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Boy Band Confidential Season 1 Episode 1
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00:00:02Amazing grace, how sweet the sun.
00:00:16You guys ready for it?
00:00:18The Backstreet Boys are back.
00:00:19Who are the fools?
00:00:2098 degrees.
00:00:23That's it.
00:00:24Take a back seat, Backstreet Boys.
00:00:27Your rivals NSYNC now hold the record for album sales.
00:00:3030 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.
00:00:53It 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.
00:01:14I worry just how long their fame and their money will last.
00:01:19Am found.
00:01:21I was victimized.
00:01:23Was 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.
00:01:35If I had the chance to do it all over again and end up where I am, would I do
00:01:41it?
00:01:41But now I see.
00:01:52Beautiful.
00:01:56Backstreet Boys.
00:02:00We love our fans.
00:02:01That's why we're here.
00:02:04We love our fans.
00:02:04We love our fans.
00:02:08We love our fans.
00:02:18We love our fans.
00:02:19We love our fans.
00:02:20We love our fans.
00:02:24We love our fans.
00:02:25We love our fans.
00:02:25We love our fans.
00:02:26We love our fans.
00:02:27We love our fans.
00:02:35ah the stories artists have recorded here in sync fashion boys britney spears jones
00:02:42boys and men 90 degrees air cutters 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 once we became a group
00:03:31we 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 you can't
00:04:09deny
00:04:09that if it wasn't for in sync justin timberlake wouldn't be the way he is right now wouldn't be
00:04:14doing broadway to hosting tv shows to doing films the 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
00:04:33but when we started we were young justin was 14 years old
00:04:37i was about 17 18 i just graduated high school legit now we couldn't grasp everything that was
00:04:43happening around but now as we get older you look at life differently and you realize the industry
00:04:50can be wonderful and can be cool at the same time would there ever be a reunion still i mean
00:04:55there's
00:04:56always a possibility of course now many of our fans don't know the challenges that we faced
00:05:00but throughout my career i met other performers from different groups and started to realize that all
00:05:06these other boy bands had similar experiences that they kept quiet about and it's time we finally
00:05:11shared 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 very early so joey and i have been talking
00:05:42probably for the past six to eight months about what stories have people not heard
00:05:48see we're in entertainment right so our job is to portray and 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
00:06:05if you're a human being you struggle everybody struggles it's just magnified when you're in a boy
00:06:12band i forgot there's like four or five people i think we're gonna get in la next week and then
00:06:18it's gonna be jeff timmons at some point what up speaking of the devil uh who else has done it
00:06:26so
00:06:26far we're getting aj in la i just want to say hi to yourself we're getting i think nick in
00:06:32la
00:06:32shade what's up brother one okay speaking of sean jeff timmons it's one of those things i love to hear
00:06:42other sides of the story basically it's them kind of going through and the kind of trials and tribulations
00:06:47we've never had the conversation of just going how did it feel what happened because not many people
00:06:52got to experience something like this i'm nick lachey take one evie kind of work
00:06:56eric estrada take one it's kind of long overdue we've had a bunch of these and we haven't really
00:07:02told this angle all 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 out 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 i didn't do anything special
00:08:30if i were you i'd be booing me
00:08:33growing up in south florida most boys especially
00:08:38would look at you like why are you not into sports or video games yeah i would get picked
00:08:43on a lot i got bullied a lot and it really started to kind of tear me down inside i
00:08:49definitely
00:08:50struggled 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
00:09:10if you look at most of the guys in that era a lot of the reason why we choose music
00:09:16is 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
00:09:29out comes new kids on the block we were living in brooklyn new york and i remember uh this girl
00:09:35this friend of mine her name was deborah and i used to go to her house and watch all the
00:09:38vhs 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 like they're performing in arenas right now at that time and it's like
00:10:04i would love to do something like that it was groups like that new kids are boys to men that
00:10:09we looked up to and showed us what was possible
00:10:19new kids on the block is definitely the og boy band they were a worldwide phenomenon that started in
00:10:25late 80s sold over 80 million records worldwide you can never be you know fed up with getting awards
00:10:33and and being successful and having millions of people you know want to buy your records i was a
00:10:38tour manager for new kids on the block and they from a personality performance level can't be beat
00:10:44even to this day i don't care what anybody says but then when new kids on a block decided after
00:10:49four
00:10:49and a half years that they were burnt out so they wanted to take a break and that's kind of
00:10:54when
00:10:54boys to men started coming out yes there is a distinction between singer groups and boy bands
00:11:00but unfortunately the experiences are 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 off
00:11:15because 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 you know
00:11:31four
00:11:31different places in philadelphia my mom had me when she was 19 my dad was 18. so you know it
00:11:38was kids
00:11:40i met up with my dad later on when i was eight years old you know i lived in the
00:11:46projects my mom
00:11:48wasn't in the best way at the time and my grandmother took me to the trolley stop she said i'm
00:11:53gonna show
00:11:54you how to do this she said get on the trolley you sit right by the door if anything happens
00:12:00i need to be able to run straight off the hood is the hood you know what i'm saying somebody
00:12:06come
00:12:06on that john and they they want the the the money change thing you know they stick up the they
00:12:12stick
00:12:12up the trolley it was scary because i would come home and it'd be some crazy stuff i'm talking about
00:12:20coming home and laying in my bed lift up the mattress it's like sawed off shotguns freaking nine
00:12:29millimeters and guess what i did went to sleep you feel me that's that's what it was so i had
