Backstreet Mom: A Mother's Tale of Backstreet Boy AJ McLean's Rise to Fame, Struggle With Addiction, and Ultimate Triumph (28 page)

By then, the boys were tired and frustrated because they had worked
their butts off for so long and still saw no real reward for it in a monetary sense. When they toured, the boys each drew a few-hundred-dollarsa-week advance, but when they returned home, the salary draw was cut
off and they received nothing.

FINALLY, THE ALBUM WAS RELEASED in Germany, where it immediately
soared to number one. Soon the boys had their first gold album. When
the second single from the album was released in England, it, too, did
well. The group was now ready for its first real tour as headliners. It
would include a band and dancers, the whole nine yards.

But, by then, fame had taken a toll. For every rung of success they
climbed, there was an accompanying sacrifice. Sadly, Kevin and his longtime girlfriend, Kristen, broke up. According to Alex, it was due to the
insane schedules the boys were keeping. It seemed to be a mutual decision. Kristen was a beautiful young woman who had been acting and
dancing for years. She wanted a career of her own and deserved a shot at
finding her own place in the business. Even though Kevin understood,
I still remember the hurt-puppy look on his face when we talked about
it. He has a soft heart inside a rough shell. That shell is sometimes easily
cracked.

Backstreet fever had spread to Canada, and it was impossible for the
boys to go anywhere without a bodyguard. They weren't even safe in the
hotel. The press laid in wait in the lobby, right alongside the fans, and
pounced the moment any one of the boys walked by. The boys did not
want to appear mean, so they usually stopped for a few minutes to sign
autographs or take pictures. When they wanted it to end, they gave a sign
to their bodyguard, who then whisked them away I always tried to be
nice to the press and answer questions about the boys so that they did not
have to. Naturally, that was not always good enough for some journalists.

Mingled in with the fans and music journalists were an unsavory lot
that obtained autographs from the boys to resell for ridiculous amounts.
Those guys sometimes returned to the hotel later that night with posters, pictures and CDs supposedly signed by the boys. The bodyguards and I took great pleasure in cutting the boys off from them. Once the
boys understood what was going on, they stopped signing autographs
for them altogether.

When it was time to hit the road again, I traveled with the production
crew as makeup and wardrobe mistress. For most of the tour, local women were hired city to city to help with my day-to-day tasks. 1 was in
charge of setting up the boys' dressing rooms with wardrobe and coordinating with catering about food. I also had to set up a changing area
each night for the boys to do their quick changes during the show.

The final task was to wash clothes from the previous night or take
them out to be cleaned. With five boys dancing every night, there was
also a lot of mending to be done. When something could not be mended, I went out and bought a replacement. I think they ate underwear
and socks for dinner, the way that they disappeared.

Life on the road could be very tiresome and lonely. I will never forget
the first night that I watched the boys drive off after the show. I stayed
behind to clean up their dressing room and to pack. The crew did not
sleep in hotels every night like the artists or the musicians. Most of the
people that work behind the scenes just pack up and move on to the
next city every night. Our bus was our hotel.

I was just one of the
crew. I slept on the crew
bus with a bunch of guys
and two other women. I
became pretty good pals
with a sweet, hard-working woman from Croatia
named Dvorka. She had
very dark eyes and black
hair. She spoke good English and was fluent in
German, Italian and
French. She had a good
heart, and we had some
healthy laughs together
during that time.

Unlike most of the boys,
I rarely slept on these
flights, even on the
occasional private jet.

The guys that we rode with were usually loud leathery two-packs-aday Germans. The first thing they did when they got onto the bus was
light up and crack open a brew. They worked hard and played harder.
All in all, they were nice, good-natured people. They had only the deepest respect for me as Alex's mom. I never wanted to be treated special.
They soon found out I could be one of the guys. It did not take long
before we were spending our days off together, hanging out or going to
a nice restaurant. They knew all the best places to go.

Since most of the crew spoke English well, there was no language barrier. After spending the better part of two years in Germany, I was beginning to understand a lot of words. To the dismay of some, I understood
more than they knew. Sometimes I repeated stuff to the boys or Johnny
that the crew members were saying among themselves. It got pretty funny at times to see the looks on their faces when they thought they were
being sneaky. I would come back with a remark that made them aware
that I knew what they were saying. Other times, I had German-speaking
friends stand within earshot and explain to me what was really going on.
Either way, I was adept at keeping up with the slicker players.

Still, there were times that I felt out of place. Not because I felt better
than they were as people, but simply because I missed being with Alex
and the boys. My job had become very basic and routine. I enjoyed
what I was doing, but I missed having daily interaction with my son.

