PAST APPEARANCES

Tulsa's Best With Megan West
09 August 2007

KRAIG, HOST: Well, our tour of Tulsa continues tonight. We’ve had Megan West on site to give us that flavor of this fine city all week long. So far we’ve met Miss America and tonight, a band of married young men who’s all grown up. You might not know who they are—unless you live here—I guarantee Megan West does now. It’s our “Tulsa’s Best With Megan West.”

MEGAN: Hi everyone. The PGA Championship is stealing the show in Tulsa this week, but there are plenty of famous acts who are Tulsans. Among the biggest headliners: Garth Brooks, Brooks & Dunn, and the late, great Gene Autry. But they’re not the only ones. Remember these guys? That’s right, music stars Hanson. All grown up, born and raised and still living right here in Tulsa, and we got a special invite to go in and check out their rehearsal.

ZAC: I got like, 10 bucks he never makes any of them.

MEGAN: Don’t quit your day job? Zac, should we talk about the new album coming out?

ZAC: That would probably be better.

MEGAN: So, for 15 years you guys have been at this. One thing that has remained constant the entire time: Tulsa being home.

TAYLOR: Yep, always has been.

MEGAN: How so?

TAYLOR: Well, no matter where we were we always paid our taxes.

ZAC: That’s kind of how we’ve always jokingly said it. I don’t know, Tulsa has always been somewhere we’ve come back to. A good, middle America place to be from.

MEGAN: Well, it’s been 10 years since the biggie…

ISAAC: Middle of Nowhere, yeah.

MEGAN: “MMMBop’ of course. So, you’ve certainly grown up and changed a lot. You were heartthrobs, you had the whole world singing your song. Everybody can still do it. What was that like?

ISAAC: It’s something that you can’t possibly describe and I get more perspective on it as the years go on cos when you’re in the middle of it, it’s very surreal.

TAYLOR: The fact that… we started off very young because we just didn’t want to wait. We were like, “We want to make music. Why wait?” And now you have fans all over the world.

MEGAN: Not just about “MMMBop” at all, is it?

ISAAC: No, “MMMBop” is one if the greatest things that we’ve had the opportunity to have, which is… you never can expect what happened with that song.

TAYLOR: Also, something that we wrote, something we were proud of.

MEGAN: You three were the heartthrobs of the world, what was that like? Come on! I mean, really!

ISAAC: I think that’s what just about every band wants.

ZAC: Girls and music. What better combination.

MEGAN: How did you stay so grounded, though? Let’s face it: a lot of people get in trouble these days. Either you guys were really smart and knew people in high places or you really did do the right thing,

ISAAC: We were really smart.

ZAC: Honestly, in a lot of ways I think coming back to Tulsa is probably part of it. The decision to say, “You know, we’re going to be from somewhere. We’re not going to do what every other band does and move out to the big city.”

MEGAN: This album seems like it is much different than all the others. How so? This has been a special pilgrimage of sorts.

TAYLOR: Actually, the interesting thing about this record is it’s the first record in a long time we’ve actually made in Tulsa and we really decided to capture a moment in time and recorded it here.

MEGAN: Isaac, the accolades are huge. You have Bono from U2 calling you guys genius. Howard Stern is in love with you guys, thinks you have the best voices and talent.

ISAAC: If you can go on in a situation like Stern where you don’t even know how the interview is going to go, you always feel like you got your weapons of music in your hands, and as long as you’ve got that you’re okay.

TAYLOR: As long as you’re having a good time doing it and as long as every time you go out, whether you’re playing a show or whether you’re attempting to swing a golf club—which we don’t do often—

MEGAN: Do you want to get in talking about the game, Taylor? We can do that, we are on the Golf Channel.

ZAC: Love going to the driving range but definitely don’t consider ourselves golfers.

TAYLOR: I’m the person that says, “Fore!” because the golf club has thrown out of my hands.

ZAC: I think you actually did that.

TAYLOR: Probably once.

ISAAC: It was a really good swing, just so happened that when he went like that [imitates swinging golf club backwards]…

TAYLOR: Little extra sweat.

ISAAC: He had a little extra sweat, we’re like, “Where, where, where?” Look over to our left and it’s going, we’re like, “FORE!”

MEGAN: So what you’re saying is you respect the players that are playing Southern Hills tonight?

ZAC: Oh yes, very much.

ISAAC: Oh yes, I respect them for playing Southern Hills because Southern Hills is notoriously—has notoriously made it difficult on people who play there.