00:12:38to leave
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
00:12:55be a star now the crazy thing
00:12:59is when you become a star he didn't you didn't tell you didn't tell me that it comes with a
00:13:05lot
00:13:09i 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 so i was
00:13:48sitting there and another school came and the next thing you know they put their thing on the screen
00:13:56they showed leroy and coco and they said you might know this school from blah blah and i was like
00:14:02fame you know i lost my mind you know what i mean i'm gonna go to fame
00:14:12kappa is an acronym for creative and performing arts so if it's anything like the tv show i need to
00:14:18go and
00:14:19that's where i met the other guys in the group called boys to men when we first started i was
00:14:25around 15. nate mike mark were 16 17 and wanye was like 14. what people have to realize is we
00:14:36rehearsed
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
00:14:56bivens michael bivens is an artist from the group bell biv devoe he was one of the original members of
00:15:03new edition they sing for bivens and he winds up becoming their manager 89 is when the group was formed
00:15:1190 is when we got signed 91 we came out well i'll tell you these guys are hot everybody loves
00:15:19them
00:15:19women go crazy for them and they're all single they can harmonize good singers much talent they're the
00:15:26best they really are boys to men they're the r b kings they're cool that's one of the groups that
00:15:31we
00:15:31looked up to that what we we strive to be like i was at a performing arts school in cincinnati
00:15:37and we
00:15:38had 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
00:15:48or performed in my entire life michael bivis pushed for us to get on tour so we were the opening
00:15:54act for
00:15:55mc hammer of course we don't know what it entails you know we just said oh goodness we're going on
00:16:00tour
00:16:01you know this is amazing mc hammer wow you know when it came time for us to actually go on
00:16:07tour michael
00:16:07billows was putting personnel together and he introduced us to khalil during the rehearsal
00:16:13and 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 taken care of hotels making sure
00:16:27we eat the role manager takes care of all of that so he was that and then some he was
00:16:35also our security
00:16:37so when it came time for khalil to role manage us he needed help so we called his best friend
00:16:44well khalil 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
00:16:59was loyal he knew what it all entailed and he wanted us to be safe and he protected us hook
00:17:05or crook
00:17:06through it all no matter what if we had to run we had to run and we had to crawl
00:17:10we had to crawl but
00:17:11he was right there with us showing us how
00:17:14but those things that you run from in life they are always going to rear 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 double tree she was one of mt hammer's dancers
00:17:39and kicking it having fun and i heard like a loud door shut
00:17:48sean's girlfriend comes in a room and she says
00:17:53khalil'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 how
00:18:07we went through things i get a phone call in my hotel room and it was wine yay and he
00:18:13was like yo
00:18:14i need you to come somewhere with me something happened to khalil
00:18:18and 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 they seen the money
00:19:08he knows the guys are here let me handle this you know he called quadri so he was like these
00:19:15trying to
00:19:15get in my room so he's like yo come we're gonna get them out the hallway because if they go
00:19:19knock
00:19:20on one of these stupid rooms talking about us they gonna open the door we can't hear that
00:19:27so khalil and quadri grabbed him
00:19:32so i said man come let's just take them downstairs and get 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
00:19:51in the head and they left
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 we've had
00:20:45people 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
00:21:07it'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
00:21:26me i
00:21:26can't let go it spends 13 weeks at number one and it becomes a massive hit i'll make love to
00:21:36you
00:21:36another massive hit replaces end of the road at the top of the singles chart and they keep out doing
00:21:44themselves one after the other the success of boys to men paved the way for other groups to follow
00:21:53in their footsteps however there is a downside to that because they could grow up to boot you out
00:22:02from that spot at the top of the charts thanks to a lot of uh the groups that came before
00:22:10us like the
00:22:10boys the men's there was a door that had been reopened for male groups to come in we could end
00:22:17up
00:22:18doing a deal with atlantic records and then the funny thing is atlantic records didn't want to put
00:22:22our picture on the cover because our group all for one there's a white guy there's a mexican guy and
00:22:29two black guys the music industry even still to this day is one of the most like segregated places
00:22:35still we did the hit song i swear they just start fire and now here's the crazy story about i
00:22:43swear
00:22:44a lot of the the black radio stations were not able to really play i swear it was like you
00:22:49know we have
00:22:50these folks here saying well you're not rnb enough you're not black enough you got a white boy and a
00:22:54mexican boy and your group it wasn't the fans that segregated us or or didn't accept us it was more
00:23:03of the people who make business decisions and it sucked and sucks past and present
00:23:11all right so i went my garage and uh literally these are bins in my garage i don't even know
00:23:17half the
00:23:17stuff that's really in here so we're just going to open up and kind of look at some old ins
00:23:21there's
00:23:21probably instinct stuff in here there's a bunch of other stuff in here but out of the gate let's look
00:23:25like i can break in half a in sync microphone hey poor portable and cordless all the dolls funko
00:23:33we're pop vinyl pop guys how many people have barbie dolls well this is christine and she's an
00:23:39in sync fan if hopefully you know your your group does become popular it becomes i guess a brand in
00:23:47some sort because you're you're not only selling yourself per se but you're selling the product of
00:23:52course which is the music but sometimes it works the other way where the label or manager starts
00:23:57with the brand that they want to sell and it goes out looking for the individuals to fit that brand
00:24:02that's when you hear criticism that boy bands are in quote manufactured and nobody knows that better
