Hanson brother not looking back on stardom

By JOE LEARY

Rocketing to stardom in 1997 with the smash hit MMMBop, Hanson soared to the top of the charts and became overnight teen sensations. Fifteen years later, the Oklahoma trio of brothers has just embarked on an extensive cross-Canada tour. Joe Leary spent 24 Seconds with lead singer and keyboardist Taylor Hanson.
24: You kicked off a Canadian tour this week in Vancouver. Have you had a chance to see much of our city in the past?
TH: One of the things about being on tour is that you see a lot of the same and I think, to me, Vancouver just stands out for its natural beauty and the skyline is so striking. I’m really into taking pictures so I have a catalogue of great photos from right as the morning is cracking and we’re driving in on the bus the last time we were here, to just some great shows.
24: You now have kids of your own. Do any of them share the musical gene and want to follow suit?
TH: With mine there’s a musical gene for sure. Whether they choose to grab that thing and go for it and become a musician for life is a whole other question. My oldest now is the age that I was when we did our first show but there’s no sign that he’s going to form a band tomorrow – not that that would be the goal.
24: Do you ever find them in moments of boredom where they’re pulling up the ‘MMMBop’ video off YouTube and bugging you about it?
TH: They have much more entertaining things to do than to look back into our history and annoy their dad with videos.
24: When you look back on the release of MMMBop, what was the expectation back then?
TH: We had a lot of expectations about what would happen in our life, but not necessarily in that very moment. We were hoping for a successful record but we definitely weren’t prepared for having such a meteoric rise with that first album all the way to the top. That was the first time we had experienced a lot of things so for us it was an amazing thing.
24: Starting out as young as you did, you could easily be excused if you got all messed up on drugs or suffered some form of addiction. What kept you guys so grounded?

24: At the end of the day you guys are brothers and spend inordinate amounts of time together. Do you ever just have some real blowout fights?TH: There’s not one thing; I think there’s a lot of things that keep you grounded. We are all a little bit outside of the norm as far as our perspective on the world and what we’ve done so I think in a way we were already a little off kilter compared to the average Joe. Having good family and friends was a stabilizer. The lifestyle itself is pretty abnormal whether or not we’re ODing on drugs or partying all the time. So I think it just always brought us back to the priorities in life; family and the music itself. You just don’t want to lose that.
TH: Oh sure, yeah. We have arguments all the time and there’s a significant difference between the three of us in how we deal with things and just the personalities of everyone. The thing that does keep us close, and keep things together is the music, the collaboration. Being able to fight and disagree is part of the process.
24: How did you react to the Family Guy episode where the character Quagmire fantasized about you as being a cute teenage girl? Is that a sign of achievement and do you take that as a compliment?
TH: Oh you have to. If you decided to take those kinds of things in a personal way, you’d have issues. If you’re on Saturday Night Live, Family Guy and those types of shows being referenced, it means there’s a certain awareness that is funny to people. That’s a compliment. Somewhere along the way you’ve done your job.
The famous MMMBop video that started it all:

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Pop-soul trio Hanson find their niche

Longevity 'impossible, but somehow we've done it'

BY TOM MURRAY, FREELANCE JANUARY 27, 2012

Preview

Hanson

When: Friday, 7: 30 p.m.

Where: Festival Place, 100 Festival Way, Sherwood Park

Tickets: Sold out

Twenty years into a career that some predicted wouldn't last much beyond a few records, the three multi-instrumentalist brothers (Zac, Taylor and Isaac) that make up Hanson have managed to find a nice little niche for them-selves in the music world.

If they haven't found a multimillion-selling single to compete with their breakout hit MMM-Bop (1997), they've still established themselves as a successful independent act after severing ties with Island Def Jam in 2001.

Both Underneath (2004) and The Walk (2007) have done well on their band-owned 3CG label, and while they've kept true to their signature pop-soul style, they've also, dare we say, matured as musicians.

Most endearingly, they all still live in Tulsa, Okla., where they were born and raised.

It seems as if most bands, when they finish touring, split off to different parts of the country.

Zac Hanson: Yeah, it's true that we don't go to separate cities, but we do go to separate worlds. When we're not working, we have different ways of relaxing. Music brings us together, but if we weren't musicians we probably wouldn't be that close.

I mean, we have this mutual interest in the band and we respect and enjoy each other's company, but other than that we're very different.

How do you manage to make it work, then?

It's a constant challenge. There was some-thing Bono once said about being in a band for a long time: It's like pushing back the tide. It's impossible, but somehow we've done it. It's a hard process, especially when things get crazy and you consider stopping, but it's always a fleeting thought.

Clearly there's so much fulfilment in what we do that to stop isn't really a consideration, though sometimes .

Well, you're still young; there's always the possibility of throwing in the towel and managing a Target.

