Backstreet Boys doomed to carry a concealed flatulence on their chart-topping hit ‘for eternity’
The Backstreet Boys had an unusual instrument on one track (Picture: Larry Busacca/WireImage).
There’s no easy way to say it — if you’ve listened to one of the biggest hits by the Backstreet Boys, you have listened to them pass gas. That’s right, while recording some particularly big notes on one Top 10 hit, Howie Dorough let out more than he bargained for. Somewhere in The Call, there is a secret fart.
Released in 2001, it was the second single from their fourth album Black & Blue, which at the time had the best international sales in a week in history with over five million sales. The song shot up the UK charts, reaching number eight on the singles chart and peaking at number one on the independent chart. While chatting in 2017 in honor of the 20th anniversary of their debut album, AJ McLean revealed the hilarious truth behind the track.
How did a fart end up on The Backstreet Boys song?
‘So when we were in the studio with Max [Martin] making the song The Call, Howie was in the booth, and we were doing that vocal breakdown; “dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun,”’ he shared. ‘Max gave Howie his harmony, and I think he was just putting so much air into the vocal that as he was singing, he went “dun, dun” and he farted — but he farted not only on the beat but in key.’ Rather than editing the noise out, legendary producer Max decided to keep it on the track and mixed it into the bass.
Howie Dorough accidentally let one rip while in the studio (Picture: Mike Coppola/Getty Images for iHeartRadio).
‘Howie’s fart became an instrument and is on the record for the rest of our lives,’ he added before shouting out the ‘genius’ producer. Defending himself, Howie initially joked he would plead the fifth and not respond but then confessed AJ was telling the truth. He explained he had likely consumed a lot of carbonated drinks that day, joking that fellow bandmate Nick Carter was ‘constantly passing gas’ at that age. ‘I got in the booth, was breathing in really heavily singing my part, and I guess some extra air kind of came out,’ Howie confessed. At least it apparently ‘made everybody laugh’ and was in tune so much that Max was able to turn it into an instrument.
The Backstreet Boys — Brian Littrell, Nick Carter, A.J. McLean, Howie and Kevin Richardson — were formed in the 90s (Picture: Tim Roney/Getty Images).
Is this the only fart on a song? Bizarrely, that’s not the only fart hidden in a hit song, as over 22 years later, Olivia Rodrigo also snuck one into her song Teenage Dream. If you listen carefully to the last seconds of the track, which serves as the final one on her 2023 Guts album, you can hear it. This time, it wasn’t the Glastonbury headliner letting out a toot while singing; instead, it is her producer saying the word ‘fart’ as a joke about her next album’s name.
When she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s show in 2023, he joked: ‘Almost between sour and guts sounds like you need a tums or something.’ He added some other four-letter words like ‘lamp’ as Olivia revealed: ‘If you listen close enough, it’s my producer going “What should the next four-letter album title be? Fart?” And we kept it in there so if you listen really carefully…’ This one is just about detectable, but Howie’s fart is far too expertly mixed into The Call to ever hear, all thanks to Max ‘genius’ Martin.
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