Interviews

AD Newspaper, Brussels

Nick Carter in Therapy by Arno van Gelder
Nick Carter, the blonde Backstreet Boy, is testing the ice on his own. His solo-gig, which resulted in the single Help Me, has a highly “therapeutic” level to it. Seven years of continuous touring with the group took his toll on the singer; depressions, obesity, burnout and desolation. Now he found himself in releasing his own album with the revealing title: Now or Never.
On the steps of the classy Sheraton Airport Hotel in Brussels, a hord of girls has gathered. Giggling, the young stalkers with their Flemish accents share secrets, facts and photos with one another.
The blonde 22-year-old Backstreet Boy is inside the hotel, they know for sure. How they tracked down their hero is a mystery to the Belgian record company and the American management of Carter. Because the secrecy and precision of a military campaign was used when they decided to “fly him in” for a day to talk to the Belgian and Dutch press about his solo-record.
De preparations regarding the interview make it seem like it’s an audience. Not only is the permitted time-zone limited to say the least (1200 seconds), the surroundings in which Nick Carter receives the reporters vaguely remind one of a mega-star. Presley isn’t dead? Lennon back on earth? Sinatra reincarnated perhaps?
On the fifth floor Nick’s Belgian record company and the management have set up camp in the executive lounge. Smooth business guys swiftly move through the corridors, talking on their cell phones. Further down the corridor, two large bodyguards are guarding Nick’s room. They’re killing time by make-believe boxing each other.
An actual listen-session has been arranged for the reporters, which is carried out with the strictness of a KGB-hearing. The only CD available on European soil of Nick Carter’s debut solo album is guarded like a precious gem. Pardon, but would the reporter please move his bag away from the discman and headset? Thank you! The risk of the disk being stolen and illegally copied is, clearly, very big.
But as always, the people surrounding the celebrity are way more anal than the celebrity himself. Nick is just on ordinary, sociable and funny young man. Wearing a blue baseball jersey, bouncing on white sneakers, talking to the press with the well-known American friendliness. No big-star attitude, just the boy-next-door type, that ideal son-in-law, even drinking some carrot-juice.
His solo-project, Nick assures us, is no threat to the Backstreet Boys’ future. It will not lead to his resignation from the group. “It’s safe to say I experienced working on Now or Never as therapeutic. I spent a long time trying to find myself. Don’t forget; I was only 12 when I joined the group and I was the youngest, as well.”
“Ever since, I grew up in the business with the Backstreet Boys. I didn’t do anything else, couldn’t do anything else and didn’t know of anything else. Or so I thought. That is, looking back now, a pretty isolated and monotonous existence.”
“What you notice most of all,” Nick continues “is that you’re losing your grip on reality. What is real, what is fake? I kept asking myself those two questons all of the time. When you get to the point where you’re so big, so famous, you truly do not know who your real friends are, who you can trust. Because everybody adores the ground you walk on, everbody thinks you’re just fan-tas-tic.”
Nick claims to have suffered from depressions. He went to all the parties, plunged headfirst into the celeb-scene of booze, sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. Simply put; a life with about as much depth as a surfboard. “I became fat and lazy,” Nick confesses “But mostly very unhappy. Don’t forget we were on the road for 7 years straight. Out of the 12 months I would be home for maybe 2 of them.”
The befriended producer Max Martin, who besides the Backstreet Boys, worked for Britney Spears and Celine Dion as well, among others, was Nick’s reality check. “What are you doing, kid?” he said. “That’s when I stopped partying all the time. In the morning I would be fresh, excited and ready to go work on songs that reflected my feelings. Take a ballad like Do I Have To Cry For You, that song came out of my freaking body. All the hate, love, passion and anger went into that song. A truly therapeutic period of my life.”
Nick’s solo debut musically reminds us of the typical American rock, the slick roughness of artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Tom Petty, Bob Seger and Bon Jovi. “All heroes of mine. It was the music my parents listened to that I grew up with.”
In his lyrics –he co wrote 65% of the album- he doesn’t deceive his past. In Girls in the USA he sings about the many different beautiful females of the States that he saw when touring across the country. In Is It Saturday Yet he analyses his own television-generation.
According to Nick, whose brother Aaron Carter is also successful as a teeny-pop idol, his fellow-group members reacted “enthusiastically” to the one-man-show of their youngest colleague. Vicious rumors report a different story, magazines such as the Dutch pop magazine Break Out say that the 4 other Backstreet Boys are furious with Nick. They fear for the end of the Backstreet Boys. After all; Nick wouldn’t be the first solo artist to suffer a tragic downfall after a successful past in a boyband.
Nick: “Of course the guys were a bit shocked in the beginning. The first Backstreet Boy to go solo and the youngest one too! They had to get used to the idea. I won’t be bigger than the band, although you never know. No, they don’t have to be afraid of anything. I talked to them and told them that I will be a better Backstreet Boy because of this. Just like I’ll be a better son, brother and boyfriend…that is, if I can get a girlfriend.”
Translated and thanks to Anne.