GANNET NEWS SERVICE

Unlike the boys of Hanson, the Backstreet Boys are not all related.

Unlike the Spice Girls, the Backstreet Boys promise to remain a quintet.

As they like to shout in their current hit single, "Backstreet's Back!"

It's not clear how Backstreet could be "back," because they've never really been "away," but whatever.

When five cute guys churn out hit love songs, hysteria is bound to follow. In a recent interview with reporters, band member A.J. McLean says he and the rest of the Boys have endured some Hard Days's Night-Style encounters with fans.

"We haven't had any clothes ripped off or anything to that extreme," McLean says. "But I mean, we've gotten our hair pulled or we've gotten our foot run over like me, my earrings yanked out of my ear and stuff like that. It's not anything that the girls are trying to do. They just want to touch you or get as close to you as they possibly can."

Backstreet Boys sing cheerful R-and-B-based pop that is slightly influenced by doo-wop, i.e., they will occassionally sing a capella, as they did this year on an episode of "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch."

Usually, however, their singing is accompanied by a slick backbeat and synthesizers. The group is best known for "As Long As You Love Me," which sounds almost exactly like the other song they're best known for, "Quit Playing Games With My Heart."

"We just kind of dabble with them," says Dorough [about instruments.] "We're not trying to proclaim to be musicians, you know, professional musicians or anything. We're not trying to be the Hansons or anything."

The group--McLean, Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, and Kevin Richardson--formed in Orlando, Fla., and the Boys still hang out there when they can.

Unlike the saucy Spice Girls, the Backstreet Boys are a wholesome lot. Dorough says what the group misses most while on the road is "our families, home-cooked means, our own beds." In an especially poignant and sweet remark, McLean says that fame has "really limited our time with our friends and families," but the Boys are learning how to deal with it.