推 Elfina:Cool XD 11/29 00:04
非常長..............的一篇訪問
大家慢慢看吧!!!!!!
A year and a half after releasing his debut solo album, Welcome Home, Lexington
native Brian Littrell is finally bringing his music back home. Of course, he’s
played here before, as a member of the Backstreet Boys, and he came home in
September 2006 to participate in the citywide memorial service for victims of
the crash of Flight 5191.
But this concert will, in a sense, bring Littrell’s musical life full circle.
As a boy, he enjoyed contemporary Christian stars such as Michael W. Smith, and
sang as a soloist and with the choir at Porter Memorial Baptist Church. The
Nov. 29 concert at Immanuel Baptist Church, a benefit for the Central Baptist
Hospital Foundation, brings Littrell, who lives in Atlanta, back to Lexington
as a chart-topping gospel artist in his own right.
The concert also comes in the midst of promotional obligations for Backstreet
Boys new album, Unbreakable. But on Nov. 16, Littrell managed to squeeze in a
few moments to talk to us about his homecoming show as he and his wife,
Leighanne, went to pick up their son Baylee, who turns 5 on Monday, from School.
Copious Notes: You’ve been busy, haven’t you?
Brian Littrell: Yes, I have been.
CN: I saw you were in Louisville yesterday.
BL: All of yesterday, I was in Lexington, Louisville and Cincinnati, and then
Atlanta. So I was in four different cities in the same day.
CN: So, where is the Backstreet Boys stuff at, now?
BL: I’ve been kind of balancing the solo thing and the Backstreet Boys thing
for the past year and a half. Welcome Home came out in ‘06 and it was just
after the Never Gone Tour ended, off of the ‘05 album from the Backstreet
Boys. So, I was doing the final mixes on Welcome Home when I was on tour two
years ago. When Welcome Home came out, I immediately jumped on the promotion
bandwagon, which was a little different from a pop standpoint. So, I’ve been
doing this long enough to know how it works, and that’s the blessing.
Balancing to-and-from the solo thing and the group thing, my philosophy is,
when people say, ‘How do you do it all?’ obviously nothing would get done if
I didn’t have an amazing wife that helped me with everything. We spend time on
things we want to be successful. We spend time on things we want to nurture,
that are important to us. Being a contemporary Christian solo artist is
important to me, as well as being a Backstreet Boy has been and will continue
to be important to me. Being a family man and a father is important to me. So,
I just kind of bounce around, and that’s who I am. I’m all of those things.
I am in the studio working on a follow up to Welcome Home, which will be coming
out in ‘08. I don’t have a release date or anything like that, but I’m
fortunate to go to work everyday and do something I love.
CN: This is going to be your first solo show in Lexington on the 29th. Tell us
about that and what that means to you.
BL: I’m extremely excited to play Immanuel Baptist. I don’t know that we sold
a lot of tickets, other than I have a lot of family coming. But I’m really
excited we’re going to have the choir there. The church choir is going to sing
a few songs with me that are on the CD. I’m going to be doing a lot of
Christmas material as well, old and new Christmas stuff that are some of my
favorite Christmas songs.
It’s tough playing your hometown. It’s more stressful playing your hometown,
because your peers, a lot of people I went to school with, went to church with,
worked with, and of course family . . . I’d deal with being in the Tokyo Dome
in front of 55,000 people better than being at Immanuel Baptist, when it comes
to a nervous standpoint. I’m always a little nervous, but playing in front of
your peers and smaller audiences is a little more intimidating. But I’m really
excited about it.
To play as a solo artist is an amazing experience. I’ve been playing in a
group environment for so long, and to step out and play music that really
touches my life and hopefully will touch the listeners lives, that’s what it’
s about. I live for the stage and seeing people’s reactions. I’m excited to
see the fans and see the family and people who will say, ‘Hey, we were best
friends in school,’ and you don’t really remember, because it’s been so long.
CN: It seems like you could look at this as a ‘bringing it home’ type of
thing, because when we’ve talked before, we’ve talked about you growing up
loving contemporary Christian music and some of the artists you really liked,
and singing at your church.
BL: It’s funny. This began many, many years ago with my love of contemporary
Christian music and listening to Michael W. Smith and Sandi Patty and Larnell
Harris and singing in church as a little boy. Little did I know I would be
doing this for a living. I hoped and dreamed like everybody, but I couldn’t
really fathom all the blessings that have been given to me. I back up to 2006,
in May, when Welcome Home came out, because we talk about this being a
homecoming, and it really is a homecoming process from start to finish for me.
The icing on the cake for me is getting to come home and play a large church in
front of family and friends and sharing who I am as a solo artist.
