by Carter, Nick
TALKING IT OUT
At one point, right after my breakup with Paris, I went on a major bender. I skipped rehearsals and stayed out drinking for two consecutive days and nights. I had it in my head that I wanted to quit the group. I was over it and I told that to Johnny and his business partner Ken Crear, who later became my manager.
They came to my house to find out what was going on and I just let loose with all of my frustrations and anger. Most of it had nothing to do with the guys in the group or Johnny or Ken. I knew they were just trying to keep the fires going. It was all about my inability to control my drinking and drug use and my relationships. I felt utterly lost.
Johnny and Ken told me I could quit the group if I wanted to, but they helped me see that it was really my breakup with Paris and other personal issues that were causing my depression. They said that instead of sitting around and wallowing in my misery, I’d be better off focusing on the good things in my life, like my work with BSB. They were right, of course.
When you’re down and sinking fast, just changing your focus can make a huge difference. When bad things happen in one aspect of your life, whether it’s your relationship, or your job, or an illness, or even the loss of someone you love, the best thing to do is to find a more positive focus for at least part of your day.
Grieving a loss is important, and there is a time and a place for it. But if you feel yourself sliding into depression or despair, then you should take a break now and then. Exercising, reading an upbeat story, watching a funny movie, or having a meal or coffee with someone who makes you laugh can work wonders.
GRIEVING A LOSS IS IMPORTANT, AND THERE IS A TIME AND A PLACE FOR IT.
The sad times are the times to turn to your best friends and those who truly care about you. Listen to their encouraging words and suggestions. They want you to thrive and succeed. After my talk with Johnny and Ken, I realized that the best thing for me would be to get back to the studio and back on stage doing what I loved for the people who appreciated our music. I snapped out of it and I was incredibly grateful for their advice.
Now, it’s also true that depression is a serious mental health issue and you may need professional help if things get really dark for you. If focusing on positive things and being around people who care about you doesn’t lift your spirits, I encourage you to talk to someone trained to deal with depression, whether it’s a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, member of the clergy, or a counselor of some kind.
I was lucky that Johnny and Ken let me vent my feelings, and that they leveled with me. They were worried about me personally and professionally. They told me I was on the verge of destroying my friendships and my career. Basically, they conducted an intervention without having some strong-armed guys haul me off to rehab. They had a financial interest in straightening me out, sure, but I knew they cared about me too. Johnny had been with us since BSB came together in Orlando. He’d watched us grow up and he’d worked hard to keep us all on track. He’d also stepped in to manage my brother Aaron, so he knew my family’s history. I’m sure Johnny knew more about us than he wanted to in that regard.
LISTEN TO THOSE WHO CARE
Did our talk help? It did. I think just laying everything out there and expressing how you feel can help open the door to healing. When someone reaches out to you, even if they are angry with you and ready to give up on you, don’t return their anger. You may have earned it. Take the opportunity to hear them out and to let them hear you out. Try to get to the root of the problem and be aware that the problem could very well be you, not them.
That was my story. I was afraid of burning out. I’d worked as a performer from such a young age. The success we had with Backstreet was incredible, but you do get caught on a treadmill of sorts, trying to keep the success going, afraid to stop or let up. I’m not asking for sympathy or trying to convince you that my life as a pop star was difficult. The only problem with it was the person I’d become. I didn’t want to be the guy who wasted his talents and blessings, but for whatever reasons I couldn’t stop my slide into the abyss.
This sort of thing happens a lot in the music and entertainment industry. You see people who became stars at a young age get lost. Often it’s because they don’t have an anchor. They don’t have the family support, or the moral or spiritual roots to go back to whenever they need direction. Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrell are very open about how their Christian faith has kept them strong over the years. Seeing how they drew upon their beliefs to handle their own challenges made me ultimately respect and appreciate their strong spiritual backgrounds. I’ve tried to take bits and pieces of their belief systems and use them in building my own foundation.
There are several younger performers who appear to be handling success well on their own terms. I don’t know Justin Bieber, and maybe things will change for him down the road, but my impression is that he is pretty well grounded. I’m glad to see him set a good example. Taylor Swift is another young performer who seems to have it together. Now they may prove me wrong, but from what I’ve seen they are handling stardom with much more finesse than I ever did at their ages. The tabloids feed off those who don’t do so well in the celebrity environment. Too often, I see those who started young either burn out because they exhaust themselves trying to stay in the limelight or because they never felt deserving of it. Of course, those who crash and burn make the headlines while the people who adjust and keep growing or find another path generally do so quietly and with class.
SHARED COMEBACK
The Backstreet Boys held together because the guys were patient with each other and with me. They kicked my butt now and then. They told me they were disappointed with me when I needed to hear it, but they let me find my way back.
THE BACKSTREET BOYS HELD TOGETHER BECAUSE THE GUYS WERE PATIENT WITH EACH OTHER AND WITH ME.
