if we don't go out there," he says wearily, "we're gonna
look like real pricks."
Having fulfilled all obligations, Nick and Brian head to the nearest
Blimpie. Nick orders a tuna fish hero and, as he blithely stares at
himself in the mirror, tries to discern the nature of teen girl fandom. He
comes up empty: "It's real hard to put yourself in their shoes," he says
finally. But Nick's obviously amused by the frenzied adulation-for
instance, he could barely contain himself onstage just four nights ago.
"The joke was on Howie," says Brian, who explains that security likes
to play "little pranks" to break up the monotony. Nick bounces with
delight, like a baby in a high chair. "Howie ended up with a
not-so-pretty girl," he says, wiping errant chunks of tuna from his chin.
"Do you remember her? Do you?" Oh, sure--she was one of the
heavier ones, right? "Aaaahhhh, yeah," Nick says, with strained
diplomacy. "I got my girl, Kevin got his girl, and the last girl was
Howie's. He got stuck, and he made this face like, 'I'm gonna kill
somebody.'" He shrugs. "It was funny."
On the way back to the hotel, Nick and Brian are intercepted by yet
more fans. They pose for pictures and hurriedly scrawl autographs; a
couple of girls hang back and speak in hushed tones. "You know, I
saw Nick sign an autograph for one girl and then he threw it back at
her. I want to know why he's like that."
"You know what I wonder?" says her friend. "I want to know if he
would ever date a fan."