Chelsea Lately
12 Novemeber 2007

CHELSEA: In 1997 my next guests "MMMBopped" their way to the top of the music charts all over the world and now they're all grown up and back on tour. Please welcome Hanson! Hi! Thank you two for kissing me, I don’t know what your problem is.

ZAC: I don't know, I tend to just refrain from all that.

CHELSEA: ...all that sexual contact?

ZAC: It’s just something I’m still uncomfortable with.

CHELSEA: I understand, I’m not going to pressure you.

ZAC: My wife’s like, “Honey, kiss me!” I’m like, “But you’re a girl!” No, I’m teasing.

CHELSEA: First tell everybody—you’re all married now, right?

TAYLOR: Yes, we’re all married.

CHELSEA: And you’re very young. You’re 22, right?

ZAC: I’m 22. Taylor’s 24 and Isaac’s 26.

CHELSEA: And 26. And let me just say, I saw you ten years ago on Rosie when I was 22 and you were half my age and now ten years later you’re all married, I’m still single, and there’s no chance for marriage any time soon.

ZAC: The way we’ve kind of lived our lives in general has always been on our own time schedule and I don’t –we started a band when I was 6, so the idea of being married young I guess just kind of fits in…

TAYLOR: I think we all just met women who would marry us so it was like, “Oh my God! Quick! Grab them!”

CHELSEA: When you were 6 you met your wife?

ZAC: Well no, more when I was… 15.

CHELSEA: Oh, well at least you waited.

ZAC: I waited till I was older, you know, to find my soul mate.

CHELSEA: So I know you guys probably get this question a million times, but I really need to know: What the hell is “MMMBop” about? I don’t understand the meaning of that song and I need to know cos it’s very catchy and I can’t stop singing it.

ZAC: I would like to know what “MMMBopping our way to the top” is cos I’m totally confused at how you do that.

TAYLOR: How do you do that?

CHELSEA: Oh, I’ll show you how it’s done, it’s easy.

TAYLOR: You need to know what it is first to know how to “MMMBop” to the top?

CHELSEA: Yeah, but mine’s different. Mine’s like an “M-M-MMMMBop…” So it’s totally different.

ISAAC: I was going to say “boink,” but even…

TAYLOR: Even “MMM-Boinking” your way to the top, that’s why there’s no marriage yet.

CHELSEA: …to the top, or even mid-level, it is E!

ZAC: Basically, that song it’s kind of funny cos we still play it and when we play it the meaning behind it is totally different than it was ten years ago. When it came out ten years ago, it was a song honestly about how most things in life are futile but to our fans now I think they represent the things that last. They’re kind of like, “Wow, we’re here ten years later. Most things in life are futile but I’m still here with Hanson.”

CHELSEA: You’re still MMMBopping.

ZAC: We’re still MMMBopping, yeah.

CHELSEA: Good for you.

ISAAC: Strangely, that was actually what the song was about, that stuff was going to go away, things are going to come in and out of your life but what are the things that really matter? We feel lucky to have fans that have stuck with us for that long.

TAYLOR: It is the ten year anniversary so… every time we play that song…

CHELSEA: It is the ten year anniversary?

TAYLOR: Yeah, 2007/97.

CHELSEA: So you guys—there’s a Hanson cult though, there are some really, really crazy fans.

TAYLOR: They only roast goats every once in a while. There’s definitely some very crazy Hanson fans.

ZAC: Hanson Heads. The closest thing I can think of is Deadheads or Phish. In a good way. More showering, less bead working. But in the sense of—

TAYLOR: More pot.

CHELSEA: They smoke more pot?

TAYLOR: Probably.

ZAC: They have more pots, it’s a cooking thing…

CHELSEA: Mmhm, sure it is. I love pots and pans.

TAYLOR: I think there’s just a connection. We’ve always said we didn’t want it to be just about a song, we wanted it to be a connection. Every show we do is a different thing.

CHELSEA: Which one of you has three children?

TAYLOR: I do.

ZAC: Taylor has.

CHELSEA: And do you have kids?

ZAC: I don’t have any kids.

CHELSEA: My God, you guys are amazing. It’s like you’re going to live nine lives or something.

ZAC: We’re working on it.

ISAAC: We’re working on it.

TAYLOR: We’re working on it, but we have to raise a few more kids, put them to work.

CHELSEA: Are you going to have more kids than three kids?

TAYLOR: I probably will.

CHELSEA: Yeah, you guys are really intimidating.

ZAC: Well yeah, we’re working on it. Basically just populating the world and then we’ll own everything and we’ll run everything and the world will be a better place.

CHELSEA: So do you have any really crazy fan things that have happened to you?

ISAAC: People breaking into your hotel room, and things like that.

TAYLOR: Or walking into your hotel room and seeing fans. We’ve had times where we were doing an in store and they had to actually--they closed off the parking garage the night before so we could pull in the morning and go up and we actually had fans that had slept—snuck in and slept underneath cars. So we pulled in to go to the thing and then out comes—you got to think you’re the girl that’s like, “I’m going to sleep under the car!” So she jumps out, she’s all ready to go in her outfit but she’s covered in grease. You’re like, “You know, you didn’t really think this one through!” She’s like, “They’re going to take me into their arms and they’re going to say, ‘I’m so glad you’re here you grease covered girl.’”

CHELSEA: So you guys have a new CD and this is very different from your last CD, right?

TAYLOR: It’s not actually so different except there’s a few—I mean, we’ve always kind of been rooted in classic R&B and rock & roll and this record we sort of really took it back to basics. We recorded it as much live as we possibly could and just off the floor. And we’ve been doing these—the record’s called The Walk and so we started doing these walks. We’ve done 33 walks.

ZAC: 33 miles.

TAYLOR: 33 miles.

ZAC: And we do them all barefoot, so just different cities throughout the country…

CHELSEA: You just walk through different cities barefoot?

TAYLOR: We invite our fans to come with us at a show, each show, walk a mile barefoot…

CHELSEA: What if I wanted to do the walk and wear clogs?

TAYLOR: Well then we’d scold you for not taking your shoes off.

CHELSEA: Okay, that’s fine. I love clogs, maybe I’m just asking.

ZAC: You do, and maybe you’re just trying to help all those Dutch people.

CHELSEA: The Dutch are really in need of help!

TAYLOR: They need you to buy their clogs!

ZAC: They’ve got all those dikes that need, that they need to keep up the dikes otherwise…

CHELSEA: Water dikes everyone, water dikes!! Thank you guys very much for being here. that’s it for tonight, we’ll see you guys tomorrow. Chuy, come over and meet your idols!