Having toured the U.S. and Europe following the June release of Backstreet Boys' first album together in five years, next on the Boys’ agenda is bringing their "Never Gone" tour to fans in the Pacific Rim.Included in their 10-stop tour, which takes off in Japan on Jan. 7, is a concert in Seoul scheduled for January 14. This is will be their first-ever concert held in South Korea.From letting readers in on what to expect from their upcoming concert, to how they feel the five stand on the ever-changing pop-music scene and where they are headed both individually and as a group, Backstreet Boys members (Kevin Richardson, Howie D, AJ McLean, Brian Littrel and Nick Carter) shared their thoughts with the! The Korea Times in an e-mail interview last weekend.The following is an excerpt from the interview. Q: What does it feel like to be returning to Seoul and do you have any memories from your last visit?
A: (Nick Carter) We are all very much excited. We are very much glad that we get to go to Korea and meet our Korean fans.
(Kevin Richardson) We remember we were in Korea around 1996 for a promotion tour, we were very young then. We loved the food (bulgogi was it?) and the people were so warm and friendly.
Q: This time around you'll actually be performing a full-fledged concert. What has the group got in store for fans for the January concert?
A: (A.J. McLean) We've kind of simplified our show from all the blowing up everything on stage production that we've done in the past. There was that one big summer when it was us, and Ricky Martin and Britney Spears--everyone was on tour and it was, like, "Who can blow up the most stuff on stage?" I think now we've gotten older and the music doesn't really lend itself to the big acrobatics and pyrotechnics. It's all about going back to basics again - just going back to good, quality music and having fun on stage. There are a couple of songs, like "Poster Girl" and "My Beautiful Woman," where we do some choreography. You'll see all the songs and all the singles from the "Chapter One" album, and we do go back to some of the old choreography that our fans are familiar with, such as the hat routine on "All I Have to Give." It's just a good quality family show. We want everyone to come out and have a good time, and bring out the whole family, and hopefully leave there with a big grin on their face. Q: It's been 12 years since the group started performing. Since then you've gone on to be one of the world's most favorite boy bands of the 1990s. Most recently, after a long recording lull (as a group), fans saw the release of "Never Gone." After a decade since your decade, do you still think of yourselves as a boy band?
A: (Kevin Richardson) In the pop world, everything moves pretty quickly. In the music industry, in the entertainment industry, it's always about what's new, what's next, what's going on. Whenever you take a break like we did, especially for as long as we did, there's always a risk that when you're out of sight, you're out of mind. We believed in our hearts and in each other and in what we knew we could do. We believed that we had established a strong fan base, being that we toured all over the world. But you never really know. Over the years we've seen our audience grow, but at the same time we've seen tastes and development in music change as well. Today's kids ! are studying music deeper. They understand lyrics. They understand chords. I think they're striving to be our musicians of the future. I would encourage them to challenge themselves to pick up a record. I hope it's good quality music that they can enjoy and be inspired by. I think we can stay as a Boy Band for so long as we, too, are getting old and growing with our music. Our fans from our younger days are growing, however I believe the fans would still love our music from old days
Q: What significance does "Never Gone" have and what point in your career does this album mark?
A: (Nick Carter) This one song (first single "Incomplete" ), the good thing about it, I think, is, first of all, it's a good representation of what the album actually sounds like. It has a pop-rock feel. It's a very epic song. We're used to doing kind of epic songs like "Show Me the Meaning" or "I Want It That Way! ," these big songs that we've done in the past. It introduced us into that again. Of course, it has live instrumentation on it, live drums, apart from what we had done in the past, which was a lot of synthesizers, drum samples and loops like that. It's great, because it has a big chorus on it. We completely love performing it.
Q: Like any other group that's been around as long as you have, I'm sure you too have had your ups as well as your downs, the lowest perhaps being when the members were going through such personal hardships as arrests and drug rehabilitation. Was there a point when any of you felt that the group would break? When did the group feel it was at its strongest?
A: (Kevin Richardson) I think we stand somewhere between where we left off in 2001 and where we’re heading now. We started very young and we spent most of our teenage life in growing in the music business, which had both up! s and down. We learned many different things along the way and also experienced many good things that others don’t get to do in other fields. We are growing as humans and so is our music.
Q: Where are Backstreet Boys as a group now headed musically? And also individually (as a few of you have also put out solo albums)?
A: (A.J. McLean) Now living a completely sober life, my life has changed 360 degrees for the better. I can speak on behalf of the other guys that our relationship as a whole has definitely changed. We've all had some time to grow up, experience things individually. (Kevin Richardson) During the break, we all got a chance to do our own thing, which was great. It was incredible. I got a chance to do "Chicago"on Broadway. We took that well-earned break to do what we needed to do. It was nice during the break, also, to have a little bit of anonymity. It was kind of nice to have some of that anonymity when you're not in the spotlight and you're able to step out of the craziness and reflect and look back on all the things we accomplished together and really appreciate it and really see it for what it was. And then become hungry again and excited and miss each other and miss our fans and miss performing. I live in Los Angeles now. A.J. lives in Los Angeles. Howie is bicoastal in Florida and in Los Angeles. Brian's in Atlanta, bicoastal as well.
