Backstreet Mom: A Mother's Tale of Backstreet Boy AJ McLean's Rise to Fame, Struggle With Addiction, and Ultimate Triumph (21 page)

From England we went to Germany, where we encountered a whole new
level of fan hysteria. The first show we did there is one I will never forget. I
remember it so well because it was the first time the fans actually held up
signs with either the boys' individual names or "Backstreet Boys" written
on them. I saw one that had Alex's name on it, with a big, red heart and the
words, "I love you." I cried when I saw the expression on Alex's face as he
watched the fans wave the signs in unison with the music.

Later that night, a small incident occurred back at the hotel with my
son. When we arrived, the lobby was filled with fans. Alex stopped to
sign autographs and to pose for pictures with a member of another band.
I stopped to speak to a few "regular" moms that I had become friendly
with. When I looked for Alex to go upstairs, he was nowhere to be found.
I started to worry and went up to our room. Still no sign of my son.

I called Randy and asked if he had seen Alex. He said no, but he
immediately started looking for him. I was beginning to panic now. I
was instructed to wait in the room until he called me back. On pins and
needles, I waited, and waited, and waited. After a couple of hours, I
could not stand it any longer and I called the other boys' rooms to see if
he was there. No luck.

Now here was what was going through my mind: First time in a foreign country, fans everywhere in the hotel . . . naive, young man on his
own with an older artist from another group. What was I worried about?
Plenty! After a few more hours, Randy finally called. He had found Alex
in a room with the same artist he had been with in the lobby.

As it turned out, I did not have to chastise my son for making me
worry. Randy did it for me. He impressed upon Alex the importance of
communication between the artist and his security. Randy told us a tale
of how one of the New Kids was almost kidnapped right after a concert.
He managed to escape because he refused to get into a car with a driver
he didn't recognize. That story made a big impression on my son and he
never wandered off again.

On October 30, the boys got a real taste of "fan fever" when they
went to one of the largest radio stations in Berlin. More than fifty girls
greeted them upon their arrival. Since the studio was on the second
floor, they could be seen through the glass windows by the girls downstairs, who sang the chorus of "Jam On."

Given the fact that they couldn't pronounce "jam" too well, it kind of
dropped off at the end. It was very cute. The real fun began once the
boys left the studio. By then the crowd had grown to over one hundred
girls. They had been waiting so long that they were frantic by the time
the boys came out of the studio. It was necessary for our security team (to which we had added a tall, blond drink of water from Kentucky
named Keith) to clear a path.

Security didn't have much luck with those girls, for they were on a
mission to get as close to the boys as was humanly possible, security be
damned! They managed to push their way up the stairwell to the studio
door. You can only imagine what happened from there. It was unbridled
chaos. Security realized that they would have to find another way to get
the boys into the van.

Luckily, Randy found an open window behind the stairwell. The boys
were asked to climb through the open window into the van. It was the only
conceivable way that they would make it out of the studio in one piece.
Unfortunately, they still had to climb through the girls to get there. The
moment that Nick and Howie came out of the studio, they were attacked.

In all the craziness, Nick tripped and proceeded to fall down the stairs.
He lost his scarf and some girl grabbed it. Brian used some fancy basketball footwork in an effort to try and dodge the girls that were crowded around the doors. By
the time the girls realized where he was, he
had been shoved into
the van by security.

The boys with Lou and Johnny in London

Johnny with Brian, AJ and Kevin in London

At that point, everyone was piled into the
van. Or so we thought.
Suddenly, Nina, our Jive
rep, realized that Howie
and Alex were not with
us. So she screamed for
security to set out and
find them. Apparently,
some girls had trapped
Howie, and Alex had
gone back to help him.
It was Howie's backpack
that had gotten him into
trouble. It weighed like
two tons. To this day I
still don't know exactly what he carried in it.

Certainly whatever it contained it was not the best thing to be dragging around when you were trying to make a quick getaway through an
open window! The only casualties of the day were Nick's scarf and Brian's
hat. It was both a good (and bad) experience for the boys. At the very
least, it gave them a glimpse of the future.

WE SPENT THE REMAINDER OF 1995 promoting the single throughout the
United Kingdom and Europe. Our bus was a seated bus, not a sleeper
bus, which meant that we had to learn to sleep sitting up. As we did in
the States, we went from radio station to radio station. The boys sang a
cappella every chance they got.

During that time, the fan count in each city and at each hotel increased twofold. One of the really high points occurred at the beginning
of the trip and helped the boys' careers immensely. We found out a day
or so after arriving in London that the current reigning boy band in
Europe, a group called Take That, had just announced that they were
breaking up so that some members of the group could pursue solo careers. In a statement to the press, they proclaimed that the Backstreet Boys were the only group that could take their place. That act of generosity was a major coup for the boys.

Typically, when we pulled up at our hotel there would be twenty
girls waiting to greet the boys. Within hours that number would more
than double. As time passed, the fan phenomenon grew. The amount of
time the girls spent following the boys was an ongoing topic of conversation among the boys, security and myself. The only logical explanation we could come up with was that apparently there were a lot of rich
moms and dads who enjoyed living vicariously through their children.
They took great pleasure in enabling their kids to trek across the country in the family Mercedes.

There were girls in the lobby, girls in the stairwells. Girls running up
and down the hallways in desperate search of the boys. Oftentimes girls
would reserve rooms in the same hotel as the boys. The girls who couldn't
afford to do that camped out in the lobby Sometimes they would even sleep outside the front of the hotels. Oddly enough, this did not seem to
bother the hotel management.

Alex comes alive on stage

Girls were a usual occurrence in the lobby around the clock. Sometimes the boys paired off and took nightly trips to the lobby to say hi,
sign autographs and pose for pictures. They made themselves accessible to their fans. That type of behavior played a big role in the boys'
popularity and the fans' loyalty. To this day, some of those fans still wait
in lobbies around the world to give the boys a wave hello.

A silly incident occurred in Cologne when Alex and I foolishly went
out for a few hours of shopping. Most of the malls in Germany were not
enclosed and the boutiques are very small and quaint. One thing that
Alex and I always had in common was shopping. We liked to window
shop for hours and dream about what we might be able to afford someday should he become famous.