Source: Daily Telegraph Australia
NICK Carter wants to shock you. While that doesn't mean he's about to join a ballet company, the most high-profile member of boy band Backstreet Boys is here to tell you the world needs more rock music.
"I think the world is missing that," the self-confessed fan of Journey and Def Leppard says. "We need melodic music that has feeling. Nowadays it's about what girl you're screwing."
Don't laugh, but Carter may just have the rock credentials to back up his talk. He has spent time hanging out with Motley Crue bad boy Tommy Lee writing songs for the rocker's new album.
"This might seem odd to the rest of the world, but I'm a shocking kind of person, you never know what to expect from me and that's the way it's always going to be."
Yep, much has changed since the Florida-based BSB - the most successful boy band in history, having sold more than 73 million albums - decided to go their separate ways in 2001.
Most people presumed (some even hoped) that Carter, Kevin Richardson, Brian Littrell, Howie Dorough and AJ Maclean - who make up the BSB - were history.
There were rumours of in-fighting and Maclean's public battle with drugs. And musically, the world seemed to be over boy bands, falling instead for the gangsta-rap styles of Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent and Eminem.
Four years later BSB have re-invented themselves, not as a hip-hop outfit, but on new album Never Gone as a mature singing troupe, with power-rock guitars where once a computer-driven blip would have been.
"First of all," explains Carter "we're a singing group. Whatever music is behind us, we still like to sing.
"We've gone from R'n'B, then we did full pop and we've done some rock tracks. We didn't say we're going to be a rock band (but) obviously we wanted to change the product a little bit.
"It's not like we said we're going to sound like an older group, the album just took its shape."
Carter does admit the group's experiences couldn't help but seep into the music.
"As people we have changed. We have grown," Carter points out.
"The insights we have learned from our departure (from the scene) and adventures have contributed to what the music is."
Carter has had his own demons to deal with in the time BSB were out of action.
A she-demon, in fact, who carries a dog in her handbag and goes by the name of Paris Hilton.
The hotel heiress and Carter dated for a while before she hooked up with her now fiance, shipping heir Paris Latsis.
Is he bitter about her relationship with Latsis?
"Good luck to her. At the end of day, I have little to say about her.
"I don't weep and I don't let anything get to me. I'm not the kind of guy who cries over spilt milk. I just clean it up."
Then earlier this year Carter was arrested for drink driving, a case which is yet to be dealt with.
Older, yes, but wiser? Maybe they've still got a way to go there.
Just don't joke that BSB should change their name to Backstreet Men - he's heard that too many times lately and he's getting sick of hearing it.
"Everybody keeps saying it, but the Beastie Boys didn't change their name and neither did the Beach Boys."
Point taken.
So, how is that BSB have come out on top, "the last one standing", as he puts it, while others like *NSYNC have faded?
"As far as the whole boy band thing goes, I don't know if the others worried about what the critics would say.
"We don't pay attention to critics too much. Obviously if we did, I don't think we'd be here. Critics really never liked us in the first place. But we don't make music for critics, we make it for fans."
Also, Carter believes that whatever happens, you have to "keep it real".
To him this means trying to keep the fact that, at the end of the day, you need people to buy your music to survive off your mind as much as possible.
"You could just keep it going but then people start to see through it. I feel that's why a lot of groups can't continue, they vanish because they are perceived as being part of a machine."
Interestingly, Carter blames himself for the reason the group split in the first place.
"I think what sparked it was the fact I wanted to do a solo record," he says.
Of course, the time away gave Maclean time to work on staying clean.
Carter remains optimistic Maclean won't fall off the wagon this time.
"We believe that AJ is in the best place he's ever been. We've grown up with him, we know how he acts and mentally he's stronger than he's ever been.
"In the years we took off he was really able to find himself."
That BSB are still relevant as a music force seems to have been answered by fans, with the first single from the new album, Incomplete, racing to the top of the Australian charts in its first week.
It was fitting that BSB were knocked off by another artist who has seemingly risen from the dead, Mariah Carey.
Carter is under no illusions it's going to be hard work to stay at the top this time.
"We know we have a pretty good fan base but it kind of feels like we're back at square one. I look at this as being the first step, the first of many more albums."
* Never Gone is out now