Entertainment Weekly - February 24 - March 3, 2017

(Axel Boer) #1
FEBRUARY 24/MARCH 3, 2017 EW.COM 61

the other hand, why wasn’t it three or four
times that? Then I started doing the math.
KEVIN Lou was taking one-sixth of
everything, he was taking a 25 percent
management commission, and he was
being recouped all of his expenses.
BRIAN I asked Lou to make it right. But
he never did. I got an attorney through my
parents and ended up filing a lawsuit.
KEVIN Lou was pitting us against each
other: “I own the name. I own the copy-
right. Your next album won’t come out [if
the lawsuit continues].”

BRIAN The guys were all meeting in a
room in Sweden. When I showed up, they
were like, “Why are you breaking us up?” I
said, “I’m not breaking us up, I’m trying to
get for me what I want for everybody else!”
They came around.

The following year, the other members
joined the suit, which was later settled for an
undisclosed amount. After cutting ties with
Pearlman—who also managed *NSYNC and
passed away in 2016 while serving a prison
sentence for a 2008 Ponzi-scheme convic-

tion—the group focused on recording their
second U.S. album, 1999’sMillennium. The
lead single, “I Want It That Way,” became a
No. 1 hit in 25 different countries and helped
Millenniumsell more than 12 million copies
in the U.S. alone. But with great success
came great personal turmoil.
HOWIE I didn’t think “I Want It That Way”
was that big of a song. Because our earlier
stuff had such strong R&B influences, [the
demo] didn’t grab me.
AJ The label was like, “This doesn’t really
make much sense, maybe we can go back
and restructure the lyrics.”
NICK They brought in Mutt Lange, a leg-
endary producer who did all this stuff with
Shania Twain, to doctor the song.
KEVIN And it made sense, but it didn’t
sound as good!

( Clockwise from far left )
Performing in 1994;
backstage with the Spice
Girls at the Radio 1 Road-
show in ’96; goofing
around in ’95; on tour in
Hanover, Germany, in ’97

AJ

WITH SPICE GIRLS: ALPHA PRESS; IN GERMANY:AXEL SEIDEMANN/AP IMAGES

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