The Backstreet Boys [ tickets ] have fleshed out the North American portion of their ongoing world tour, adding a full slate of summer dates behind their latest set, "Unbreakable."The teen-pop idols, who recently completed a brief run of shows in South Africa, kick off the American outing July 29 in St. Johns, Newfoundland. The first leg of the tour has the group hitting 25 cities through early September, including the beginnings of a West Coast leg. Details are below."Unbreakable," the group's most recent album, hit stores last fall. The Boys enlisted an all-star roster of producing talent including Billy Mann (Sting, Celine Dion) and 'N Sync's JC Chasez to complete the album, which is the follow-up to 2005's "Never Gone.""We spent about 14 months on it," group member Brian Littrell told LiveDaily during an interview late last year. "We're happy and proud of the record. It's really the Backstreet Boys of old and where we're headed in the future. We've been at it for quite some time. It's still an honor to be in the fickle music business after 15 years and still making CDs and still having fans who want to hear the music. So we're proud of it."The album, which peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 chart, marking the group's weakest chart performance to date, is Backstreet Boys' first effort without founding member Kevin Richardson, who departed the group on amicable terms in 2006."Vocally, we wanted to have it as strong as it could be and the songs be as strong as they can be," Littrell said. "A lot of people know what the Backstreet Boys sound like. It is what it is. We have to continue to sound like that with or without him."Backstreet Boy A.J. McClean surprised fans this week when he put tickets on sale for a pair of sneak-preview solo concerts this weekend in Los Angeles."After 13 years with the Backstreet Boys, and 75 million records sold worldwide, A.J.'s excited to take a step out on his own and present his music, in his style," McLean's manager, Eric Podwall, told People Magazine this week.McLean and the rest of the Boys are expected to enter a recording studio next year to work on the follow-up to "Unbreakable," according to People.
