Submitted by: Laurie
None of them is yet 30 (some aren't even 25), but the Backstreet Boys are
grizzled veterans in this current crop of male vocal groups. Maybe that's why
the band has the traditionally older-skewing CBS for its first network
television special.
"Backstreet Boys: Larger Than Life" airs Wednesday, May 30, at 7 p.m., and
includes performance footage from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. There
are also scenes from the band's "Around the World in 100 Hours Tour," which
went to Stockholm, Tokyo, Sydney, Capetown, Rio de Janeiro and New York,
along with behind-the-scenes footage and home movies.
Among the songs are "Larger Than Life," "Show Me the Feeling of Being
Lonely," "All I Have to Give," "I Want It That Way," "More Than That," "Shape
of My Heart," "I'll Never Break Your Heart," "Time," "Everybody" and "Get
Another Boyfriend."
At first glance, CBS seems like an odd fit. "Exactly," says A.J. McLean,
calling in from Rio de Janeiro, a stop on the current "Black & Blue" tour.
"That's why it's so cool for us, because we are trying to branch off into a
little bit of an older market. We're not kids anymore. We don't want to lose
our younger generation of fans, but we also want to gather much older fans."
This may sound odd from the pierced, tattooed McLean, who is all of 23 (born.
Jan. 8, 1978), but at least one of the Boys is getting up there. "Kevin
(Richardson) is almost 30," says McLean, "which is not old, but for a
Backstreet Boy, it's considered old. I love picking on Kevin's age.
"We're not trying to, image-wise, go older, but just grow musically, which
doesn't necessarily mean we have to start talking about sex and drugs and
stupid crap like that. It's just a matter of the whole sound being more adult
contemporary, more rock, maybe a little more pop rock. It's not so much
cheesy pop, not so much the typical bubblegum stuff that we did five or six
years ago. That worked for us, but now it's time for us to do something a
little different."
The Backstreet Boys first hit the charts in Europe in 1995, about two years
after the band formed from a group of teens, including cousins Brian Littrell
and Richardson, along with Nick Carter, McLean and Howie Dorough. According
to band lore, the group is named after an Orlando teen hangout called the
Backstreet Market.
U.S. chart success came in 1998 and has continued unabated. "Black & Blue,"
released in November 2000, features five songs co-written by band members, as
well as two songs ("The Answer to Our Life" and "Time") written solely by the
Boys.
Now that all the members are in their 20s, there's even talk of changing the
name. "We've talked numerous times about dropping the Boys and just going
straight Backstreet," says McLean. "A couple of us like it, but we always
seem to come back to the Beach Boys, the Beastie Boys, the Pet Shop Boys. All
these guys are in their 30s and 40s -- or 50s and 60s, if you're one of the
Beach Boys -- and they've never lost the name.
"It's that little slang term, boys, meaning friends. That's the reason why
we're probably never going to drop it. But who knows? We might, one day, all
wake up and say, 'Forget it, let's just call us Backstreet.' There's still a
possibility."