Midwest BEAT Magazine

Midwest BEAT Magazine
HANSON: Growing Pains And Growing Gains!
by Chris Akin
October 2000

The brothers Hanson have changed a lot in the few short years that have passed since they became teen heart-throbs with the Top 5 hit MmmBop. The boys have grown up some and that growth reflects in their musical output. In the midst of their current tour, Midwest Beat's Chris Akin caught up to all three lads and chatted one on one with each of them for a few moments about what they are feeling and thinking these days. The following text are highlights of each of those respective interviews

TALKING WITH TAYLOR

BEAT: Your new CD is very different from Middle of Nowhere. It's more raw. Why the change?

TAYLOR: It was just a natural change. I think of an album as being a time capsule of where you are at that point (in your career). This is Hanson 2000. The next one will be Hanson 2001. As far as the sound goes, it's sort of like some of those funk and more polished elements of 'Middle of Nowhere' were replaced by a little more rock and a little more rawness. There's less of that funk/R&B that people were talking about more on the first record.

BEAT: Did you do that as a result of some of the criticism the first album had gotten?

TAYLOR - It wasn't the result of that at all. It really was a case where the songs defined the album as the songs were coming out. People ask you - 'Why did you guys write 'This Time Around', which is about war and death?' You're not quite sure where songs come from, but once you've got those songs and you feel good about those songs, that defines where you are going (musically) on your album. Then you think, 'Let's make these songs sound the best they can.' Trying to make those songs sound like others you've done isn't going to work, so you make them sound the way they need to sound. The way our band has changed, you know, just the voices for instance, and the time and the chords used in writing songs, you tend to experiment more as time goes by. It's just that next step.

BEAT: Obviously, this record has not sold 15 million records like the first one.

TAYLOR: No, it hasn't exploded like the first one did.

BEAT: Is that good, bad, an expected thing?

TAYLOR: Any band wants to have a massively successful record. Did we really want that to happen? Yeah, of course. But you know what? We feel really proud of this record, and we know that's the only record we could have made and felt good about. It's who we are right now. In my mind, I feel that it's been a true success because we are slowly gaining respect from people by being who we are. We're not trying to be anything but who we are. More people than ever have walked up to me, people that I wouldn't expect, and they are giving the record respect and talking about it in a really positive way. To me, that's a bigger step then anything. You can sell a ton of records and never get the kind of respect from people that makes you feel good about doing the work that you do. I think that's really cool. We have an amazing, concentrated group of fans that look forward to the next album, and the next and the next. And we're having a good time doing it. That's the most important thing to me.

BEAT: I saw your live show two years ago, and I saw the current show on Direct TV. It's like night and day, the difference between those two shows. I don't want to say that you guys were rookies on the first one, but on the recent one, everything came off much more professional. Does that drastic change owe to the road time you have logged and the experience you have gained along the way?

TAYLOR: As a band, I'd say that we are a much better band than we were two years ago. We're tighter. We've played more together. Even the guys that play with us have been with us for three years now, so we are all tighter as a unit. As musicians, we've gotten better...we're growing and hopefully improving with time. What you just said to me, is exactly what I would want people to say - 'Wow, this is a whole other level!' On the next record, I want people to say that again. I just want to keep pushing the envelope further and further and keep surprising people with what we do. I want people to walk away from our show saying 'Damn, that was a good show!' That's the best I could ever hope for.

TALKING WITH ISAAC

BEAT: In Cleveland, I host a heavy metal radio show and when Middle of the Road came out, I had a Top 5 list with four metal albums and your debut album right smack dab in the middle of the list. To this day, I get hammered by the metal head, because people don't expect a guy like me who is into Pantera and Sepultura, to also be praising a band like Hanson.

ISAAC: Well, that's their own close-mindedness. I'm not really any kind of a hardcore rock guy, and I know that in relation to some bands, Metallica is not particularly hard anymore, but there is a lot of Metallica stuff that I find to be quite cool and appealing.

BEAT: One of the things that you guys have been criticized for is putting out so much music so fast. Four albums in three years. Was that your idea or that of the record label?

ISAAC: What happened is things were released real fast. We did a Christmas album that I think is one of our better albums. It's got a really good sound. I really like the production on it and it's one of my favorite records of ours, although that may sound kind of funny. There was also a live record and there was the demo record too. I think maybe the demo record is the only one that was kind of pushing the envelope. It was a little weird that we decided to do that. The label said, 'You guys should go ahead and release that.' And it was one of those situations where we said - 'Well, ok...whatever!' You are going to get criticism for anything you do when you are in this business. You can get criticism for waiting too long, or you can get criticism for going too fast. I think what you have to do, is just go forward and try to learn from the things that you think you made mistakes doing. I think you just need to continue to go forward. Hopefully, what it all comes down to, is that good music prevails. No matter what style it is, you just move ahead forward and you do the best music you can. Hopefully people will respond to that.

BEAT: How have the crowds been for the tour?

ISAAC: As great as ever. In our unique case, you notice the age changing more readily. When people say, you guys are a lot older and a lot taller than I expected or then I remember. We say, 'Yeah, well it's been a couple of years.' Right now, in our case, a couple of years makes a BIG difference. We won't be young forever. We notice that with our fans too. Basically, they are growing up with us. They may have been sophomores or juniors in high school, and now they are freshmen and sophomores in college. You have the younger kids too, the 10-12 year olds that are still really into the music. It's a really broad group of people that like our music. We also have older people that are in their early to late 20s. It's a really cool thing to see the fans evolve and change with you.

BEAT: Are you guys happy with the internal progression of the band?