(Laughs) Actually, I can romanticize working at the fast-food chain down the street. That might be nice, just making combo No. 6s all the time, get discounts on my meal.

And not have to deal with adoring Hanson fans?

Well, it's not like I'm Paul McCartney or any-thing, and this is Oklahoma - there aren't many paparazzi here. Theoretically my wife would still care for me.

Do you still look back with fondness on your beginnings?

For us, being successful in the '90s was a form of torture because we got lumped in with a number of teen pop artists that were making music that wasn't anything like what we did. We were like, 'Please, please don't put me in that category.' Yeah, we've always been lovers of great songwriters. You listen to Otis Redding all your life, and then Billy Joel and James Taylor and you automatically search for hooks and melodies.

Were the Beatles also a factor? You know, we always listened to American music, and the British Invasion was largely absent for us for a long time, maybe for the first five years. It was all American singer-songwriter and soul music and rock; then we heard the Beatles and that was a huge thing. But really, we're an American band in the worst and best way.

You can hear that love of Motown and Stax on your last album, Shout It Out (2010). For Shout It Out, you brought in (Motown bassist) Bob Babbitt on a few tracks, which must have been more than a little thrilling.

Oh, man, we had so much fun with Bob. He just told stories all day long, and you can't stop him, because it's in his personality, but you also don't want him to stop. Being around him is like reading this amazing history book where you'd hear about things like Little Stevie Wonder jumping in the front seat of the car to drive and almost killing everyone.

It was such an honour to have him there, because he's this huge personality, and he wanted to be there. I mean, he flew in from recording with Phil Collins in Zurich and he was happy to be there."

Maybe that's why he's still going.

I think so. That may be the secret. It's hard, and not many musicians survive that long, but I hope that maybe I'll be one of them as well.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

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Boys to men: Hanson still loves making music

To others, who we are is often what we were.
First impressions, best impressions, worst impressions, broad impressions — in the eyes of those around us we remain in a state of stasis no matter what’s followed.
Not many people know that better than Isaac Hanson from American sibling trio Hanson. He, along with his brothers Taylor and Zac, burst onto the scene in the mid-’90s as shaggy, wide-eyed, musical moppets MMMBopping their ways into the pop world and cementing themselves into the collective psyche as their teen selves despite aging, continuing, having further successes, and growing musically and personally.
By the sounds of it, though, he doesn’t sound bothered by it — at worst resigned.
“I think that no matter what there are certain challenges as an artist,” says the oldest of the three brothers in the band and now a parent himself. “No matter what scenario you’re in, there is that fine line of, ‘success cuts both ways sometimes,’ and sometimes people remember certain things more than they remember other things. So youth and long hair and things of that nature immediately comes to peoples’ minds, which I totally get.”
The band’s latest release should, in a just world, chip considerably away at that earlier image, so stellar a record it is.
Shout It Out, the Oklahoma men’s’ fifth effort, was released last year in the States on their own 3CG label, and hit in the Top 3 Billboard indie and digital charts. The album will finally get its Canadian release in the upcoming months, but Hanson are heading out to preview it during their most complete cross-country tour, including a stop tonight at the Deerfoot Inn and Casino.
While that’s good news for local fans, it’s somewhat bittersweet in the context of the new record, as they’ll be in three-piece form, and not something resembling Shout It Out’s more elaborate configuration, which finds they and their incorrigibly catchy and hooky R&B songs filled out with other instrumentation and, most notably, a superb horn section.
Speaking volumes to their skills as songwriters and artists, some of the guest musicians featured on the disc include bassist Bob Babbitt, from the legendary Motown house band the Funk Brothers, and arranger Jerry Hey, who has set the horns for such notables as Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones.
“We’ve had the goal over the years of trying to work with musicians that we were inspired by in one form or another,” says Isaac, pointing to his brother Taylor’s work with members of the Smashing Pumpkins, Fountains of Wayne and Cheap Trick in the power-pop supergroup Tinted Windows.
“Ultimately that was the primary inspiration for us musically over the years, and to have the opportunity to sprinkle in that stuff and also to actually get phone calls back from people is a really nice thing to have and certainly not something we take for granted.”
It also underlines something that anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Hanson’s Grammy-winning, 14-million-albums-sold career can surmise, that the three brothers are students of music. Go back to that earliest impression, 1997’s Middle of Nowhere, which was very much the sound of those who had ravenously consumed, dissected and reimagined the music of the ’60s and ’70s, with MMMBop, itself, an answer to the Jackson Five’s ABC.