A lot of people know Brian Littrell the Backstreet Boy, but they don’t know
Brian Littrell the husband and father. That’s important for me. It is a
homecoming experience, but at the same time, I’ve been doing this a long time,
and it’s a joy every night. Every show is different, even when you’re doing
the same thing. I really look forward to using the choir, because that’s
reminiscent of years ago, when I was a teen-ager with the gospel choir backing
me up in my church days.
It’s fun. Music really is my life. And as I said, I think this really is a
homecoming from start to finish, because this is where I belong as a solo
artist. I’ll always be mainstream contemporary Christian. That’s what I want
to do.
CN: What was it like after your first long stretch doing the solo project to go
back to Backstreet Boys and be in that group with those guys.
BL: Being a solo artist taught me a lot about being independent. As a
Backstreet Boy, the world that we live in, traveling and touring and having an
entourage and security and staff and tour managers, there are so many things
that are done for you on a Backstreet Boys tour, because people are out there
to take care of you as an artist. So, being a solo artist taught me a lot about
being independent and being able to handle things on the road myself. I don’t
normally travel with security, I don’t normally travel with a tour manager. I
don’t have a staff and an entourage, and things like that. We’re going in and
roughing it, and we’re sound-checking, and we’re playing our show, and then we
’re packing our bags, and we’re off to the next city.
In the Backstreet world, it always has been different, especially in early
2000, it was crazy.
Being a solo artist has taught me a lot about what I can and can’t do with my
voice, what I can and can’t do on stage. I’m focusing on what’s really
important to me, which is the message in the music. As a Backstreet Boy, there’
s a lot of flash that goes into a Backstreet Boys show, which is a lot of fun
to do. But at the same time, it can take away from the music. As a solo artist,
I’ve learned not to depend on anybody, because you’re the only one that
people are there to see. You have to give them your best. You can’t hide
behind anything.
That’s important for me. It’s even carried over to me as a group member, with
the Unbreakable CD that just came out a few weeks ago. When we travel, I like
to do things myself. I like to know that I’m capable of doing those things
because pop stars get a lot of things taken care of, for them. I like to know I
’m independent and can handle my stuff.
CN: Of course, here in Kentucky, you and Kevin Richardson were celebrated as
our Kentucky guys. What was it like to go back to Backstreet Boys and not have
Kevin there?
BL: It was a little strange at first. When we finished the Never Gone tour,
Kevin came to us at a few of the last shows, and we were having some meetings
and some pow-wows, and he kind of opened up and told us where his heart was,
with not being with the Backstreet Boys in the future and thinking he wanted to
do different things and go in different directions with his life. It didn’t
really set in until we went into the studio. We took a few months off and we’
re listening to music and relaxing and writing, and then when we all got back
together and Kevin wasn’t there, obviously it was a little strange to record
as four.
But you know, at the end of the day, there’s no ill will towards Kevin from
the group’s side or from Kevin’s side to the group. It was something that was
inevitable to happen, down the road. I didn’t expect it to be Kevin. I
expected it to be one of the other guys, to be honest with you. I wish him the
best. It was a little strange recording as four, but the focus was on the music
and making the best CD that we could so the fans wouldn’t miss anybody,
vocally. I think you’ll find the Unbreakable CD has a cohesive feel song to
song where everyone’s featured, and in the choruses, it doesn’t sound like we
’re missing anyone. From a fan’s standpoint, that’s very important, and from
a musical standpoint.
CN: Do you feel like people have gotten to know you better as a solo artist
over the past year-and-a-half?
BL: I think so. I run into a lot of Backstreet fans that have been to my solo
shows, and they are appreciating what I’m doing as a solo artist, because it
takes the glamor and the pop star out of the persona everyone put you in. What
you’ll find in the solo shows is it’s just real music. It’s just me and my
band rejoicing and happy doing what we’re doing. I think the fans are
attaching to what makes me tick and what makes me funny and what makes me happy
and what makes me sad, and all these things.
CN: This is a benefit for Central Baptist Hospital. Is there anything that drew
you to Central Baptist as an organization to do a show for?
BL: I’m tied to all the hospitals in Lexington, from Central Baptist to St.
Joseph’s to, you name it. As a hometown boy, anything you can do to benefit
lives is important to be a part of, if you can. When I was approached with the
idea to play the show, I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ And I had no idea of my
schedule for quite some time, where the Backstreet Boys would be, or what we
would be doing at that time. But it was important to me to put it on the
schedule. I’ll be coming in from Europe two days before the show. So, I may be
a little jet-lagged, but hey, the show’s going to go on.
CN: Thanks so much for your time.
BL: Thank you. We’re looking forward to the show.
Source: Copious Notes
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