The Backstreet Boys [ tickets ]' Nick Carter says that fans can thank Oprah Winfrey for bringing the Orlando, FL-based boy band back from its self-imposed hiatus to release the album "Never Gone," which hit stores Tuesday (6/14).

In a hotel room, the quintet mulled over its future. Carter recalled one of the guys saying that if they were going to reunite, they would have to give it 100 percent.

"We were blessed in the past to be able to release records, and they would sell a million or whatever it was in the first week," Carter said. "Now it's a whole different beast. The music industry has changed. I find it very exciting to know that it's an adventure again, and we're proud of the album. We're happy in the lives that we're living now. We're all happy in our skin.

liveDaily.com participated in a conference call with all five members of the Backstreet Boys [ tickets ] on Monday (6/13), the day before "Never Gone" was released.

During your break, did you always feel confident that you would be back making another album?

Nick Carter: We felt we needed to take some time to ourselves on the break. We really didn't know when would be the next time that we would do an album. We've been together going on 12 years now. We've experienced so many things together. I've been in the group since I was 12 years of age. We've had hardships. We made great music together. We toured all around the world. We've had many albums that we've released. It's great to get back in the studio again and complete this record. We put very hard work into it. We spent a year and a half recording it. We didn't know when the time would be. Now that we're doing it, and we're a day away from releasing the album, it's like a dream come true.

How do each of you feel that you've changed since the last time you recorded an album and how has that changed the music?

A.J. McLean: Now living a completely sober life, my life has changed 360 degrees for the better. I can speak on behalf of the other guys that our relationship as a whole has definitely changed. We've all had some time to grow up, experience things individually. Brian started a family. All of us have had time trying to do some personal growth. I think each of us now are able to bring something a little different to the table and also, going into this recording process, we all went in with an open mind. We experimented, tried new things, tried different genres of music which then led us to the final product. It's really good to be back with the guys with a clear head and my feet back on the ground. And coming up on three years sober in October, it's just good to have a great support group. We're all healthy and happy to be back again.

Howie Dorough: During the time off, I got really involved in outside business--mostly real estate--and working on other projects. It really opened my mind, becoming more of the business one of the group. This time around, I'm trying to make sure that we keep account of all of our accounting. I feel, unfortunately, a lot of artists out there focus 100 percent just on the music, which I think is what you should be doing. A lot of times when you do that, the business doesn't get looked at properly and a lot of artists later on look back on their cycle and say, "Why did I not make what I was properly supposed to have made?" For me, I personally review all the bills on behalf of the group, do all the signing off on checks, try to talk to the guys on a regular basis to make sure that we're on top of our business, because it is a business at the same time.

Before the album came out, there was word that Darren Hayes [of Savage Garden] had written a song for you guys. That track had been pushed off. Can you talk about the songs that didn't make it and why there was so much adding of new tracks to the album [at the last minute]?

Kevin Richardson: When you're recording, sometimes, at the last minute, some great songs come to the forefront. You always have to keep your eyes and your ears and your writing pen open, because you never know what's gonna happen at the last minute. As far as the songs that didn't make the record, we recorded--between the songs that we wrote and demoed--over 50 songs for this album. We took a year and a half to record it. We all came into this recording process with a commitment that we were going to keep an open mind and really experiment and explore musically and sonically. ... As far as the song by Darren Hayes, as we were recording, sometimes there are songs that set a bar when you're recording, and you say, "OK; we're not going to put anything on the album that is not as good or better than this song." That bar was kind of set by Max Martin, who's responsible for some of our biggest songs: "Larger Than Life," "Backstreet's Back," "I Want it That Way," "Quit Playing Games." Basically, we just set a bar and anything that wasn't as good or better did not make the record. Darren's song--although it was beautiful and we all really like it--at the end of the day, it did not make the record.

You've expressed some trepidation in the last couple months about returning. I'm curious if the single is Top 10, you're getting a lot of airplay, the club tour went really well, why so scared?

