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Boy Band Confidential Season 1 Episode 1
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00:00:02Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
00:00:08You guys ready for it?
00:00:18The Backstreet Boys are back for the phone from 98 degrees
00:00:23That's a...
00:00:24Take a back seat, Backstreet Boys.
00:00:26Your rivals NSYNC now hold the record for album sales.
00:00:30Thirty years ago, they made fun of the word boy band.
00:00:34It's now a badge of honor.
00:00:38A wretch like me
00:00:49I know it has been a difficult time for you, AJ.
00:00:52It was a horrible experience for me.
00:00:54It's a cutthroat business.
00:00:55This is a scam.
00:00:58This is the first time I'm talking about it this openly.
00:01:01The people that we thought had our backs really didn't have them.
00:01:04I once was lost
00:01:12But now
00:01:14I worry just how long their fame and their money will last.
00:01:18Am found
00:01:20I was victimized.
00:01:22Was blind
00:01:25He was propositioning to these young performers, including me.
00:01:29Has been arrested.
00:01:30He too was assaulted.
00:01:32We had nobody except each other.
00:01:35But if I had the chance to do it all over again and end up where I am, would I
00:01:40do it?
00:01:41But now
00:01:44But now I see
00:01:47I see
00:02:01I see
00:02:02I see
00:02:02I see
00:02:02I see
00:02:03I see
00:02:17I see
00:02:19I see
00:02:32I see
00:02:35ah the stories artists have recorded here in sync fashion boys britney spears jones
00:02:42boys and men 98 degrees air cutter snap full force menudo galen brown and i don't know who that
00:02:49is how many years have passed oh gosh well over 20 years definitely a lot has changed
00:03:03uh here's actually kind of funny there's a photo oh there it is right there you can see right there
00:03:07this was literally here this was this shot they were standing there in the alleyway and shooting
00:03:12us there but hilarious enough look at the big ass tv and now it's a flat screen like look at
00:03:17just even
00:03:17just just even simple little things like that i don't know why it's kind of funny to me
00:03:22my name is joey fatone i was in a group called in sync
00:03:27once we became a group we were doing a stadium tour 60 70 000 people screaming at you
00:03:38for the five of us being able to be that successful doesn't happen very very often
00:03:48yep too many memories in here uh too many times sweating our asses off
00:03:57too many times doing the same song over and over and over and over and over and over
00:04:03and over
00:04:08you can't deny that if it wasn't for in sync justin timberlake wouldn't be the way he is right
00:04:13now wouldn't be doing broadway to hosting tv shows to doing films
00:04:21the deadpool movie used our hit for their open
00:04:25now it's a younger generation they're learning about in sync which is pretty cool
00:04:30it's such an amazing experience to be able to go through this life but when we started we were
00:04:35young justin was 14 years old i was what 17 18 i just graduated high school legit
00:04:42now we couldn't grasp everything that was happening around but now as we get older you look at life
00:04:47differently and you realize the industry can be wonderful and can be cool at the same time
00:04:53would there ever be a reunion still i mean there's always a possibility of course
00:04:57now many of our fans don't know the challenges that we faced but throughout my career i met other
00:05:02performers from different groups and started to realize that all these other boy bands had similar
00:05:07experiences that they kept quiet about and it's time we finally shared their stories
00:05:34what's up dude so how are we feeling about the uh the shoot so far well it's funny because i
00:05:39was up
00:05:39very early so joey and i have been talking probably for the past six to eight months about
00:05:45what stories have people not heard see we're in entertainment right so our job is to portray
00:05:51and to sell not only a fantasy but entertain
00:05:57well in the boy band there is a side that's not so glamorous there is a side that's not so
00:06:03sexy
00:06:04if you're a human being you struggle everybody struggles it's just magnified when you're in a
00:06:12boy band i forgot there's like four or five people i think we're gonna get in la next week
00:06:17and then it's gonna be jeff timmons at some point
00:06:21what up speaking of the devil uh who else has done it so far we're getting aj in la
00:06:28i just want to say hi to you so we're getting i think nick in la what's up brother
00:06:33one okay speedings sean jeff timmons it's one of those things i love to hear other sides of the
00:06:43story basically it's them kind of going through and the kind of trials and tribulations we've never
00:06:47had the conversation of just going how did it feel what happened because not many people got to
00:06:52experience something like this i'm nick lachey take one eb cover erica strada take one it's kind
00:06:59of long overdue we've had a bunch of these and we haven't really told this angle
00:07:07all right all right easy peasy
00:07:12these are our billboard awards from 1999 we got four of these for years i didn't have any of my
00:07:20awards
00:07:20out in my house because i don't even think i deserve this
00:07:27aj is a character in a band alex is who i am
00:07:35born alexander mclean a nerdy kid from palm beach florida that had a huffy bike played piano
00:07:42loved games loved comic books but more than anything loved to perform and sing and dance
00:07:48there was a amazing theater called the royal palm dinner theater one of the first roles that i got
00:07:54was in snow white they cast me as dopey because dopey was a mute and i had a speech impediment
00:08:04when
00:08:04i was growing up i had two actually i had a stutter and a lisp of course i get to
00:08:09be the character that
00:08:10doesn't have to say anything i stole the show
00:08:17but i think a negative side of that applause is how you would perceive it
00:08:23why are they clapping for me do i deserve that applause
00:08:27i didn't do anything special if i were you i'd be booing me
00:08:33growing up in south florida most boys especially would look at you like why are you not into sports
00:08:40or video games yeah i would get picked on a lot i got bullied a lot and it really started
00:08:46to kind of
00:08:46tear me down inside i definitely struggled with self-esteem my whole life
00:08:56but i had this ability to perform and acting to bring people joy
00:09:05i have to do these things to get people to like me
00:09:09if you look at most of the guys in that era a lot of the reason why we choose
00:09:14music is this way to communicate and almost like
00:09:22it's a call for help
00:09:25i was probably like 10 or 11 years old a little bit older than that
00:09:28out comes new kids on the block we were living in brooklyn new york
00:09:32and i remember uh this girl this friend of mine her name was deborah and i used to go to
00:09:37her house
00:09:37and watch all the vhs tapes
00:09:42because i didn't want anybody to know you know you don't watch a boy band this is for girls that's
00:09:47for guys this is that sissy stuff is what they would say and i was like i don't know what
00:09:51you're
00:09:51talking about i'm like i'm enjoying the performances i love the songs but on top of that look at how
00:09:57many
00:09:57people are in this arena
00:10:01like they're performing in arenas right now at that time and it's like
00:10:04i would love to do something like that
00:10:06it was groups like that new kids or boys to men that we looked up to
00:10:10and showed us what was possible
00:10:18new kids on the block is definitely the og boy band
00:10:22they were a worldwide phenomenon that started in the late 80s sold over 80 million records worldwide
00:10:29can never be you know fed up with getting awards and and being successful and having millions of
00:10:35people you know want to buy your records i was a tour manager for new kids on the block
00:10:39and they from a personality performance level can't be beat even to this day i don't care what
00:10:45anybody says but then when new kids on the block decided after four and a half years
00:10:50that they were burnt out so they wanted to take a break
00:10:53and that's kind of when boys to men started coming out
00:10:57yes there is a distinction between singer groups and boy bands but unfortunately the experiences
00:11:01are very similar but when i hear people having a lot to say
00:11:08about the group and not really understanding what we had to go through i i personally tell them to
00:11:13off because you don't know you have no idea nor will you ever know
00:11:24we weren't a group that was put together you know music put us together we all lived in
00:11:30you know four different places in philadelphia my mom had me when she was 19 my dad was 18
00:11:37so you know it was kids i met up with my dad later on when i was eight years old
00:11:45you know i lived in the projects my mom wasn't in the best way at the time and my grandmother
00:11:51took me
00:11:51to the trolley stop she said i'm gonna show you how to do this she said get on the trolley
00:11:57you sit
00:11:57right by the door if anything happens i need to be able to run straight off the hood is the
00:12:04hood you
00:12:04know what i'm saying somebody come on that john and they they want the the the money change thing
00:12:10you know they stick up the they stick up the trolley
00:12:15it was scary because i would come home and it'd be some crazy stuff i'm talking about coming home and
00:12:21laying in my bed lift up the mattress it's like sawed off shotguns freaking nine millimeters
00:12:30and guess what i did went to sleep you feel me that's that's what it was so i had to
00:12:38leave
00:12:41and once i remember sitting on a bed when i just start crying crying and i was praying i just
00:12:50said i
00:12:51just want to be a star and i kept crying it i want to be a star i want to
00:12:54be a star
00:12:57now the crazy thing is when you become a star he didn't you didn't tell he didn't tell me that
00:13:04it comes with a lie
00:13:10i wasn't prepared for loss
00:13:17and that loss changed the trajectory of of everything
00:13:27growing up fame the tv show with leroy and coco and all of the dancers and it was just this
00:13:35school
00:13:35that was amazing i'm like really it'd be awesome if there was a school like that right in eighth grade
00:13:41high schools they start coming to your schools to you know solicit you to another place
00:13:47so i was sitting there and another school came and the next thing you know they put their thing on
00:13:54the screen they showed leroy and coco and they said you might know this school from blah blah and i
00:14:02was
00:14:02like fame you know i lost my mind you know what i mean i want to go to fame
00:14:11capa is an acronym for creative and performing arts so if it's anything like the tv show i need
00:14:18to go and that's where i met the other guys in a group called boys to men when we first
00:14:24started
00:14:24i was around 15. nate mike mark were 16 17 and wanye was like 14.