ISAAC: The internal progression, definitely. We, as a group, are always changing and growing. If you were familiar with our earlier independent records and followed those up through to where we are now, you would notice that every record we have made is substantially different. They all have a similar vein to them of course, but they all have some unique twists and turns to them as well. It's just one of those things that happen when there are three guys in a band who are as much key players in the creative process as we all are in this band. You get these unusual changes that happen as the band moves on and evolves. Hopefully, they are changes for the good. I feel that they are. Everything evolves. Some records are going to be more rock, some records may be more pop, some records may be more mellow then others. Then we may go back to doing pop again. It's one of those things where you really don't know where it's going to go until it gets there. That's what also makes it exciting as well.

TALKING WITH ZAC

BEAT: Why did you guys wait so long after the release of the record to go out on tour?

ZAC: With this record? Well, there is a commitment that you have to do with traveling. There are other countries that you have to go to to promote your record. Then there is all the press that you have to do. There's just a lot of stuff that you end up having to do before you can get out and tour. We toured a lot earlier now than we did on the last record. It took us about a year before we could tour on 'Middle of Nowhere'. With this record, we just said, 'Look, we're going out on tour. We're not going to wait another year to tour this time.'

BEAT: Are you happy with the way the record has been received by fans?

ZAC: We've been received very well. I haven't seen a bad review of the record anywhere. The fans have been very receptive, saying things like - 'I love how you guys changed' or 'I'm a fan of the last record, and the new record is also really good.' We've gotten a lot of that stuff. It's cool to know your fans are changing with you and pulling along for a different ride and a slightly different style of music.

BEAT: When the record came out, I saw you all over TV. Do you ever get tired of being in front of the camera?

ZAC: Yes, sometimes, it gets tiring. Not only are you doing TRL, but you're doing all the stuff that no one is seeing, different country things. So yeah, it gets tiring, but you've got to do that stuff. It's part of the job. It's just something where you say - 'Look, I've got to do it anyway, so I might as well do it and have fun with it.' Then you get to tour, which is the really fun part of being in a band.

BEAT: You guys are on stage for 90-minutes every night. What do you do for the rest of the day?

ZAC: We do stuff like this! (laughs) We have meet and greets with fans. We sound check. We work through the set list for the night. There's just stuff that goes on in between the shows. We're not constantly going, but we definitely do a lot of stuff.

BEAT: What follows this tour?

ZAC: It's possible that we are going to be going down to South America and then to Asia. After that, we will be starting the next record, writing and demoing songs.

BEAT: So, it's not going to be like last time where you guys push four records all at once?

ZAC - It was a mistake for people to think those were for the general public. Those records were for the very devoted fan. '3 Car Garage' in particular, a release of our original demos that got us signed. That's for the fans who were going, 'Okay, I've got all of your other records, give me some more.' We were just trying to satisfy the diehard fans who kept asking for more music. For the people who bought that record who weren't diehard fans, they were like, 'What the heck is this?' That was just meant for the crazy Hanson fans who wanted to get everything.

Chris Akin is also with Music's Bottom Line Magazine. There are clips of interviews with various artists on this magazine's CD. Click on the link above to see the CD listing and a link to MP3.com. One of the clips is a phone conversation with Isaac. Chris's 7yr old son is the one asking the questions. This was typed up by Valerie (Thanks Valerie!) and is from the MP3 clip found at MP3.com.

CHRIS AKIN: I have to admit it - one of the things that I do do with Music's Bottom Line, is I try to use it from time to time to make me quote unquote 'Dad of the Year,' when it comes to my kids. Y'know I mean, it's very obvious to anybody that's ever read Music's Bottom Line that I am a "metal" guy, a hard rock metal dude. Yet, my kids, y'know my kids are eleven and nine and, they're into the stuff that eleven and nine year old kids are into. N'SYNC, Brittany Spears . . . Hanson, etc. Well, I had the chance to interview Hanson at one point. And I thought, you know what I m'onna do, I m'onna put my son, who is a Hanson junkie on the phone with the guys. Little did I know that my son Michael was a chip off the old block, who, after about 30-40 seconds with Isaac Hanson, decided he was bored with 'em and didn't wanna talk to him anymore. Check out my son Michael dissing Hanson . . .

MICHAEL AKIN: Hi! Han- uh, what's your name?

ISAAC HANSON: This is Isaac. Hey Michael, how are you?

MK: Goood! Ya! I like y- I like y- I like your music!

IKE: Well thank you. Glad you like it.

MK: What?

IKE: Glad you like the music, that's cool.

MK: O-kay!

(Isaac laughs warmly)

MK: I had to be at th- we were almost to the top seat once you played.

IKE: Oh ya?

MK: Mhm. We're gonna see you play this year too.

IKE: Cool! Excellent.

MK: What?

IKE: Well I-I I hope y- I hope you enjoy the show when you come and see us.

MK: I am!

IKE: Okay cool. You know we have a little brother too. He's uh, he's six years old. Are you seven?

MK: Ya.

IKE: You're seven, cool. Well he's pretty close to your age.

MK: What's his name?

IKE: His name is Mackenzie.

MK: Mackenzie?

IKE: Ya, but we call him Mack.

MK: Uh dat a good name.

IKE: Ya. (pause) Well, Michael's a good name too.

MK: Can I talk to Zac?

IKE: Um- Zac is actually- he's doing s-something right at- this second but he- he'll be, he might come onto the phone in just a second. Um, your Dad might have ta pass it back t- back to him when he comes.

MK: Okay.

IKE: Okay?

MK: What's Taylor doin'?

IKE: Uh Taylor is uh- also in another room. Right now.

MK: Okay, you can talk to my Dad a little for a little while.

IKE: Oh okay well, nice to talk to you Michael.

MK: Okay.

IKE: Buh bye. (End of Clip)

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