00:24:08than backstreet when i was a kid we left south florida to move to orlando to be closer to
00:24:27nickelodeon and disney places that i could potentially work or get jobs where did you get it from this guy
00:24:34hi honey i'm home it's a show on nickelodeon that ended up actually getting picked up by abc
00:24:40briefly that was a lot of fun it wasn't until this thing called the blue sheet was coming around
00:24:46in the mail and it was basically like the classifieds for all the local entertainment
00:24:50and on 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
00:25:08lou promen held auditions for the backstreet boys and people came out and auditioned for it
00:25:14i was the first one to meet lou went to his house sang for him and he signed me on
00:25:22the spot and that
00:25:23was it so i am the the og i helped literally put the band together at that point in time
00:25:29i had a lot
00:25:30of friends saying to me hey this guy who owns all these blimps he wants to meet you and i'm
00:25:35like who is
00:25:37he his name is lou promen oh no he's a rich guy he owns the blimps he drives around the
00:25:42rolls royce
00:25:43so i decided to go meet him at an italian restaurant so when i walk in i go into this
00:25:49private room and there's this huge table set up for about 14 people and the only person at the table
00:25:54was lou so it was some godfather moment right and then these five guys come in five boys kevin
00:26:02ryan nick aj and howie so i was like what's going on with this so anyways these five guys come
00:26:08in
00:26:08singing and they're singing acapella the hair on my arm stood up because their harmonies were
00:26:14perfection and i remember looking across the table at johnny and going ching ching it's called the
00:26:20backstreet boys brand new group what is your name i'm aj mclean oh god that was our very first tv
00:26:28performance ever the local news in orlando aj was 14. he was the bad boy who are you howie d
00:26:36howie
00:26:37howie was the sweet friend i'm from lexington kentucky my name is brian literal brian was the
00:26:42all-american i'm kevin richardson kevin and brian were related 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 that
00:26:56kevin has daddy vibes and nick was the baby nick was 12 when i started working with him i'm from
00:27:02tampa florida and i'm nick carter 12. nick and aj they were the young ones we're we're in the process
00:27:08of making an album right now i mean i was excited because one of the many reasons again back to
00:27:13the
00:27:13beginning why 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
00:28:01lou built a studio so they could record in there it was lose money the business side of things is
00:28:08very
00:28:09important lou 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 enlists vocal coaches music producers and choreographers to
00:28:27create 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
00:28:55house together it was a beautiful mansion he had a covered pool he had the house he had the limousines
00:29:10he had the planes 14 year old you're in this house with this guy who's got a gaggle of money
00:29:18i'll never forget he had a mexican coke vending machine glass bottle it was the best in the world
00:29:24and he's got like c-3po statue and darth vader and a screen that comes out of the ceiling to
00:29:31watch movies
00:29:31and you're like this guy's cool well he's like tony stark except minus the tech definitely not as good
00:29:37looking as tony stark let's just say that it was like five tony starks in one he gave gifts he
00:29:43took
00:29:43out to dinners he was the one that funded everything he drove them around in the limos
00:29:48i never liked lou perlman ever and i had a vibe about him that i just didn't trust
00:29:56you know how you doing now 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
00:30:07put in stock market could have bought a piece of property and flipped it he could have done other
00:30:12things that were more secure than putting it into your music career it makes you start to second
00:30:19guess nobody really stopped to think why
00:30:29if you're coming from a household where a father isn't present and you have a guy who hanging out with
00:30:35you helping you and putting money in your pocket you kind of gravitate to that person
00:30:44that was the nickname they gave him big papa i mean it was just like
00:30:52parental figure slash like best friend kind of relationship for me i grew up being raised by my
00:31:01mom and my grandparents when 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
00:31:15now is 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 a father figure then there was a problem we thought this record we got it going on was
00:31:47going
00:31:47to be a smash the single that we tried to promote in the u.s and nobody wanted to play
00:31:51it music had gone
00:31:53more rock and grunge so there was no room for a boy band like everybody poo-pooed on it let
00:31:59me tell
00:31:59you let me let me give you the tea at that point we're feeling you know somewhat accomplished we've
00:32:06won a grammy we won an american music award we've been touring the world you know we've been releasing
00:32:11songs and and and having success and one day we got this young group called the backstreet boys
00:32:18they wanted to see what the tour bus looked like we invite them on our tour bus in orlando we're
00:32:23talking to them and trying to give them advice you know and and they were really cool kids then and
00:32:27like there is no competitions because at the end of the day the thing that matters first and foremost
00:32:34is hit records because there's a lot of talented people and you can sing their faces off what's the
00:32:40difference between them and us hit records right nobody wanted to play the backstreet boys in the
00:32:49united states so me have being involved with other bands who played all over europe and the world and
00:32:56keeping my rolodex of different people that i met along the way we had booked the backstreet boys
00:33:01to play in germany one more time you could see the girls in the audience's mouths drop and the place
00:33:19went crazy and even without social media just to spread a word of mouth like these guys from america
00:33:30or something and then that's when it kicked off for us their single went to number one in like eight
00:33:38weeks and then it was on i think they're really great they can sing and they look good first of
00:33:45all it is an amazing thing to have the ability to bring so much joy and happiness to people you
00:33:50may
00:33:51never know on a personal level around the world through music through performance is a blessing they
00:33:59did all the tv shows hello we're the backstreet boys nick you are the biggest uh womanizer but now i
