FEBRUARY 24/MARCH 3, 2017 EW.COM 61the 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 ’97AJWITH SPICE GIRLS: ALPHA PRESS; IN GERMANY:AXEL SEIDEMANN/AP IMAGES