00:14:34what people don't have to realize is we rehearsed
00:14:37every day for nothing nothing we had nothing we just went and sang for nothing
00:14:49it wasn't until we graduated that we snuck backstage to a will smith concert and that's when we met michael
00:14:56bivins michael bivins is an artist from the group bell biv devoe who was one of the original members
00:15:03of new edition they sing for bivins and he winds up becoming their manager 89 is when the group was
00:15:11formed 90 is when we got signed 91 we came out well i'll tell you these guys are hot everybody
00:15:19loves
00:15:19women go crazy for them and they're all single they can harmonize good singers much talent they're
00:15:26the best they really are boys to men they're the r&b kings they're cool that's one of the groups
00:15:31that
00:15:31we looked up to that what we we strive to be like i was at a performing arts school in
00:15:36cincinnati and
00:15:37we had an acapella group and so we very quickly started to cover boys to men there was something
00:15:42about the way that sounded that was on a whole nother level than anything i had ever heard arranged or
00:15:48performed in my entire life michael bivins pushed for us to get on tour so we were the opening act
00:15:55for mc hammer of course we don't know what it entails you know we just said oh goodness we're going
00:16:00on
00:16:00tour you know this is amazing mc hammer wow you know when it came time for us to actually go
00:16:07on tour
00:16:07michael bivins was putting personnel together and he introduced us to khalil during the rehearsal
00:16:12and you know big early guy he used to wear these big gold rings with diamonds on it this big
00:16:19chain
00:16:20khalil roundtree was our role manager making sure that travel is taking care of hotels making sure we
00:16:27eat the role manager takes care of all of that so he was that and then some he was also
00:16:35our security
00:16:37so when it came time for khalil to role managers he needed help so we called his best friend well
00:16:45khalil we grew up a block apart from each other and we was in you know elementary school together
00:16:51and he was a big gentleman and i was small and we just connected like he was a gentle giant
00:16:58and he was
00:16:59loyal he knew what it all entailed and he wanted us to be safe and he protected us hook or
00:17:05crook through
00:17:06it all no matter what we had to run we had to run and we had to crawl we had
00:17:11to crawl but he was right
00:17:12there with us showing us how but those things that you run from in life they are always going to
00:17:20rear their heads
00:17:24it's may 1992 we're on a too legit to quit tour and we were in chicago illinois
00:17:31i was actually in my girlfriend's room at the doubletree she was one of mt hammer's dancers
00:17:39and kicking it having fun and i heard like a a loud door shut
00:17:48sean's girlfriend comes in a room and she says
00:17:54khalil's dead
00:17:59there was a lot of press and a lot of news about this but people don't know what we went
00:18:06through or
00:18:06how we went through things i get a phone call in my hotel room and it was wine yay and
00:18:13he was like yo
00:18:14i need you to come somewhere with me something happened to khalil and we went up to khalil's room
00:18:21we got there was like csi investigators they pulled us in the room and sat us down
00:18:29the police officer said there was people in the hotel they were looking for the party because mc
00:18:35hammer was at the hotel so they were knocking on doors khalil would leave his hotel door open
00:18:41just to kind of keep an ear on everything khalil's door was open so instead of knocking
00:18:48they two of them kind of like pushed their way in
00:18:53and they saw him counting the tour money so the one guy barges in
00:19:02khalil was like he's in my room he walks out so then he's like
00:19:07shit they seen the money he knows the guys are here let me handle this you know he called quadri
00:19:13so he was like these trying to get in my room so he's like yo come we gonna get them
00:19:18out the hallway
00:19:18because if they go knock on one of these stupid rooms talking about us they gonna open the door
00:19:24we can't hear that so khalil and quadri grabbed them so i said make home let's just take them downstairs
00:19:34and
00:19:34get rid of them
00:19:38and one of the guys had a gun bow bow bow i got shot i felt one two three one
00:19:50of the guys shot khalil in the head
00:19:59i was in the state of shock and i come out the elevator and i said my friend he's in
00:20:04the elevator
00:20:04he's right there he's dead he's in the elevator he's dead i couldn't stop saying it and then i fainted
00:20:13i've never experienced anything like that in my life someone that close to me getting killed
00:20:22in in such a close proximity
00:20:32the guys that were banging on hotel doors as they say trying to find where the party was at when
00:20:38reality i really think they were looking for us and khalil knew that because that happened to us
00:20:44we've had people sneak into our dressing rooms and stuff like that so he really was our protector
00:20:52he was our shield from a lot of the the mess that now we're exposed to
00:20:59so now we have to grow up we have to become boys to men is it difficult to adjust to
00:21:07the fame
00:21:08it's not difficult because we help each other out you know boys to men they pull out of the tour
00:21:14but they're back on the same tour a week later and then they're back in the recording studio working
00:21:19on their next hit end of the road this is our first number one single it's unnatural you belong to
00:21:25me
00:21:26i can't let go it spends 13 weeks at number one and it becomes a massive hit
00:21:34i'll make love to you another massive hit replaces end of the road at the top of the singles chart
00:21:42and they keep out doing themselves one after the other
00:21:47the success of boys to men paved the way for other groups to follow in their footsteps
00:21:56however there is a downside to that because they could grow up to boot you out from that spot at
00:22:03the top of the charts
00:22:07thanks to a lot of uh the groups that came before us like the boys the men's
00:22:11there was a door that had been reopened for male groups to come in we could end up doing a
00:22:18deal with
00:22:18atlantic records and then the funny thing is atlantic records didn't want to put our picture on a cover
00:22:25because our group all for one there's a white guy there's a mexican guy and two black guys
00:22:30in the music industry even still to this day is one of the most
00:22:33like segregated places still we did the hit song i swear they just start fire now here's the crazy
00:22:42story about i swear a lot of the the black radio stations were not able to really play i swear
00:22:48it's
00:22:49like you know we have these folks here saying well you're not r&b enough you're not black enough you
00:22:53got a white boy and a mexican boy in your group it wasn't the fans that segregated us or or
00:23:01didn't
00:23:01accept us it was more of the people who make business decisions and it sucked and sucks past
00:23:09and present all right so i went my garage and uh literally these are bins in my garage i don't
00:23:17even
00:23:17know half the stuff that's really in here so we're just going to open up and kind of look at
00:23:20some old
00:23:21in there's probably instinct stuff in here there's a bunch of other stuff in here but out of the gate
00:23:25let's look like i can break in half a in sync microphone hey poor portable and cordless all the
00:23:30dolls funko we're pop vinyl pop guys how many people have barbie dolls well this is christine
00:23:39and she's an in sync fan if hopefully you know your your group does become popular it becomes i guess
00:23:47a brand in some sort because you're you're not only selling yourself per se but you're selling the
00:23:51product of course which is the music but sometimes it works the other way where the label or manager
00:23:56starts with the brand that they want to sell and it goes out looking for the individuals to fit
00:24:00that brand that's when you hear criticism that boy bands are in quote manufactured and nobody knows
00:24:08that better than backstreet when i was a kid we left south florida to move to orlando to be closer
00:24:27to nickelodeon and disney places that i could potentially work or get jobs where did you get
00:24:33it from the sky hi honey i'm home it's a show on nickelodeon that ended up actually getting picked
00:24:39up by abc briefly that was a lot of fun it wasn't until this thing called the blue sheet was
00:24:44coming
00:24:45around in the mail it was basically like the classifieds for all the local entertainment and
