Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean on ‘Millennium,’ the Sphere and Nick Carter

AJ McLean is on Zoom on Monday afternoon from the dimly lighted living room of a house he’s renting in Las Vegas. Known in the late 1990s as the resident bad boy of his pop group, Backstreet Boys, McLean, now 47, says he’s getting accustomed to the area in the hopes of buying a place in town next year.

“Dude, everybody’s leaving L.A. and coming out to Vegas,” he says. “Taxes, mainly. But actually my mom lives out here, so that’s an added little bonus.”

At the moment, McLean’s got more than family and finances drawing him east: On Friday night, Backstreet Boys will launch a six-week residency at Sphere, the state-of-the-art orb-shaped venue that opened in late 2023 and has hosted eye-popping gigs by acts including U2, Phish, Dead & Company, the Eagles and Kenny Chesney. Indeed, as we talk, McLean is due at the $2-billion building for a production rehearsal planned to start at 11 p.m. — after that evening’s late screening of director Darren Aronofsky’s made-for-Sphere “Postcard from Earth” film — and set to wrap at 4:30 in the morning.

“The schedule is a little s—y,” McLean says. “I foresee us doing a run-through and a half tonight before people start nodding off.”

This isn’t the Backstreets’ first time in Vegas: In 2017 the group — whose other members are Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson — began a residency at Planet Hollywood that ended up running for two years. But this one is tied to the 25th anniversary of “Millennium,” the band’s 1999 blockbuster that sold more than 13 million copies in the U.S. alone, spawned hit singles like the immortal “I Want It That Way” and earned five Grammy nominations including album, record and song of the year. On Friday, the group will drop a deluxe reissue of the LP featuring outtakes, live recordings and a new song called “Hey.”

The Sphere show also comes as Carter has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault, which Carter has denied. Asked to comment, McLean said, “Allegations — that’s all it is. We will stand by our boy.” These are excerpts from our conversation.

Very important: Sphere or the Sphere?
I’ve been told it’s Sphere Las Vegas, but I catch myself because that’s not proper English. Let’s just call it what it is.

Which of the venue’s shows have you seen?
Myself, Kevin, Howie and Brian went to the see the Eagles. Kevin then went back and saw Anyma — I’m not a big fan of that kind of music so I’m not really bummed that I missed that. Just recently, Kevin and Howie went to see Kenny Chesney. I’d love to take my kids when “The Wizard of Oz” starts, because I’ve seen some testings and it looks insane. It’s like half the normal film, and then they’ve integrated pyro and stuff happening live on a stage. It’s pretty freaking cool.

Sphere started out as a place for classic rock acts to come rejuvenate themselves. Backstreet Boys have been billed as the first pop act to the play the building, but I think it’s probably fair to call you guys a legacy act as well. Does your residency feel different than the Eagles or U2?
It does because those are legendary rock bands — they stand, they sing incredible songs, they play instruments and allow the backdrop to kind of narrate this whole music experience. Don Henley literally says, “We’re just the house band playing for what you’re watching on the screen.” Backstreet Boys, we’re still doing what we normally do and that’s what’s never been in this venue. We’re still putting on a proper concert like we would normally do in a stadium or an arena — 85% of the show is dancing, running around, doing our thing.

We have a couple tricks up our sleeve, and we’ll find out Friday if we can pull it off. If we do, it’s gonna be insane — I mean, honestly, it’s gonna be insane.

You’re doing “Millennium” from beginning to end. Are there songs on the album that you hadn’t thought about in 10 or 20 years?
There’s a couple deep cuts: “Back to Your Heart,” “No One Else Comes Close.” These are songs that we literally have not done since the “Millennium” tour. I tried to verbatim name all 12 songs on the album, and I was off by like four.

The idea of doing something around the 25th anniversary, I brought it up to the boys seven years ago and it’s been in talks since then. Finally, everybody was on the same page and we sat with our team: “What can we do to celebrate this amazing record?” At the same time there were talks about Vegas wanting us to come back and do a potential residency — we heard rumblings from different hotels. Then the Sphere came up, and it was like, “OK, well, it doesn’t get any bigger than that.”

Does it matter that you’re a year off the actual 25th anniversary?
We actually joke about that during the show. Because it took almost eight months to put this thing together visually, we obviously missed the window. But technically the “Millennium” tour did go into 2000. So we got a little wiggle room there.

The consensus seems to be that “Millennium” is the Backstreet Boys’ best album. Is that your opinion?
I would have to say yes just based on record sales and the phenomenon that happened around that record. But is it my favorite album? No. “Never Gone” and probably “DNA” are my top two now. There’s something about “Never Gone” that was just very raw — a departure from our previous records, which had a lot of synth drums and synth sounds and whatnot. This was more organic — a little more rock, a little more live instrumentation — and some great, great songs.

What I’m excited about with this whole experience is that we’re making another memory together. We’ve told everyone coming to wear white, and it sounds like everyone’s gonna do it. It’s gonna be incredible to look out at a sea of white and sparkles and all the things from 1999. I think it’s gonna be emotional for some of us. Kevin lost his mom not that long ago, so doing “The Perfect Fan” — he starts the song, and he asked us, “Would you guys mind singing the opening line with me, just in case it doesn’t come out?” We’ve never sung the opening line of any song together, so this is a really sweet moment we get to have with our brother.

A little Backstreet Boys trivia: At the 41st Grammys in 1999, you all were nominated for best new artist. You didn’t win. Do you remember who did?
I want to say it was Lauryn Hill.

Nailed it.
That whole time, we were up against Sting and we were up against Rob Thomas and Santana [in 2000] — you can’t really get mad going up against legends. It would be insane if this album, when it gets rereleased, it gets nominated again. I told the boys — I said, “I’ve done my research, and no artist that I know of has remastered and rereleased their biggest album and had it go to No. 1 again.”

Taylor Swift’s Taylor’s Versions?
Again, on a technicality, that’s a rerecord. This is the same album, just remastered.

I talked to Jacoby Shaddix from Papa Roach a few months ago.
That’s my boy.

He told me you guys traded numbers and said you should write together sometime.
I was actually gonna reach out to him this week and see if he wants to come see the show because he said he wanted to. He’s such a good guy, and we’re both on the straight and narrow. It’s a beautiful thing.

Speaking of rap-rock: In the summer of 1999, “Millennium” and Limp Bizkit’s “Significant Other” kept trading places at No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart.
Look, it was the “TRL” generation. MTV was dominating, and honestly I’d say five videos per week were pretty much the same five artists — it just kept switching and switching and switching. You had Blink-182, you had us, you had NSYNC, you had Britney and Christina. Then you had Limp, and then Korn came in for a while. That was where everything was for like a solid year.

What does it mean that these two very different styles — teen pop and nü-metal — captured the soul of America’s youth at the same time?
Whether you were a fan of one or the other or both, it was good music — it was fun. And even though Limp was rap-rock, the melodies were great, the production was great, the vibe was great. The videos were fun and hilarious, and it got people excited. Same thing with us.

You’ve always struck me as a guy with a bit of rock energy. Was there ever a part of you that wished you were in Limp Bizkit or Korn instead of Backstreet Boys?
So many people over the years were like, “Dude, you look like you should be in Good Charlotte.” It’s the tattoos. I grew up on CCR and Stevie Wonder and Three Dog Night and Bowie and Michael. My debut solo record that’s gonna come out end of this year — sure, it’s pop, but it’s a lot of R&B and funk and ’80s and just stuff that I love. But I might dabble down the rock road at some point. I talked to Jacoby about it, actually — about maybe forming a little mini-supergroup. Just put together an album and have fun with it. Who gives a s—?