In the bad times, I just wouldn’t show up to rehearsals or recording sessions. I wouldn’t even call to cancel or to apologize. The guys and our managers lost trust in me and that’s a terrible thing. It takes years to rebuild those bonds—years of consistently showing that you are no longer unreliable or that you are no longer that person.
One of my blind spots in the bad years was my failure to see the difference between who I thought I was, and the Nick Carter everyone else knew. I saw myself as a good guy, a caring person, a little mixed up and immature, but someone who would never intentionally hurt another human being. I thought I was that Nick Carter, but in truth, that was just the guy I wanted to be.
I had trouble understanding why people didn’t trust me because I considered myself trustworthy. There again, I was oblivious to the reality. My actions didn’t match up to my self-image. We can’t expect others to accept us and trust us just because we have good intentions. We have to deliver.
You can’t demand that your friends and family members care about you and offer their help if you only take from the relationship. You have to contribute just as much or more than you take. In fact, if you’ve been taking and not contributing, then you may have to put in a couple of years of just giving to earn your way back in.
MY ACTIONS DIDN’T MATCH UP TO MY SELF-IMAGE.
Good intentions are a great start, but you are measured and judged by your actions. The word for this is integrity. It’s about making sure your actions match the image you project. I’m sure you’ve met charming and persuasive people who win your trust with their words, but then you quickly see their actions don’t align with those words. They may claim to have your best interests at heart, but the interests they serve are their own. For too long, I coasted along on my good intentions. I expected my friends and fellow BSB members to be understanding and sympathetic when I fell short, but you can’t burn people time after time and expect them to forgive you. They have to protect themselves.
How do you repair a damaged friendship or family relationship? Knowing yourself is important, but understanding how the other person perceives you and feels about you is even more criti
cal. Part of my problem with my brother and sisters was that for a long time, I thought showing my love to them meant giving them what they said they needed. The challenge there is that most of what they came to me for was money or material things. At first, I gave it to them, but then I saw that wasn’t really what they needed. They took those things for granted and, in some cases, just wanted more. I had to learn to look past the things they were requesting and instead, try to understand what their emotional needs were, which is a more challenging thing to do.
I’ve also tended to reach out to them with grand gestures like the reality television show when, in truth, it’s the little things you do for people that really build trust and mutual respect. Being there when you say you will be there, doing what you’ve promised to do, giving of your time and attention; those are the things that build bridges between you and those you care about.
Similarly, I had to build bridges between the guys in the group and myself. I had to find a way to regain their trust. I had to let them know I would follow through on my responsibilities. I lacked good examples of this throughout my life so I had to find my own way and sadly, it took a long time. Too long.
I was a passive member of BSB for longer than I can remember. I didn’t want to write songs or take a leadership role. Part of it was my age, being the youngest, and part of it was just not being focused on the right things. It’s interesting that my personal comeback and the group’s comeback coincided in many ways.
A NEW SONG
One symbol of that mutual revival is a song I wrote in October of 2012 while we were recording our 20th anniversary album. We’d been invited to perform at Disneyland for a Christmas special and there was talk about redoing an old holiday-themed song we’d done. I offered instead to write a new one because I’d always wanted to write a Christmas song. I made my case by noting that we wouldn’t be releasing the first single from the new album until next spring, so it might be good to get another song out to give our fans something special before then.
I think Kevin, Brian, Howie and A.J. were a little surprised because I didn’t usually pipe up like that when it came to writing for the group. I also suspect they had their doubts that I’d actually come through with something we could put out. Given my checkered past, I couldn’t blame them. But I used that as motivation, promising them that I would deliver a song they’d be proud to perform—even in public!
Christmas songs may be lighter than most of our material, but we still had to meet a certain standard. We always want to put out great songs no matter what the genre is. When I told the guys I was going to write them a truly great piece their general reaction was like, Whatever Nick, we’ll need to have a backup song just in case. They didn’t come out and say what they were thinking, but you could tell they were wondering, Can we really count on you this time?
I really had to prove myself to them and that was okay. I had to earn their trust again because I’d disappointed them so often in the past. You can’t let yourself get angry or bitter in a situation like that. Part of creating a better life is taking responsibility for past mistakes and broken promises.
PART OF CREATING A BETTER LIFE IS TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR PAST MISTAKES AND BROKEN PROMISES.
Like the song says, Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble. But humility can be very helpful if you are attempting to reclaim lost trust and lost respect. Humility also comes easier if you mix in some gratitude. I was grateful that I still had the opportunity to pitch a song as a member of BSB. The guys had kept me in the group even when I hadn’t deserved it or appreciated it, so I was okay with proving myself.
HUMBLE GOALS
Many people have a sense of entitlement. They think everyone owes them their trust and their respect. It’s not that way, I’m afraid. You have to earn those things, and if you somehow lose them, you’ve got to figure out how to fight to get them back. I’d taught people that they couldn’t depend on me. I had to accept that and then work on teaching them that I’d changed for the better.
