The Backstreet Boys at the 40th anniversary of the American Music awards held at the Nokia Theater, Los Angeles. INQUIRER STOCK PHOTO
Is Justin Bieber the unanimous “bad boy” of music? The Backstreet Boys would gladly deny that.
In an interview with Elle Magazine, Backstreet Boys heartthrobs Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean and Kevin Richardson reflected on their high-flying fame prior to the entrance of the internet and social media.
“I’ll tell you this,” Carter said while name-dropping the Canadian pop star. “There is some sh*t that AJ and I both did that I’m really glad that social media wasn’t around for. Because Justin Bieber couldn’t hold a candle to what we did.”
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McLean concurred with Carter and said, “We would have been like TMZ’s (Hollywood news outlet) saving grace, bro. Just anything from me being drunk or irate at a club. Or me walking naked down the hallway in a hotel for no apparent reason…Just random stuff that never really got out.”
Back in the hippie ’90s, Backstreet Boys made it to stardom at a time when Spotify and Instagram were still unheard of. Now that vast platforms are handily available for music streaming, pop stars of the current generation are lucky to easily share their music with fans.
McLean expounded, “But, the fame now—it’s like night and day. The other side of that which was different for us: Without social media, without YouTube, without instant access, we had to do everything grassroots. We had to do every interview, every radio show, every outlet. We had to go to every country—that was the only way to do it. There was no Instagram, or posting things on YouTube to get a record deal.”
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Meanwhile, Dorough spilled the beans and recounted an experience watching a One Direction gig a few years ago. “The new wave of boy band says, ‘Oh, we don’t do what they do.’ But to be honest, to me, it’s not as entertaining. What we do is we truly entertain people. Music, staging, dancing, everything,” he said.
Lastly, the best-selling boy band behind the hits “I Want It that Way,” “Quit Playing Games” and “Everybody” believes that their brand of music is the reason why they stood the test of time and never disbanded.
“Yeah, and I think that’s why we’re still here in a lot of ways. Because it was always about a show. Regardless, we could always make great music and we could have hits. But whenever we hit the stage, we had to give a show that people would remember and that stood on its own,” Carter concluded. Gianna Francesca Catolico /ra
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