Isaac admits he and his brothers are constantly learning the lessons of those who came before, and he, himself, is currently in the midst of rediscovering early Southern soul through Stax and Muscle material.
“I think being a student of your craft is crucial, no matter what,” he says. “Because if you’re not a student, you’re not progressing in any way. If you’re not learning if you think you’ve learned it all then why keep making records, why keep doing anything?
“And certainly in regards to learning and being aware of music, we had a really nice dose early on in our lives that really has kept us curious.”
Isaac credits his parents who introduced the brothers — three of seven kids in the family — at a way early age to their musical blocks via one of those Hits of the ’50s cassette tapes hawked on infomercials, one in particular focusing on ’58 featured such songs as Johnny B. Goode, Summertime Blues and Rockin’ Robin.
After a solid year of playing, the tape wore out and others were introduced, with oldies stations now becoming the only dial position in the Hanson household, and more music, more artists and, then, in the form of the Jackson family, the possibility it could be something the brothers could actually do.
“It kind of becomes this effect on you that you can’t get it out of your head that maybe you can be successful at this as well,” Isaac remembers.
“And our parents were definitely appropriately encouraging. And what I mean by appropriately was that they weren’t the stage parent type. It wasn’t about them, it wasn’t about their egos, it was driven by our enthusiasm.”
Which, come to think of it, is one particular constant state perhaps Hanson should best be viewed, as well as with a certain amount of admiration that a decade and a half later they’re still doing it. Yes, that past is still a part of who they are and what they currently do — and it’s not something they’re ashamed of. But it was only the beginning, and that’s the impression they’d rather leave.
“I think at the end of the day, this is a game of survival, it’s a business of being the last man standing on some level or another,” Isaac says. “And we feel really, really good about what we’ve done, not only as young artists but as artists now — it’s continued. We feel pretty good about how consistent we’ve been in our music over the years. Everything evolves a little bit, everything changes. . . . But for the most part Hanson has maintained to be a very heavily R&B influenced pop band, in some form or another. . . . Things like MMMBop are not necessarily uncharacteristic of what we do. So it’s not a bad thing.”

mbell@calgaryherald.com Follow on Twitter@mrbell_23

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Boys+Hanson+still+loves+making+music/6064120/story.html#ixzz1kngeeZ00

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Pop-soul trio Hanson find their niche

Oklahoma brothers still going strong, years after MMMBop hit

 

BY TOM MURRAY, EDMONTONJOURNAL.COM JANUARY 26, 2012

EDMONTON - Twenty years into a career that some predicted wouldn’t last much beyond a few records, the three multi-instrumentalist brothers (Zac, Taylor and Isaac) that make up Hanson have managed to find a nice little niche for themselves in the music world.

If they haven’t found a multimillion-selling single to compete with their breakout hit MMMBop (1997), they’ve still established themselves as a successful independent act after severing ties with Island Def Jam in 2001. Both Underneath (2004) and The Walk (2007) have done well on their band-owned 3CG label, and while they’ve kept true to their signature pop-soul style, they’ve also, dare we say, matured as musicians. Most endearingly, they all still live in Tulsa, Okla., where they were born and raised.

Journal: It seems as if most bands, when they finish touring, split off to different parts of the country.

Zac Hanson: “Yeah, it’s true that we don’t go to separate cities, but we do go to separate worlds. When we’re not working, we have different ways of relaxing. Music brings us together, but if we weren’t musicians we probably wouldn’t be that close. I mean, we have this mutual interest in the band and we respect and enjoy each other’s company, but other than that we’re very different.”

Q: How do you manage to make it work, then?

Zac: “It’s a constant challenge. There was something Bono once said about being in a band for a long time: It’s like pushing back the tide. It’s impossible but somehow we’ve done it. It’s a hard process, especially when things get crazy and you consider stopping, but it’s always a fleeting thought. Clearly there’s so much fulfilment in what we do that to stop isn’t really a consideration, though sometimes … ”

Q: Well, you’re still young; there’s always the possibility of throwing in the towel and managing a Target.

Zac: (Laughs) “Actually, I can romanticize working at the fast-food chain down the street. That might be nice, just making combo No. 6s all the time, get discounts on my meal.”

Q: … and not have to deal with adoring Hanson fans?

Zac: “Well, it’s not like I’m Paul McCartney or anything, and this is Oklahoma — there aren’t many paparazzi here. Theoretically my wife would still care for me.”

Q: Do you still look back with fondness on your beginnings?

Zac: “For us, being successful in the ’90s was a form of torture because we got lumped in with a number of teen pop artists that were making music that wasn’t anything like what we did. We were like, ‘Please, please don’t put me in that category.’ Yeah, we’ve always been lovers of great songwriters. You listen to Otis Redding all your life, and then Billy Joel and James Taylor and you automatically search for hooks and melodies.”

Q: Were the Beatles also a factor?

Zac: “You know, we always listened to American music, and the British Invasion was largely absent for us for a long time, maybe for the first five years. It was all American singer-songwriter and soul music and rock; then we heard the Beatles and that was a huge thing. But really, we’re an American band in the worst and best way.”

