Backstreet Mom: A Mother's Tale of Backstreet Boy AJ McLean's Rise to Fame, Struggle With Addiction, and Ultimate Triumph (25 page)

CHRISTMAS DAY WE WERE BACK ON THE ROAD. This time we went on
tour with a popular group from Holland called Caught In The Act.
They were nice guys who did not sing live and the boys showed them
up every time. The way Johnny figured it, the boys soon would scare
off all the other groups and would then be the headliners. No group
would be willing to share their audiences with the boys, for fear of
losing them.

We shared a large sleeper bus with one of the opening acts called just
Friends. They were a bit too sugary-pop for my taste, but nice enough
to have as bunkmates. The shows continued to go well and merchandise sales picked up quite a bit.

Our biggest problems on the road always seemed to center on the
female fans. They were everywhere. We couldn't sleep sometimes for
hearing them run up and down the halls all night. My friend Doris and
her daughter became big fans of the boys. She told me that our bus
drivers and the people who work at the record company had informants
among the fans that they pass information to about our schedules.

Originally I guess it was supposed to help the boys with exposure,
but it went to extremes. The fans also spent money on all kinds of presents for the boys. Everywhere we went, I had to carry armloads of gifts
that I was asked to pass on to the boys. The way I looked at it was that
once I gave the fans' gifts to the boys, I upheld my promise to them.
What the boys did with the gifts was beyond my control.

Sometimes I felt bad for some of the fans since they seemed to have
spent their last Deutchmark on the gifts. I kept most of the ones for
Alex. He was flattered that the girls would go to all that trouble to
send him gifts. Sometimes the gifts were way over the top-gold chains,
earrings, candy, hand-made blankets. It was crazy really. I was always
worried that the kids wouldn't have enough money left to buy the
album.

Besides the female fans, one of the things that fascinated me about
Europe was the way that the music industry differed from its American counterpart. Some of the pop bands there are owned by their management and given salaries. In America, the management just makes a percentage of whatever the group brings in and they can be fired, whereas in Europe it is the other way around.

I befriended a member of a group we traveled with that had some
unique problems. Matthias Fuchs and his group were cast members of a
well-known German television soap opera that had a loyal teen following. Because of their popularity, a record company signed them and put
them out on the road when the soap was not in production.

The only problem was that the television show hired them as actors,
not singers. Their sound could be fixed on the television show to insure
that they always sounded great, but when they performed live they sometimes had a difficult time on stage. That put a big strain on the members
of the group, especially my friend Matthias. He had always dreamed of
becoming a pop star. In fact, he had auditioned for his part as a way to
get his foot in the door of the music business. Matthias did not get along
well with the other members of the group and usually kept to himself
when they were not performing.

Because he was under a restrictive contract, he felt trapped by his
own career. Staying in the group was his only choice because, if he left,
he would have to go into the army for two years. In Germany, once a
boy turns eighteen if he is not in a university or working full time he
does mandatory army service for two years.

Meeting Elton John in
Germany

Matthias was not
army material, so he
stayed with the group
until he could find a way
out. That opportunity
came a short while later, when the group finally broke up and was
canceled from the soap.
He was relieved.

The Backstreet Boys'
final German show took
place in a huge warehouse. I stood at the rear
of the building, near the
doors, where I worked as
a merchandise vendor. Everything was fine until they opened the doors to let the parents come
inside and pick up their kids. It was bitter cold outside and the temperature quickly dropped at my workstation. I was about to freeze my little
bum off, when two fathers took pity on me and came to my rescue.
They bought me hot coffee and kept the refills coming until they picked
up their children.

We finished our European tour on New Year's Eve. After the show, we
went to a nightclub, where Alex and Kevin got behind the DJ booth and
mixed the music. It was good to see the boys take advantage of some
well-deserved downtime before our early morning call to the airport.
The promoter gave a party at the same club, but the building had so
many levels in it that we were able to have our own floor with just a few
fans and record company people.

We all slept well that night as we dreamt of our trip home.

WHEN WE RETURNED TO THE STATES in January 1996, I sought the advice
of my psychic, Matthew. I felt that the New Year would somehow be one
of both closure and new beginnings for Alex and me. Matthew confirmed my suspicions with a reading. He told me to keep my journals
because they would come in handy later on down the road. He also
warned me that my trials and tribulations with my son and two women
were not yet over. By that, he meant Donna and her daughter.

Boy, was he right on target with that one! Soon after we got back, Donna told me that her daughter had gone back to Boston to live with her
father because she was pregnant and distraught over her situation. She
tried to blame my son, which would have been the best long-distance
trick of all time, since we had both been out of the country for months.
Alex and I had a long talk and agreed that it was probably for the best that
Marisa went back to her father and continued school there while she got
her life on track. The pregnancy scare caused a rift among the boys, but it
was quickly squashed when the situation was explained to them.

ON JANUARY 9, Alex's eighteenth birthday, the boys left for South Beach to
film their third video. In its infinite wisdom, Jive had decided that the second single that they planned to release was not right. That made it necessary to shoot a different video for another song that would be released first.

The Donna situation was still hovering above the boys since she kept
trying to worm her way back into the fold. Lou decided to have a meeting. He told the boys that they didn't have to show up, only Kevin needed to be there as a representative on their behalf. I didn't really think that
was right. It turned out to be the beginning of a trend that would lead
down a bad path with Big Poppa. Since all of us still had an enormous
amount of trust in Lou's judgment, we believed that he was just trying
to keep peace and move the boys' careers forward.

Once the boys finished the video, there was time to celebrate some
birthdays. Nick and Alex were both born in January, so Lou decided to
throw them a big party at his house, complete with catered food and a
DJ. Lou even invited some members of the press to take pictures of the
boys celebrating.

The evening went along fine, until Donna showed up unannounced.
Soon after that, Marisa arrived. We all thought she had left town. She
informed everyone that she could not get a flight out. How convenient!
The boys were very upset about it but did not want to disrupt the festivities.

Alex showed up two hours late with Kevin, who had taken him shopping. Alex should have received his driver's license by then, since the
legal age in Florida is sixteen, but he had failed his driver's test twice
and still had to be driven around.

My brother Bill, Alex and me

There always seemed to be some kind of drama surrounding what
should have been happy times for those boys. I guess since they weren't
faced with the normal challenges of everyday life, some higher being
had decided to put other obstacles in front of them. It was at times like
these that 1 sometimes wished Alex had chosen to be a fireman.

I tried to lighten the mood of the party by getting behind them when
they were about to blow out the candles on their cake. As they bent
down, I pushed their faces into the icing and ran away. That left poor
Howie who was standing behind me to take the blame. After that, all
hell broke loose. Cake flew everywhere and my son was first to be thrown
into the unheated pool.