If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that living through a pandemic is Tough. As. Hell. To seek refuge, people are revisiting childhood joys now more than ever. And what better way to have a nostalgia-induced fever dream than to play the music from your youth, amirite? It’s not *just* you who’s playing their first ’90s/early 2000s playlist on repeat, bawling your eyes out while listening to the Backstreet Boys, and wishing for a better tomorrow—it’s *all* of us…which is why today is a truly blessed day.
In an answer to our collective prayers, the Backstreet Boys are now giving their die-hard fans the content they so desperately crave by launching their first-ever radio show. BSB’s newest project is called All I Have to Give Radio, appropriately named after a song from their second album, Backstreet’s Back.
The radio show, out now via Apple Music, sees Nick Carter, AJ McLean, Brian Littrell, Kevin Richardson, and Howie Dorough reflecting on when life was actually good their wildly successful careers, sharing stories from yesteryear, and engaging with their devoted fanbase. Aka just the thing you need to get through the rest of this year!
Ahead of the first episode’s premiere, I caught up with Nick Carter himself to talk about why BSB’s getting into radio, what he hopes pop music will sound like post-2020, the band’s secret acoustic album, and how he feels about your other favorite boy band from the ’90s, NSYNC.
Cosmo: Why do you feel like now is the best time to launch a project like this, and what will set it apart from other radio shows?
Nick Carter: We’ve always had the intention of doing the show and started talking about it more during the South American leg of our DNA World Tour. Then the pandemic kicked in. When we got back home, there was no more touring, no more music, and everything had changed, so we felt like it was a good opportunity for us to to really engage with our incredible fans all around the world and share our stories since we’ve been together for over 27 years.
I think what makes our show different would be the fact that there’s five hosts, an actual boy band hosting the show. It’s us jumping on with microphones, getting on a Zoom call, and just reminiscing about our memories throughout the years while allowing our listeners to be a fly on the wall.
What can listeners expect the formatting of the show to be like?
The first episode is going to be us bantering with each other, while the second episode has more to do with fan interaction. Fans called in and we did questions and answers with them; it was a lot of fun. For the last five shows, each guy is going to have their own episode.
I owe it to the fans to ask—would you have NSYNC on the show?
I was supposed to do an interview with Chris Kirkpatrick a few months ago! I’m great friends with Chris, Joey [Fatone], and Lance [Bass]…all of them, honestly. We all have great relationships with those guys, and I think it would be a lot of fun to bring them on. Right now, nobody knows what’s gonna happen with the show. It’s like an experiment, but who knows? The show could grow and turn into something that people truly enjoy, and at that point, heck yeah, I’d bring in the NSYNC guys. For the fans’ sake, yeah, that would be awesome.
A lot of musicians have been able to release new material during the pandemic. Will we get new BSB music before 2020 is over?
I think it’s easier for solo artists to put out material because they can make music on their own at their house. As the Backstreet Boys, we love to be in the studio together writing, recording, and doing things as a family, so we’d have to come up with a creative way to do that. We do have an acoustic album that we recorded, so I don’t know if we can do something with that. Before the pandemic, we were right in the middle of touring for DNA. That was our first number one album in a while, and people were super excited about that. The pause will continue until everything is safe again.
What’s it like to be in the Backstreet Boys in 2020 versus 1999, and how do you think the music industry has changed since then?
The late ’90s and early 2000s were a really good time. We were performing and entertaining people as teenagers, not having a care in the world. Now we’re husbands and fathers trying to be present with our families, so that’s the difference when it comes to our music right now.
I believe there’s going to be a change in pop music and that people are hopefully going to want to hear happy music—that’s what the Backstreet Boys are. We were putting out music that moved people and made songs that talked about hope and love. I think pop music is going to go there again someday. After the clouds clear in our world, the Backstreet Boys will be there, and other artists are going to make music to celebrate life itself because life is so precious. I think that’s what we’re all learning right now, that life is precious.
If you had to choose, what would you say is your personal favorite Backstreet Boys lyric?
Ugh, there’s so, so many. I’m kind of a cheeseball as it is. I love cheesy music, and you can call Backstreet Boys cheesy, maybe. It has to be from “As Long as You Love Me.” If you listen and study the song, those lyrics are definitely my favorite. “I don’t care who you are / Where you’re from / What you did / As long as you love me.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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