Kevin Richardson: In the pop world, everything moves pretty quickly. In the music industry, in the entertainment industry, it's always about what's new, what's next, what's going on. Whenever you take a break like we did, especially for as long as we did, there's always a risk when you're out of sight, you're out of mind. We believed in our hearts and in each other and in what we knew we could do. We believed that we had established a strong fan base, being that we toured all over the world. We started off in very, very small venues. We actually started off in high schools and middle schools all across the country before we ever had a record deal in 1994. Actually, it's funny, because we had someone come up to us at a show and said, "You played at our middle school when I was in sixth grade." Now, she's in the workforce. She said she was a fan then and she's a fan now. That's encouraging. But you never really know.

Why did you decide to go for "Incomplete" for the first single, and what do you think your next single is going to be?

Nick Carter: We got lucky with that song. First of all, when we recorded it, we had four more songs that we hadn't finished recording yet, and the song somehow or another got accidentally released to radio and leaked to the Internet. So, when the radio stations picked it up, and stuff like that, our record company was a little scared and they didn't know what to think. The reception and the response from it was overwhelming, and everybody wanted to hear it. We decided to go with it and release it. It took a lot of stress off our back, because we loved the song, first of all. It was an incredible song. We didn't have to sit down and actually stress about picking out the single, because we had three other songs that were in contention. This one song, the good thing about it, I think, is, first of all, it's a good representation of what the album actually sounds like. It has a pop-rock feel. It's a very epic song. We're used to doing kind of epic songs like "Show Me the Meaning" or "I Want It That Way," these big songs that we've done in the past. It introduced us into that again. Of course, it has live instrumentation on it, live drums, apart from what we had done in the past, which was a lot of synthesizers, drum samples and loops like that. It's great, because it has a big chorus on it. We completely love performing it. We're glad everyone else out there has given it a chance.

Who do you think your fan base is now? Is it the same teenage girls three years older, five years older, or are you reaching out to someone else?

Kevin Richardson: When we were recording the record, our record company was not sure, really, who our fan base was. We never went into the recording process with an attitude that we were going to make it for a particular demographic. We just make music that we're proud of, that we like. When we did our club tour of the United Stated about two months ago, it kind of revealed our fan base. We did see a lot of the familiar faces that we recognized from the past. They have gotten older. We feel we've hung on to a lot of our fans, but, at the same time, we noticed there were some young kids out there that, when we took our break, could have only been about 8 years old. We feel like we're gaining some new fans. But again, we still are not 100 percent sure. We won't know until the album comes out and we do a full-blown tour. We did see a lot of young kids at the show. We saw high school students. We saw college students. We saw parents with their children. And we even saw some grandparents.

The concerts of the past had so many stunts and spectacles. Do you guys anticipate continuing that style of show? Or what will a fan expect from a Backstreet Boys show nowadays?

A.J. McLean: We've kind of simplified our show from all the blowing up everything on stage production that we've done in the past. There was that one big summer when it was us, and Ricky Martin and Britney Spears--everyone was on tour and it was, like, "Who can blow up the most stuff on stage?" I think now we've gotten older and the music doesn't really lend itself to the big acrobatics and pyrotechnics. It's all about going back to basics again. Just going back to good quality music and having fun on stage. We still do dance, but not as much, especially with the new material. It doesn't really lend itself to choreographed numbers. There are a couple of songs, like "Poster Girl" and "My Beautiful Woman," where we do some choreography. You'll see all the songs and all the singles from the "Chapter One" album, and we do go back to some of the old choreography that our fans are familiar with, such as the hat routine on "All I Have to Give." We also changed some of the production. We have some surprises for the fans with some of the older songs. It's just a good quality family show. We want everyone to come out and have a good time, and bring out the whole family, and hopefully leave there with a big grin on their face.

Tell me about fan experiences in the past three years. Did you have people coming up to you saying, "I wish you would put out another album"?

Kevin Richardson: During the break, we all got a chance to do our own thing, which was great. It was incredible. I got a chance to do "Chicago" on Broadway. When I would come out of the theater, there would be lots of fans there. I would sign autographs and the question was, "Are you guys broken up? And if not, then when's the new album?" "No, we haven't broken up. We're just taking a well-needed break. When the time is right, we will get back together." That did seem to be the question on all the fans' minds. We took that well-needed break to do what we needed to do. It was nice during the break, also, to have a little bit of anonymity. I live in Los Angeles now. A.J. lives in Los Angeles. Howie is bicoastal in Florida and in Los Angeles. Brian's in Atlanta, bicoastal as well. When you're out in L.A., people are used to seeing celebrities and you don't get approached as much. When I would go anywhere else in the U.S. or overseas during our hiatus, I would get noticed every now and then. It was kind of nice to have some of that anonymity when you're not in the spotlight and you're able to step out of the craziness and reflect and look back on all the things we accomplished together and really appreciate it and really see it for what it was. And then become hungry again and excited and miss each other and miss our fans and miss performing.