My new job with the Backstreet Boys gave me a chance to see how
things ran on the other side of the curtain. I saw how a show was put
together from the inside out. It was amazing to see those people pull
together to meet deadlines. I really must give the crew a lot of credit for
what they did. After all, once their job was done for the day, they only
had a short time before the artists showed up, expecting everything to
proceed without a hitch. Sometimes it even does.

Tradition dictated that the crew play jokes on the artists during the
last show-and did we ever! One time we attacked the boys with water
cannons during their closing number. Another time we dropped a hundred stuffed toys right onto their heads while they were all center stage
singing. We stuck props to the stage so that they could not be moved
and that was always good for a laugh.

Luckily, the boys all had a good sense of humor about it. We got
pretty creative after a while. It was a challenge that we looked forward
to during every tour. The boys even came up with their own bag of
tricks for their band mates and the crew.

At this point in their careers, the boys had the crews' admiration, as
well as the adoration of fans everywhere they performed. I remember hearing from several crewmembers during that first tour that they had
not been this excited to work with an act in years. The energy and talent
on stage was amazing.

Sometimes I was overwhelmed with pride, especially when the crew
told me how Alex seemed to be one of the most natural performers that
they have ever seen. He just looked like that was where he belonged.
They would go on to say how much of a pleasure he was to work with
off stage as well. Never once did Alex act as if he were better than they.
Alex could always be counted on to be polite and thoughtful.

Oftentimes, he hung out with the crew on days off and backstage.
They genuinely liked Alex as a person and a performer. It was an amazing time for me as his mom to hear those wonderful words. I know that
all of the boys are talented, but since I did not raise all the boys, I could
not help but feel proudest of Alex.

Even the media loved Alex, and they had a special affinity for Howie
as well. They were the two who never turned down an interview. Whenever any of the other boys had a conflict in their schedules, we knew we
could count on Howie or Alex to come to the rescue with the media.
And they did it with style and grace.

By the end of that tour, it was the norm for the show to be sold out
and for hundreds of fans to be left without tickets. Sometimes Johnny
or I would try to find extra tickets right before the show and go outside
to give them away to the neediest family that we could find. Like a
single mom who could not afford the tickets for her children or a dad
with a crying daughter by his side. What a great feeling it was seeing
those little girls' faces light up when we handed over those tickets. I
always liked that part.

The meet-and-greets were the other fan-related job that I got to deal
with on a daily basis. At every show, usually before the boys hit the
stage, we lined girls up in narrow hallways or in extra rooms. Once the
boys were dressed and ready to go onstage, they came out to meet the
girls, take pictures and sign autographs for them.

Many times there would also be terminally ill children or children in
wheelchairs for the boys to meet. That was very difficult for them to
handle. Sometimes they cried when they saw the children. Naturally,
that was not the best mood generator that the boys could have before
going on stage. To alleviate the pressure on the boys, we were forced to
qualify the degree of sickness with which a child could get into the
meet-and-greets.

That may sound like a cruel thing to do, but we really had no choice.
If the boys became too emotional before a performance, it could set a mood that would last for a long while into the show. That was not fair to
the rest of the audience. We would compensate the fans who did not get
in to see the boys by sending them something personally autographed
by the boys and usually that sufficed.

Occasionally, Jive or some of the magazines ran contests and very
sick children would be given the chance to meet the boys. We finally
had to put the kibosh on that. We gave them autographed shirts or
albums instead. Part of my job was to somehow make nice with everyone. 1 usually found a way to please. After all, the boys' reputations
were always on the line.

Another fun thing I got to do with regards to the meet-and-greet schedule was that at every show I would choose some fans to come backstage
and help me out with translation, among other things. They helped collect the hundreds of stuffed toys the audience threw on stage during
every performance. The stuffed toys and gifts were a new phenomenon.
We always arranged for the stuffed animals to be donated to an orphanage or children's hospital. Otherwise the promoters would just throw
them away.

Most of the stuffed toys were either brand new or keepsakes that
really meant something to the fans. There was just no way we could
take them all with us. In good conscience, I could never bring myself to
just throw them away. Each one also had a note or letter attached that I
kept for our fan database. The boys enjoyed reading them.

The toys that the girls threw on stage eventually became a hazard for
the boys because they would trip on them during their choreography.
More than once, they fell and almost twisted an ankle or sprained a
knee. We asked the fan club volunteers to go onstage after the opening
acts were done to ask the audience, in their own language, to throw all
of the toys on stage at that time, so that we could make sure we collected them properly and gave them to each boy.