Backstreet Mom: A Mother's Tale of Backstreet Boy AJ McLean's Rise to Fame, Struggle With Addiction, and Ultimate Triumph (30 page)

Usually it was not a problem. I was surprised at how popular the
sport was in Germany. They had some very cool tracks there. Many of
the carts were much better than the rinky-dink ones we were used to in
the States. Alex and I really enjoyed spending time on the track with
some of the other boys and security.

Nick, it turned out, was a very aggressive driver. One time he ran
over one of our bodyguards who barely fit into the cart. His name was
Todd and he was well over seven feet tall. His knees were up into his
chest as he drove. It was quite a sight to see. As Todd rounded the corner, he wiped out.

Nick came up behind him and just kept on going. As he proceeded to
run right over him, our poor bodyguard was stunned. He was not hurt
in any way because the large frame of the cart kind of sheltered the
blow. Afterward, the boys gave Nick a good talking to and told him he
needed to take his anger out some other way. Nick took it in stride. He
had not meant to hurt anyone.

The boys were right about Nick's anger. He seemed to be getting an
attitude and we really did not know why. His parents were out on the
road pretty regularly, so it was not that he missed them. It appeared as
though someone had convinced him that he was the favorite among the
fans and therefore the best Backstreet Boy. That was a dangerous game
to play. Understandably, it began to cause problems within the group.

It was true that for a while the boys' producers used Brian and Nick
to sing lead vocals, but, like everything else, that too changed. As the
boys became more polished, the leads were given out to everyone. For
Nick to be under the impression that he was better than the rest was not
a good thing.

At rehearsals, the atmosphere became tense if one of the boys messed
up, especially if it were Nick or Kevin. Kevin was a perfectionist. There
were times that he would come down too hard on Nick for a simple
error. He had the group's best interests at heart, but he did not really
know how to communicate that to them.

Intense discussion on tour

After being on the
road for so long, it was
inevitable that the boys'
relationships would
come under a strain.
Arguments erupted on a
daily basis. I remember
a few good ones in
which the boys almost
came to blows. They
were about silly things,
like who messed up at
rehearsals or who was
off with their harmony.
Had it not been for
Johnny or security cutting in, things could
have gotten out of hand
very quickly.

The boys did not realize it at the time, but
they were acting just
like siblings. For Alex this was both good and bad. He loved having the other fellows around
when things were going well, but when the fights broke out he was the
first to walk away.

Alex has always hated confrontation. From childhood on, he did everything he could to avoid conflict. He especially hated arguments with
me-and, believe me, we had our share. They usually resulted in the
two of us not speaking for a while. Eventually, we would get over it and
talk it through.

AFTER SEVEN WEEKS ON TOUR throughout Europe, we finally headed
home. All of us were exhausted and ready for a break. The tour was a
raging success and everyone was pleased about it. Every show sold out
and the merchandise sales went well over expectations. Our rest would
be brief, as jive was already putting a new video shoot together as we
flew home. At least this one would be filmed in Orlando, so we would
not have to travel very far.

For the video, they used a local middle school that Howie had attended as a child. It was pretty cool for him. Some magazines from Germany came to see the shoot and get pictures for the fans overseas. Jive
sent a representative to make sure the shoot ran smoothly. Thank God it
was Nina. She had had some run-ins with Donna and there was no love
lost there, so when Donna showed up at the shoot and saw Nina, she
left pretty quickly. I was unsure why, but at the time I was too busy to
care.

That was a particularly tough shoot for the boys. It was done at night
and they simulated a rainstorm, using very tall sprinklers on the set.
The water was cold and I was very afraid they would get sick. We kept
running up to them in between segments and padding them down with
dry towels. Alex sneezed his way through most of the night. I was convinced he was coming down with a cold. He appeared to be really stressed
out that night and I didn't know why. Later, I understood.

Marisa was briefly back in the picture and apparently had some sort
of fight with Alex over a comment he had made jokingly. She did not
think it was funny and just stood around pouting until she finally left
with her mother. It was just one more thing to drag Alex down, but
there was no convincing him of that. In an odd way I felt that he liked
the stress of their relationship, or rather that he thought that was how it
was supposed to be.

I didn't understand that because none of my relationships had ever
played out in that way. Even during the worst of times with his father, we did not yell and scream in front of him. I could not imagine where he
was getting his warped opinions.

Then it hit me. Johnny and Donna had engaged in constant fights
over the past two years. Threats were always being thrown back and
forth. They never really seemed to enjoy each other very much. It was
like those love-hate things you hear about. It dawned on me that perhaps that was what Alex was basing his relationship rules on.

When he did ask for my input, I tried to make him understand that
when you truly love someone you want to be with them and have fun.
The object was not to fight just so you could make up. I hoped it would
sink in. He had started down a bad road that would lead him into some
bad relationships with unhappy endings. No parent ever wants to see
his or her child suffer. I certainly wanted to steer him in the right direction, but at the age of almost nineteen, he was not about to listen to me.
I could only stand by and be there when he reached out to me.

Around that time, I found myself in desperate need of a break. In
July, I decided to accept a long-standing invitation from my newfound
friends in Zurich, Marco and Evelyn Duschletta, to pay them a visit.
Marco worked for BMG and Evelyn helped me run the fan club from her
home. They had a daughter, jasmine, who was as beautiful as her mother. She spoke no English, but we had fun just the same. Both Marco and
Evelyn had been extremely helpful to the boys and very generous as
friends to me.

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Randy Jones and Evelyn Duschletta

What a blessing it was to get
away for a while. I had a wonderful time and I got to see
parts of the countryside I
would never have been able to
see during a tour. Marco took
me on a train ride up into the
mountains and it was spectacular. I stayed with them in a
spare upstairs room and got to
meet some of the other young
fans who helped Evelyn with
her fan club duties.

Everyone was kind and
sweet. One day we had a great outing in celebration of Swiss Independence. It was just like our Fourth
of July. We went to a park, had a cookout and sat on a blanket on the
grass. The weather was sunny and warm. All around us, people enjoyed
the day with their families. Later that evening, we watched fireworks
and had lots of laughs.

BACK HOME, WITH THE TOUR finally finished and the money collected, it
was time to sit down and discuss finances. It was of great concern to all
of us, considering that it had always been a battle getting Lou to give us
any kind of accounting figures.

Lou hired an entire accounting department to deal with the tour and
payroll. I was not very happy to hear that the people Lou hired had
never had any experience in the music or touring business, but, once
again, trust was on the line. That line, however, was beginning to wear
a bit thin. It was becoming painfully obvious that while everyone around
the group seemed to be reaping the benefits of the boys' hard worknew homes, fancy cars, expensive jewelry-the boys themselves were
hardly rolling in dough.

I was not the only parent with that concern. All of the parents had
voiced their concerns at one time or another. We were all in agreement
that something had to be done, but what? It was a tricky situation. None
of us wanted to broach the whole "trust" issue, as that always seemed to
result in unpleasantness. Ultimately, we had no choice.

Brian's mother, Jackie, was the first to act. She had a lawyer in Lexington, Kentucky, send a registered letter to Lou's office demanding an
accounting record. That got Lou's attention.

After weeks of excuses about uncollected funds from the tour, we
finally were able to see some figures. When that happened, Alex and I
were horrified. Not only were we not rolling in dough, we were rolling
in debt. For those first couple of years, the boys had been living on
advances against future earnings. That meant that until all of the accrued expenses-food, travel, lodging, publicity, clothes, equipment,
etc.-were paid back, the boys would not see a dime. None of this had
ever been explained to us. We never had any say in how the money was
spent or who got what.