00:34:07heard every girl was screaming like nick nick nick we were playing 30 000 seat stadiums so now they're
00:34:15blowing up and now our record label is 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 for
00:34:28them
00:34:28to be them they have their lane and they're killing it in their lane and we have our lane and
00:34:33the fan
00:34:33base and we're killing it in our lane i think it makes you question your talent because it's like
00:34:40you must think that i'm not good enough to be me if you're telling me i need to 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
00:35:15all those 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 beaches handing out flyers to girls on the beach like
00:35:33all right how else are we gonna get noticed we literally put the hat down and you sing for money
00:35:37and for food show up on a street corner just sing we go to taco bell sing we go to
00:35:43fat burger sing can we
00:35:45get a free burger we scrapped and clawed our way to stay afloat and then we thought eventually we're
00:35:50meet someone in l.a who's gonna know somebody who's gonna know somebody and this is gonna get us
00:35:55somewhere i had a friend who was a performer in germany and she's like there's this group over here
00:36:07that's just blowing up called the backstreet boys and they had not yet broken here in the u.s similar
00:36:12group much more polished and i remember us going this is where we're going if we stick with it we're
00:36:17going to get more of this now we just got to practice and now we just need the opportunity
00:36:241995 we had the single with mariah one sweet day
00:36:29it was sweeping it was emotional it tugged at your heartstrings you had these two juggernaut musical acts
00:36:40teaming up i mean it was it was magic we were 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 but we were at each other's throats we cancelled the european tour
00:37:03and we came home bro and nobody was feeling us like people were done with us and with our era
00:37:13of
00:37:14music and it shifted to the boy bands and they look nothing like us bulltown records our label in
00:37:24particular made it painfully obvious that they were done they were done with us and the pendulum has
00:37:30shifted that's right this song right here there is more choice because we want to make tickets to
00:37:34motown we signed the motown records and for those of you who don't know it's a legendary record label
00:37:40that has such great artists like pd wonder marvin gaye the four tops the temptation and right now it's got
00:37:48great artists like boys to me i'd be lying if i didn't say come on this is insane they were
00:37:59the
00:37:59first white band on the black label they'd give us this song called invisible man and turns out it was
00:38:06submitted for boys the men by a couple writers in vancouver canada and the president of motown heard
00:38:11it he said no i don't want this for boys to men i want 90 degrees to take this record
00:38:15this song is called
00:38:15invisible man it's textbook do black music with white faces pat boone the osmonds elvis they were
00:38:28all doing black music that is the truth like and it's a hard truth it's no distant 90 degrees
00:38:35in sync backstreet any of those guys like they were just kids trying to make it too
00:38:40i 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 harder
00:39:14to 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
00:39:29don't give two shits sometimes record companies and if they can be that cold-blooded to the biggest
00:39:33music sensation at the time 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
00:39:48give us that in a crash course hey i want you guys to go to black churches in harlem on
00:39:53sundays let's
00:39:54dress these guys in fugu and fat farm i remember going on a train to rochester new york to work
00:40:00with
00:40:00davante from 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 trying
00:40:19to make us into something else you got to remember we're a new act we're not making any money we
00:40:25don't
00:40:25know what the plan is and this is our shot we'll try it we'll try this we'll go hang out
00:40:30at bowery
00:40:31bar with russell we'll we'll do all these things we'll do whatever we have to do you go home you're
00:40:37like what am i who am it starts to really mess with you mentally
00:40:43and for me it causes severe depression but i felt like i was the weakest link in the group
00:40:50i just didn't feel good about myself didn't feel good physically i could not sleep
00:40:54and my head wasn't right i felt so worthless and just the fact that i could not handle all this
00:41:00pressure that i was like just end it and i don't know for whatever reason i just thought no screw
00:41:10that like just push one more time like just try this last thing i went to our manager and i
00:41:16said i
00:41:16need some help if i don't get some sort of help i will not be here like this is over
00:41:21and i mean
00:41:22seriously so he found a psychiatrist for me to go to he put me on this atkins diet put me
00:41:27on some
00:41:27medication within three months i was i felt better than ever and it didn't make this any easier uh but
00:41:35at least i felt better that i didn't want to die you know so thanks for sharing that at the
00:41:44time i kept
00:41:45hearing rumblings from the same people who had told me about lou when i had my first meeting
00:41:51that lou had another boy man
00:41:56and 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 know i don't know what you're talking about people are lying there's another boy
00:42:04man out there but i have nothing to do with them
00:42:12all right so i got some of my awards and stuff i have a storage unit full of stuff and
00:42:17it's i would
00:42:18love to have everything out in display if i could i really would because it does mean a lot to
00:42:23me it's
00:42:23it's my life it's it's a lot of my career it's all of my career what i really started doing
00:42:28this is
00:42:28what really started it all disney wanted to make orlando hollywood east at one point you had all
00:42:37the theme parks that at that time had dancers singers all levels of performers back in the day
00:42:44i was doing a beetlejuice show at universal and i was in a group with this kid named jason and
00:42:50uh two
00:42:50other friends of mine and then i run into chris who actually worked at universal there's always
00:42:59speculations of how the group got together people gonna 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
00:43:11brought the guys together lou perlman financially helped that and lynn harless which is justin's mom
00:43:18came up with the name in sync lynn was like oh y'all names last letter of your first name
00:43:24spells
00:43:25in sync and like what do you mean it's like well you got n for justin you have s for
