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Howie Dorough · On with Mario Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You're on with Mario Lopez.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Sobro, Mario Lopez joining me right now. He is one
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: fifth of the legendary Backstreet Boys. Mister, Howie Deaux, how
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: you doing, Howie Hey.
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  Speaker 1: What's up my friend Mario? How you doing? Man? I'm
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: good to see you.
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  Speaker 3: Good to see you too, buddy, and congrats.
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  Speaker 2: I know you released a brand new solo single called
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  Speaker 2: go Qui, the first song off your upcoming Spanish language project.
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  Speaker 3: All right, what inspired you to venture into this space?
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  Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's funny because a lot of people
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  Speaker 4: don't know that actually the Backstreet Boys have a half
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  Speaker 4: Puerto Rican in the group.
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  Speaker 1: And yeah, and.
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  Speaker 4: It's been something that I've you know, I've been wanting
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  Speaker 4: to do it for many, many years. I mean I
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  Speaker 4: was as a little kid, you know. I always grew
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  Speaker 4: up in the fluence of my mom taking me to
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  Speaker 4: Puerto Rico and stuff like that. Even believe or not,
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  Speaker 4: almost got close to being Menudo many years ago. Oh wow,
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  Speaker 4: but with rick when Ricky Martin was in the group
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  Speaker 4: and stuff like that, and just you know, they're always
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  Speaker 4: felt like a calling to want to do something in Spanish.
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  Speaker 4: But I grew up, believe or not, in a in
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  Speaker 4: a family where Spanish.
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  Speaker 1: Was not spoken.
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  Speaker 4: My mother was, you know, coming from Puerto Rico is
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  Speaker 4: trying to make us, you know, that culture, trying to
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  Speaker 4: make us as Americanized as possible, you know, no accents
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  Speaker 4: and stuff like that. And at the time in Orlando,
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  Speaker 4: we were the only half Hispanic family around in the neighborhood.
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  Speaker 4: Now Orlando's like Puerto Rico number three. It's so funny.
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  Speaker 4: It's like after New York, this's Orlando. But back in
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  Speaker 4: the days that I was there, it just wasn't. It
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  Speaker 4: wasn't that scene. So I never really had a true
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  Speaker 4: major passion to want to, you know, try to pick
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  Speaker 4: up the language, and until I had missed opportunities like
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  Speaker 4: manudo and lots of auditions for acting and stuff like that.
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  Speaker 4: And so when it got to the group, you know,
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  Speaker 4: us coming around and starting making some of our music.
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  Speaker 4: I remember at the time I boys to men, all
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  Speaker 4: these other artists were doing songs translated in Spanish, and
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  Speaker 4: I was like, we should do this. And so I
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  Speaker 4: was able to get the guys to do a couple
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  Speaker 4: of our songs, which led to success for us in
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  Speaker 4: Mexico and in Spain and stuff like that, and I've
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  Speaker 4: always felt like the fans over the years kept on
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  Speaker 4: telling me, you know how we we learned English to
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  Speaker 4: understand your music, and that always rang in my the
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  Speaker 4: back of my head, saying, you know what, why don't
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  Speaker 4: I one day use my music and translated in Spanish
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  Speaker 4: to learn language to So finally, I think, just like,
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  Speaker 4: you know, close the gap with my mother to try
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  Speaker 4: to make her proud of me. You know, with my
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  Speaker 4: connectings with my roots as well as with my kids,
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  Speaker 4: I always, you know, I always want to influence in them.
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  Speaker 4: You know, don't forget your culture, your heritage. You're part Hispanic,
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  Speaker 4: you know, let's let's embrace it. And so now now's
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  Speaker 4: the time. I feel like, you know, bad Bunny, all
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  Speaker 4: these people are coming out, and I think the lines
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  Speaker 4: are a little bit more blurred. So it just it
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  Speaker 4: feels the right timing right now.
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  Speaker 3: Good for you man, well, congratulations, and all the other
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  Speaker 3: songs are sort of reimagine songs from throughout your career.