In this case, I taught them by winning them over with my song. I knew I couldn’t just throw one on the table and expect them to record it even if it sucked. So I set the bar high. I aimed to write a song we’d be proud to put out as a single or on an album. Yes, I set a goal, which was another sign to the other guys that I was a new and improved Nick Carter. Drunks and slackers don’t set goals, other than to drink more and do less. You have to feel good about yourself and your future to set goals. It took me a while to get to a place where I felt comfortable doing that, but I did.
The key is to take small steps—even baby steps at first. I took mine back at the Cool Springs house. I described earlier how I wrote a series of goals on the whiteboard. Initially, most were small goals. My comeback trail was a long-term one. There were some detours and dead ends along the way. I got lost a couple of times. I ran into a few walls and even drove off the road once or twice.
MY COMEBACK TRAIL WAS A LONG-TERM ONE.
That might happen to you too. I hope it doesn’t, but you shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking rebuilding and reclaiming your life will be easy or free of failures and disappointments. And don’t feel like you have to make your comeback all on your own. It starts with you, no doubt about it, but those who truly care about you will buy in once they see you are serious and committed to being better and doing better.
I asked Howie to work on the song with me. A couple of other guys who were working on the album—songwriter Mika Guillory and producer-songwriter Morgan Taylor Reid—helped too. At first I’m sure they were thinking, Oh God, what is crazy Nick up to now? We were supposed to be working on songs for the new album, not some single release. Our studio time was limited. So, I got right to it. I pulled a guitar off the wall and played around until I found three chords I liked. The four of us messed around for fifteen or twenty minutes and the chord patterns and melody emerged and formed into a song. The lyrics flowed once we had the music. Within the hour, we had the song: “It’s Christmas Time Again.” That’s the magic of working with talented people in a studio.
Later in the day, I presented the song to the rest of the guys. We tinkered with it a little more. Once we had it polished, we decided we’d perform it for the first time on November 4th during the taping of Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade at Disneyland. We then sang it for the first time on national television during our November 14th appearance on The Talk. The song was so well received, we followed up by performing it again five days later on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. It was amazing to hear Jimmy say backstage, “I loved the song” and that it was one of the reasons he wanted us to perform. My heart was filled with happiness. I had come such a long way. And to receive a compliment from someone that I’m such a huge fan of made my Christmas, no pun intended.
Fans and critics seemed to like the song. Artistdirect.com gave it five out of five stars and called it a “timeless Christmas anthem.” The song also hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Holiday Digital Song chart. Every song is a collaborative effort, but I felt a great deal of pride in the creation of this one. After too many years of letting down my friends and myself, I delivered on a promise. I came up with the idea and, with a little help, I made it happen.
I CAME UP WITH THE IDEA AND, WITH A LITTLE HELP, I MADE IT HAPPEN.
I’ve been inspired by the success of that song and the great feelings I took away from the experience of conceiving, creating, and performing it. As I write this, we are still working on our new album to be released in 2013. We’ve recorded about thirty songs so far and I’ve helped write about 75 percent of them.
Every time I create another song, I feel like I grow as a person and as an artist. It would be great if “It’s Christmas Time Again” became a classic. What really mattered at the time though, was that I proved to the other guys in the group, and to myself, that I could be trusted and relied upon. That is so important to me as I look ahead to better days.
The old Nick would never have been so engaged in writing songs and pu
tting an album together. I am so happy to finally be able to do that. We’re at a critical stage as a group. After twenty years, we reached the point where we are stepping up to take charge of our brand like never before.
Instead of relying on the label to direct our careers, we’re taking charge and showing that we’re fully capable of finding our own material and managing our own careers. Now when the label’s executives and A&R (artist and repertoire) team come to us with their ideas, we step up and tell them what sound and material we think will work best. I’m enjoying being in the lead with my boys these days.
CHANGE BEGINS WITH YOU
If you want to change your life and become a better person, I hope you can find some inspiration and motivation from my story. Even though I’ve messed up many times and I still may slip up now and then, I’m making progress. For a time, I had pretty much determined that I’d forever be a miserable person who took drugs and drank and blamed everybody else for my worthless life. But I’ve really come a long way from being that guy.
I WAS STUCK IN THE I’M WORTHLESS AND I DON’T DESERVE ANYTHING BETTER ZONE.
Although I didn’t take that journey alone, my transformation had to begin with me. Nobody else could make that happen. There’s no pill. No cocktail. No shot or powder. The first step is to decide that you want to be healthy, happy, trustworthy and deserving of love.
Being this new guy is more fun and more satisfying than I thought possible. I can’t tell you how depressing and lonely it was to always be the disappointment. Every time I did something stupid or harmful, Kevin, A.J., Howie and Brian would hang their heads. I could see them fighting to control their anger and frustration with me. I felt the level of trust sink lower and lower.