Q: You can hear that love of Motown and Stax on your last album, Shout It Out (2010). For Shout It Out, you brought in (Motown bassist) Bob Babbitt on a few tracks, which must have been more than a little thrilling.

Zac: “Oh, man, we had so much fun with Bob. He just told stories all day long, and you can’t stop him, because it’s in his personality, but you also don’t want him to stop. Being around him is like reading this amazing history book where you’d hear about things like little Stevie Wonder jumping in the front seat of the car to drive and almost killing everyone. It was such an honour to have him there, because he’s this huge personality, and he wanted to be there. I mean, he flew in from recording with Phil Collins in Zurich and he was happy to be there.”

Q: Maybe that’s why he’s still going.

Zac: “I think so. That may be the secret. It’s hard, and not many musicians survive that long, but I hope that maybe I’ll be one of them as well.”

Concert preview

Hanson

When: Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Festival Place, 100 Festival Way, Sherwood Park

Tickets: Sold out

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

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Ônibus do grupo Hanson fica atolado na neve

'Primeira vez em 15 anos de turnês. Estamos presos na neve', escreveu Isaac no Twitter.

O ônibus que transporta o grupo Hanson para as turnês ficou atolado nesta semana. Isaac, um dos integrantes da banda, postou a foto do veículo no Twittter.

'Primeira vez em 15 anos de turnês. Estamos presos na neve. Estou feliz apenas porque eu não era o motorista', escreveu Isaac.

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Hanson goes from boys to men

Hanson’s unique branding could mean the launch of their own beer

By Meaghan Baxter News Staff

Posted 5 hours ago

Decibel level records could be set at Festival Place this Friday thanks to the Hanson brothers.

Zac, Taylor and Isaac catapulted to teen heartthrob supremacy in the late ’90s with the release of their infectious single “MMMBop,” and the release of their major-label debut Middle of Nowhere, which went on to earn three Grammy nominations.

The trio will be performing to a sold-out crowd on Friday at 7:30 p.m. as part of their most extensive Canadian tour to date.

“It’s really kind of the end of a touring cycle, so we’ve had a lot of chances to see fans all over the world and I think it’s time to see how the Canadian fans stack up, Taylor said.

While the tour is mainly to promote their latest album, Shout it Out, Taylor said that doesn’t mean they won’t be revisiting other hits, which could be from as far back as their “MMMBop” days.

“For us, it’s really just about making it an experience where people walk away saying, ‘I want to come back,’” Taylor said.

Hanson’s grown up, and so has their sound. Their latest album, Shout it Out, is a homage to the classic American rock sounds of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s that influenced the trio growing up. The tracks were all penned by the band and were produced on their label, 3CG Records.

Special guest appearances from Funk Brothers bassist Bob Babitt and horn arranger Jerry Hey — who is credited for working with Michael Jackson — among others, assisted in creating the unique blend of classic and modern heard on the album.

“There’s great music in every era, but what happened in the ’60s and the ’50s before that was that combination of rhythm and kind of the modern pop song,” Taylor said. “You never just want to be repeating something that happened. You’re always looking for inspiration and then trying to make it your own and reinvent the things you find inspiring.”

Hanson decided to step outside the box with Shout it Out, and created a package for the album that connected listening with art. The platinum package goes far beyond the usual album booklet and includes a custom record player, headphones, a photo book, LP, screenprinted poster, documentary, a listening manual and unreleased demos from the album. On top of all this, each package also held a one-of-a-kind painting by one of the band

members.

The trio created 113 paintings in the weeks leading up to the album’s release. Each is signed and the entire collection was made into a book, which reflects the band’s vision for the album, and their art itself.

“We’re musicians, but we’ve always enjoyed all aspects of that expression and I think we wanted the record to be a little more of a celebration of surviving this long,” Taylor said of the band’s five records and nearly 20 years of performing together.

The artwork furthers the intent of Shout it Out, which he said conjured the images of bold colours and speaking one’s mind.

“It’s a message that’s saying be bold, and really it’s just kind of being comfortable in our own skin,” Taylor said.

Fans could soon be enjoying Hanson’s music with their own brand of beer called MMMHops. The name was jokingly suggested by Isaac, but stuck. Taylor said the endeavour is also being done as a celebration of the band’s longevity.

“To us, it kind of fit into this taking it up a notch; taking it to the next level, thinking about our fan base getting older, thinking about us as life continues to change,” he said, adding they are in the process of finding a partner brewer.

After hitting a milestone in music at an age when many are just starting out, Hanson doesn’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon. Fans can expect more music in the coming year as the band works on a new album.

For more information about Hanson visit www.hanson.net.

meaghan@sherwoodparknews.com,

twitter.com/Meaghan_Baxter

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In an MMMBop they’re here – Hanson plays Festival Place Friday

Scientists are unclear on the exact length of time represented by an “MMMBop” – a subjective temporal paradox wherein a long period of time is perceived as a short period of time.

