Get your own Free Home Page(November 8, 1999)
Ken Connors: It's just after 3 o'clock, we're going to stop the music for a couple of minutes because it is my pleasure to say hello live on the radio to Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys. Kevin, how are you?
Kevin: Hey, what's up?
Ken: Nothing much. You guys are in Detroit right now, is that right?
Kevin: Yes we are.
Ken: You're in Detroit doing the third of three sell-out nights in Detroit...Kevin, I want to get right down to business with your early success in Montreal and in the province of Quebec. Is it safe to say taht here in the province of Quebec and with Montrealers, the Backstreet Boys took koff maybe a little bit soon than you took off with the rest of North America?
Kevin: (barely audible) Definitely, definitely it's safe to say that.
Ken: And, uh, what do you think it was, is there anything you can put your finger on, the connection you made with the people in Montreal?
Kevin: Um, I think that Montreal discovered us first through the European scene. Um, I think that fact that we were out in France, all over Europe as well, I think it kinda came through that way.
Ken: Yeah, and Montrealers as well, in terms of music, kind of pride themselves in discovering talent, discovering new acts. They're a little ahead of the rest of NOrth America, so we kind of pride ourselves in that. Kevin, I wanna ask you about the schedule for touring and being on a tour of this nature. You spend so much of your free time doing charity work and doing media stuff and publicity. When you do get a bit of time for yourself, on an off-day or a travel day or you get to a city early, what do you personally like to do with your spare time?
Kevin: I don't know, just basic stuff that evverybody else likes to do: go see a movie, talk to my friends and family on the phone, or have my family come out and visit me on the road. Yesterday it was cool, we got to go to the Detroit Lions/St. Louis Rams game.
Ken: Uh-oh. Big football fans.
Kevin: Yeah, I'm a big football fan.
Ken: Yeah, who were you pulling for?
Kevin: Yesterday I was pulling for St. Louise, but, uh, they lost.
Ken: You know, uh...
Kevin: Just regular stuff like that. Catch a movie, different things like that.
Ken: Kevin, I just wanted to let you know, we were lucky enough through the generosity of SEARS, a big sponsor of the tour, to get some tickets to give them away on the radio, and we've been giving them away in our morning show here on Mix 96, and people have been doing outrageous things to win these Backstreet Boys tickets.
Kevin: Oh yeah?
Ken: We had a young lady barking on the bus for twenty minutes. (Kevin laughs) We had a guy, in full drag, on one of the busiest street corners in MOntreal doing Shania's, "Man I Feel Like A Woman"...
Kevin: Uh-uh.
Ken: Yeah.
Kevin: No way.
Ken: And we had a young lady this morning, and this was something special. She got into full scuba gear, and she went into a watar hazard at a golf course and retrieved about a hundred golf balls in order to get BSB tickets, (Kevin laughs) but she had such a big heart. She, in turn, she did this whole stunt, in this icy water, so that a less fortunate Montrealer can go and enjoy the show Wednesday night. She turned the tickets over to someone who maybe didn't have the means to go on Wednesday.
Kevin: Well, that was great.
Ken: Her name was Claudia Isabay and she had a big, big heart, so we were thrilled with that. Kev, quickly to ask you, with everything that's written about you guys and all the press coverage that you get, I remember recently a very, very indepth article in Rolling Stone about you and the rest of the guys. Are you generally happy with everything that's written about you? Do you think a lot of it is accurate or inaccurate? How do you feel about the press that you guys get?
Kevin: Um, I think we've pretty well...most of the press that's written about us is, you know, pretty accurate. There is a lot that is totally created and made up, um, by journalists sometimes. Uh, a lot of rumors and stuff and sometimes it's frustrating, you know, you wish that the press would sometimes be more responsible and check their sources before they print a story. Um, but generally, you know, when you're in the public eye, you're gonna have things like that happen, so you just kinda laugh and shrug it off.
Ken: Right. And Kevin, you were mentioning spending time with your family. How big a family do you come from?
Kevin: I've got two older brothers.
Ken: yeah, how does you family view your success? Do they shake their heads and though, "Man, we never thought this is where Kevin would end up"? Do they take it all in stride? Your family must be incredibily proud of you.
Kevin: DEfinitely, they're very supportive. Actually, it's gonna be cool. We're actually gonna play in my hometown on Thanksgiving and I'm gonna be there with my family, you know, and we're gonna have a big dinner and everything before the show so it's gonna be great, I'm excited. My family's been very supportive of whatever I've ventured into.
Ken: Well, we gotta congratulate because following up the first album was no easy task, but Millennium is fantastic...
Kevin: Thank you.
Ken: ...ith so many great songs. You yourself had a part in songwriting as well on the Millennium. I gotta ask you, what are the plans, either individually or collectively with the group, for New Year's Eve?
Kevin: Well, orginally we...in the past six years, we've been working pretty much every New Year's Eve, and so we kinda decided that we were gonna spend New Year's with our friends and our families and just stay low-key and not work. And then we got news that Michael Jackson, his...he was gonna do two shows. He was gonna do one in Australia and a show in Hawaii. He was gonna do the show in Australia first and Nawaii next all in one night on New Year's Eve, and he cancelled those shows in order to finish recording his album. And we were thinking about trying to do those shows, but turned out to be really complicated because if we do those shows, we want to be able to use our stage that we're using right now. We have a big production and wouldn't be able to take that production with us so it just wasn't possible to do it. (mumbled something) We're gonna hold off on it and just spend time with our friends and families.
Ken: Kevin, the whole city is pumped to welcome you guys ack to Montreal...
Kevin: We're looking forward to coming back, it's been awhile.
Ken: Yeah, it's sold out Molson Centre and we wish you a safe travel...
Kevin: Love the Molson Centre.
Ken: Yeah. Kevin, all the best to you and the guys.
Kevin: Thank you.
Ken: We'll see you Wednesday night.
Kevin: All right.
Ken: Bye now.
Kevin: Bye bye.
"Larger than Life" plays
Source: Backstreet.Net
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