Chapter 31:
Duet
Lance
stared at the phone in surprise. Brian Littrell? That was not someone he was
expecting to hear from, especially in light of recent events. He glanced
quickly around their tour bus and caught Justin’s eye as he was on the verge of
tossing a piece of popcorn into his mouth.
“Who is
it?” Justin mouthed, noticing the strange look on his face.
Lance
held up a finger, telling him to wait. Justin shrugged and went back to his
popcorn. “Wow, hi,” he stuttered. “Sorry, you took me off guard there for a
sec.”
“Sorry.”
“No, no
big deal. How are all of y’all doing?”
“Much,
much better.”
“Good
to hear, very good to hear.”
Brian
smiled into the phone. The wariness in Lance’s voice was hard to miss, but he
couldn’t exactly blame him. It wasn’t that the two bands disliked each other,
but they tried not to cross paths too often. “Where are y’all at right now?”
“Umm,
that’s a good question. I think we’re going through
“Tour
going well?”
“Yeah,
tour’s going great.”
Justin
was curious now. “Who is it?” he asked aloud.
Lance
ignored him. “We keep hearing about you. Saw the MTV interview last week.”
“Oh
really?”
“Yup.”
“Well,
thanks for the cards and the flowers and stuff. We all really appreciated it.”
“Least
we could do,” Lance said, touched by the gratitude in his voice. “We don’t
exactly see each other very much, but when something like that happens…” he
shook his head. “It hits you. Hard. We were stunned to hear about it. I can’t
tell you how good it was to hear all of you were going to make it.”
Justin
was dying of curiosity now, so he got up with the intent to find someone else
to suffer with him. Joey was fixing some food, but he was wearing his
headphones. No good. Any attempt to distract him would prove futile. Chris was
nowhere to be seen, so that left him with J.C., who was trying to steal a nap.
“You
did not just wake me up,” he muttered as Justin shook his leg.
“Dude,
you have got to listen in on Lance’s phone conversation with me. You won’t
believe who I think it is.”
“Justin,
I don’t care if Lance is talking to Elvis. Go away and leave me alone.”
Justin
rolled his eyes, but left him along. J.C. had one hell of a temper when it came
to sleep. Further investigation revealed Chris up front chatting with their
driver.
“Chris,
man, come here.”
“Whatsa matter Curly?” he asked. “Did Joey eat the last of
your Cheerios?”
“Not to
my knowledge. But if he did, I’ll beat him with a sledgehammer. I think one of
the Backstreet Boys just called Lance.
“Really?
Why?”
“I
don’t know. Come on, we have to go listen.”
It was
Chris’s turn to roll his eyes. “Freak.” Justin pouted. “Okay, okay!”
They
both went over to where Lance was still sitting, looking deep in thought.
“Well
thanks, that’s awfully nice of you to say. Glad it was of some help to you.” He
paused, his forehead wrinkling. “Really?” he said in surprise. “That sounds
interesting, actually. It would sure throw the media for a loop, wouldn’t it?”
He cackled a little, and Justin almost hit him, he was so curious.
Joey
wandered over to join them, minus the headphones. “Who is Lance talking to?” he
asked, seeing his other band mates watching him like a hawk.
“Shhh!”
Chris said, waving a hand at him.
“I kind
of like that idea. I’ll run it by the guys here. They are all staring at me as
if I’ve grown a second head. Well, if it means so much to you, I’m sure we can
work something out. I’ll talk to them and get back to you on how they like the
idea. Sound good?” Lance nodded. “Great. Good talking to you. Later.”
He hung
up the phone, and found all three of them waiting anxiously for an explanation.
J.C. chose that moment to rise from his bunk, complaining bitterly.
“Justin,
I am gonna kick your ass. I can’t get back to sleep now, thank you!”
Then he noticed the expressions on everyone’s faces. “What is going on?”
“Lance
just got off the phone with one of the Backstreet Boys.”
“Oh,”
J.C. said with a strange look. “What’s up?”
“I
talked to Brian Littrell. He called me.”
“It was
him? Not their management?”
“Nope.
He said he wanted to talk to us personally about this.”
“About what?”
Justin said, exasperated.”
“If you
shut up for a second, I’ll tell you.” Justin mimicked him with a goofy look and
then grinned. Lance shook his head.
“Anyways,”
he said. “He told me that one of our songs helped him out a lot during their
little ordeal.”
“Wow.
I’m feeling special, I don’t know about you guys,” Joey said cheekily. “No
really,” he said when he saw the exasperated looks. “That was really nice of
him. Is that all he had to say?”
“Nope
He had an idea.” Lance said.
“What
song?” J.C. asked, becoming interested.
“Somewhere
Someday. He wants to know if we would be interested in a collaboration between
the ten of us for that song.”
“He
does?” Justin looked doubtful.
“He
said that the song really meant a lot to him, and he really wanted to be able
to do something with it.”
“Interesting,”
J.C. said, deep in thought.
“Do we
have time?” Justin quipped.
Lance
pulled out his planner and began flipping through pages. “I think we could
squeeze it in. We have a week off from the tour a month. We could snag some
time in the studio then. We don’t have much else going on.”