“It’s a reference to how time passes really quickly in your own life,” explains Isaac Hanson, who discovered the existence of the MMMBop with his brothers Taylor and Zac in the 1997 chart-topping song of the same name. “Suddenly half your life is gone and you’re wondering where it went … It’s an indefinable period of time only perceived by the individual thinking about it.”

Recent evidence: It seems like only an MMMBop has gone by since the kid brother trio from Oklahoma took the world by storm with its chirpy ode to the ephemeral nature of life – “When you get old and start losing your hair, can you tell me who will still care?” – and now the all growed up Hanson brothers play a sold-out Festival Place in Sherwood Park Friday night, their first proper gig in town. They haven’t changed a bit. Oh, maybe the keys to some of the songs have been taken down a bit, but “the nuts and bolts have stayed the same,” Isaac says.

Hanson is part of an elite club of musicians whose hit songs may be more famous than they are. For some, these life-changing, career-defining tunes became burdens of shame, albatrosses around their necks. Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan once said that “Smoke on the Water” seemed to take on a Frankensteinian life of its own, effectively holding its creators hostage. They tried taking it out of the show, he said, but bad things mysteriously started to happen – fans got really pissed off.

Hanson, which will play MMMBop at the show not because they have to but because they want to, doesn’t feel any resentment about their signature hit at all.

Isaac says, “First and foremost, every single story has a first chapter, and what better place to start than with an incredibly successful song that you wrote – allowing you to release multiple records for the 15 years and allowing you to attain the goals you set out achieve when you started?”

It means a lot when your defining song is a song you actually wrote, he says. Many young artists became famous for hits they didn’t write, which might make it difficult if it’s a song you’re not “emotionally attached to,” Isaac says. Not to mention financially attached, and he doesn’t want to get into that, declaring that Hanson “has never done anything for the money,” which isn’t the point. It’s just that it must also be hard to be slave to a hit that someone else gets all the money for. Ask the guy from the Bay City Rollers.

As for the burden of alleged one-hit wonderment, Isaac says that even people like Paul McCartney get typecast.

“Here’s one of the greatest artists of all time, so many hits you almost can’t count them, but he gets married the second time and the headline is, ‘She Loves Him, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.’ Billy Joel Joel will always be known as the Piano Man, and it’s not even his most successful song. It doesn’t define him. No matter who you are, no matter how many successful songs you have, you will always shave certain songs that are identifiable to you – which is not a limitation in any way shape or form.”

At least MMMBop wasn’t a freak of nature. Many a worthy band has had a mainstream career made more difficult by a hit song that doesn’t sound like any other music they did. Smash Mouth (Walkin’ on the Sun) and Soul Asylum (Runaway Train) are but two examples.

Hanson, meanwhile, still sounds like Hanson. They never broke up, they never went away, there was never any need for a big reunion. As Isaac says, the success of MMMBop allowed the brothers to make records for the last 15 years, aside from the bump when they got on the wrong side of a record label merger. Now on their own label 3CG Records and associating with people like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, one of the band’s latest singles (from the 2010 album “Shout It Out”) is Thinking ‘Bout Somethin’, a boppy, bubbly track that evokes Up With People even while its expensive video pays tribute to the Blues Brothers (see below). The song oozes positivity and good vibrations, with lyrics like “if you’re not too proud to beg, I could give you some respect” paying obvious homage to the R&B stars of yore. In short, it’s perfectly in character for Hanson.

Grown up child stars have to prove their credibility twice: Once when they’re kids and no one takes them seriously, and again when they’re all grow up – and no one takes them seriously. Hanson has a lot of live up to. Their little song became so ubiquitous that they were subject to cruel jokes on late night television. Ellen DeGeneres once said of the youngest Hanson Zac, “She’s really cute.” On national television. And you thought high school was bad for bullying.

“So what?” is Isaac’s quite mature and reasonable response. “If you know us every well, you’d know we’re pretty headstrong. We’re not easily affected by that king of thing. Here’s the other thing: It doesn’t matter of you’re 16 or 26 or 46, you’re going to have challenges. You’re going to either be too young, too old, too clean cut, too dirty, too whatever. And if you’re a hipster, you know what? You’ve got a curse, too. It means you can’t make it mainstream most of the time. It’s very hard to transition out of being so tragically hip.”

You don’t know how close to the bone you cut there, buddy.

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Hanson's journey from teen pop to marriage and fatherhood

By Megan Cole - Nelson Star
Published: January 23, 2012 3:00 PM 
Updated: January 23, 2012 3:27 PM

From the cover of Tiger Beat to fatherhood and marriage, the Hanson brothers have come a long way since MmmBop topped the charts.

