"It all started in a small town in upstate New York called Jamestown. I was born in the same hospital as Lucille Ball of I Love Lucy fame. There was a lounge called the Yankee Rebel, which my father and my grandmother both owned. It was a small place. My sister BJ was born up there, but my other brothers and sisters were born in Florida. We had a house on Webber Road. I used to love it up there, it was so fun! My grandparents all lived up there.

We had a little dance floor at the Yankee Rebel, and my dad used to be a DJ and play records. When I was really small, I'd get up there in my diapers and dance around! I have pictures of me wearing headphones that were bigger than my face! I was just a little chunk; everybody used to call me Charlie Brown when I was little. This is all before BJ was born. One time my parents thought they'd lost me. They were walking around saying, "Where's Nicky? Where's Nicky?" We had an old Pac Man game, I had pulled up a stool, and there I was in my white diaper, sitting up on the stool, playing the game. That was when my love for video games began!

My parents thought it might be cool to move down to Florida to start a different business, so they packed up their old Cadillac Eldorado, and loaded all our stuff into this little trailer. I was about five or six then. The performing bug really didn't hit me until I was about six or seven. '.....Maybe I can sing, maybe I can do this, maybe I can do that.'

So we made it to Florida, and we moved into our first house. I guess it was a retirement home, because that's where my dad started working. We lived there for maybe a year. It was about a 16 person facility and we built into it. My sister and I used to play with frogs and stuff around there. I have pictures of us all in mud and we have frogs on our heads! We got into some paint one time. We were painting a chair for my father and we were joking around and started painting each other! So we had to take a bath in one of those little swimming pools. We, me and BJ used to get into so much mischief, it was so funny.

One of my favourite things to do in the backyard was go swinging on the hammock. I'd have her on it, and twist her up in it, ler her go and watch her spin. She kept spinning and she'd get up all dizzy and tell Mom. This was a big backyard, and the senior citizens didn't care. Another thing my sister and I would like to do was have sword fights with wooden sticks. We would do that all the time. We got really friendly with the older people. My sister got really close to a woman named Millie, then Millie passed away. They were really close friends. Millie used to buy her stuff. Being around older people, I learned to respect people, and that also helped me.

When we moved to another place, I met one of my best friends. His name was Brent and he and I used to get into trouble and all that. In all, I'd say my family has lived in five different houses down here. We kept the same business, we jsut kept trying to live closer to the retirement home without living there. Eventually we did, we moved very close to it. My mom was a cook at the retirement home, an excellent cook. My mom is a REALLY GOOD COOK! My brother Aaron, and my sister Angel (they're twins) were born at Tampa/General Children's Hospital. Leslie was born at the retirement home. She wasn't born in the hospital.

I had to cope with my mother giving Leslie more attention than me and BJ. We would talk to each other and say, 'Gosh, she's getting all the attention.' My grandmother would spoil her. We get along now, because Leslie gets treated the same as us. When the twins came, that really affected everybody. Leslie got really jealous too! I was really excited about having a brother. The twins didn't really change my life that much, but I guess you could say it was a happy change, because now I have lots of siblings! My dad, who's an only child, got all the attention, but had to make friends. I make friends, but I always have someone to play with and hang out with.

My first school was Miles Elementary. Miles was my favourite school. I loved that school! I was there for four years. That was where I did my first play, The Phantom of the Opera. My teacher helped me get into it. What happened was, she picked someone else for the role, but he couldn't sing, so he sort of strayed off. She needed to find someone else and luckily I was there. I was really nervous about my first play, but I pulled through. I felt good about it. Being on stage is my life.

Next year, I went to Orange Grove. I had favourite teachers there too. This was elementary. I missed a lot of school because I did a lot of acting then. I started when I was about nine years old, right after The Phantom of the Opera. We were kind of tossed between acting, dancing, or singing..,so I kind of dabbled in a few of them. I did plays, commercials, and sang in a few places. I did commercials for the Lottery and The Money Store (I was about 10), a lot of that kind of stuff. I really decided what I wanted to be when I was singing. I auditioned for the Mickey Mouse Club and Backstreet Boys. The Mickey Mouse Club said they wanted me! I had a feeling that was going to be my good acting year, everybody has a good acitng year. I had to choose between the two of them.....Backstreet Boys or the Mickey Mouse Club!

My siblings loved coming with me [to auditions] and stuff. The little ones were so young then, they didn't know what was happening. My first commercial was for The Money Store. I was about 10. Then I got called by the Mickey Mouse Club and the Backstreet Boys all at the same time. It just changed my whole life. I was twelve going on thirteen. Of course I turned down the Mickey Mouse Club for the Backstreet Boys! It was kind of scary: there were meetings and talk about when the Backstreet Boys were going to get a record deal.....but we did quickly become a local sensation! We did malls and worked in local places. I was the youngest, the next oldest was AJ, next oldest was Brian, next was Howie, and the oldest was Kevin. I was probably closest to Howie, Brian, and AJ at the time. When we began to travel together and room together, I turned out to be the one who liked to sleep the most. And I pulled the most practical jokes! I brought my Super Nintendo with me for whatever free time I had. In those days, when I was home, I went to Universal Studios a lot. I like to ride Jaws!

I'm actually afraid of sharks for real! I had a dream one time, the worst dream in the world: I was on the back of this big cruise ship, and I leaned over the rail. We were in the Bahamas and the water was crystal clear. This lady pulls up on a red jet ski and we're talking to each other. Suddenly, there's this 26 foot Great White shark! You could see its shadow underneath her. I said, 'Jump!' and 'Watch Out!' She jumped and grabbed on to the pole that I was leaning over and I tried to pull her up. The shark jumped out of the water and grabbed her and pulled her under. That's like my worst dream!

That's the only thing I'm most afraid of. Years ago, when I was showing off my bike and broke my right arm, it didn't scare me as much as the thought of sharks. And I did a 360 in the air and landed on my right arm! I'm generally not a scared kind of person. I try to be funny, but I'm not really funny all that often. I just keep quiet a lot. I'm interested in girls, but it's hard to find a girl who doesn't just like me for what I do, but for who I am. I don't really test girls, you can just tell.

When I was in school, I used to come home with letters. This was when I was really young. It was so funny. My mom kept all these letters that I came home with in my book bag! These girls, i can't remember how young they were, but they would write stuff. They could hardly write their names, but they were writing, 'I Love You.'

It was so funny in a sweet way! I was looking back on it, and they had like hearts all over the paper...... My family keeps me humble though. I still have to clean my room and put my dishes in the sink and stuff. My room's got a lot of posters in it, my drum set, my bed, a VCR, and a TV. It looks like an old '60s room. I enjoy the times when I can get home and enjoy my family, but the Backstreet Boys are my family now too, and we want to stay together."