00:24:50on the final page on the top of it said local entrepreneur looking to put together
00:24:56a vocal group a la new kids on the block meets boys to men and i looked at my mom
00:25:03i was like
00:25:05what do you think lou perlman held auditions for the backstreet boys and people came out and
00:25:13auditioned for it i was the first one to meet lou went to his house sang for him and he
00:25:22signed me on
00:25:22the spot and that was it so imd the og i helped literally put the band together at that point
00:25:29in
00:25:29time i had a lot of friends saying to me hey this guy who owns all these blimps he wants
00:25:34to meet you
00:25:35and i'm like who is he his name is lou perlman i don't know he's a rich guy he owns
00:25:40the blimps
00:25:41he drives around the rolls royce so i decided to go meet him at an italian restaurant so when i
00:25:48walk in
00:25:48i go into this private room and there's this huge table set up for about 14 people and the only
00:25:53person at the table was lou so it was some godfather moment right and then these five guys come in
00:25:59five boys kevin ryan nick aj and howie so i was like what's going on with this so anyways these
00:26:07five
00:26:08guys come in singing and they're singing acapella the hair on my arm stood up because their harmonies
00:26:14were perfection and i remember looking across the table at johnny and going ching ching it's
00:26:20called the backstreet boys brand new group what is your name i'm aj mclean oh god that was our very
00:26:27first tv performance ever the local news in orlando aj was 14 he was the bad boy who are you
00:26:35howie d howie
00:26:37howie was the sweet friend i'm from lexington kentucky my name is brian littrell brian was the all
00:26:42american i'm kevin richardson kevin and brian were we late kevin richardson kind of like the more
00:26:48mature daddy of the group he was only 22 at the time so that sounds weird but now all the
00:26:55fans say
00:26:56that kevin has daddy vibes and nick was the baby nick was 12 when i started working with him i'm
00:27:02from
00:27:02tampa florida and i'm nick carter 12 nick and aj they were the young ones we're in the process of
00:27:09making
00:27:09an album right now i mean i was excited because one of the many reasons again back to the beginning
00:27:13why i got picked on because i didn't really have any guy friends all my friends were girls
00:27:20hi how you doing lou perlman was a peculiar entrepreneur he created this transportation
00:27:27company where he would charter blimps it's not like this is a common thing for a blimp entrepreneur
00:27:35to just enter the music industry and start a boy band this doesn't happen but you do need a lot
00:27:41of
00:27:42business acumen to create a successful musical act i always say there's a million artists here
00:27:49these guys have the right marketing promotion and make it because they have the machine around them
00:27:54that helps get them to that with the backstreet boys lou funded the label transcon records lou built
00:28:02a studio so they could record in there it was lou's money the business side of things is very important
00:28:10lou perlman's company transcon records was developing the backstreet boys to make them
00:28:15attractive to a record label by acting like a manager or producer lou hires johnny wright as another
00:28:21manager to train them and book gigs lou enlist vocal coaches music producers and choreographers
00:28:27to create demos and music videos there was an entire machine to break backstreet boys into the industry
00:28:34and oftentimes these are things that an artist cannot afford on their own so they rely on someone
00:28:41like lou perlman to pay for things in the early stages that they will then pay them back for later
00:28:48on
00:28:49the early days of backstreet boys they got like a stipend every week and then lou put them all in
00:28:55a house together it was a beautiful mansion he had a covered pool he had the house he had the
00:29:08limousines
00:29:10he had the planes 14 year old you're in this house of this guy who's got a gaggle of money
00:29:18i'll never
00:29:18forget he had a mexican coke vending machine glass bottle it was the best in the world and he's got
00:29:25like c-3po statue and darth vader and a screen that comes out of the ceiling to watch movies and
00:29:32you're
00:29:32like this guy's cool well he's like tony stark except minus the tech definitely not as good looking as tony
00:29:37stark let's just say that it was like five tony starks in one he gave gifts he took him out
00:29:43to
00:29:43dinners he was the one that funded everything he drove him around in the limos i never liked
00:29:49lou perlman ever and i had a vibe about him that i just didn't trust
00:29:56you know how you doing well let's go get a steak always had pretty people around him
00:30:03you had this guy who took three and a half million dollars which he could have put in stock market
00:30:08could have bought a piece of property and flipped it he could have done other things that were more
00:30:13secure than putting it into your music career it makes you start to second guess nobody really stopped
00:30:21to think why if you're coming from a household where a father isn't present and you have a guy
00:30:33who hanging out with you helping you and putting money in your pocket you kind of gravitate to that
00:30:40person that was the nickname they gave him big papa i mean it was just like parental figure slash like
00:30:55best friend kind of relationship for me i grew up being raised by my mom and my grandparents
00:31:03when i was two my parents divorced so after my parents split up
00:31:08my dad picked me up when i was about eight to go see my nana which was his mom for
00:31:14her birthday
00:31:15that was the last time i saw him until i was 17. in that moment in that time some of
00:31:22the boys looked
00:31:22up to lou kevin had lost his father unfortunately before we started backstreet boys uh passed away when
00:31:30he was 19 from cancer he immediately kind of had that relationship with lou where he did look up to
00:31:37him like
00:31:38a father figured
00:31:42then there was a problem we thought this record we got it going on was going to be a smash
00:31:48it's a single that we tried to promote in the u.s and nobody wanted to play it music had
00:31:53gone more
00:31:53rock and grunge so there was no room for a boy band like everybody poo-pooed on it let me
00:31:59tell you let
00:32:00me let me give you the tea at that point we're feeling you know somewhat accomplished we've won
00:32:06a grammy we won american music award we've been touring the world you know we've been releasing songs
00:32:11and and and having success and one day we got this young group called the backstreet boys they went to
00:32:18see what a tour bus looked like we invited them on our tour bus in orlando we're talking to them
00:32:23and
00:32:24trying to give them advice you know and and they were really cool kids then and like there is no
00:32:28competitions because at the end of the day the thing that matters first and foremost is hit
00:32:35records because there's a lot of talented people and you can sing their faces off what's the difference
00:32:40between them and us hit records right
00:32:47nobody wanted to play the backstreet boys in the united states so me have being involved with other
00:32:53bands who played all over europe and the world and keeping my rolodex of different people that i met
00:32:59along the way we had booked the backstreet boys to play in germany
00:33:25and even without social media just to spread a word of mouth like these guys from america or something and
00:33:31then
00:33:31that's when it kicked off for us their single went to number one in like eight weeks and then it
00:33:39was
00:33:39on i think they're really great they can sing and they look good first of all it is an amazing
00:33:46thing to
00:33:46have the ability to bring so much joy and happiness to people you may never know on a personal level
00:33:53around the world through music through performance is a blessing they did all the tv shows hello
00:34:02for the backstreet boys nick you are the biggest uh womanizer but now i heard every girl was screaming
00:34:09like nick nick nick we were playing 30 000 seat stadiums so now they're blowing up
00:34:16and now our record label saying oh y'all need to be like them
00:34:21so i'm like well we were out before they were and why can't there be enough room and space
00:34:27for them to be them they have their lane and they're killing it in their lane
00:34:31and we have our lane and the fan base and we're killing it in our lane
00:34:36i think it makes you question your talent
00:34:39because it's like you must think that i'm not good enough to be me if you're telling me i need
00:34:46to be him
