Cred lyte

How to start a band, attract a million screaming 12-year-olds, and not sell out. Or at least not be forced to wear matching space suits.

by Michelle Chihara

BOY BANNED: the pop group LFO have a teen-girl fan base and close ties to the old New Kids scene in Boston, but they disdain the term "boy band."

Standing backstage at the Tweeter Center, Richard Cronin Sr. and his wife, Doris, seem both gratified and amused by the line of squealing teenage girls waiting to get an autograph from their son. On a warm August night, in between interviews and autographs, they're happy for a few stolen moments with Rich Jr.

Rich Cronin is the 24-year-old lead singer for LFO, the boy-pop band behind the last year's hit "Summer Girls" and this year's "Girl on TV," and he has been touring almost constantly for the past three years. For his parents, his success is a mixed blessing -- sure, he's doing well, but he's away all the time.

Plus there are those visits to children's hospitals.

"He's happy the kids like it, but he thinks it's depressing," his mother says. "He said Devin was crying."

Devin is Devin Lima, Rich Cronin's bandmate in LFO: a sweet-faced, green-eyed R&B crooner who grew up in New Bedford. He sings the arching vocals that loop in and out of LFO's pop hooks. Brad Fischetti, from New York, brings in a lot of the harmonies. Cronin himself is the blond, boy-next-door lead singer, who also raps and writes the lyrics. He was born in West Roxbury, grew up in Kingston, and now lives like a nomad. But he calls Boston "the best city in the world."

"I miss it every day," he says. "I wanna buy an apartment there. My girlfriend lives in LA, but I don't like it out there."

The girlfriend in question is Jennifer Love Hewitt, which gives you a sense of how successful LFO have become. At this point, they're famous enough that Rich, Devin, and Brad can't walk through Six Flags without getting mobbed. But they're not quite stars -- in fact, they're basically unknown outside of the world of Teen People. Ask the average Joe-on-the-street who LFO are, and he might say, "Aren't they the guys who sang that Abercrombie & Fitch song?" (That would be "Summer Girls": "When we met I said my name is Rich/You look like a girl from Abercrombie & Fitch.")

KID ROCK: for an audience divided by the bitter 'N Sync-vs.-Backstreet Boys rivalry, LFO are the "neutral" band -- you can like them without taking sides.

The guys are in a strange sort of limbo. They're big, but not huge, so their fame and future are precarious. They've sold millions of records without breaking into heavy radio rotation. They've rebelled against their label's pop formula, yet managed to profit from their pop positioning.

But the true nature of their limbo is, for lack of a better word, artistic: they don't wanna be a boy band, but they can't afford to alienate the millions of preteen fans willing to deafen themselves every time Rich Cronin points to their side of the stadium.

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In the world of music, "boy band" is a much-maligned label -- and a much-rewarded market niche. Since the alternative gloom of the early-to-mid '90s, the pendulum has swung all the way back to "Shoo be doo wop and Scooby snacks/Met a fly girl and I can't relax" (LFO lyrics from their single, "Girl on TV").

The top boy bands -- the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync -- have broken all-time records with their sales volumes. The pop triumvirate of Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and 'N Sync together have sold more than 30 million albums in the past 18 months.

In that fertile environment, LFO seem to be on their way up. Their debut album went platinum, selling 1.5 million records. In 1999, "Summer Girls" must have made a certain clothing manufacturer extremely happy by becoming America's top-selling single, with its lyrics stuck in everyone's head ("I like girls who wear Abercrombie & Fitch").

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Michelle Chihara can be reached at mchihara@aya.yale.edu.