Big Time Rush returns with 'Another Life' and an unlikely assist from Rick James

NEW YORK −Perhaps it’s an unlikely story: Big Time Rush, the boy band that launched in 2009 with a Nickelodeon TV show, is back with the group’s first album in a decade.

Almost as unlikely: Rick James, the late funk icon, received a co-write on it. BTR decided to reimagine Eddie Murphy’s 1985 hit, “Party All the Time.” The song, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, was written and produced by James.

“What I love about that song is that you have adults and parents who go, ‘Wait a minute. I know that song!’ ” said Carlos PenaVega, 33, who stopped by with USA TODAY's New York studio with bandmates Logan Henderson, James Maslow and Kendall Schmidt after releasing the album. “And then you have the young kids who go, ‘I love this song (and think) it’s new.' It really bridges that gap.”

The theme of bridging a gap can be heard on the new 10-track album. “Another Life” is a cohesive mix of fun Y2K-sounding pop songs from a group that rose to prominence in the 2010s.

Nickelodeon partnered with Columbia Records to create "Big Time Rush," both the show and musical endeavor, in 2009. Fast-forward to 2019 and the four members hired an attorney to work with both parent companies, Viacom and Sony Music respectively, to secure the rights for the name and music. They used the BTR acronym to name their new LLC that they record under, the aptly titled “Bought the Rights.”

“I don’t think we really recognized that (Bought the Rights) was going to be underneath every song on Spotify,” Maslow, 32, said. “But having said that, we’re proud of it. It was always a joke for us that maybe one day we could license or buy the whole thing. Maybe in some ways we manifested that, because that’s exactly what we did.”

They soon discovered that an artist recording under the name “Luigi” had hacked their Spotify page and posted his own tracks.

The hacker “had somehow acquired the (access) information and Sony didn’t have it anymore,” recalled Schmidt, 32. “In fact, (Sony) asked us, ‘Hey, since you guys are in the band, can you reach out to Spotify?’ ”

It sounds like a storyline straight out of the Nickelodeon sitcom the guys used to star in. At least this time, they had a little more control over the ending.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Big Time Rush covered Eddie Murphy for new album 'Another Life'