00:34:51my name is jeff timmons i am the founding member of a group called 98 degrees our path was
00:34:56dramatically different than backstreet and boys to men's path and all for one i mean we would have
00:35:03much preferred to have this monster behemoth label push behind us but we didn't have it we were four
00:35:09kids from ohio we moved to north hollywood uh the summer of 95 and really for us it was all
00:35:15about all
00:35:15those old school ways of just trying to get out there we had a motorhome wrapped with our picture
00:35:22and we would do a show and i would drive for six hours to the next city we'd go to
00:35:28kinko's we'd print
00:35:29out our flyers going up and down the beach just handing out flyers to girls on the beach she's
00:35:33like all right how else are we gonna get noticed we literally put the hat down and you sing for
00:35:37money and for food show up on a street corner just sing we go to taco bell sing we go
00:35:43to fatburger
00:35:44sing can we get a free burger we scrapped and clawed our way to stay afloat and then we thought
00:35:49eventually we're gonna meet someone in in la who's gonna know somebody who's gonna know somebody and
00:35:54this is gonna get us somewhere i had a friend who was a performer in germany and she's like there's
00:36:06this group over here that's just blowing up called the backstreet boys and they had not yet broken
00:36:10here in the u.s similar group much more polished and i remember us going this is where we're going
00:36:16if we stick with it we're going to get more of this now we just got to practice and now
00:36:20we just need
00:36:20the opportunity 1995 we had the single with mariah one sweet day
00:36:31it was sweeping it was emotional it tugged at your heartstrings you had these two juggernaut musical
00:36:39acts teaming up i mean it was it was magic we're nominated for six grammys and mariah was so sure
00:36:50and we did not win one
00:36:54we took a year off it's just tired bro we were at each other's throats we canceled the european tour
00:37:03and we came home bro and nobody was feeling us like people were done with us
00:37:10and with our era of music and it shifted to the boy bands and they look nothing like us
00:37:22motown records our label in particular made it painfully obvious that they were done they were
00:37:27with us and the pendulum has shifted that's right this song right here there is more choice because
00:37:33we want to pay tribute to motown we signed the motown records and for those of you who don't know
00:37:39it's a legendary record label that has such great artists like cd wonder marvin gate the four tops the
00:37:46presentation and right now it's got great artists like boys to me i'd be lying if i didn't say come
00:37:56on this is insane they were the first white band on the black label they'd give us this song called
00:38:03invisible man and turns out it was submitted for boys the men by a couple writers in vancouver canada
00:38:09and the president of motown heard it he said no i don't want this for boys to men i want
00:38:1390 degrees
00:38:14to take this record this song is called invisible man it's textbook do black music with white faces
00:38:24pat boone the osmonds elvis they were all doing black music that is the truth like and it's a hard
00:38:31truth
00:38:32it's no dist 90 degrees in sync backstreet any of those guys like they were just kids trying to make
00:38:39it
00:38:39too i hate to say it just crass but to the average white girl fan
00:38:51the black groups oh i'd him but the white groups oh i'd marry him
00:39:01justin timberlake on my wall it's more acceptable opposed to a couple of black guys
00:39:07i can marry justin i can bring him to my house he can have dinner with my family it's a
00:39:14little
00:39:14harder to bring black ass sean to rural arkansas
00:39:23it's a cutthroat business they want the next hottest biggest thing or the next two act they don't give two
00:39:29shits sometimes record companies and if they could be that cold-blooded to the biggest music sensation at
00:39:34time imagine the power they had over the new artist
00:39:42the president of motown he wanted us to be the white jodeci so he was trying to give us that
00:39:49in a
00:39:49crash course hey i want you guys to go to black churches in harlem on sundays let's dress these
00:39:54guys in fugu and fat farm i remember going on a train to rochester new york to work with davante
00:40:00from jodeci and we show up and davante is being fitted for a bulletproof vest in the studio
00:40:08and i'm looking around i'm like do we need a bulletproof vest what did we just walk into
00:40:14it does make you question well why did you sign us if you didn't want us to be who we
00:40:18are you're
00:40:19trying to make us into something else you got to remember we're a new act we're not making any money
00:40:25we don't know what the plan is and this is our shot we'll try it we'll try this we'll go
00:40:30hang out
00:40:30at barry bar with russell we'll we'll do all these things we'll do whatever we have to do
00:40:36you go home you're like what am i who am it starts to really mess with you mentally
00:40:42and for me it caused a severe depression but i felt like i was the weakest link in the group
00:40:50just didn't feel good about myself didn't feel good physically i could not sleep and my head wasn't
00:40:55right i felt so worthless and just the fact that i could not handle all this pressure that i was
00:41:02like
00:41:02just end it and i don't know for whatever reason i just thought no screw that like just push one
00:41:12more
00:41:12time like just try this last thing i went to our manager and i said i need some help if
00:41:18i don't get
00:41:18some sort of help i will not be here like this is over and i mean seriously so he found
00:41:23a psychiatrist
00:41:24for me to go to he put me on this atkins diet put me on some medication within three months
00:41:30i was i
00:41:30felt better than ever and it didn't make this any easier uh but at least i felt better that i
00:41:37didn't want
00:41:38to die you know so thanks for sharing that at the time i kept hearing rumblings from the same people
00:41:47who had told me about lou when i had my first meeting that lou had another boy man
00:41:55and every time i would call lou i'd say what's this i'm hearing about you no i don't have another
00:42:00boy but no i don't have no i don't know what you're talking about people are lying there's another
00:42:04boy being out there but i have nothing to do with them all right so i got some of my
00:42:13awards and
00:42:14stuff i have a storage unit full of stuff and it's i would love to have everything out in display
00:42:20if i could i really would because it does mean a lot to me it's it's my life it's it's
00:42:25a lot of my
00:42:25career it's all of my career what i really started doing this is what really started it all
00:42:33disney wanted to make orlando hollywood east at one point you had all the theme parks that at that
00:42:38time had dancers singers all levels of performers back in the day i was doing a beetleju show at
00:42:46universal and i was in a group with this kid named jason and uh two other friends of mine
00:42:52and then i run into chris who actually worked at universal there's always speculations of how the
00:43:00group got together people are going to say so many different things but i will say
00:43:05lou told chris basically i don't want to do an audition go out and find and chris did chris brought
00:43:11the guys together lou perlman financially helped that and lynn harlis which is justin's mom came up
00:43:18with the name in sync lynn was like oh y'all names last letter of your first name spells in
00:43:25sync and like
00:43:26what do you mean it's like well you got n for justin you have s for chris c-h-r
00:43:32-i-s so there's
00:43:33n-s-y you got joey for the y so n-s-y-n which was jason for the other
00:43:39n and then jc for the c so that
00:43:42was in sync you're funny guy when we started we were definitely boys i mean you had justin who was
00:43:4814 and you had chris who was 23 24 at the time so it's a 10-year gap pretty much
00:43:52between them
00:43:58so the five of us got together we sang everything was great we're going to sign with transcontinental
00:44:03which was lou perlman's independent record label and all of a sudden we go to sign and jason doesn't
00:44:09show up and we're like what happened jason that's the guy that quit in sync
00:44:24he was a good friend of mine and his dad was my course teacher in high school
00:44:29what i want to do is sit with jason and have a conversation and to hear his side of it
00:44:35what's up what's up no i don't know look good
00:44:43we're doing this whole documentary that's why i have you so obviously people
