By JULIA LECONTE
Oklahoma's trio of blond-mopped brothers, most famous for their breakout 1997 single MMMBop, have been performing together for 21 years. They have always written their own tunes and played their own instruments. They still tour the world regularly.
But when we sit down at the Thompson Hotel this past summer, Taylor (now 30), Zac (28) and Isaac Hanson (32) – now all brunettes, actually – aren't particularly hell-bent on proving themselves. By now, they seem settled and confident as a self-run band who certainly don't have the fame they once did, but don't seem to mind, either.
They've got southern charm and friendliness to spare. They're also very professional, media-familiar in the way most former child stars are, and focused on promoting their sixth studio album, Anthem, whose supporting tour they bring to the Danforth Music Hall Saturday (November 9).
It seems like you always have a novel approach to your live shows.Zac: Some of the early people we worked with – business partners and managers – were all big fans of the jam band scene. One thing we pulled from them was the idea that each concert is an individual experience, which is part of building the relationship with your fans, giving them the sense that they’re always going to get something special. It’s not a broadway show where you’re going to hit your marks every night. There's supposed to be risk.
Taylor: It’s not just, "We’re here to go through the city and check it off the box." It’s a calling card. Our statement about who we are as a band is very much about the community, very much about the show. A lot of people know Hanson for having pop hits, but really what makes Hanson is that relationship with the fans.
You guys have released albums at a really civilized pace. Is that because you want some normalcy and downtime? Taylor: Honestly, we have a long track we have to run every album. We have, thankfully, fans in different parts of the world, and the truth is we’ve tried to do it faster but it always ends up being about three years because it usually takes us about two to make the rounds.
We take our records really seriously as far as the production goes. We really like to fine-tune it. We’re just old-school I guess. As much as we like to cram it out, it almost always ends up being a three-year cycle.
Is that track exhausting?Zac: It plays two roles. It’s exhausting but it also exhausts you of that process, allowing you to be ready to come back and write another record.
Taylor: We really believe in the idea of shorter cycles, the concept of it. We would love to be in a place where we could be releasing shorter pieces of music with more consecutive release. But there is a physical positive and negative, which is, if you want to be a touring band and you want to connect with your fans, you can only get so many places in so many days.
Isaac: There is actually one other thing to say, too, which is we actually record a five-song EP for our fan club every single year.
Taylor: That’s one of the ways that the core fans don’t feel completely starved. In the future, signing up to be in the community is where it’s going. People pay 40 bucks a year to be a part of the fan club and that includes extra music and access to web stuff and lots of events that we do. The truth is, few people are actually buying albums these days. It’s not long before we feel like anyone that's actually going to buy a record might as well be in the fan club.
You’re selling me on the fan club right now.Isaac: There’s literally more music for the fan club than there is mass releases. Collectively.
You're all family men, so how do you balance all of that output with your family time?Zac: Balance is not a great word for what we do. You really just have to live in the moment and focus on what’s in front of you and be really present when you are with your family.
Isaac: Being married or being a parent doesn’t necessarily quote on quote “change” you. It’s a different part of your life, it’s an important part of your life, but it doesn’t mean that just because I got married, just because I had kids, that I stop being a musician. No, the antithesis of that.
Thank god we’re not doing tours of Iraq, getting shot at. You know? There are a lot of guys and a lot of girls that have situations where they’re gone a lot from their family.
Most of the other acts that were charting during your peak have long since disbanded. How much of your longevity is because you’re a family and because you’re brothers?Zac: Ultimately, what holds a band together is not that. It's the quality of the relationships and keeping those good and realizing that, once you go there, once you act like an asshole, you’ve always gone that far. So you have to really be conscious of your interactions with each other and not let yourself become a stereotype of what bands are like.
Taylor: Just to bring it back to the album: this record’s called Anthem. In a lot of ways, it’s like a self-titled album. These songs are anthemic to us. And hopefully become anthems for our fans. But when we started off, we had a plan to record it and write it in pieces. And release it [piece by piece] last year. And we hit a total brick wall. Internally we were all just up in each other’s space. We were clashing.
Isaac: Actively
Zac: There were swords and shields.
Taylor: We’re not a band that would have just fallen apart by accident, but we definitely had to say: do we want to make another record? And that's what defines Hanson: the decision to rethink and recalibrate and come back to music. Ten years ago when we started the label, most bands would have broken up. But we chose to find a way to keep doing it, and really, it’s not because of some broad metaphoric reason. It is about the music, this is what we do, and we’re too stubborn to quit. And this record, it’s probably our best. And six albums in, 21 years in, we feel like we're making our best music.
• Nov 9, 2013 at 11:02 AM
David Wild
