Even after 20 years in pop, the bestselling boy band in history are still bigger than One Direction. And they remain fiercely ambitious
"Wait – stop!" Backstage at ITV's Daybreak, Kevin Richardson, the most tidily goateed of the Backstreet Boys, is calling for order. He and his band may be celebrating 20 years in pop this year, but they still require focus. "OK," he says. "We've got to get the harmonies right." They exchange solemn glances, and instinct takes over. They open their mouths and belt out a perfectly harmonised chorus: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – heroes in a half-shell!"
This is not, it should be stated very clearly, Backstreet Boys' new single; instead, the band are recording a nostalgic piece for a Daybreak social action campaign. It is particularly evocative for Kevin, he explains: his pre-Backstreet job at Disney World required the daily deployment of a Ninja Turtle costume. Suddenly, there is a fire drill, the alarm sounding like a sci-fi laser noise, and the band start firing imaginary space guns at each other. "This," announces the cameraman, "is the best band interview I've ever done."
Like most pop bands who fight through the mid-career desire to be taken very seriously indeed ("and we were way serious," Nick Carter says later) and come out the other side, the 2013 version of Backstreet Boys are incredibly laidback.
I have joined the band for a day of TV, print, radio and website interviews. In a minute, showbiz writer Dan Wootton will arrive for a chat; Brian Littrell uses the time to ask if someone can find him some toenail clippers, while Nick, who will spend most of the day absent-mindedly strumming an acoustic guitar, knocks out the Beatles' Day Tripper. Howie Dorough, meanwhile, is almost disgustingly polite and friendly, but the hero of the band seems to be AJ McLean, who is hiding behind a baseball cap, sunglasses and an improbably large beard. At one point, hanging around outside the building with fans, he briefly moves away to light a cigarette. "I don't want to blow smoke in fans' faces," he tells the huddle of girls.
"Blow it in mine!" shrieks one fan in her late 20s.
"You would say that, you freak!" AJ guffaws.
We move upstairs for an interview with the Star on Sunday. "You were big," notes the reporter. Searching for a way to explain to the Backstreet Boys quite how big they were, he adds: "You were One Direction big."
"Holy crap!" Brian laughs. "We were One Direction big!"
In fact, they were significantly bigger. Backstreet Boys sold 130m records, making them the bestselling boyband in history, while their 2001 world tour grossed more than $100m (£66m), and their longterm partnership with the mind-bogglingly brilliant songwriter Max Martin has littered the past two decades with numerous heavy-hitting masterpieces, one of which, I Want it That Way, remains a strong contender for one of the greatest moments in pop history. "We created memories and moments for a generation," Howie explains. "Now they've got kids and want a good excuse to get in their cars with their girlfriends and come and see us."
The band are keen to point out that they never stopped recording so are not, strictly speaking, making a comeback, but when they talk about their peak period, the reference points – Smash Hits, Top of the Pops – give away the fact that they rose to fame in a different era.
Pop's onward march is merciless, though, and even the biggest institutions fall: in 2006 Smash Hits closed and Top of the Pops broadcast its final programme, and things were not looking good for Backstreet Boys at this point either. Their 1999 album Millennium had sold 30m copies worldwide; its 2000 successor Black & Blue sold 24m. They waited five years to release a new album, which sold 10m. After Kevin left the band, things got even worse: 2007's Unbreakable managed just 1.7m around the world and 2009's This is Us sold barely half that. Even against a backdrop of declining album sales across the entire music industry (neither One Direction album has broken the 5m worldwide sales barrier, for instance) these figures would not exactly make for a great Powerpoint presentation.
The band clearly understand that extending a boyband's career beyond its first Greatest Hits is a complex proposition, but insist that their sliding sales were a consequence of their former label, Jive, failing to let them move on, then losing interest entirely. "That's one of the reasons I left in 2006," says Kevin, who rejoined the band in 2011. "I didn't feel like we were given enough credit by our label, or enough freedom to experiment and explore and grow."
"We literally built that empire," Brian announces.
"Well," Kevin clarifies, "we helped build that empire. We sold a lot of records and made the label a lot of money, so on our fifth album we wanted push the envelope and grow creatively and sonically."
Their label weren't interested, and today Nick admits that as the label's attention faded ("it felt like they were putting us in the ground – they wanted us to go away"), so did the quality of their albums. "Suddenly, we weren't able to get songs of a high calibre – we'd target certain producers, but they weren't giving us their A songs," he says. "It was difficult, but we pushed through. We tried to find a way. We had to take it in our own hands and do something with it."
The band was having a mid-life crisis, a wobble that seemed to reach its shouting-at-dustbins nadir in 2011 when Backstreet Boys joined a reformed New Kids On The Block for a rather end-of-days "NKOTBSB" tour. But then, as the band did take their career in their own hands, things began to change. With Kevin back on board and having reunited with the managers who navigated Backstreet Boys through their most successful period, they established their own label and partnered with BMG for a new type of deal. The band made the album (a rather good one, as it turns out) themselves, signing a deal with BMG to handle marketing and distribution. Their single, In a World Like This, also sees the band reunited with Max Martin. It sounds exactly how you want a Backstreet Boys single to sound.
We move across the building to This Morning's studio, where the band record a performance of another new song, the rather dubiously titled Permanent Stain. "I've got a permanent stain IN MY DRAWERS!" Nick screams between takes. Afterwards, I somehow find myself telling the biggest boyband in history that this title does indeed conjure up the image of skidmarks. "Our manager did bring this up with us in a meeting," Nick admits. "She was like: 'I really think you should change the title.'"
"They came up with several alternative options," Kevin adds. "But nobody wanted to change it."
"Maybe a good decision, maybe a bad decision," Howie shrugs, "but we'll go down fighting for it." After two decades in pop, the boys – now aged between 33 and 41 – are still fiercely ambitious. Nick, for instance, wants to record a dubstep version of Everybody (Backstreet's Back), which has enjoyed a new lease of life as part of the new Seth Rogen film This is the End, in which the band also make an appearance. Near the end of our time together, I mention that I first saw the group in the mid-90s, when they supported PJ & Duncan on a modest UK arena tour. The band seem quite amused when I tell them that PJ & Duncan recently found themselves back at No 1 in the UK. Could BSB have a No 1 in 2013?
"Hell, yeah, we can have one," Howie says, grinning.
"Would we like a No 1 single?" ponders Kevin. "Sure. That would be nice. Do we need it? No."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jul/04/backstreet-boys-we-created-memories?CMP=twt_gu