00:44:47don't know it's almost like you know the fifth beetle or whatever in that sense but it's more
00:44:50or less of for us it's it's getting the story across that no one's ever really heard before
00:44:56oh hi
00:44:58so the full story went in sync i had no idea what was gonna happen and also i was a
00:45:05stupid kid
00:45:05i've never seen the music contract before so i was smart enough back then to take the contracts
00:45:12to lawyers to review them and it's like whoa whoa whoa what lose lose a member of the band now
00:45:21before both the backstreet boys are in sync there was a contract and the way lou always structured
00:45:28the companies was he was the 51 percent owner but he was also one sixth member of the backstreet
00:45:36boys and in sync so he got a six of their side of the 49 all i could say i'm
00:45:43so proud of these guys
00:45:45there's a paragraph where said if they do an outside business while they're a member of the
00:45:50backstreet boys management was still entitled to a commission and brian said so you mean if i go and
00:45:57get a hot dog stand while i'm in this group you guys get a piece of that and we're like
00:46:01yeah because
00:46:02anything you're using your name for that we're helping you promote that's going to bring goodwill
00:46:06into another business we should get paid for it the music industry is one of the very few industries
00:46:12where you don't have to go to school for it yet you're thrown in it and record contracts you've never
00:46:19seen any of this words salad in your life and all of this you learn on the fly i believe
00:46:2990 of the
00:46:30artists will sign a horrible record deal just to have one unfortunately this one was real bad
00:46:36these guys were teenagers uh barely even teenagers 12 years old 14 years old for backstreet boys
00:46:45nobody really stopped to think oh you boys probably shouldn't sign this until
00:46:49somebody gets a lawyer for us so we did i thought i did
00:46:58it was a suggestion from lou the only attorney that was in the room when we signed it was his
00:47:04attorney none of us got attorneys
00:47:14i've often thought what if one of our parents did decide to get a lawyer the lawyer was there
00:47:21read the contract and saw that would lou have dropped us on the spot or would he have changed
00:47:27the contract
00:47:30i think he would have dropped us i mean i found five people i can find another five people exactly
00:47:36and he did bye bye everyone as far as insane is concerned lou sat down with us and said hey
00:47:43you know
00:47:44i love to do this a b c and d and i know that i'm going to look out for
00:47:48your best interest i'm saying
00:47:49that if i become a sixth member with you guys that means we all split it we'll all share it
00:47:53but i'm
00:47:54going to look out for your best interest i'm like i split five six ways it seems pretty pretty reasonable
00:48:00since thinking that's the only thing he's getting now look obviously you want to make a decision that's
00:48:06using your best judgment but when you're out there grinding and you have no money and you're in a
00:48:11competitive landscape and in a business that's a dream to actually achieve and the fact that someone
00:48:17handed me a piece of paper making it official you're going to justify in your brain that it's
00:48:22that it's something that's legit so we signed a deal the four of us
00:48:28at that juncture within sync it didn't feel right so i didn't do it
00:48:37that's what i'm saying jc was pissed calling me like what are you doing what are you doing what are
00:48:40you doing and i don't blame them i kind of left them high and dry so i get it i'd
00:48:46be pissed at me too
00:48:48after in sync i went back to college she got my degree and then a buddy of mine i went
00:48:54school with
00:48:55he was in the mortgage business and i've been doing that ever since
00:49:04you're always going to be you know to have your what if moments you know it's just human nature you're
00:49:09gonna you're gonna think about that have to have those what if moments
00:49:27so that was just the four of us and we were pretty bent out of shape because we were
00:49:32we were on the verge of doing stuff so then we tried to find a bass singer
00:49:40well i grew up in a little town uh called ellisville mississippi it was a town of 2 000
00:49:45people very small country town a place you didn't lock your doors you knew every single person in
00:49:51town you know you didn't go home until the street lights came on that was your sign and
00:49:56very conservative uh i was in church three times a week it was all about family and it was all
00:50:02about
00:50:02religion i was always in choir singing in church so you never really had a dream that i could be
00:50:09an
00:50:09entertainer when i was 16 i had a girlfriend at the time it was getting ready for my homecoming
00:50:17parade i got home from helping build the float and my mom was on the phone with lou perlman and
00:50:25justin timberlake and his mom lynn they'd found me through my coach for another show car that i was in
00:50:30and they're putting this band together and see if you want to be the bass singer think about how
00:50:34random that is though somebody randomly calls you out of mississippi to say hey these four guys want
00:50:39to audition you in a group hey tell your mom to come to florida we'll fly them out my mom
00:50:44was like
00:50:44no i'm not interested and hung up and that was it the second time that they called somehow my mom
00:50:52thought it was okay for us to fly to orlando and just meet the guys
00:50:55i was so nervous these guys were insanely talented
00:51:03i i definitely felt like you know imposter syndrome for sure and the 16 year old kids never
00:51:09left the town all of a sudden pretending they're a great singer pretending they're a great dancer i
00:51:14just felt like i was pretending the whole time which suited me because i was pretending to be a lot
00:51:19of
00:51:19things at the time some of my first memories were knowing that i was different in kindergarten i
00:51:28remember having like a little crush on the boy instead of the girl and i knew at that time that
00:51:33that was not right you just knew it uh from what you know people say in the churches all the
00:51:38jokes made
00:51:39about gay people so at an early age you knew that those feelings had to be suppressed
00:51:46so i hid that part of myself and the older i got i did not like myself
00:51:54it just felt lonely felt very lonely i felt like i was on an island because i couldn't talk to
00:51:59anyone
00:52:00i felt broke when i joined in sync it was always alluded that your private life always needed to be
00:52:07hidden if we were to come out as gay if to come out even having a girlfriend uh that it
00:52:14would really
00:52:14hurt our career that that that needed to be hidden and so that always translated to me it was like
00:52:22never come out never come out never come out this one little thing just destroys all of that
00:52:29a videotaping ends really cool run run run run run
00:52:40johnny's got the camera and he's acting a fool
00:52:42you run run run the new run run do do yeah whoops a little draw do yeah love the movie
00:52:48back
00:52:49school dude yeah i don't know anything else i do run run run i do run run i started in
00:52:56the
00:52:56entertainment business back in the 90s and i started with the boy band craze in orlando florida
00:53:02for in sync i started as a personal assistant i didn't work for lou and i didn't work for johnny
00:53:06i
00:53:07worked for for the five guys directly the first time i ever saw them perform i said get rid of
00:53:12that kid
00:53:13he was a good dancer but he was very nasally and it was justin i'm rolling down the street
00:53:20and the music is bumping i really said that boy i was wrong boy i was wrong
00:53:28i realized that lance was gay we were on the bus and i was making a peanut butter and jelly
00:53:33sandwich
00:53:33and he goes what are you doing he goes no no he grabbed the styrofoam cup and he grabbed the
00:53:37peanut
00:53:38butter put it in the styrofoam cup and then he grabbed jelly you can't just do peanut butter and
00:53:42jelly you have to mix it together it's a different consistency it's a different flavor try it i'm
00:53:48telling you he goes try mine and i try his i'm like huh i go lance are you kidding me
00:53:54dude this is the
00:53:55greatest thing i've ever tasted this is unbelievable he goes yeah joe i told you i said but also this
00:54:00is
00:54:00the gayest thing i've ever done and he looked at me and his whole face turned red and he ran
00:54:05off the bus
00:54:08there was a lot of times where if people said trigger words i probably would freeze up and
