Nick Carter: The User's Guide

The House of Carters star on loving Journey, wearing camo pants, and acting like Jerry Lee Lewis.

Nick Carter's been a Backstreet Boy and Paris Hilton's main squeeze. So it's a little weird to watch him on E!'s House of Carters as he copes with his family and the demons of divorce and alcoholism. There hasn't been a train-wreck like it since The Osbournes' first season. Carter invited VH1 to share his passions, and explained why he won't stop believin'.

Name: Nickolas Gene Carter. My grandmother's name on my mother's side was Gene.

Born: January 28, 1980 in Jamestown, N.Y.

First memory: Falling out of a tree when I was a little kid in Jamestown. I saw a picture later of the tree that I used to climb. It seemed a lot bigger when I fell out of it.

Biggest thrill as a child: Hanging out with my sister B.J. in a retirement home that my mother and father ran in Tampa, Florida. We would play in the mud in the front yard when it would rain. And we played with toads. We developed warts on our hands from them!

Did you sit at the front or the back of the class? Always in the back. I didn't learn very well. They'd call it ADD now.

First record bought: Journey's Frontiers. I remember riding my bicycle to the used CD store and buying it. We couldn't really afford the bigger places. Hell, yeah, I still listen to it. Journey all day, all night!

First concert attended: Earth Wind & Fire. They were without Maurice White that time, so it was just Philip Bailey. That was definitely cool. And chock full of hits.

First date: I took a girl in elementary school to Skate Odyssey. She was really this skinny looking girl, but I thought she was beautiful. It was the most awkward thing in the world, but it was great. We were just two nerds and nobody really liked us.

First R-rated movie seen: Rosemary's Baby scared the living shit out of me. My dad would make me sit in front of the TV and watch scary stuff anyway. He enjoyed scaring the sh*t out of me!

Last book read: The Da Vinci Code, but the last good book I read was The Celestine Prophecy. The producer Billy Mann gave it to me. I was going through a really rough time with my parents divorcing and he said, "You need to read this book." It's my favorite of all time. It made me pay attention to coincidences and different things that are going on around us that we tend to not be aware of.

Last movie seen: The Departed. Martin Scorsese scored again. I love Goodfellas. I love the scene between Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci, where he's like, "What so fucking funny? What's so fucking funny about me? Funny how?" That's the greatest line. I've laughed at that a million times.

Favorite sandwich: If I was to make it myself, probably a tuna melt. If I go to a sandwich shop, turkey on wheat.

Favorite item of clothing: These old camo pants that I've worn for the past five years that I cut myself. I actually wore them on the first episode of our show. True fans know that I've worn those everywhere. They've been through everything with me.

Previous jobs: I was in a few commercials before Backstreet Boys. I did one for some orange drink; I think it was Sunny Delight. For that I had to run around in a field like a little maniac with a kite.

Favorite time of day: I'm digging mornings now. I really am. There's something about getting up and experiencing a whole entire day. I think it's healthier for my mind.

On my bedroom wall: Back home in Florida, my entire room is decorated with Chinese and Japanese art, scriptures and stuff. I'm a freak for Asian culture. I have these swords made out of graphite steel; they're like the real deal.

Ideal vacation: I love Sweden. The women are great, but it's a clean environment. I've got a lot of friends there. I'm really digging San Francisco at the moment. I've been through there many times touring, but actually driving around by myself and experiencing it was an eye-opener. Sausalito, Haight-Ashbury ... there's so many cool things to do out there.

Keepsakes: I have these drumsticks from Lars Ulrich. They're nylon ones from the Load tour. Steve Smith from Journey [is my favorite drummer, though]. He played on so many records that I'm like, "You're kidding me. He played on this?" Like Bryan Adams' "Heaven." Then I started listening to all his old drumming from the first Journey records. This guy was insane!

Ambitions: I'm kind of just floating in the wind seeing where it takes me. I don't know what I'm going to do next. What's cool about life is that we're now blessed with that opportunity to do whatever we want to do.

Favorite Madonna record: "Like A Prayer." The chord progressions are really nice. It's just a really great pop song.

Swear word I use too much: Motherf*cker. The last time I used it was on my brother on the show. I'm trying not to swear as much anymore.

If I could be any character from history: Jerry Lee Lewis was insane. Obviously the things that he did with the cousin were not all that great, but he'd be fun character to play.

Source: vh1.com

Thanks to Mike.