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Way back in the early 90s, A.J. McLean, Howie Dorough and Nick Carter were all striving for a career in the enterainment industry. Despite their young ages (they were all still in school at the time) each had had a fair amount of success as a singer or actor or both. A.J. had studied dance-everything from jazz to ballet-for years, and was an accomplished puppeteer who'd worked on a cable TV ceries.Howie first hit the theater stage as a grammer schoolage kid and had even appeared in the films Parenthood and Cop And A Half. Nick, meanwhile, was a featured vocalist for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers halftime show during the 1991 and 1992 seasons and had won the 1992 New Original Amateur Hour for his singing skills.

"Me and AJ met up with each other in Orlando through a talent competition," remembers Howie. "We had a vocal coach that I used to work with who was, at the time, his vocal coach. He introduced the two of us."

Being Orlando-based performers, it's no surprise that Howie and A.J. frequently saw each other at auditions-particularly auditions for new Nickelodeon series which always use lots of young performers. To pass the time waiting for their appointments, Howie and A.J. would sing a cappella. One time, Nick, who was also auditioning for the same project, heard them and joined in. Pretty soon it became apparent to the trio that their sound was pretty exciting. They decided to form a group and seek out someone who could help them. That person was Louis Pearlman, a successful Florida businessman with a great love of music.

Backstreet Boys Rules! KTBSPA!

Meanwhile, Kevin Richardson, a native of Lexington, Kentucky, had moved down to Orlando to pursue a dream of his own. Kevin heard about the soon-to-be Backstreet Boys search for two new members through the Orlando grapevine and auditioned for the budding group. "There were two other members who didn't work out and I replaced one of them," he reveals. "Then, we needed another member. Brian's my cousin, and I called him up and he came down to Florida.. and he auditioned." Naming the group afther a popular market in Orlando-the Backstreet Market-Backstreet Boys were born.

"We were in the group and then we got management, then management got us some shows, and then shows got us some recognition and we were able to get in to see some record labels," explains Kevin of the long climb toward success.

Their persistence paid off when they caught the ear of the folks at Jive Records. "We were able to sing for them a cappella and we did some more shows and they came out and saw our show. That's how we got a record deal," remembers Kevin. The release of their first single, "We Got It Goin' On," led to a Hot 100 single in the U.S. but totally exploded in Canada and Western Europe! Soon girls in countries all over the world knew the names of the Boys and could sing every word to their songs. This is the Backstreet Boys story.

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