The girls just love their Boys

Exuberant fans have gone to great lengths to get close to pop band

 Kevin Richardson sounds like a true pro as he runs down his life in the eye of pop music's latest teen-scream hurricane, The Backstreet Boys.
 
The oldest member of the vocalizing and dancing sensation, Richardson, 25, speaks with the even tone of a man who has seen it all:
 
Hysterical fans. Stages. Buses. Hotels. Uh... hysterical fans.
 
The Backstreet Boys descend on Maple Leaf Gardens this Saturday. Lock up your daughters. Unless you are one, in which case, give these guys some room.
 
"We've had stowaways," says the singer, when asked just how popular his group is with the kids.
 
"Girls sneaking on our bus somehow while we're loading luggage. We'll find them in the bathroom. Girls camping outside the hotels. Girls climbing over barbed-wire fences to get to us. One girl got caught up in a fence and hung there by her pants. She ripped the bottoms off, climbed in a window in the venue and knocked on our dressing room door."
 
What happens after they hunt you down?
 
"Either they don't know what to do and they just stand there," he says. "Or they attack us, pretty much.
 
"It's okay. We have people hired to handle all that."
 
Of course they do. This, after all, is the same quintet that toppled the pop charts armed only with the grinning, innocuous blue-eyed soul ditty, We've Got It Going On, off their self-titled debut album.
 
"The record company released We've Got It Goin' On about a year-and-a-half ago," explains Richardson. "They didn't promote it heavily, and it just exploded in Europe. We hadn't even finished recording the album yet."
 
They went "with the swell" in Europe, which, Richardson explains, spread into Southeast Asia. The European influence in Quebec got the Backstreet Boys' ball rolling in Canada.
 
Yes, The Backstreet Boys success story reads like a map of Europe in 1941.
 
But that story is actually an innocent one.
 
The group formed five years ago in Orlando, Fla. Richardson was working at Disney World. He hooked up with showbiz kids Nick Carter, A.J. McClean, and Howie Dorough -- now 16, 18, and 23, respectively. His cousin Brian, now 21, flew down from Kentucky and the lineup was set.
 
And it wasn't an overnight success.
 
"We were doing high school and junior high tours three or four years ago, before we had a record deal," says Richardson. "Any gig we could, just to get our names out. People don't really know that."
 
Especially at home in the U.S., where the group is still relatively unknown. According to Richardson, they have the best of both worlds.
 
"Everywhere in the world people know us and our music," he says. "Then when we go home, we're just like average joes. You show your friends videotapes and they're like, 'Whoa, holy moley.' They can't believe it.
 
"It's actually kinda cool. We can just come back home and chill."
 
Maybe not for long. They are getting ready to release Backstreet Boys in the U.S. Meanwhile, they're finishing up their second album, with a European release planned for late summer. There's also talk of working with Babyface and possibly the Bee-Gees, a "dream come true" for Richardson.
 
"It's actually sorta scary," he says. "We've finally got the time to dedicate and promote in the States."
 
Still, The Backstreet Boys wouldn't turn their back on more adulation.
 
"It's nice," says Richardson. "All five of us are big hams. We love the attention. Everybody who interviews us asks about the negative side, about being labelled as poster boys. We're enjoying it, and we feel as long as we make good music, we'll have no problem with having a long career.
 
"Look at the way The Beatles started and where they went with it. Look at New Edition and Boyz II Men. A lot of our stuff is crossing over to adult contemporary.
 
"Our music isn't for a specific audience."