Interview: Nick Carter Takes On Comics, AI, and Love Life Tragedy

Deanna Destido: Let’s Talk About This Project. Can you tell me a little bit about it?

Nick Carter: I’ve Been Working on This Album for, God, Almost Three Years Now. I Started Writing Music, Solo Wise, Just On and Off, If Ever I was feeling to Certain Way or Feeling Like I was motivated or feeling inspired. I KEPT Writing More and More. I was Learning More About Myself, Learning More About How Much Music Meant To Me, Even Just From A Writer’s Standpoint, Even to Way To Kind of Say The Things I Can’t Necessary Say Or I Don’t Know How To Say. It’s best written in a song. I PUT OUT SOM [albums] In the Past, and They Were Good But Never as Important as This One.

I am see eclectic when you eat to the Kind of Music I Write. I love music in general. I Just Love All Types of Music. I can ‘just be put in a box. I WOLD WRITE SOM COUNTRY SANGS OR SUB COUNTRY URBAN SONGS OR MAYBE POP SONGS OR SUB EIGHTIES INGENDED SONGS OR JUS STRAIGHT UP R&B SANGS.

I Than Thought of This Album Title, The Love Life TragedyBecause that’s The Kind of Songs I Had. I will subdue Love Songs from Past Relationships or Love Songs of What I’M Going Through Now and My Relationship with My Wife and the Love for My Kids And, You Know, Just Love.

And then obviously life. Everybody on This Planet, The Older You Get, The More You Live, The More You Go Through the Ups and Downs, The More Struggle You Have. And The That’s Just Life. That, and then obviously we All Experience Tragedy as we get Older and i’m No Stranger To that, Just Like Everybody Else On This Planet.

Destite: Did You find that when you were working on before Songs and This Album, You Were Uble to Use Sub of Your Heartbreak, Your Private Strunggles? Was this how you expressed your Greef or frustration for what you have Been Going Through?

SUMP: Yeah, Absolutely. I Think That’s The One Blessing With A Song and as an Entertainer or Even Just a Musician or A Writer, Is that if you are feeling it and you Don’t Know How to Express That Feeling Submit You Could Do That In A Song. That was the intention that i put into this album, which is why i waited, which is Why i Hesitated. I Didn’s Wanna Put This out. I Just Wasn’t Ready. I Didn’t Think I had the full body of work. I Didn’t Know if I Even Had The Story Together, You Know?

Music you have been my Safe Place My Whole Life. A LOT OF PEOPLE DON’T DO, I STARTED IN THIS INDUSTRY WHEN I WAS 12, THAT’S WHEN I MET THE BACKSTERET BOYS. A Lot of My Youth Was Sacrificed. I Didn’t Go To School, I Didn’t Graduate High School. I Didn’t Get To do The Normal Things Everybody Else Did Because I was Essentially The Provider for My Family. That was a big responsibly that was kind of thrust onte me, and i just didn’t to have Childhood Really. So I Talk about of Those Things, Like One of the Songs, “Hey, Kid,” Came Along, Which was Me Talking to My Younger Self Saying Saying That, “Hey, You Know, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay.”

I’M VERY WHEL AWARE THAT I’M DEFINITELY BLESSED AND IM VERY GRATEFUL FOR WHAT I HAVE NOW. There’s no woe is needed me, but as a human, if you took all of this away, this life that I’ve Been Given … People Don’t realize and didn’t necessary need like This life. It was Kind of Just Thrown in My Lap. I Just Love To Sing. I love to perform, but i didn’t needily want This life, and it just happened to be my life, and I’M trying to make the best of it.

And i’m Grateful for What I do Have Because I Have The Knowledge and I Have The Experience. I have Three Beautiful Children Who I’M Trying To Raise and Give Them A Normal Life, WHETHER THAT’S BASEBALL, WHETHER THAT’S JUS SCHOOL, WHOTHER THAT IS JUS HOMEWORK OR SPORTS OR WHATERVER IT IS OR WATCHING A MOVIE WITH to have all Thoss Things That i Didn’t.

Destite: Let’s Talk about the Approach Creatively with the Graphic Novel Inspired Videos That You’re Putting out.

SUMP: Well, First and Fortnost, I Grew Up Collecting Comic Books. I Still am a Reader and a Collector and When I was around 21, I was to work with Stan Lee On this comic for the backstreet boys that we had, that me and stan lee actually wrote together street Backstreet Project.