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  Speaker 4: Right So yeah, So, like I say, I took the
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  Speaker 4: idea of taking the Backstreet hits, my favorite songs and
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  Speaker 4: translating them in Spanish, and believe or not, we've kind
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  Speaker 4: of played around with all, you know, a bunch of
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  Speaker 4: different Latin sounds.
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  Speaker 1: We got some meta, we got some salsa in.
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  Speaker 4: There, we got some reggaetone and actually, believe or not,
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  Speaker 4: when we were playing around with I Want It that way,
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  Speaker 4: we stumbled upon this fusion of Afro reggaetoni ish kind
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  Speaker 4: of sound, and as we were doing it, we're like, wow,
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  Speaker 4: this really fits my voice in this in this space
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  Speaker 4: right here. So that's when we start experimenting, saying, let's
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  Speaker 4: just see what we create if we did something original,
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  Speaker 4: and we stumbled upon Coqui, which is believe or not,
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  Speaker 4: is the national frog for Puerto Rico at night. If
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  Speaker 4: you ever get to the island there, you'll hear when
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  Speaker 4: you go to sleep, go okay, okay okay, and it's
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  Speaker 4: like it's the most beautiful sound in the island.
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  Speaker 1: They're only indigenous to Puerto Rico.
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  Speaker 4: They haven't been able to get off the island and
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  Speaker 4: survive anywhere else, so it's almost like the national mascot.
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  Speaker 4: And so a lot of these songs to me are
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  Speaker 4: are really like I'm when I am actually doing original stuff.
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  Speaker 4: It is getting a little bit more telling my story
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  Speaker 4: growing up, not you know, in a Spanish speaking family,
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  Speaker 4: but you know, it's in my blood and I've always
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  Speaker 4: felt it and stuff like that.
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  Speaker 2: And speaking of a backstreet I know you guys got
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  Speaker 2: more shows coming up at the Sphere in Vegas summer.
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  Speaker 3: Are you going to maybe incorporate some of them into
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  Speaker 3: the show or.
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  Speaker 4: You know, I would love to, but unfortunately that show
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  Speaker 4: right there is on wheels and it's nonstops.
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  Speaker 2: You got, Yeah, you're right. You can't really adjust because
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  Speaker 2: of everything. You're right, you can't like you can't like
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  Speaker 2: improvise because everything's uh synchronized. Yeah something, It's true. That's
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  Speaker 2: the one thing about playing say, that's exactly.
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  Speaker 3: I just thought about. You're right, it's not like you
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  Speaker 3: could take a request and going on right now, that's true.
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  Speaker 1: That show is push play and it goes yeah yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Screens you know, it's it's to film that stuff in
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  Speaker 4: sixteen Ky was a production within itself, you know, to
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  Speaker 4: be on that three hundred fifty foot screen, of course.
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  Speaker 4: And we have we actually have a song out called
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  Speaker 4: bottle Bock, which I'm very proud of. It's on the
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  Speaker 4: Patrol soundstrack. Ye, And believe me, we would love nothing
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  Speaker 4: more than to put that into the show. It's just
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  Speaker 4: it's unfortunately that's that's productions already done with. But we're
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  Speaker 4: actually talking about that for the German uh God Willing
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  Speaker 4: World tour that we're going to do starting off in
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  Speaker 4: Dusdorf in September, a stadium tour.
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  Speaker 1: That's we're incorporating that in there.
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  Speaker 3: Oh that's cool.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was asked about that song too, but that's
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  Speaker 2: true because I didn't even think about that because I've
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  Speaker 2: seen some shows there and yeah, they can't really improvise
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  Speaker 2: because they got everything sick.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, everything's all locked in.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's cool.
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  Speaker 2: Your debut album with the group Man is thirty years
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  Speaker 2: old this year, which is crazy to think about it,
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  Speaker 2: and you guys are still obviously selling out venues all
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  Speaker 2: over and putting out these hit songs and.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you all get along. It's it's cool to see.
