SXSW 2019 review: The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story

The late 90’s boy band explosion catapulted groups like Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC to the top of the charts, creating pandemonium on the streets of New York when they would regularly drop into MTV’s TRL, and inspiring rabid fandom from their young female fans. Both bands were the brainchild of Lou Pearlman, who hand-picked the members of each outfit from obscurity before turning them into two of the most successful pop groups in history. Yet while the bands were packing stadiums and arenas around the world, they were still living on per diems that didn’t even add up to a minimum wage salary.

That system of exploitation is explored in-depth in The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story, a new documentary produced by *NSYNC’s Lance Bass that demonstrates just how Pearlman was able to insinuate himself into the lives of these young boys and milk them dry as their success continued to grow unabated into the 2000’s.

Directed by Aaron Kunkel, the film reveals Pearlman’s devious nature slowly. When we first meet Pearlman, he is a highly successful aviation businessman who decides to get into the pop business after renting out a private plane for New Kids on the Block. Seeing the amount of money the band was generating, he devises a plan to create his own boy group. By entering into the bountiful young talent at his footsteps in Orlando, he recruits members to form both Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, housing the members of each group together to get them to bond with one another, and putting them through a pop music “boot camp” where they eventually learn how to become seasoned performers before they’re even introduced to the world.

Pearlman clearly had a great eye for talent, and his ability to put these groups together obviously shows a great knowledge of how the pop landscape worked in that era. Putting millions of his own money into constant rehearsals and recording, he then signed each band to one of the worst artist contracts in history, which funnelled money into his pocket while the real stars were living off of $35 per diems each day.

The film follows the very public lawsuits that ended up with *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys being released from their restrictive contracts, but takes the time to show the damage this betrayal had on all involved. Pearlman acted as a father figure to many of the performers at the start, going out of his way to be a welcoming force of good in their lives, and literally plucking them from crappy day jobs to become superstars on a level they likely could never have even dreamed of.

Bass (and his extremely sweet mother) get a good deal of the screen time, discussing just how much they were hurt by Pearlman’s dealings. At the very peak of their initial success, Pearlman calls an elaborate “cheque giving” ceremony, where he proceeds to give each member of *NSYNC  a cheque for … $10,000. That kind of exploitation isn’t uncommon in the music business, but Pearlman took it to an unheard-of level, living like a mogul in a sprawling mansion while the bands themselves were having problems taking care of basic bills.

As engrossing as the boy band story is, it really only takes up about half of this revealing documentary, with the latter half focusing on Pearlman’s elaborate $300 million Ponzi scheme that eventually landed him a 25-year sentence in 2008 for conspiracy charges and money laundering (Pearlman died in prison in 2016). Aided by some pretty ingenious makeshift photos, Pearlman convinced investors that they were putting their life savings into his aviation company which never even existed. To make matters worse, his affiliation with *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys lent him a measure of legitimacy to his potential investors, which made his false claims all the easier to swallow.

The film eventually reaches some very dark places – a member of LFO (a band Pearlman created following his earlier boy band lawsuits) alleges that Pearlman tried to rope the band into sexual acts to help further their career, while a member of Innosense, the first all-female act that Pearlman put together, describes how he would film the members of the band undressing at his mansion. The only defender that the filmmakers present is none other than Aaron Carter, who appears to be going through a very emotional experience during his interview, at one point tearing up so much that he asks to cut the interview short.

The Boy Band Con is a fascinating look into one of the true music moguls of all time. Regardless of the cold-hearted way he manipulated and stole from these young bands (not to mention his scores of investors), there’s no denying the impact Pearlman has had on the pop culture landscape. With some revealing interviews from each of the bands under Pearlman’s wing, it’s clear how conflicted many of them still feel about the man they once referred to as “Big Poppa.” But the real emotional wallop of the film comes from the interviews with his defrauded investors, who have to come to terms with the fact that life savings have simply vanished due to Pearlman’s unmitigated greed and arrogance. 

The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story will be available to YouTube Premium subscribers on April 3.