00:43:31chris c-h-r-i-s
00:43:32so there's n-s-y you got joey for the y so n-s-y-n which was jason for
00:43:39the other n and then jc for the c
00:43:41so that was in sync you're a funny guy when we started we were definitely boys i mean you had
00:43:47justin
00:43:48was 14 and you had chris who was 23 24 at the time so it's a 10-year gap pretty
00:43:52much between them
00:43:55we should look like this
00:43:59so 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
00:44:19jason 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
00:44:40we're doing this whole documentary that's why i have you so obviously people don't know it's almost
00:44:48like you know the fifth beetle or whatever in that sense but it's more or less for us it's it's
00:44:52getting
00:44:52the story across that no one's ever really heard before oh hi so the full story went in sync
00:45:02i had no idea what was gonna happen and also i was a stupid kid i've never seen a music
00:45:07contract
00:45:07before so i was smart enough back then to take the contracts to lawyers to review them and it's like
00:45:16whoa whoa whoa what lou's lou's a member of the band now referring both the backstreet boys are in sync
00:45:24there was a contract and the way lou always structured the companies was he was the 51 percent
00:45:30owner but he was also one sixth member of the backstreet boys and in sync so he got a six
00:45:39of their side of
00:45:40the 49. all i could say i'm so proud of these guys there's a paragraph
00:45:46where said if they do an outside business while they're a member of the backstreet boys
00:45:51management was still entitled to a commission and brian said so you mean if i go and get a hot
00:45:57dog
00:45:57stand while i'm in this group you guys get a piece of that and we're like yeah because anything you're
00:46:03using your name for that we're helping you promote that's going to bring goodwill into another business
00:46:07we should get paid for it the music industry is one of the very few industries where you don't have
00:46:13to go to school for it yet you're thrown in it and record contracts you've never seen any of this
00:46:21words salad in your life and all of this you learn on the fly i believe 90 percent of the
00:46:30artists will
00:46:30sign a horrible record deal just to have one unfortunately this one was real bad
00:46:37these guys were teenagers barely even teenagers 12 years old 14 years old for backstreet boys
00:46:44nobody really stopped to think oh you boys probably shouldn't sign this until somebody gets a lawyer
00:46:50for us so we did i thought i did unbeknownst to me the attorney that they got was a suggestion
00:46:59from lou
00:47:01the only attorney that was in the room when we signed it was his attorney 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 the
00:47:27contract
00:47:31i think he would have dropped us i mean i found five people i can find another five exactly and
00:47:37he
00:47:37did bye-bye everyone as far as in sync is concerned lou sat down with us and said hey you
00:47:43know i love
00:47:44to do this a b c and d and i know that i'm going to look out for your best
00:47:48interest i'm saying that if
00:47:49i become a sixth member with you guys that means we all split it we'll all share it but i'm
00:47:54going to
00:47:54look out for your best interest i'm like i split five six ways that seems pretty pretty reasonable
00:48:00since thinking that's the only thing he's getting now look obviously you want to make a a decision
00:48:06that's using your best judgment but when you're out there grinding and you have no money and you're
00:48:11in a competitive landscape and in a business that's a dream to actually achieve and the fact
00:48:16that someone handed me a piece of paper making it official you're going to justify in your brain
00:48:21that it's that 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
00:48:37jc was pissed calling me like what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing
00:48:41and i don't blame them i kind of left them high and dry so i get it i'd be pissed
00:48:46at me too
00:48:48after in sync i went back to college she got my degree and then a buddy of mine i went
00:48:54to school
00:48:55with he was in the mortgage business and i've been doing that ever since
00:49:04you're always going to be you know have your what if moments you know it's just human nature you're
00:49:09you're going to think about that and have to have those what if moments
00:49:20i don't know i don't know
00:49:28so 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
00:49:44it was a town of 2 000 people very small country town a place you didn't lock your doors you
00:49:49knew
00:49:50every single person in town you know you didn't go home until the street lights came on that was
00:49:55your sign and very conservative uh i was in church three times a week it was all about family and
00:50:02it
00:50:02was all about religion i was always in choir singing in church so you never really had a dream that
00:50:09i
00:50:09could be an entertainer when i was 16 i had a girlfriend at the time it was getting ready for
00:50:16my homecoming parade i got home from helping build the float and my mom was on the phone with
00:50:24lou perlman and justin timberlake and his mom lynn they'd found me through my coach for another
00:50:29show car that i was in and they're putting this band together and see if you want to be the
00:50:33bass
00:50:33singer think about how random that is though somebody randomly calls you out of mississippi
00:50:37to say hey these four guys want to audition you in a group hey tell your mom to come to
00:50:42florida
00:50:42we'll fly him out my mom was like no i'm not interested and hung up and that was it
00:50:47the second time that they called somehow my mom thought it was okay for us to fly to orlando and
00:50:54just meet the guys i was so nervous these guys were insanely talented
00:51:03i i definitely felt like you know imposter syndrome for sure i mean the 16 year old kids never left
00:51:09the
00:51:10town all of a sudden pretending they're a great singer pretending they're a great dancer i just felt like i
00:51:15was pretending the whole time which suited me because i was pretending to be a lot of things at
00:51:19the time some of my first memories were knowing that i was different in kindergarten i remember
00:51:28having like a little crush on the boy instead of the girl and i knew at that time that that
00:51:33was not
00:51:34right you just knew it uh from what you know people say in the churches all the jokes made about
00:51:39gay 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
00:52:26this one little thing just destroys all of that
00:52:36videotaping ends really cool
00:52:38do run run run do run run
00:52:40johnny's got the camera and he's acting a fool
