HOST: They say that showbiz is a risky business, especially for kids. Well, our next guests are three brothers who were just 11, 14, and 16 when they shot to fame. They’ve changed quite a bit since then so before we meet them, let’s take a look at how you’ll remember them. (video clip of “MMMBop”) Isaac, Taylor, Zac Hanson. Thank you for coming in. And it’s great to see how you’ve changed.

ZAC: Yeah, well 10 years will definitely do that.

HOST: Yeah, for sure. Now when you look back at that, does it feel like it really wasn’t you? Cos you watched it in stony silence just then.

TAYLOR: No, no, you’re misinterpreting that. That’s just a night of tired, in the middle of the tour. Honestly, it doesn’t feel like a different person at all. Those are songs that we wrong, songs that we performed and produced and since then, four albums later toured the world many times over…

HOST: So in the UK we’ve been wondering what you’ve been doing in that time. You have been very busy, haven’t you?

TAYLOR: Well, actually it’s pretty exciting cos…

ISAAC: We were here before we had a top 10 with “Penny & Me,” which was our last single of our last album. So, yeah, things are actually been really good for us, especially even in the UK. The UK has been a very, very supportive group.

HOST: I know, we have people phoning up our office saying they’re going to line the streets, seriously, when they heard you were going to be on. Isaac, how would you say your music has changed in that time when you first hit the scene. You’ve matured a lot, cos your lives have changed a lot, haven’t they?

ISAAC: Our lives obviously have changed. Ten years, as Zac said, will do that. Certainly as writers I think everything about what you are writing about continues to evolve and I don’t think it’s a maturity thing, I think it’s just a life thing. Every record that you make is different and you have different influences. I think this latest record pulls from the Motown influences and stuff from kind of the first record, the R&B and kind of gospel stuff from the second record, and the more folksy stuff from the last record.

HOST: Should we have a look at your new single?

ALL: Sure!

HOST: It really is quite different, isn’t it? It’s great, I really like it. You’ve recently been to Africa, haven’t you, Zac? Just tell me a little bit about how that all came about and the affect it had on you.

ZAC: Well, we decided to go to Africa. There’s three songs on the record that have children’s choirs from South Africa and Mozambique and that was really inspired because a group of guys from Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is where we’re from, they were giving away a piece of technology that they had created to a hospital in Soweto. We heard that and we felt really inspired about what they were doing and the fact that they were using the things they had available to them to make a difference. Them saying, “We don’t have a perfect solution but we’re going to give what we can to make a difference.”

HOST: And you’re trying to raise money now, aren’t you?

ZAC: Well, that just really struck us and we decided to go to Africa and then just to figure out what it is we could do, what role we could play, how to find a little piece we could play in and we just realized that our music was really at least the first thing we can use to make a difference. The idea of recording with children’s choirs from South Africa and Mozambique came about…

ISAAC: The important thing to say about that is the song “Great Divide,” which is one of the songs we recorded with the choirs is available on iTunes, all the proceeds from that song, from that digital release go directly to the hospital. We felt like that was the most straightforward and the most cost effective way to get the most amount of money to them. And that’s just the beginning. We want to do a lot more. A song is just the tip of the iceberg, hopefully a lot more in the future.

HOST: So you’ve been together as brothers and professional working partners for so long now and now you two are both dads, you just recently Isaac?

ISAAC: Yes.

HOST: What’s it like having families of your own? What kind of change does that make to your work?

ISAAC: Again, I think life affects you in kind of a subconscious and conscious way musically, but it’s hard to tell exactly what affect that’s going to have.

TAYLOR: For the two week old…

ISAAC: For my two week old son, exactly.

HOST: Actually you get more sleep now on tour than you do at home basically.

ISAAC: Yeah, exactly.

HOST: Hey Hanson, great to talk to you. Thank you very much for coming in. good luck to you.