00:54:13you would just kind of kind of like homer simpson back into the bushes you're like i'm just gonna
00:54:17just disappear right now in the group it was really interesting because i was the first one to find out
00:54:24we go out one night we all go back to lance's house i pass out in one of his guest
00:54:27bedrooms
00:54:28i wake up at like three o'clock in the morning i'm like i gotta leave i go to his
00:54:32bedroom open up
00:54:33there's nobody in there then i go to his office and i open up the door and he's sitting there
00:54:37there's a guy straddled on top of him i was at my computer and my boyfriend at the time my
00:54:45very
00:54:45very first boyfriend uh was sitting on my lap not naked but they're straddled on top and i was like
00:54:53got quiet and he's like oh sorry i'm like no no no no no come in come in i was
00:54:56like surprise yo bro
00:54:58i said honestly your mom's gonna kill you that's all i said to him he's like oh please i don't
00:55:04care
00:55:04i'm like okay and it i knew he wouldn't care but it was just so nice to hear those words
00:55:09and finally
00:55:10one of the members of your group know and be like i don't care he goes just don't tell anybody
00:55:15i don't
00:55:16want to tell anybody yet it's not right i go lance i love you i said you're my brother you
00:55:21let me know
00:55:21when it's right for you to tell i'm not saying nothing to the guys because i found out by accident
00:55:27we were such a family for so many reasons you know being fish out of water in this
00:55:33weird situation it bonds you because you're stuck with each other then on top of that we were the
00:55:40red-headed stepchild jc
00:55:46it was kind of like the secret little thing we had with lou perlman
00:55:49because of the boys the backstreet boys you know they couldn't know about us
00:55:56i worked for lou driving his limo uh filling his fridge and i definitely remember uh being in his
00:56:05office when you know backstreet boys were hitting and they had started in sync without backstreet boys
00:56:11knowing and then brought johnny right in to manage them and i remember being in a meeting with lou and
00:56:16johnny like they're talking about how are we going to navigate this it was pretty intense um at that
00:56:22time for in sync we gave them the same producers the same writers took them to germany so that was
00:56:29where our strategy was with those two but lou didn't want the backstreet boys to know that he was creating
00:56:37a new band and i was now going to manage in sync but one day i fly to utah to
00:56:42see the backstreet boys
00:56:43and be about the video shoot and kevin and brian come into my room and they go why did you
00:56:48lie to us
00:56:50and it was very uncomfortable definitely in their mind as a betrayal
00:56:56we all got the wool pulled over our eyes as the entire world knows that was the one biggest question
00:57:01we had just why did you do this why couldn't you just be happy with us and the way things
00:57:10were
00:57:11there was a little bit of oh should i do this because you don't want one group mad that we
00:57:17have
00:57:18another group just the same they felt we were greedy i'll say i'm guilty i but then when you said
00:57:26at the
00:57:27other side why should i let someone else get an in sync and do the same thing if you're going
00:57:34to have
00:57:34competition let it be by two acts that i represent so that i know how to manage the movement so
00:57:41neither
00:57:42one of you are hurt by it lou always equated it to this you have burger king and mcdonald's and
00:57:49in some
00:57:50cities burger king sits right next to mcdonald's people have a choice but they both survived so you
00:57:55guys can survive and i said i'll make that promise to you that you guys will have your lane they'll
00:58:00have
00:58:00theirs and that's what i the word that i kept until we had booked the backstreet boys to play the
00:58:06disney
00:58:07concert series it was like almost two two years that we were busting our asses to get to nowhere for
00:58:14a while we did the grind you know we did the small little bars and clubs everywhere it kept us
00:58:19growing
00:58:19and getting better and i remember one time nsync was opening for us and they um they came out and
00:58:26i want you back and it was all you know all the choreography was happening i'm just sitting there
00:58:29like holy we are it was like they're never opening for us ever again this is the first and last
00:58:36time
00:58:36they will ever open for us in sync was very together in their choreography i saw boys that were working
00:58:44hard to get their dream but they needed a break to become popular disney wanted to put on a concert
00:58:50in their parks and we saw that the offers were for backstreet and johnny went to the boys and they
00:58:55didn't
00:58:55want to do it they just felt why the hell are we doing disney when we're on the front cover
00:58:59of
00:58:59rolling stone we'll just go ahead and show you why you should johnny wright managed both groups
00:59:06in sync was so polished and ready they slipped in this is the first concert we did uh for in
00:59:12sync
00:59:19thanks backstreet boys
00:59:24that break that they got at disney was well deserved because they were so good and then boom
00:59:33and that catapulted them to the top
00:59:40in sync was like covering at 66 with the album then the backstreet boys album was sitting at number
00:59:47four and all of a sudden the in sync album jumped it and went to number two
00:59:54nobody was bigger than them at that time but there is a side that's not so glamorous
01:00:02and that goes from the fans from the actual principles and artists from the crew you get
01:00:09threats a 17 year old teenager planned to steal guns to kill five musicians at an arena all because
01:00:16of n sync's popularity with girls one day we found out there was a bomb threat while we were
01:00:21out on tour the uh management of the uh the band are taking this threat very seriously
01:00:31there was a girl that pulled a gun once if i didn't let her meet somebody she waved a gun
01:00:38and then she ran away my behavior changed after that you become a more aware you realize that at any
01:00:47moment something could happen you'll see a bieber cancel a tour you'll see a sean mendes cancel a tour
01:00:56because my mental health needs to come first that was not an option when we were out there
01:01:02you went out there and you did the show and you came back after the show and you broke down
01:01:06and you cried and you kicked the hole in the wall or you did whatever you had to do but
01:01:11you didn't bow
01:01:12out you worked so hard to get there you can't let your foot off the gas
01:01:16this is going to sound super shady but like when we first went out i remember on our first tour
01:01:20someone at the label gave us a book and it was the age of consent in every state in the
01:01:24country
01:01:24and like we kept that book on the tour bus they're hot they're gorgeous we want to see them
01:01:30they have it all unfortunately there were people out there looking to tear you down
01:01:37will you marry me please there will be none of that it's hard to not have a squeaky clean image
01:01:43when
01:01:44you're kind of a a teen heartthrob band or group right i don't think there's anything wrong with a
01:01:49squeaky clean image i mean we're just trying to make our moms and our dads and our families proud
01:01:55in that moment in that time i don't know my dad at all most people don't know this i was
01:02:03about 17
01:02:04something like that now at that point i'm already in the band for three years
01:02:11my girlfriend at the time drove me to this random house in the middle of nowhere 30 minutes from where
01:02:17i was living we got out she banged on the door and she dipped and just left me there i
01:02:25was pissed
01:02:27and this guy opens the door and i'm like i am so sorry to bother you and he looked at
01:02:34me and i looked
01:02:34at him and it was like oh wait and he's like alex and i was like dad
01:02:47it was a weird surreal moment i went in we talked for a little bit it must my first time
01:02:53meeting my
01:02:54stepmom he had news articles about backstreet boys clippings and all these things and i looked at
01:03:01that like okay that's kind of cool that he's keeping up with my career even though we're not speaking
01:03:10and then we exchanged numbers and we had talked about going to have lunch
01:03:18but i got busy too many tours too many albums wasn't able to do it so after that i didn't
01:03:26see
01:03:26him or speak to him for another probably 10 years
01:03:33backstreet boys those were my boys
01:03:38i just thought they were so effortlessly cool
01:03:42but i had no idea what the backstreet boys were going through when i was listening to their music