00:52:42do you run run run do do do yeah whoops a little draw do do yeah love the movie back
00:52:49to school do
00:52:49yeah i don't know anything else that runs 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 their personal assistant i didn't work for lou and i didn't work for johnny
00:53:06i worked for for the five guys directly the first time i ever saw them perform i said get rid
00:53:12of that
00:53:13kid he was a good dancer but he was very nasally and it was justin i'm rolling down the street
00:53:20and
00:53:20the 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 no he grabbed the styrofoam cup and he grabbed
00:53:37the
00:53:37peanut butter put it in the styro 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 uh people said trigger words i'd 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 oh i gotta leave
00:54:32i go to his bedroom open up there's nobody in there then i go to his office and i open
00:54:36up the
00:54:36door and he's sitting there and there's a guy straddled on top of him
00:54:41i was at my computer and my boyfriend at the time my very very first boyfriend
00:54:47uh 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
00:54:58surprise yo bro i said honestly your mom's gonna kill you that's all i said to him he's like oh
00:55:03please i don't care i'm like okay and it i knew he wouldn't care but it was just so nice
00:55:07to hear
00:55:08those words and finally one of the members of your group know and be like i don't care he goes
00:55:14just
00:55:15don't tell anybody i don't want to tell anybody yet it's not right i go lance i love you i
00:55:19said you're
00:55:20my brother you let me know when it's right for you to tell i'm not saying nothing to the guys
00:55:24because i found out by accident we were such a family for so many reasons you know being fish
00:55:32out of water in this weird situation it bonds you because you're stuck with each other then on top of
00:55:38that we were the red-headed stepchild jc it was kind of like the secret little thing we had with
00:55:49lou perlman because 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 you know backstreet waves 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
00:56:16lou and johnny like they're talking about how are we going to navigate this it was pretty intense um
00:56:22at that time for in sync we gave them the same producers the same writers took them to germany
00:56:28so that was where our strategy was with those two but lou didn't want the backstreet boys to know
00:56:36that he was creating a new band and i was now going to manage in sync but one day i
00:56:41fly to utah
00:56:42to see the backstreet boys and be about the video shoot and kevin and brian come into my room and
00:56:47they
00:56:47go why did you lie to us and 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
00:57:18have
00:57:18another group just the same they felt we were greedy i'll say i'm guilty i but then when you said
00:57:27at 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
00:57:49and in some cities burger king sits right next to mcdonald's people have a choice but they both
00:57:54survived so you guys can survive and i said i'll make that promise to you that you guys will have
00:57:59your lane they'll have theirs and that's what i the word that i kept until we had booked the
00:58:05backstreet boys to play the disney concert series it was like almost two two years that we were busting
00:58:12our asses to get to nowhere for a while we did the grind you know we did the small little
00:58:16bars and
00:58:17clubs everywhere and it kept us growing and getting better and i remember one time nsync was opening for
00:58:24us and they um they came out and said i want you back and it was all you know all
00:58:28the choreography
00:58:28was happening i'm just sitting there like holy we are it was like they're never opening for us ever
00:58:34again this is the first and last time that they will ever open for us nsync was very together in
00:58:42their choreography i saw boys that were working hard to get their dream but they needed a break to become
00:58:47popular disney wanted to put on a concert in their parks and we saw that the offers were for backstreet
00:58:53and johnny went to the boys and they didn't want to do it they just felt why the hell are
00:58:58we doing
00:58:58disney when we're on the front cover of rolling stone well just go ahead and show you why you should
00:59:04johnny wright managed both groups in sync was so polished and ready they slipped in this is the
00:59:10first concert we did uh for nsync thanks backstreet boys i'm crazy for you
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
00:59:40nsync was like covering at 66 with the album
00:59:44then the backstreet boys album was sitting at number four
00:59:48and all of a sudden the nsync 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 nsync's popularity with girls one day we found out there was a bomb threat while we were out on
01:00:22tour the uh management of the uh the band are taking this threat very seriously
01:00:32there 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
01:00:45you become a more aware you you realize that at any moment something could happen
01:00:51you'll see a bieber cancel a tour you'll see a sean mendez cancel a tour because my mental health
01:00:57needs to come first that was not an option when we were out there you went out there and you
01:01:03did the
01:01:04show and you came back after the show and you broke down and you cried and you kicked the hole
01:01:08in the
01:01:08wall or you did whatever you had to do but you didn't bow out you worked so hard to get
01:01:13there you can't let your foot off the gas this is going to sound super shady but like when we
01:01:18first
01:01:19went out i remember on our first tour someone at the label gave us a book and it was the
01:01:22age of
01:01:23consent in every state in the country and like we kept that book on the tour bus they're hot they're
01:01:29gorgeous we want to see them they have it all unfortunately there were people out there looking to
01:01:35tear you down dick will you marry me please there will be none of that it's hard to not have
01:01:42a squeaky
01:01:43clean image when you're kind of a a teen heartthrob band or group right i don't think there's anything
01:01:49wrong with a squeaky clean image i mean we're just trying to make our moms and our dads and our
01:01:53families
01:01:54proud in that moment in that time i don't know my dad at all most people don't know this i
01:02:03was about
01:02:0317 something like that now at that point i'm already in the band for three years
01:02:12my 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
01:02:34looked at 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 was 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 that
