NICK CARTER
Where: McPherson Playhouse, 3 Centennial Sq., Victoria
When: Monday, Oct. 14, 8 p.m.
Tickets: $35.75-$91.50 from the Royal McPherson box office (250-386-6121) or rmts.bc.ca
Nick Carter visited Victoria in 2008 with his bandmates in Backstreet Boys, as part of the Florida outfit’s cross-Canada tour. He’s returning Monday on his own, for a stop on his first solo tour in nearly a decade.
Carter life’s has been radically changed in the years between the two performances, from the deaths of three siblings to legal battles over sexual misconduct allegations (the cases have not yet been heard in court.) But the 44-year-old father of three is battling through the roadblocks, and has come to appreciate the rewards of his lengthy career, both with Backstreet Boys and as a solo artist.
“Thirty-one years is a long time to be in this industry, especially with the walls and things you run into,” Carter said during an interview with the Times Colonist on Tuesday, during a Winnipeg tour stop. “But I never take it for granted. I’m grateful, and I know I’m blessed.”
At present, Carter is balancing two distinct musical careers with life as a husband and father. His current Who I Am solo tour has been on the road since 2023, which has put a strain on his personal life. He has found a reasonable balance between work and family, and feels like recent shows on the tour have coalesced, from an execution standpoint, compared to ones at the outset.
“It’s in a really good place now. What the Who I Am tour has become is what I wanted it to be. It has evolved. It’s rich in feeling and soul, and stories. These songs are the story of my life.”
The show often starts with Larger Than Life, a Backstreet Boys song that talks about the price of fame. The expected hits are accounted for — from Shape of My Heart, Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely and Quit Playing Games (With My Heart) to As Long as You Love Me, I Want it That Way, and Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) — but other curiosities are present.
A selection of cover songs by Tears for Fears, Corey Hart, Simple Minds, and Bon Jovi are there to give audiences an idea of his musical background, Carter said. “The music I listened to as a little kid, sitting on the floor listening on the radio, or watching MTV during the height of music videos, that inspired me at a very important time in my life as a child.”
He met his future bandmates in Backstreet Boys when he was 12, at which Carter said his point his life “completely flipped. Playing the music from his pre-Backstreet childhood was a way for Carter to reconnect in a meaningful way with his musical DNA.
“This is a very important tour for me, because we are telling a story using songs as the storyline of my life. From the beginning to the end, there has been thought [put into that]. I put energy into what I want to say, the story I want to tell. It’s important for me, because it’s therapeutic for me. I’m being vulnerable. The audience is helping me and I’m helping them.”
Carter’s team requested in advance that certain topics of his life not be discussed during the interview, including his legal cases, siblings, documentaries about him and his brother, the late Aaron Carter, or past romantic relationships. Which is understandable, for more than simply legal reasons. Not only has Carter spent three-quarters of his life in the public eye, he spent a four-year stretch in the biggest band in the world.
Backstreet Boys graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine three times during an 18-month span at the turn of the Millennium, and have sold upwards of 100 million albums worldwide. The group has sold more records in the United States than Bob Dylan, Def Leppard, Green Day and Jay-Z, putting Backstreet Boys at No. 47 on the list of best-selling groups of all-time in that country.
Few worldwide superstars in the social media era — save for Taylor Swift and Lebron James — can spend decades under that type of glare and scrutiny and not stumble privately or misspeak publicly. And on that front, Carter had his share of growing pains. That he is still touring in the years leading up to his 50th birthday, however, is a remarkable feat.
Which is why he wants to make his current concerts count. “When I’m with Backstreet Boys, it’s about the show and about the nostalgia. Fans want to escape for the two hours that we’re performing, and hear the great songs and remember the good times. We do that on a grander scale, in arenas or stadiums. But for this, when I pick up a guitar, and sing a lyric, that lyric has to mean something to me. It has to say something.”
Backstreet Boys rose to prominence in the pre-streaming era, when fans purchased CDs by the carload. The paradigm shift from Napster to Spotify and beyond has killed a good number of artists from the boy band/girl band heyday, and yet Backstreet Boys continue to walk among giants: On Oct. 23, Carter and Co. will perform before 18,000 fans at Etihad Arena, the largest indoor venue in United Arab Emirates.
Concerts of that magnitude put huge demands on a specific side of his artistic self, Carter admitted. The polar opposite is what he’s putting into practice on his Who I Am tour.
“It’s not about this outside façade or persona [on this tour],” Carter said. “I wanted to bring it back to the music, and bring its back to the healing part of music — not just for me, but for everybody else. When I’m up there, and I’m sharing, and I’m open, they are hearing me sing a certain song and understand what it means for me. It brings it back to what music was for me in the very beginning, before I became a Backstreet Boy.”
