It can't be easy being Backstreet Boys these days. Their latest
album, Black & Blue, debuted at #1 and sold 1.6 million copies in its
first week. Yet somehow, it was still considered a disappointment by
those bent on comparing the Boys to labelmates 'NSYNC.
Then the BSB kicked off their biggest tour yet � one that's so
expensive, the guys say it won't make a dime on the road � and
endured a series of technical gaffes on their official opening night.
That's enough to put even the world's most boisterous boy band in a
funk.
Instead, they've kept on delivering their smooth R&B-flavored pop
and dance numbers with vigor and good cheer. As Backstreet Boys Kevin
Richardson, A.J. McLean and Howie Dorough told MTV News' John
Norris the day after their star-crossed opening show, they're still
setting sales records, connecting with the fans and loving what they
do. Plus, they've left the groin-busting acrobatic tricks of the last
tour behind. So what's not to like?
MTV News' John Norris:: It's a fine Backstreet tradition that the
first night of the tour is always great. But on the second night,
anything that can go wrong...
Howie Dorough: ...Normally does.
A.J. McLean: Always does.
Kevin Richardson: Seems that way, yeah.
Norris: Last night was the tour's official opening night, but it was
really your second show. So there were a few mishaps?
Richardson: We were having some technical problems with lifts and
trap doors not closing and not going up when they were supposed to.
Certain things got stuck and didn't happen when they were supposed
to � like surprises for the audience, which I'm not going to tell
you
about.
McLean: We got put in some weird predicaments. Our security was
having an aneurysm because we were a lot closer to the audience than
we were supposed to be.
Norris: At one point the fans were really close to you. Is it not
supposed to be like that?
McLean: No.
Richardson: It was great.
McLean: Well, it was, but not in the way it happened. We were
supposed to stay in our first position, where we ended up, and we
ended up going down toward the floor, which was kind of bad.
Dorough: It was cool, though.
Richardson: The audience really enjoyed it.
Dorough: They got a special thrill out of it.
Norris: The stage for the Millennium show was round. How different is
playing in the round versus the traditional setup, with the stage at
the end?
Dorough: It's not as intimate, unfortunately, on the end stage. In
the round, there were no bad seats in the whole auditorium or
stadium. I don't think there are many bad seats [with the new setup]
either, because the stage is so big. We do some special things that
give us a chance to see a lot more of the audience, without giving it
away. Being on the end stage is a little bit less intimate, but it's
definitely a bigger production.
McLean: It's also easier for us, though. After running the circle the
entire night, it gets tiresome. It's a lot more work; you have to
cover more ground. On this stage, we have us five, our 10 dancers and
a seven-piece band. Everything is filled up enough so there's no dead
spots or gaps on the stage.
Dorough: They see us all together, at once.
Norris: It feels like a bigger show. Is it?
Richardson: Oh yeah. We have 29 trucks. We would have had 30, but
we took some elements out, to save for when we do stadiums in the
summer. So, yeah, it's bigger. The stage is really huge.
McLean: It's almost 200 feet wide.
Richardson: It overlaps the seats on each side of the arena. That's
really cool, because we get to run right up in the audience. And
we've added a huge video element to the show.
Dorough: We put a lot of money into the production � a little bit
too much money. We're not making money on this tour. It's all good,
though.
Norris: Is it safe to say this is your most expensive tour yet?
McLean: If you combine all of our tours and then triple it, you might
get close.
Richardson: It was money well-spent. It's a beautiful show and the
audience is going to get their money's worth and have a great time.
That's what's most important. Right, fellas?
Dorough: I was going to say that, but you didn't give me a chance to
finish.
Norris: You guys have been doing this for eight years now. Is it
tough to get yourself pumped up for yet another tour, or is it always
different?
McLean: It's always different, because it's a different album, it's a
different production. We've all changed � whether it's looks, or
getting older or just maturing as a group. We're constantly trying to
reinvent ourselves. We've definitely done our tours in perfect
stages, going from a rinky-dink stage with a little catwalk and a
real thin Backstreet Boys logo on the back wall, to where we are
today. We've been trying to continuously make it better and just give
our fans a real incredible show.
Richardson: It's challenging to come up with different ideas and to
make it exciting and new and fresh for us and for the audience.
Norris: Was pulling out even more stops this time an important
concern, or did you consider doing something more scaled-back?