Which song on "Never Gone" do you feel the most personally connected to and why?

Kevin Richardson: My favorite song on the album is probably "Weird World." We did that with John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting. I just think it really speaks to what's going on in the world today. The first line of the song talks about the sun over the city but it's an orange day. It's a play on words with the fact that, since Sept. 11, we've been dealing with orange terrorist alerts, and, to me, I feel that it's very relevant for our time right now. We were honored to work with John on that song. The most personally connected I feel to any of the songs was the song I wrote for my father, who I lost to cancer in '91. The song is "Never Gone," which is the title track of the album. I'm honored that the guys and the record company really felt strongly about that song. And I'm really happy that it made the album.

A.J. McLean: My personal favorite record on the album would probably be a song called "Siberia," which we did in Stockholm in October with Max and the whole Swedish team. It's just a very deep record. It's got a very interesting play on words as well. The first time you hear a song called "Siberia" and you actually read it on an album sleeve, it might come across as kind of strange. When you listen to the song and you really listen to the actual lyrics, it does make complete sense. Probably the most influential record to me, the one closest to my heart, would be the song "Never Gone." I lost both my grandparents over the last five years. They were a huge, huge influence in my life for me doing what I do. I know that they're both looking down on me, and they're both smiling. I know that even recording that song was difficult for Kevin, as well as it was for me. It probably was for some of the other guys as well.

Howie Dorough: I'd probably have to say my favorite is a song called "I Still ..." It was a song written by Max Martin and Rami. To me, it's one of those feel-good summer kind of songs that you can play driving your car around, and it has such a great melody. All five of us sing on it. I think it's a contender for possibly being the second single.

Nick Carter: I flip back and forth. I'm really a fan of the whole entire record. "Siberia," we fought for that song tooth and nail with our record company. We loved it so much. It was written by Max Martin. The place that the song takes you ... it takes you to another world. I personally love songs like that.

Brian Littrell: There's a toss up. Obviously, I have an emotional connection to "Never Gone," because, when Kevin lost his father, I lost an uncle. Kevin and I are family. It's a hard song, and I love that song because Kevin had spent so much time with the musical production of that. Every time we would have a piano in the studio anywhere, he would sit down and play a piece of music. He never had lyrics to it until a couple years ago. I just enjoy the fact that he was able to articulate with a friend of ours, Gary Baker, on exactly what needed to be said about his dad. The other one is "I Still ..." I have to agree with Howie, because I think I'm big on fan songs. My interpretation for "I Still ..." is, if the fans all over the world were able to come together and write a song about how they felt about us, I would hope that they would still need us.

Anything you like to say sort of directly to young fans who might be hearing you for the first time and might not be familiar with the early stuff?

Brian Litrell: If the kids want a CD that they can play and their mom and dad don't have to break into their room and skip a track on it, they can pick up our Backstreet record. I think also we've always prided ourselves in making good quality music. Over the years, since we've been doing this for 12 years, we've seen our audience grow, but at the same time we've seen tastes and development in music change as well. [Today's kids are] studying music deeper. They understand lyrics. They understand chords. I think they're striving to be our musicians of the future. I would encourage them to challenge themselves to pick up a record. I hope it's good quality music that they can enjoy and be inspired by.

A.J. McLean: One of the things that I've noticed over the years--which I think is one of the most awesome things about some of our fans--you'll notice that some of the girls that are fans maybe go to the same school, or live on the same street. They may not have been friends before. They may have been rivals. They may have gone to different schools. Somehow, some way, they're both Backstreet Boys fans, and our music brought them together. They put aside all their other differences and they can sit and listen to the album and enjoy good quality music. That's another thing we always try to pride ourselves on. This is music for the masses. This is something that can bring people together.