The music industry was complete different with the absence of iTunes, iPods and the internet.

Their first album Middle of Nowhere - which was released in 1997, 15 years ago - was released on cassette.

"We really did come out... at the last chapter of one world," Taylor Hanson told the Star. "Our first record came out on cassette and there were LPs and obviously CDs, and the whole Internet development was really at it's infancy then. There's been some sad moments looking at the overall industry and realizing how frustrating it is for all the music world to not have thought ahead and made plans for the future."

Taylor, Isaac and Zac released their ninth album Shout it Out in 2011, which even though Taylor said he avoids storytelling lyrics, reflects the change in their lives.

"Aside from being in a band period, anyone who has kids knows that it changes your life," he said. "Your whole perspective on the world and kind of existence changes because you see yourself in your kids, and then you also realize that you're turning into your parents and it's all just bizarre."

All three brothers are now married with children. Taylor has four kids of his own.

"I've never particularly written in a super autobiographical way," he said about how his songwriting has changed with kids and marriage. "The songwriters I've always admired are the ones that write things that are cloaked in metaphor and are super approachable. What people hear isn't so much 'I'm so happy, I have a family.' But it does influence your thinking in fact the love songs on Shout it Out are more of a reflection of being in a relationship and making it through life."

The Hansons have been making it through life and the business world together since they were children.

Aside from creating their own music, they have in a sense become a brand with their own label and extensive merchandise.

"It can be challenging to spend so much time with my brothers, that's for sure," said Taylor. "But what's it like, it's a lot better than it is hard. We have so many things in common and so many common interests. We work well together. We're not the same though."

The brothers, like all siblings have their clashes, but Taylor said they don't run from the fights, they face them head on.

"It requires a lot of respect for each other, you really have to have a mutual respect for each other," he said. "Sometimes we'll have people look at us after [we clash] and say 'gosh that was really intense,' and we go 'yeah, whatever.'"

The brothers have travelled from the stages of Carnegie Hall and Hollywood Bowl to the lecture halls of Oxford University where they talked about the Hanson business.

"One of the things about the Hanson business, especially for the last five or six years, but especially since we started the label our whole model is the idea that we sort of do extra special things for the devout fans," said Taylor.

Those "special things" include custom chocolates for Valentines Day, and a custom Monopoly board game called Hansonopoly.

"In all of that the whole idea is just sort of realizing your fans and the people that like what you do, how do you connect with them on a bigger way and make a bigger statement about your culture," he said.

But while at Oxford the brothers let a secret slip, a new product was in the works which would play tongue-and-cheek tribute to the song that got it all started.

"We sort of let the cat out of the bag a couple months ago... and mentioned that we were developing this idea and it sort of caught a lot of ears and ended up all over the place, 'Hanson is doing a beer,'" said Taylor.

"There beer is going to be called MmmHop and it's clearly tongue and cheek, it's a joke, but it will probably be a pale ale or an IPA, a stronger flavoured beer."

Even though the brothers weren't legal drinking age when MmmBop hit number one in 27 countries, Taylor said that him and older brother Isaac enjoy a good beer.

"There's room for alcohol and substances in art. Definitely you need a lubricant to keep the creative juices flowing," said Taylor.

It has been 20 years since Hanson played their first show which included songs like Rockin' Robin and Splish Splash, but Taylor said he can't really imagine doing anything else.

"There are a lot of things that we all enjoy, and I know for me when we started doing a lot of activism work on the last album and focusing on poverty relief in Africa and we started doing these one mile barefoot walks and encouraging our fans to get involved in that effort to look at poverty," he said. "That to me opened up a whole new aspiration and a whole new realization that is something that I could imagine doing that and being fulfilled, focusing on all that effort."

But in the end Taylor said, "The core of who we are and why we do it really hasn't changed. We do genuinely love making things. We love making music. We love playing."

Hanson will take the stage at the Capitol Theatre on Sunday night at 8 p.m. Ticket information is available through the Capitol Theatre.

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Hanson brothers rooted in soul

Fans crave contact and the boys are smart enough not to hole up out of touch

 

By Tom Harrison, The Province January 23, 2012 5:30 AM

With the encouragement of the trio's fans, Hanson is doing what it wants.

This is freedom, of sorts.

Isaac, Zac and Taylor Hanson have created a bond between themselves and their fans, which has led to the creation of an independent label, spurred them on to special projects, and reinforced their activism, all while surviving tall and strong when around them the music industry is crumbling.

Hanson probably could have gone on untroubled when the 1997 single "MMMBop" from their first major label release, Middle of Nowhere, made it an instant teen sensation. Immediately, Hanson had three Grammy nominations and since has sold 16 million albums.

It instinctively knew that a teen sensation had a superficial career. When its Mercury label folded and Hanson was shunted over to Mercury's successor, Def Jam, there was disagreement. Hanson spotted it, and so began a four-year struggle to break free and set up its own label.

