Backstreet Mom: A Mother's Tale of Backstreet Boy AJ McLean's Rise to Fame, Struggle With Addiction, and Ultimate Triumph (14 page)

ON MAY 16, 1993, the pieces finally came together. The day began like
any other. We got up, got dressed, brushed our teeth and were out the
door. We went through the motions like we had done so many times
before. We had no way of knowing that by day's end, things would be
infinitely different.

As day turned into night, the sun set, the moon rose and a plane
touched down at Orlando Airport. Aboard that plane, a fair-haired young
man unbuckled his seat belt, stood up and took a good long stretch. His
journey from Lexington, Kentucky, had been fraught with excitement
and anticipation.

As he made his way off the plane, he followed the signs to the tram
that ultimately would lead him to baggage claim. His steps noticeably
quickened as he made his way through the narrow passage lined with
brightly colored advertisements.

He was jolted into reality as the tram stopped and the voice above
directed him to baggage claim. Operating now on nothing but sheer
nerves, his mind wandered back to the phone call that had pulled him
out of class only two days earlier.

"Do you think it would be all right for you to miss a couple days of
school?" asked Kevin.

"I guess so," said Brian. "Why?"

"So that you can sing for this group of guys I'm singing with."

"Sure," said Brian.

"There'll be someone at the airport to pick you up."

After that, it was all a blur. Suddenly, he heard his name being called.
As he looked around, he saw a man holding up a small white sign. Before he could reach for his bag, the man muscled his way through the
crowd to the conveyer belt, confirmed with a nod that the suitcase he
was about to grab was the right one-and whisked it away.

The man introduced himself with a strong handshake and motioned
for the fair-haired boy to follow him to the car. Moments later he found
himself sequestered in the back of the longest, darkest, fanciest car he
had ever seen. His stomach was in knots.

All of us had gone out to dinner with Lou and then to a small icecream shop that he owned a few miles from his house. We waited eagerly as Lou got the call that Brian had landed and was on his way. Kevin
could barely contain his excitement at the thought of seeing his cousin
again. I could read the nervousness in his face as the limo approached.

We all ran out to greet the limo as it pulled into the parking lot.
When the back door opened, Brian Thomas Littrell emerged. He was
small-framed with short blond hair. As he turned to meet us, we were
blinded by his sparkling blue eyes and great big smile. All at once he
was enveloped in the arms of his older cousin. Laughter and hasty introductions flew through the air, mixed with tears and hugs. The other
boys greeted him like a long-lost family member. Brian's face beamed
for the rest of the night.

We all jumped into the limo and headed for Lou's house. When we
first heard Brian speak, with his Kentucky accent raging at what seemed
to be 100 miles per second, we had to contain our chuckles. However,
upon hearing him sing, we all shut our mouths and opened our ears to
one of the most angelic voices we had ever heard.

Lou had rented a house for the boys to rehearse in and a couple of
them lived there as well. Since none of the boys were being paid, the
older ones with apartments were forced to give them up. The rented
house was a nondescript, three-bedroom, two-bath box-like structure
that was located in a small subdivision. We called it the band house.
Working within a tiny budget, we furnished it with just the essentials,
which we supplemented with some motherly love and occasional homecooked meals.

Once the initial excitement of Brian's arrival wore off, everyone went
back to the band house, where we all did our very best to make Brian
feel at home. While I might have started out being there for my son, I
soon realized that each boy had his own special needs. Nick's parents
lived a few hours away so they tried to be there as much as they could.
I soon became cook, maid, seamstress, nurse and sometimes just
general sounding board when
necessary. I didn't mind since, to
me, they were all still children.

Once it was official that Brian
would be staying, he and Kevin
moved into the band house. Nick
sometimes stayed there on the
weekends. None of the rooms in
the house were big enough to rehearse in, so the boys took to the
driveway and literally "pounded
the pavement." It was the middle
of the summer and the heat was
excruciating. From the moment
they walked outside each morning, until the last step was perfected each night, the sun beat down
on them relentlessly.

They started out fully clothed
in the morning, but by noon layers were shed and by dinner they
would have liked nothing more
than to have been dancing in their
birthday suits. Luckily, they settled for shorts, sneakers and sunburned skin. Nicely bronzed
shoulders and necks became beetred and sensitive to the touch.

Even their physiques began to
change. Alex had been thin to begin with. Actually none of the boys
were very beefy and the intensity of those rehearsals shaved even more weight from their frames. Thank
goodness their appetites were good. We made sure that they ate well
and we pumped them full of vitamins and drowned them in aloe.

Alex performs at Lou's temple

After a month of rehearsals, the boys were asked to perform at Sea
World Grad Night in front of seven thousand middle-school students
twice a night for two nights. A live performance in front of teenage girls
from all over the state! It was a demographic dream. I don't know who
was more nervous-Alex or me!

To give them an edgier look, we dressed them in leather outfits that
had a bit of a biker feel to them. There was chaos from the moment
those five boys hit the stage. Alex ran into the crowd a couple of times
and dropped to his knees to sing to the swooning girls. The crowd reaction was like something out of an old Elvis Presley movie. They screamed
and jumped up and down. The vibe was intense and the boys loved it.

A COUPLE OF WEEKS BEFORE the Sea World show, Lou took the boys,
myself and Nick's parents out to dinner at an Italian restaurant, where
we dined in the privacy of a small room in the back. Lou used the occasion to introduce us to Johnny and Donna Wright, a married couple
that he had met several months earlier.

Johnny, an articulate and personable man in his mid-thirties, was the
New Kids' former road manager. Donna, an animated woman with long, dark hair, was a publicist who had some
experience organizing
teen-club dances.
They seemed to have
opposite personalities, but they complemented one another
rather well.

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The boys in the early days

Donna, Johnny and Lou

Johnny spoke
openly to the boys
about what they had to
look forward to in their
careers. He painted a
pretty picture, but he
made it clear that they
would have to be prepared to do a lot of hard work to make it a reality. He
seemed to be well versed in the music business, more so than Donna,
who seemed to be the more creative partner. It was clear that they were
both worlds ahead of jean and Sybil in their overall experience.

So we met, we ate and we talked. The boys sang for them and afterwards we all went our separate ways. At that point, it was not apparent why the meeting had taken place. That became more obvious when
Lou arranged a second meeting with the Wrights to discuss what they
could offer the boys in terms of their contacts within the industry.
After a few more meetings, we were told that Donna had booked a
performance for the boys at a fund-raiser for the Ronald McDonald
House in Fort Lauderdale. It was a formal sit-down dinner, so we got
to dress up a bit.

The evening started out well enough. The boys sang with their usual
energy and style. Not surprisingly, the crowd loved them, especially the
girls. However, once the boys came back to the table, things began to
heat up a bit.

I was not at the table to witness it, but later my son explained that
Johnny and Donna had a confrontation of sorts with jean over the booking. Jean and Sybil had already parted company, but jean still considered
herself an integral member of the team. From what we were told later,
Jean confronted Donna about not going through her with regards to scheduling and an argument ensued. Since neither Jean nor Sybil had ever officially been given the title of managers for the group, no one thought
Donna's booking would be a problem. Apparently, to jean it was.