01:03:01like 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
01:03:26i didn't see him 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 in sync was actually becoming more and more successful that's when i got the call
01:04:12from backstreet 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 you have to cut your management commission in half
01:04:24and you have to get rid of nsync so i said that's an offer i can refuse and that's when
01:04:32i told them
01:04:32okay if i'm not working with you and them then i have a responsibility to make them the biggest group
01:04:38in the world and 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 in sync here is in sync yeah we'll do it i mean why
01:04:56not we were hungry
01:04:57for it it's crazy how good they were their harmonies were better than backstreet's harmonies
01:05:07in my opinion sorry boys i found out the backstreet boys were gonna put up a stadium tour so i
01:05:14called
01:05:14our agent and i said i want to put up a stadium tour two weeks before they do and they
01:05:21shut their
01:05:21stadium tour down to an arena tour because they thought they weren't going to be able to sell the
01:05:25tickets but every move that i found they were doing something first i tried to beat them to the punch
01:05:36success was my revenge in terms of record sales in terms of their position on the charts
01:05:40in sync really gave backstreet boys a run for their money and of course there were other acts
01:05:46that 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 in sync 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 it
01:06:34was
01:06:34always a mix of backstreet boys and in sync being number one number two so who's side was bigger
01:06:40boy bands you couldn't like both that's my team and that's your team we're going it was that rivalry
01:06:44this it was the boston red sox and the yankees you can't like both teams sorry like think about it
01:06:50that's really what it became that's what it came down to somebody's genius somebody's a real genius here
01:06:54i hate to say who i think it is i really do i don't even want to say who it
01:06:59is
01:07:01it came from lou and the reason why fans started taking a side against the other is because he
01:07:08would 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 in sync really couldn't
01:07:18sing it was more like lou would kind of twist the night go backstreet's doing this they look great
01:07:24they look really really good you guys should get in more shape and it was that kind of thing or
01:07:27this
01:07:28band does you know flips maybe you guys should do that too lou always wanted those two to be at
01:07:33each other or be apart from each other so they would never have that opportunity to sit down
01:07:37and really talk about real things like contracts or money and so to me that's really what his agenda was
01:07:47when those early days of backstreet boys and in sync they're out there working and they're doing
01:07:52everything and brinks trucks are coming in to stadiums taking the money away they're thinking all right on
01:07:57the first dividend check that we're supposed to get we're going to be rich that's not the case
01:08:05in sync 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 what
01:08:29comes in i want to know what goes out what are we making what's happening what did 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
01:09:19take that money back before you ever get paid so you know in theory it seems okay this is i
01:09:26guess that's
01:09:26fair but they were like okay well here's the recoup stuff and slapped everybody and showed us a print
01:09:33out of all the stuff and all the money that we owed but i'm looking at it i'm going oh
01:09:40i didn't spend
01:09:40that when did we do that i don't remember that the house that was rented if we were a group
01:09:46together
01:09:46to dinner any of the recording sessions the best vocal coach the best this the best that
01:09:51literally tacking on 80 million other things that you kept saying that you took care of where
01:09:57i 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 buy you
01:10:12guys a gift for your birthday we're like sweet we go to armani exchange i remember i bought this jacket
01:10:16it 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 in putting it into your
01:10:38music career but he had that much faith in you and yeah was he based on a deal going to
01:10:42make a lion
01:10:43share if this worked yeah he should because he took the chance if you fronted a group and it bombed
01:10:51who takes the loss the backstreet boys and nsync are two of the more high profile examples of this
01:10:57kind 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 that
01:11:12all
01:11:12expenses were recoupable and so we we took the opposite approach hey we're not paying for anything
01:11:17we'll take a break and go around the corner to wendy's and go back to the studio and then at
01:11:20the
01:11:20end of the session at 4am you know we're not gonna get a car service back to brooklyn we'll we'll
01:11:24take
01:11:24the a train back to brooklyn the middle of winter four of us four in the morning standing in the
01:11:29subway
01:11:29station and then we realized it didn't matter you weren't gonna see a dime from it anyway early on
01:11:35motown we show up to the studio and the whole lobby of our studio session we packed with other artists
01:11:42execs they're all smoking hanging out drinking ordering food and all that is going on your
01:11:49recoupment 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 made an appearance and took
01:12:13pictures all day we were just excited because we got five grand to stand there five grand a thousand
01:12:19dollars a piece we were supposed to have been paid 50 grand for that ultimately uh we fired him
01:12:27the backstreet boys and the management okay sure you put all this money in to get us off the ground
01:12:34and i will forever be grateful but we're the ones out there doing the work we're the ones out there
01:12:40leaving our families blood sweat and tears you should not be getting the same thing we get there's no
01:12:47reason 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 talking to each other and other members the one
01:13:17thing lou didn't want to do is for these guys to sit down and really talk about things about lou
01:13:23that
01:13:23he might have lied about and then about a week later is when a german attorney sends a notice on
01:13:32behalf
01:13:32of brian that they're suing me and lou brian luttrell is the first one to launch a lawsuit against
01:13:40lou pearlman and shortly thereafter the other members from backstreet boys follow suit all five
01:13:46of the bsb lads are suing their former manager backstreet had their lawsuit against lou pearlman