In the meantime, also recognizing a threat to its credibility, Han-son began to forge closer links with its fans. It started with a fanzine, MOE, then issued special CDs and DVDs, a book, film documentaries and podcasts.

Now, Hanson can make the records it wants - 2007's The Walk is described by Taylor as heavy, more for its subject matter, including AIDS in Africa and world poverty, than for its music, while last year's Shout It Out, Taylor says, is a lighter revisitation of the band's roots in soul.

Hanson can also release its records without obeying a corporate schedule. It can develop as it wants to, and it is flying successfully, undetected by the music industry radar.

It can do all this as long as the fans are there. They are, and Hanson is listening to them.

"We definitely want to make records, but our fans want more con-tact," says Taylor.

This roughly means that the fans would rather get closer to the Tulsa, Okla., brothers via tours and blogs and videos than have them holed up somewhere out of touch indefinitely making records.

That they can do it is the end result of a battle to get off the corporate treadmill.

Hanson set up its own independent company in 2003, called 3CG, and saw that its best chance for survival was direct communication with its fans.

The fans have responded to Hanson's invitation to interaction. They feel like they are part of the band. In return, the trio has kept up its special releases, such as the Stand Up Stand Up EP, sold only at Hanson concerts, exploiting more than most bands MySpace and iTunes, and showing up in unexpected places such as the Katy Perry video for "Friday Night."

"You feel like you're working for someone else," Taylor explains of the need to set up its own label, "rather than having people who are sup-posed to be working for you.

"We're fiercely independent," he continues. "Everything comes out of our pocket. It's a great place to be if you don't mind the extra work."

Taylor and his brothers were caught in the endless conflict between "art and commerce," witnesses to what he calls a "paradigm shift" in the music industry that resulted in more attention being paid to the bottom line while losing touch with the desires of the audience.

"It's a wonder that records got made at all," says Taylor.

"We made our decision quickly. From the vantage point we had, we could see where it was heading. We weren't afraid to leave our label because we had such a strong connection with our audience.

"You need your fans to trust you and you have to build on that trust."

Still in the early years of what looks to be a long career, Isaac, 31, Taylor, 28, and Zac, 26 (all three are married with children), felt free to go back.

One of the products of its trust is Shout It Out, Hanson's rediscovery of the rhythm and blues that inspired the brothers.

"It was easy to make," Taylor says. "Five records in (not counting early releases, live albums, EPs or special releases), it was the easiest. It reminded me of just how much of our music comes from soul.

"It was a matter of, it's been a while since I've heard that Ray Charles album or it's been a while since I played Otis Redding's 'Try a Little Tenderness.'"

------------

IN CONCERT: Hanson

Where: Vogue Theatre, 918 Granville St.

When: Monday at 8 p.m.

Tickets: $35 at voguetheatre.com

tharrison@theprovince.com

© Copyright (c) The Province

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/Hanson+brothers+rooted+soul/6036417/story.html#ixzz1kIOYZpJ5

Read more »

Hanson still rocking on

By Tom Harrison, The Province January 23, 2012 5:32 AM

With the encouragement of the trio’s fans, Hanson is doing what it wants.

This is freedom, of sorts.

Isaac, Zac and Taylor Hanson have created a bond between themselves and their fans, which has led to the creation of an independent label, spurred them on to special projects, and reinforced their activism, all while surviving tall and strong when around them the music industry is crumbling.

Hanson probably could have gone on untroubled when the 1997 single “MMMBop” from their first major label release, Middle of Nowhere, made it an instant teen sensation. Immediately, Hanson had three Grammy nominations and since has sold 16 million albums.

It instinctively knew that a teen sensation had a superficial career. When its Mercury label folded and Hanson was shunted over to Mercury’s successor, Def Jam, there was disagreement. Hanson spotted it, and so began a four-year struggle to break free and set up its own label.

In the meantime, also recognizing a threat to its credibility, Hanson began to forge closer links with its fans. It started with a fanzine, MOE, then issued special CDs and DVDs, a book, film documentaries and podcasts.

Now, Hanson can make the records it wants — 2007’s The Walk is described by Taylor as heavy, more for its subject matter, including AIDS in Africa and world poverty, than for its music, while last year’s Shout It Out, Taylor says, is a lighter revisitation of the band’s roots in soul.

Hanson can also release its records without obeying a corporate schedule, it can develop as it wants to, and it is flying successfully undetected by the music industry radar.

It can do all this as long as the fans are there.

They are, and Hanson is listening to them.

“We definitely want to make records, but our fans want more contact,” says Taylor.

This roughly means that the fans would rather get closer to the Tulsa, Okla., brothers via tours and blogs and videos than have them holed up somewhere out of touch indefinitely making records.