“Lance.
The omnipotent force in our lives,” Justin said in a deep voice.
“Omniscient,
dumbass,” J.C. corrected with a grin.
“Whatever.”
“So you
think we could swing it?” Joey asked.
“His
management has okayed it, Jive has okayed it. They just need a go ahead from
our end, it seems,” Lance replied.
“I
don’t know, that is an awful lot of country boys for me to have to deal with,”
Chris said with a straight face.
Lance
pulled a hacky sack ball out of the pocket of his
jacket and chucked it at him. “None of that, please,” he ordered. “Us
Mississippian’s might take offense.”
“All
those from
“AYE!”
Lance yelled into his ear.
“Okay,
now prove you’re a bumpkin and try and spell it.” This time, Lance smacked him
on the forehead with his planner. “Ouch! Damn it, Lance! That’s a big book!”
“Your
whole life is in it,” Lance informed him. “And after that page, ours
fill up the other three hundred.”
“I kind
of like this idea,” J.C. said slowly, bringing them all back to the topic at
hand.
“Me
too,” Lance agreed.
Joey
shrugged. “I don’t mind. Whatever you all want to do. It would be different,
and it would give the media a new bone to chew on.” Justin and Chris agreed.
“Great,”
Lance said. “I’ll call him back and tell him.”
* *
*
Almost
a month later, the five Backstreet Boys sat around the studio, taking a break
from their latest recording session. Work on their album had resumed three
weeks ago, and although a lot had been done, they still had a lot more to do.
No release date had been set, and work on a tour hadn’t even begun. Physically,
they were almost ready to begin rehearsals, but neither Kevin nor Nick was sure
if they were ready to be back on the road.
They
had roughly put together about half the album, and had picked out material for
the other half. All five had a hand in writing a large majority of the songs.
It was important to all of them to be as involved as possible for this album,
because it marked an achievement that many thought they would never be able to
make. The media had all but written them off, and the five of them were
determined to prove that assumption dead wrong. They would accept nothing less
than the absolute best they could possibly put forth, so every decision was
weighed carefully and every aspect of it was painstakingly done. Nothing less
than perfection was permissible.
In
their eyes, this album would be their crowning achievement. Even if it failed
by any or all other standards, and even if the public had moved on from the
“Backstreet” phenomenon, for them it would be their greatest accomplishment.
They would prove to themselves they could fight back from the greatest odds
they had ever faced, and come away from it better than they had ever been.
There was still a lot of work to be done, but things were starting to come
together. Brian wasn’t satisfied.
“We’re
missing something,” he said suddenly.
“What
do you mean?” A.J. asked.
“The
songs here are great, and a lot of them reflect us, but there’s not one that really
speaks from the heart. Don’t you think we need that? That the fans need that? I
mean, we’ve already done “Larger Than Life” and “The Perfect Fan.” People are
used to us expressing ourselves in our music, and these songs don’t
quite do it. Not for… not for that. Does anyone know what I mean?”
“Yeah,”
Kevin said slowly. “You want something that acknowledges what we’ve been
through and shows how far we’ve come.”
“Something
that tells everyone where we stand now,” Howie added.
“And
thanks everyone who helped us get there,” Nick finished.
“Yes.
That’s it.”
“Well,”
A.J. said. “Let’s write one then. Straight from the heart.”
“Just
the five of us,” Brian said. “No one else. This is just us. Everything about it
has to be just us.”
“Okay,”
Kevin said. “Let’s brainstorm.”
They
cancelled what was left of their recording session that day, and devoted the
rest of their time to Brian’s suggestion.
The
five of them began to bounce ideas around. Kevin tinkered with the piano and
plinked down a few notes, trying to find a suitable melody to work with. They
all began to throw out the thoughts that were on their mind.
After
awhile, they concluded that what they were coming up with didn’t address the
whole picture of what they were trying to say.
“We’re
either too personal, or too specific, or we’re missing completely,” Brian said.
“We need to come up with something that can mean something to anyone, but can
have special meaning to us and anyone who went through it with us.”
“Kinda
like “Show Me The Meaning,” Nick supplied.
“Yes.
Like that. It means an awful lot to us, and people recognize that the song is
about what happened to us, but at the same time anyone can use it as a song
that is personal to them.”
Howie
frowned. “I think I have an idea.”
“Let’s
have it,” A.J. said.
He told
them what it was, and a light bulb seemed to click on over all of their heads.
“That’s
it!” Brian said excitedly. “Okay. Let’s see what we can come up with.”
“Kevin,
get your ass back to that piano and play us something,” A.J. ordered. “Let’s
play around with lyrics.”
The
five of them were soon hard at work, and stayed that way until late in the
evening. Something had inspired them, and they were determined not to leave
until they had achieved what they had set out to do.
By the
time they had put it together and made a demo, they were grinning from ear to
ear.
“I
cannot wait to record this,” Nick said excitedly.
“You
know how we were thinking about releasing “Will You Be There” first?” Howie
asked.
“Screw
it,” A.J. said. “It’s gonna be this one. And it’s gonna turn some heads.”
***