01:13:51and johnny wright which started in 1998 and then in sync filed a lawsuit against lou and only lou in
01:13:591999
01:14:00we need to fight for what we have done throughout these two and a half three years that we've been
01:14:03busting our asses i was like listen we need to do this so it was it was a a very
01:14:08scary and tough
01:14:09decision and then what happened he wanted to draw a line in sin and say do you have a contract
01:14:15with
01:14:15me i spent this money if it wasn't for me there wouldn't be no them so they went to battle
01:14:22and then
01:14:22lou tried to sue in sync for their name it's him desperate to try to hang on to something that
01:14:27he had
01:14:28no right to we were definitely nervous you had these guys you know you had lou and he has all
01:14:36these lawyers
01:14:36and like we don't have that money we don't have anybody to back us up like that in that sense
01:14:40we're opening up a can that could mess up our name we might not even have a name in sync
01:14:45if he won
01:14:47their careers were back to square one like it was over i was scared but we were confident on top
01:14:55of
01:14:55that as well scared in the sense of we didn't know what was going to happen with in sync but
01:14:59confident
01:15:00enough that that we knew that we were not in the wrong we went and sat in front of a
01:15:05judge even the
01:15:07way the judge said it was is look if i look at a poster i see five guys on it
01:15:11you're not on that poster
01:15:14so how are you a sixth member but it was all legit and the lawyer and said hey this is
01:15:20what we need to do and
01:15:21settle out of court in sync won the rights to their name but still had a signed contract with
01:15:26lou perlman so both the backstreet boys and in sync paid a collective amount of 64 million dollars
01:15:33to settle out of their contract
01:15:38when we split from lou i think it hurt different levels for each of us it was disappointment 100
01:15:45disappointment he was big papa he was the one to look for guidance in certain things and you kind
01:15:55of screwed us over backstreet boys then turned around after they got big and sued you and said you
01:16:01took too much you took too much of their money i don't think they said it as much as the
01:16:06lawyers
01:16:07that got in the middle of it um kind of blew it out of proportion in a sense that was
01:16:12lou's mentality
01:16:13lou was going to crank out boy band after boy band after boy band and he did
01:16:27what's up i'm brad i'm rich i'm devin and we're all up i was a member of take five when
01:16:33i was 12
01:16:33met lou at his house did you audition that day did you sing for him that day um no about
01:16:40halfway through
01:16:41i guess i guess i started to realize that oh i guess like this has already been decided
01:16:45clearly there was no shortage of boy groups in orlando to be found
01:16:53now there's a latin band c note he did c note and he did girl groups too
01:17:01and they all came from orlando cranking them out lou perlman bands cookie cutter
01:17:07can't tell them apart maybe the concept the style of where we're going might be clean cut
01:17:12and that could be the commonality every time you make a cake
01:17:17it 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 abercrombie 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
01:18:03like
01:18:03i've never really tried but i've never been told that i can't sing right that's when he's like come
01:18:07to my house and we'll sing and we'll see what you got and then go from there eventually wind up
01:18:14at
01:18:14the house of one of lou's confidants he's one of the guys in the group with lou i mean there
01:18:20were
01:18:20hundreds of kids at this house and he has everybody sing and then he kicked everybody out of the house
01:18:26except for me and then he put his hand on my shoulder as he was walking me out and he's
01:18:30like
01:18:31hey 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 brumman 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
01:19:01and 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 that was going to be to my parents face
01:19:15i was going to be a millionaire in the next year had you at this point heard anything about why
01:19:21backstreet or in sync was suing him no he never mentioned why and all that stuff was settled out
01:19:26of court right so nobody knew why we haven't been introduced to backstreet or in sync yet so we're just
01:19:33hearing his side of it like that they're just ungrateful or being greedy there's so many
01:19:38different other like versions of that story that can make total sense what was your little 12 year old
01:19:45perspective on what lou wanted from this i don't know um i guess i never thought about what lou wanted
01:19:54from
01:19:54it you're working three jobs and you're trying to make something yourself and you've got no direction
01:20:01and somebody comes in like a guardian angel is just like you're an amazing person you got incredible
01:20:07talent you got a great look and i'm gonna make you a millionaire based on these things there's no
01:20:12better feeling in the world right and he's like i have some ideas i'm putting together a band if that's
01:20:19gonna work out we'll all we'll find something for you but that was sort of the open-ended he's like
01:20:24you're gonna come work for me for you know however long it takes he made me his driver he's like
01:20:32jc drove
01:20:33for me rich drove for me at some point he's like even brad drove for me what were your first
01:20:40impressions
01:20:41of lou problem i don't know you know when i was still working for lou driving his limo i wanted
01:20:50to
01:20:50be a rapper i was 19 rich and this guy brian they had set up a meeting with lou so
01:20:58he's like hey you
01:20:58know you guys are doing the same kind of music why don't you just come together as one group and
01:21:03you
01:21:03know i'll sign you and we're like okay you know then he disappears and comes back i'm pretty sure you're
01:21:09like just some gym shorts on and guitar no shirt and the guitar right and he's sitting there in
01:21:17front of us on the couch and he's like he starts playing guitar so it was just kind of a
01:21:22weird a
01:21:23weird time he was kind enough to let me stay in his house as i was like coming up through
01:21:30these things
01:21:34but when i lived at that house and 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
01:22:00but it does feel like there was one member of each group that lou was grooming including me
01:22:13you're on this roller coaster of never stopping
01:22:17or you think it's never gonna stop first time i tried drugs wow this is awesome i was
01:22:22so deathly afraid of being called washed up i was victimized these get a lot darker and a lot more
01:22:29bleak
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