01:03:50and that's by design because if you were to let the fans in on everything that's happening behind
01:03:56the scenes the whole illusion would start to fall apart
01:04:07the fact that nsync was actually becoming more and more successful that's when i got the call from
01:04:12backstreet boys we need to have a meeting and they're like there's three conditions for you to
01:04:17stay our manager one you have to get rid of lou
01:04:22you have to cut your management commission in half and you have to get rid of nsync
01:04:28so i said that's an offer i can refuse and that's when i told them okay if i'm not working
01:04:34with you
01:04:35and them then i have a responsibility to make them the biggest group in the world
01:04:38and that means i'm going to turn all my guns against you to make them bigger
01:04:44i found out there was a problem with the american music awards dealing with the backstreet boys
01:04:49so i said okay i'll give you nsync here is nsync
01:04:55yeah we'll do it i mean why not we were hungry for it
01:05:02it's crazy how good they were their harmonies were better than backstreet's harmonies in my
01:05:07opinion sorry boys i found out the backstreet boys were gonna put up a stadium tour so i called
01:05:14our agent and i said i want to put up a stadium tour two weeks before they do
01:05:20and they shut their stadium tour down to an arena tour because they thought they weren't going to be
01:05:25able to sell the tickets but every move that i found they were doing something first i tried to
01:05:32beat them to the punch success was my revenge in terms of record sales in terms of their position
01:05:40on the charts nsync really gave backstreet boys a run for their money and of course there were other
01:05:46acts that followed when they really exploded in popularity and you see these rabid groups of fans
01:05:53who were fighting over who was the best boy band it became a race in a sense you know mtv
01:06:00in the 80s and
01:06:0190s was the go-to place for pop culture we came up with trl total request live live in the
01:06:09studio with
01:06:10carson the show was truly programmed by the fans a lot of young girls would call in within the hour
01:06:18screaming because they were programming it to see nsync and backstreet boys and hansen
01:06:26where you were on trl mattered there's only 10 spots can you stay in it it became a competition
01:06:34it was always a mix of backstreet boys and nsync being number one number two so whose side it was
01:06:39bigger boy bands you couldn't like both that's my team and that's your team we're going it was that
01:06:44rivalry this it was the boston red sox and the yankees you can't like both teams sorry like think
01:06:50about it that's really what it became that's what it came down to somebody's genius somebody's a real
01:06:53genius here i hate to say who i think it is i really do i don't even want to say
01:06:59who it is
01:07:01it came from lou and the reason why fans started taking a side against the other is because
01:07:07he would manufacture stories they're so cute oh my god backstreet boys are the best he would say
01:07:14something like hey i was with backstreet boys the other day and they said nsync really couldn't sing
01:07:18it was more like lou would kind of twist the knife go backstreet's doing this they look great they
01:07:24look really really good you guys should get in more shape and it was that kind of thing or this
01:07:28band
01:07:28does you know flips maybe you guys should do that too lou always wanted those two to be at each
01:07:33other
01:07:33or be apart from each other so they would never have that opportunity to sit down and really talk about
01:07:38real things like contracts or money and so to me that's really what his agenda was
01:07:47in those early days of backstreet boys and nsync they're out there working and they're doing
01:07:52everything and brink trucks are coming in to stadiums taking the money away they're thinking
01:07:57all right on the first dividend check that we're supposed to get we're going to be rich
01:08:02that's not the case
01:08:05nsync sold 10 million albums lou perlman gave them 10 grand they should have been millionaires
01:08:17we were heartbroken we were not paying attention to numbers or what we're selling until later on
01:08:25once lou gave us each a check i'm like i need to know everything show me numbers i want to
01:08:29know
01:08:29what comes in i want to know what goes out what are we making what's happening what do we lose
01:08:36lou tripled it lou is the label then lou is one of the managers getting paid as that
01:08:45lou took a percentage of the merch got paid as that lou took a percentage of the group got paid
01:08:51as that
01:08:53and then the word i learned was recoupable good word kids recoupable remember that
01:09:01we're going to talk about recoupables are things that a record label will pay for
01:09:05during that initial process when they're investing in a new artist like transportation
01:09:12dinners out a piece of clothing that they need for a shoot but then when you start to sell records
01:09:19they take that money back before you ever get paid so you know in theory it seems okay this is
01:09:25i guess
01:09:26that's fair but they were like okay well here's the recoup stuff and slapped everybody and showed
01:09:33us a printout of all the stuff and all the money that we owed but i'm looking at it i'm
01:09:39going
01:09:39shit i didn't spend that when did we do that i don't remember that the house that was rented if
01:09:45we
01:09:45were grouped together to dinner any of the recording sessions the best vocal coach the best this the best
01:09:50that literally tacking on 80 million other things that you kept saying that you took care of
01:09:56where i thought you took care of it took care of it in the sense of not recouping it back
01:10:02the one where i was like are you kidding me we were shooting tearing up my heart video in miami
01:10:07and it was around my birthday it was around me and justin's birthday and lou was like i'll
01:10:11buy you guys a gift for your birthday like sweet we go to armani exchange i remember i bought this
01:10:16jacket it was probably like 200 bucks 250. buys it and in the recoup thing was the jacket
01:10:26now you start painting a picture of this guy's really out to screw me
01:10:32but you forget you had this guy who took three and a half million dollars and putting it into
01:10:37your music career but he had that much faith in you and yeah was he based on a deal going
01:10:42to make
01:10:42a lion's share if this worked yeah he should because he took the chance if you fronted a group and
01:10:50it
01:10:50bombed who takes the loss the backstreet boys and nsync are two of the more high profile examples of
01:10:57this kind of exploitation but it happens with every single popular group
01:11:0590 degrees we signed with motown we got a very you know nominal advance on our contract we knew
01:11:12that all expenses were recoupable and so we we took the opposite approach hey we're not paying for
01:11:16anything we'll take a break go around the corner to wendy's and go back to the studio and then at
01:11:20the end of the session at 4am you know we're not going to get a car service back to brooklyn
01:11:24we'll
01:11:24we'll take the a train back to brooklyn the middle of winter four of us four in the morning standing
01:11:28in
01:11:28the subway station and then we realized it didn't matter you weren't going to see a dime from it anyway
01:11:35early on in motown we'd show up to the studio and the whole lobby of our studio session we packed
01:11:41with
01:11:41other artists execs they're all smoking hanging out drinking ordering food and all that is going on
01:11:48your recruitment budget the only way to ever hold a record label accountable is to audit them
01:11:56what business works like that it's like a street hustle that happens in boardrooms
01:12:02and then on top of that there was someone was actually skimming money off the top
01:12:07we were at this store called clothes time it was like a clothing store and made an appearance
01:12:12and took pictures all day we were just excited because we got five grand to stand there five
01:12:18grand a thousand dollars a piece we were supposed to have been paid 50 grand for that ultimately uh we
01:12:25fired him it's the backstreet boys and the management okay sure you put all this money in to get us
01:12:33off
01:12:33the ground and i will forever be grateful but we're the ones out there doing the work we're the ones
01:12:40out there leaving our families blood sweat and tears you should not be getting the same thing we get
01:12:47there's no reason for that from 1993 to 1997 lou pearlman earns 10 million dollars from the backstreet boys