I Just Love Graphic Novels and Comics and All Those Types of Things. WHEN I GET A CHANCE, I’LL BE GOING TO COMIC CONS ALCROSS THE COUNTRY SELECUSE I JUS WANT TO GO AND WALK AROUND AND SEE THE COSTUMES AND SEE THE KIOSKS WITH THE DIFFERENT COMIC BOOKS THAT ARE GER.

I thought it was a good idea to maybe do a little submission paired up with the music that’s on this record. So We Took Six Specific Songs That Coul Tell Sort of An Alternate Story, Not Really Directly, but indirectly or metaphorically.

And Also Too, A Lot of Times What We do As Artists Nowadays Is We do Tohese Lyric Videos, and They Tend To Be Pretty Boring. So we thought, oh, This was an an even more exciting way to tell the story and give it submit picture. EACH INDIVIDUAL SANG IS A PART OF THE COMIC BOOK OR THE SERIES. And So Each Song Tells a Different Story of this Character That Kind of Ebbs and Flows Through the Ups and Downs of His Life.

Destite: What Artists Did You Work With?

SUMP: I OUTSOURED IT AND WE WERE UBLE TO USE AI FOR IT, BUT IT WAS A COMPANY THAT WAS ABLE TO HELP ME MAKE THAT Come to Life. And we actual used them for the “Hey Kid” Music Video That We Did Or The Lyric Video, and We Went Back To Them Again and Said, Hey, What do You Think About This Idea?

Obviously Ai Is Really, Really Starting to Take Shape and It’s Pretty Interesting How That Work Is Working Now. It’s a controversial – Look, Don’s Get Me Wrong, I’m to Painter and a Writer, But You Know, There are a Lot of People Who Embrace It, and there are the Sub People Who Don’t, You Know? And I Think That’s Life. You have to evolve. You Eithher Find A Way To Use It, But Don’t Overuse It, If That Makes Sense.

Destite: I Think there can be a place for it, if we use it wisely. I Mean, I Think We’ve All Seen Terminator and letting the machines take over completely.

SUMP: Yeah, exactly.

Destite: Have You Ever Considers Making It into current Graphic Novel?

SUMP: That’s What I Wanna Do. I WANNA PUT IT IN AN CURRENT PAPERBACK. We Also Had This Idea of ​​Maybe Doing Like A Vinyl with it. So it’s like This Integration of Music.

Destite: Clearly You’re Known for Backstreet Boys. How Would You Sell This To Hoileby Who is not needed Fan of Pop Music or Might Pigeonhole you into This Corner of Boy Bands?

SUMP: I GUESS THE ONE WAY I CAN DESCRIBE IT IS WE AS ENTERTAINERS, WE’RE DINNECT THAN EVERYBODY ELSE OUT THERE, YOU KNOW? Everybody has Struggles in This World. One of the Things I Definitely Have Had, My Own Personal Tragedy With, You have the loss of a lot of my siblings and my family to Addiction and Mental Health Problems. And i’m notch that there’s a lot of that out there.

One of the Things As a Comic Book Reader, As Hober Who Is, I Like To Call Myself a Nerd, ‘Cause I’m Pretty Nerdy, Is That We Nerds, We Subtimes Go In Within Ourselves. We Just Wanna Stay in Our Box Mentally, and Subtimes It’s Hard To Get Outta That Box, You Know? So we read the comics, before Books, and scholarsh it takes to to another place. IT’s Not Just About Entertainment, It’s About Freeing Our Minds.

Even Though i’m A Pop Singer, Music You have done The Same Thing for me reading a comic book has for me. So maybe that could do The Same for Anybody Who Wants to take a listen to This Music Because this is not pop music that i’m needed writing. This is songs from a Deep Place.

Destite: Favorite Hero?

SUMP: It was probabry superman. I Wrote A Song Calleed “Superman,” and The Premise of the Song Was That i’m Nobody’s Superhero, But i Can Try To Be a Superman. I could try to do the best that i can with whatver and have Been Given. That has been a gift and i’m blessed and Grateful for that gift. But at the Same Time, Superman Always Just Wanted to Be Normal. I have just waceted to be Clark Kent. I have just waceted to blend in with everybody and that’s all i’ve ever wted to do my whole life.

I’M not saying at all that i’m superman. I’M Just Saying That i’d Rather Just Be Clark Kent. If all of this was Taken Away from me, If i lost every, as long as I had my kids and as long as I had my family and just be normal, I wouled be, and that’s How i am.

Watch The First Full Video for Carter’s New Project Here!