Vanity Fair - Magazine Italia

Source : Mexico ROcking hommies
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Translation from the interview :


In the 90's, singing and dancing, they sent crowds of teenagers into ecstacy. Now the music's changed. They've grown up, they've broken up and then they've come back together, one oe them has left the group, other two have built a family. Just like their fans, who go to their concerts with their kids.

"Did you like the new album? Would you buy it if we were a new band?" On the terrace of a bar in Zurich, Backstreet Boys lounch themselves in an extempore market survey.
Its not difficoult to understand why. Since when the reformed, in 2005, the couldnt repeat the success they had in the 90's, the gold age of boy bands, those groups of singers-dancers, young and good looking who were there for a teenage audience. In particular, their latest album, Unbreakable, out in 2007, had a response under the expectations, with only 150,000 copies sold worldwide. Now the group, formed by Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell an Alexander James McLean, without Kevin Richardson, have another effort with this is us, out in Italy a few days ago. Brian Littrell says:"The title says it all: this is us. It's a come back to our origins".

They still call you backstreet boys, but you're not boys anymore. You've grown up and two of you, Brian an Howie, had a son
AJ: I dont. But i have two dogs.
Brian: Luckily he hasnt got any children.
AJ: Why? Maybe i'll have them before I'll be 40. But now Im single.
Nick: Alex, dont lie!

And you Brian? Does your son know that his dad is a Backstreet Boy?
Brian: Yes. He always tells his classmates, and they say:"back what?". I have to tell him to stop.

What would you say to your son if he wanted to enter in a boy band?
Brian: I'd suggest him to be a solo artist. No, I'm joking. Actually, he has alredy told me he'd like to sing, but it's too early. If his intentions are serious, I'll give him my support.

Nick, you seem to be allergic to family
Nick: For the moment I dont feel the need to have one. I'll think about it in five years.

Your relationship with Paris Hilton, few days ago, had a big echo. Now we dont know anything about you. Do you have a girlfriend?
Nick: At the moment Im dating a girl. She's really different from Paris Hilton, she's an ordinary girl. I cant tell you who she is, i can only tell you I dont believe in marriage. I believe in being together.
Brian: The truth is that he doesnt believe in the partition of the properties.

Lets talk about music. Now kids prefer tokio hotel and jonas brothers
AJ: But those are real band, they play instruments. They dont dance, they are another thing. We focus on singing and dancing. We can play, but we dont do that: its not part of our way to create a show.

But at your age, do you still dance? Havent you get tired of it yet?
AJ: Of course we still dance, you will see what we are going to do during our tour.
Brian: Dancing makes us feel young again and keeps us in shape. You need to be ok to go on stage.

In the past there were photos where you seemed to have put on some weight. You let yourself go.
Brian: Yeah, but now we feel great.

How do you make yourself fit?
Brian: See, one day in our life is really animated. We wake up early, some of us go to gym, others dont. Then we have 8 - 10 hours of rehearsals. At night we go back home really tired. Its a really hard job to be a backstreet boy.

Are you serious?
Brian: A lot of people think our life is all about fun and dream journeys, but its not like that. In this job you need commitment and constancy.

Besides you, take that and new kids on the block are back. How do you explain yourself this boybands revival?
AJ: Simple: history repeating. Its like fashion.
Nick: Boybands have always made great fun pop music. Now, with the crisis, people just want to smile, to distract themselves off their problems listening to good music. And in fact we, take that and nkotb have still the largest number of fans, compared to all the other boyband of all time.

I guess Kevin's departure has disoriented your fans
Nick: We were worried, but at the end our audience still wanted to listen to us sing.

Who is your audience now?
Nick: We see a little of everything during our concerts. Old, young, teenagers, families with kids. A lot of fans have grown up with us and our music.
Brian:It's strange. We were in Berlin recently signing autographs and we understood there were a lot of boys there.

Do you have a lot of gay fans?
Brian: Probably, but we dont know it for sure. The fans in Berlin werent all gay, for sure.

Unbreakable, your previous record, didnt do too well.
Brian: For unbreakable we wanted a pop dance sound, but at the concerts there was a band playing live. The experiment hasnt worked. Now we worked with the best producers in the world and its been easier to create what we wanted.
AJ: We've repossessed our identity of band that expresses itself live:we are performers first of all. Unbreakable was a deviation.

Is that all? It was just the sound that didnt work?
Brian: The media havent covered the release of the album. We've been unfortunate. When our first single came out, in the US the authors of the tv shows were on strike so our promo went up in smoke. It was also during the holidays and it was the end of the year. It wasnt a great moment.

People used to say that Sony wanted to dismiss you.
Nick: No,we've never risked to be dismissed.

No tensions?
Brian: They were skeptical. But you have to keep in mind that at that time the Sony was having a lot of renovations. They were deciding the strategy of the investment and, since its difficult to sell records nowadays, make a decision, for a record company, is really tricky.

What do you think about the music crisis, having sold 80millions copies?
Nick:When we started, there wasnt the illegal download. We can say that nowadays is easier to sell tickets for the concert: you cant download live experiences.
AJ: I think that in a few years record companies will become an obsolete system and they'll be repleaced by one big compaign. This is the direction. Its enough to see all the latest fusions there have been between record companies. But as long as we are able to not care about how many records we sell, we can concentrate about doing our job and tours the best way we can.

Do record companies only bet on known artists?
Brian:Well, lets be honest: bsb is a mark that in some countries, like in Japan for example, means certain sales. For our record company we are a guarantee.

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