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  Speaker 3: Is just kind of sitting back right there.
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  Speaker 2: But after all this time, what's changed the most from
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  Speaker 2: you guys as a group?
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  Speaker 3: Would you say?
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  Speaker 4: I think now more than ever. I think we're more
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  Speaker 4: comfortable in our skin. I think the communication now is
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  Speaker 4: better than ever. I think, you know, when we first started,
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  Speaker 4: we were you know, five guys thrown into this hot
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  Speaker 4: here and being like, good luck, guys, Let's try to
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  Speaker 4: get to know each other. Let's try to make music together.
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  Speaker 4: Let's try to figure out who's doing what parts and everything,
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  Speaker 4: and let all the egos you know, behind checking behind
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  Speaker 4: the doors and stuff like that. And so I think
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  Speaker 4: since then, now we've been in the business over thirty years,
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  Speaker 4: I think we know what we want to do with
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  Speaker 4: our career.
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  Speaker 1: Now, you know, we know how much, how hard we
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  Speaker 1: want to work, how much we want to put in.
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  Speaker 4: We also know when there's times that we need to say, yo,
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  Speaker 4: we need to take a break, you know, I love you,
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  Speaker 4: or I need a break from you. I need to
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  Speaker 4: you know, be with our families and stuff like that.
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  Speaker 4: Just like yeah, I'm sure like you now, you know,
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  Speaker 4: having a family changes the dynamic of of you know,
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  Speaker 4: not only your relationship with your wife and stuff like that,
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  Speaker 4: but even your partners.
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  Speaker 1: So now it's like.
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  Speaker 4: We really we think we think a lot more ahead
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  Speaker 4: of time when we're going into making a tour. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: even believe not the Sphere was initially was not meant
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  Speaker 4: to be the Sphere. It was meant to be a US.
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  Speaker 4: I mean started off in the US at an arena
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  Speaker 4: recreation of the Millennium Show. But Kevin came to us
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  Speaker 4: and said, hey, guys, you know I want to I'm
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  Speaker 4: not going to stop this wheels in motion. But his
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  Speaker 4: oldest son is going to be a senior this past year,
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  Speaker 4: and he's like, if I have to miss a lot
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  Speaker 4: of the time away from him while he's going through
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  Speaker 4: these last moments, you know, last year of being at home,
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  Speaker 4: He's like, it would make me really sad. We're like, bro,
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  Speaker 4: we got you. Let's let's just figure this out. He
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  Speaker 4: was when I came up with Vegas idea. I thought
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  Speaker 4: we'd maybe get to plan out Hollywood or the Park if.
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  Speaker 1: We were lucky.
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  Speaker 4: Never thought Spear was even in the wheels or possibility.
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  Speaker 4: And when management said no, we're going after Sofia, I'm like,
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  Speaker 4: good luck. I'm like, that's the Eagles, that's you two
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  Speaker 4: and there no Backstreet Boys going there, And believe it
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  Speaker 4: or not, we're like, it's been a blessing man. We're
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  Speaker 4: selling out numbers. They're loving us. I think we're getting
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  Speaker 4: given the Eagles a little bit of a run for
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  Speaker 4: the money on some of the amount of dates that
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: we're doing.
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  Speaker 1: And stuff like that. So it's it's been.
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  Speaker 4: A blessing where you know everything. I feel like everything
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  Speaker 4: happens for a reason, and that's why I think now
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  Speaker 4: with the group, more than ever, we're starting to figure
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  Speaker 4: out why, you know, and how to make those things happen.
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  Speaker 2: Well, good for you, man, congratulations and give everything. Look
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  Speaker 2: forward to checking out the new album and everyone be
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: sure to check out the new single Cookwee which is
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  Speaker 2: out now and you can get all the info on
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Backstreet Boyds Show at BackstreetBoys dot com.
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  Speaker 3: Howie, thanks for checking in.
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  Speaker 2: Brothers, It's something Ego they go with you
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  Speaker 1: With Mario Lopez