01:12:57the members of the band together got three hundred thousand dollars
01:13:04now what happened was all the groups we had a little party so i look over and i see justin
01:13:11talking
01:13:11to nick and brian and then all the other guys are talking to each other and other members
01:13:16the one thing lou didn't want to do is for these guys to sit down and really talk about things
01:13:22about
01:13:22lou that he might have lied about and then about a week later is when a german attorney sends a
01:13:31notice
01:13:32on behalf of brian that they're suing me and lou brian luttrell is the first one to launch a lawsuit
01:13:39against lou pearlman and shortly thereafter the other members from backstreet boys follow suit
01:13:45all five of the bsb labs are suing their former manager backstreet had their lawsuit against
01:13:50lou pearlman and johnny wright which started in 1998 and then in sync filed a lawsuit against lou and
01:13:57only lou in 1999. we need to fight for what we have done throughout these two and a half three
01:14:03years that we've been busting our asses i was like listen we need to do this so it was it
01:14:06was a
01:14:07a very scary and tough decision and then what happened he wanted to draw a line in the sand and
01:14:14say do you have a contract with me i spent this money if it wasn't for me there wouldn't be
01:14:18no
01:14:20them so they went to battle and then lou tried to sue in sync for their name it's him desperate
01:14:26to try
01:14:26to hang on to something that he had no right to we were definitely nervous you had these guys you
01:14:35know
01:14:35you had lou and he has all these lawyers and it's like we don't have that money we don't have
01:14:38anybody to
01:14:38back us up like that in that sense we're opening up a can that could mess up our name we
01:14:43might not
01:14:44even have a name in sync if he won their careers were back to square one like it was over
01:14:52i was scared but we were confident on top of that as well scared in the sense of we didn't
01:14:57know what
01:14:57was going to happen with in sync but confident enough that that we knew that we were not in the
01:15:01wrong we went and sat in front of a judge even the way the judge said it was is look
01:15:08if i look at a
01:15:09poster i see five guys on it you're not on that poster so how are you a sixth member but
01:15:17it was all
01:15:17legit and the lawyer and said hey this is what we need to do and settle out of court in
01:15:23sync won the
01:15:23rights to their name but still had a signed contract with lou perlman so both the backstreet
01:15:28boys and nsync paid a collective amount of 64 million dollars to settle out of their contract
01:15:38when we split from lou i think it hurt different levels for each of us
01:15:43it was disappointment 100 disappointment he was big papa he was the one to look for
01:15:52guidance in certain things and you kind of screwed us over backstreet boys then turned
01:15:58around after they got big and sued you and said you took too much you took too much of their
01:16:03money
01:16:03i don't think they said it as much as the lawyers that got in the middle of it um kind
01:16:10of blew it out
01:16:10of proportion in a sense that was lou's mentality lou was going to crank out boy band after boy band
01:16:16after
01:16:17boy band and he did what's up i was a member of take five when i was 12 met lou
01:16:34at his house did you
01:16:35audition that day did you sing for him that day um no about halfway through i i guess i started
01:16:42to realize
01:16:42that oh i guess like this has already been decided clearly there was no shortage of boy groups in
01:16:49orlando to be found now there's a latin band c note he did c note and he did girl groups
01:16:58too
01:17:00and they all came from orlando cranking them out lou perlman bands cookie cutter can't tell them apart
01:17:08maybe the concept the style of where we're going might be clean cut and that could be the commonality
01:17:14every time you make a cake it always tastes good in the end if you make it right
01:17:34my name is stephen mooney and i was auditioning to be in a boy band and worked with lou perlman
01:17:39in
01:17:39transcon records i was in the army i had to be 19-ish 20 and when i got out i
01:17:48was working at abercrommie and
01:17:49fitch nine west shoes and tgi fridays as a as a uh as a busser and i got approached by
01:17:56this kid in
01:17:56the mall and he's like hey i'm putting together a boy band and he's like can you sing i was
01:18:02like i've
01:18:03never really tried but i've never been told that i can't sing right that's when he's like come to my
01:18:08house and we'll sing and we'll see what you got and then go from there eventually i ended up at
01:18:14the
01:18:15house of one of lou's confidants he's one of the guys in the group with lou i mean there were
01:18:20hundreds of kids at this house and he has everybody sing and then he kicked everybody out of the house
01:18:25except for me and then he put his hand on my shoulder as he was walking me out and he's
01:18:30like
01:18:30hey i want you to meet the big guy i'm like i had no idea what this guy is talking
01:18:35about
01:18:36i had no idea who backstreet boys were i had no idea who in sync was no idea who britney
01:18:40spears was i
01:18:41was fresh out of the army but literally the next day i was at the office at nine o'clock
01:18:45in the
01:18:46morning meeting lou roman when you walk into the glass doors i see pictures of like britney spears
01:18:52erin carter backstreet boys in sync and there's these two big honking doors at the end of this hallway
01:19:00and then he opens them up and there's lou sitting there and he had me sing something acapella himself
01:19:09and that's when he's like you're mine what did you promise right that was going to be to my
01:19:14parents face i was going to be a millionaire in the next year had you at this point heard anything
01:19:20about why backstreet or in sync was suing him no he never mentioned why and all that stuff was
01:19:26settled out of court right so nobody knew why we haven't been introduced to backstreet or in sync yet
01:19:32so we're just hearing his side of it like that they're just ungrateful or being greedy there's
01:19:38so many different other like versions of that story that can make total sense what was your little
01:19:4412 year old perspective on what lou wanted from this i don't know um i guess i never thought about
01:19:53what lou wanted from it you're working three jobs and you're trying to make something yourself and
01:20:00you've got no direction and somebody comes in like a guardian angel is just like you're an amazing
01:20:05person you got incredible talent you got a great look and i'm gonna make you a millionaire based on
01:20:11these things there's no better feeling in the world right and he's like i have some ideas i'm putting
01:20:17together a band if that's gonna work out we'll all we'll find something for you but that was sort of
01:20:23the
01:20:23open-ended he's like you're gonna come work for me for you know however long it takes he made me
01:20:30his
01:20:30driver he's like jc drove for me rich drove for me at some point he's like even brad drove for
01:20:37me
01:20:39what were your first impressions of lou brahman
01:20:43i don't know you know when i was still working for lou driving his limo i wanted to be a
01:20:50rapper i was 19
01:20:53rich and this guy brian they had set up a meeting with lou so he's like hey you know you
01:20:59guys are
01:20:59doing the same kind of music why don't you just come together as one group and you know i'll sign
01:21:03you
01:21:04and we're like okay you know then he disappears and comes back i'm pretty sure you're like just some gym
01:21:09shorts on and guitar you know shirt and the guitar right and he's sitting there in front of us on
01:21:18the
01:21:18couch and he's like he starts playing tired so it was just kind of a weird a weird time
01:21:27he was kind enough to let me stay in his house as i was like coming up through these things
01:21:34but when i lived at that house
01:21:37and that's when it all came crashing down
01:21:42there's a lot of stuff that happened behind closed doors
01:21:45it didn't feel good something here is not right and uh i was not the only one
01:21:56i've always just said really nice things about lou and i'm really grateful but it does feel like
01:22:01there was one member of each group that lou was grooming including me
01:22:13you're on this roller coaster of never stopping or you think it's never going to stop first time
01:22:20i tried drugs wow this is awesome i was so deathly afraid of being called washed up i was victimized
01:22:27these get a lot darker and a lot more bleak
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