That they can do it is the end result of a battle to get off the corporate treadmill.

Hanson set up its own independent company in 2003, called 3CG, and saw that its best chance for survival was direct communication with its fans.

The fans have responded to Hanson’s invitation to interaction. They feel like they are part of the band. In return, the trio has kept up its special releases, such as the Stand Up Stand Up EP, sold only at Hanson concerts, exploiting more than most bands MySpace and iTunes, and showing up in unexpected places such as the Katy Perry video for “ Friday Night.”

“You feel like you’re working for someone else,” Taylor explains of the need to set up its own label, “rather than having people who are supposed to be working for you.

“We’re fiercely independent,” he continues. “Everything comes out of our pocket. It’s a great place to be if you don’t mind the extra work.”

Taylor and his brothers were caught in the endless conflict between “art and commerce,” witnesses to what he calls a “paradigm shift” in the music industry that resulted in more attention being paid to the bottom line while losing touch with the desires of the audience.

“It’s a wonder that records got made at all,” says Taylor.

“We made our decision quickly. From the vantage point we had, we could see where it was heading. We weren’t afraid to leave our label because we had such a strong connection with our audience.

“You need your fans to trust you and you have to build on that trust.”

Still in the early years of what looks to be a long career, Isaac, 31, Taylor, 28, and Zac, 26 (all three are married with children), felt free to go back.

One of the products of its trust is Shout It Out, Hanson’s rediscovery of the rhythm and blues that inspired the brothers.

“It was easy to make,” Taylor says. “Five records in, (not counting early releases, live albums, EPs or special releases) it was the easiest. It reminded me of just how much of our music comes from soul.

“It was a matter of, ‘it’s been a while since I’ve heard that Ray Charles album or it’s been a while since I played Otis Redding’s ‘Try a Little Tenderness.’”

tharrison@theprovince.com

--------

In concert Hanson

Where: Vogue Theatre, 918 Granville St.

When: Monday at 8 p.m.

Tickets: $35 at voguetheatre.com

© Copyright (c) The Province

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/Hanson+still+rocking/6034485/story.html#ixzz1kIOKwJD1

Read more »

Hanson brothers enjoying career on their own terms

HANSON

When: Jan. 23, 8 p.m.

Where: Vogue Theatre, 918 Granville

Tickets: $35 at voguetheatre.com

Now 20 years into a career that some predicted wouldn't last much beyond a few records, the three multi-instrumentalist brothers (Zac, Taylor and Isaac) that make up Hanson (www. hanson.net) have managed to find a nice little niche for themselves in the music world.

If they haven't found a multimillion selling single to compete with their breakout hit MMMBop (1997) they've still established themselves as a successful independent act after severing ties with Island Def Jam in 2001. Both Underneath (2004) and The Walk (2007) have done well on their band owned 3CG label, and while they've kept true to their signature pop-soul style they've also, dare we say, matured as musicians. Most endearingly they all still live in Tulsa, Oklahoma where they were born and raised.

Postmedia: It seems like most bands, when they finish touring, split off to different parts of the country.

Zac Hanson: Yeah, it's true that we don't go to separate cities but we do go to separate worlds. When we're not working we have different ways of relaxing; music brings us together, but if we weren't musicians we probably wouldn't be that close. I mean, we have this mutual interest in the band and we respect and enjoy each other's company, but other than that we're very different.

Q: How do you manage to make it work, then?

Zac: It's a constant challenge; there was something Bono once said about being in a band for a long time: it's like pushing back the tide. It's impossible but somehow we've done it. It's a hard process, especially when things get crazy and you consider stopping, but it's always a fleeting thought. Clearly there's so much fulfilment in what we do that to stop isn't really a consideration, though sometimes ...

Q: Well, you're still young; there's always the possibility of throwing in the towel and managing a Target.

Zac: (Laughs) Actually, I can romanticize working at the fast food chain down the street. That might be nice, just making combo number 6s all the time, get discounts on my meal.

Q: Do you still look back with fondness on your beginnings?

Zac: For us, being successful in the '90s was a form of torture because we got lumped in with a number of teen pop artists that were making music that wasn't anything like what we did. We were like 'Please, please don't put me in that category.' Yeah, we've always been lovers of great songwriters. You listen to Otis Redding all your life, and then Billy Joel and James Taylor and you automatically search for hooks and melodies.

Q: You can hear that love of Motown and Stax on your last album, (2010's) Shout it Out. For Shout it Out you brought in (Motown bassist) Bob Babbitt on a few tracks, which must have been more than a little thrilling.

Zac: Oh, man, we had so much fun with Bob. He just told stories all day long, and you can't stop him, because it's in his personality, but you also don't want him to stop. Being around him is like reading this amazing history book.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Hanson+brothers+enjoying+career+their+terms/6031856/story.html#ixzz1k85WMVrU

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