Richardson: Down the road, we want to do more scaled-back stuff. If
we get the opportunity with the next album, it would be cool to do
theaters again. We've talked about doing that � just doing real
small,
acoustic-vibe stuff.
Dorough: We try to outdo ourselves each tour, but where exactly can
you go? Especially with the last time being in the round and us
flying and everything. It was like, "How can we top ourselves this
time?" I don't know if we've topped it per se, but we've got a good
show that we feel really comfortable with. But, like Kevin said, I
think we would feel just as comfortable with a show that's more
intimate.
Richardson: With this tour, because we're planning on doing stadiums
in the summer, we didn't want to have to bring in a brand-new stage
later. And when you play stadiums, if you're on something small, you
feel like an ant. So we wanted to go with something big. And this
light show that we've got now � we've got the best in the
business,
Peter Morris, doing our lighting. He's done Michael [Jackson]. He's
done everybody.
Dorough: This stage is unbelievable; it's huge. It's more for
stadiums than it is for arenas. In the arenas, it's like, "Wow!"
We're really up close. Everyone can see us, totally.
Norris: Without giving too much away, there's no flying this time.
Can we safely say that?
Richardson: Thank God we don't have to put those harnesses on. It took
us an hour just to get those things on. Those were hard on the old
groin area.
McLean: That was real bad.
Norris: But there are some surprises?
McLean: Yeah, we have some pretty nifty gadgets on this tour.
Richardson: It's fun to come up with new, exciting things for your
audience. They want to see something different; they want to see
something exciting.
Norris: There's a point where the fans kind of get to go backstage
with you guys, in a sense.
Richardson: Yeah, yeah.
McLean: This is probably one of the most dangerous stages for us,
because of all the different entrances and exits and all the special
things that we have on stage. If one of us is really in the zone
�
focusing on singing to that fan � and makes a wrong move, we'll
fall
in a hole somewhere.
Dorough: Which has happened already.
McLean: Which has happened to Howie, during dress rehearsal. And it
happened to Kevin twice. No one got hurt, though.
Norris: There's a video opening that involves a kind of cosmic
happening...
McLean: Giant potatoes hitting the earth.
Richardson: Originally, we thought we'd have a storyline throughout
the entire show, and we would begin with the earth almost being
destroyed. Then we were going to start bringing things back to life,
and at the end of the show it would be all glorious and happy again.
So at the beginning of the show, you're experiencing this
destruction. But the rest of the storyline wasn't working, so now
it's just a cool intro. The earth cracks open, we come up out of it
and � boom! � here we are.
Norris: You guys start with "Everyone" and "Larger Than Life," which
are real fan-dedicated tracks. Was it important to start that way?
Richardson: When we were writing and recording "Everyone," we were
like, "This would be a great opener for the tour."
McLean: And it's perfect to be followed up by "Larger Than Life,"
because that was the same exact thing.
Norris: This show features some of the most intense dancing we've
seen in any of your shows.
Richardson: The choreography may be more challenging, but I don't
think we're dancing more than we have in the past.
McLean: There are more up-tempo songs in this show than we've had in
probably any of our tours.
Norris: Are you gratified with the response to the album, despite the
media-inspired horse race with 'NSYNC's record?
McLean: Very. We went through a phase where we got blinded by the
world factor and the global release of the previous album. With Black
& Blue, we kept focusing on the U.S. and, "If we don't sell this many
million records, it's not this, that and the other." But we have to
think globally. We are a world-renowned group, and we've got fans as
far away as the Far East, as well as in the U.S. But we can't sit
back and focus on just here. And that first week's sales were very
gratifying to us. We beat ourselves.
Dorough: We beat our record from last year and we created a couple
new records. I was told we were the first artists to have two albums
in a row go platinum the first week.
Richardson: Records are nice, but as long as we're selling albums and
tickets, that's what's great.
Dorough: And records were meant to be broken.
Norris: Some writers have asked, "Can they reclaim the pop crown?" Do
you pay attention to that hype?
Richardson: I don't pay attention to it.
McLean: We just want to keep on doing what we're doing. Obviously,
people really enjoy it, and we love doing it.
Richardson: There is no crown.
Dorough: Never knew we had it, never knew we lost it. [laughs]
Brian Thomas Littrell ~ The Golden Voiced Backstreet Boy
- Established Jan 1999 -