PAST APPEARANCES Good Day Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia
16 October 2007SUCHITA, HOST: Bono called their music “genius” and fans all over the world agree. Isaac, Taylor, and Zac have been rocking out for over a decade and now Hanson has their own record label and are on tour to promote a message of hope in their music. We’re thrilled to welcome the brothers back to Good Day. Hey guys, how ya’ll doing?
ISAAC: Doing good.
ZAC: Good.
SUCHITA: Hey, congratulations. It sounds like the tour is going really well. You’re performing to sold out audiences all across the country. That’s got to feel great.
TAYLOR: Yeah, it always feels good to get out on the road and yeah, the tour has been really successful.
ISAAC: It feels really cool to be ten years out from your first record and still have that many fans around the US and around the world. It’s really cool.
SUCHITA: And growing!
ISAAC: Yep, absolutely.
SUCHITA: Hey Isaac, you had a bit of a health scare earlier this month. You suffered from a life threatening blood clot? Tell me about that.
ISAAC: Yeah, well, you know, I don’t like to think of it as life threatening but the truth is, it really was. It was what they call pulmonary embolism, which is blood clots in your lungs, and that came from an existing condition that I have called Venus thoracic outlet syndrome, which has to do with me playing guitar and the repetitive motion of 15 years of constant doing this [imitates strumming a guitar] and it pinched a vein in between my rib and my collarbone.
SUCHITA: So it’s something that a lot of musicians are prone to?
ISAAC: Well, musicians and actually, you see it a lot more in athletes, a lot more in pitchers, tennis players, swimmers. It happens twice as much in guys as it does in girls and it typically happens in your mid to late 20s and early 30s. In my case, I had it first when I was 23 and second time a few weeks ago.
SUCHITA: Okay, but you look well now so you’re feeling better?
ISAAC: I am feeling good.
TAYLOR: Luckily he had a surgery when we were in Dallas, some amazing doctors. In a few days they did a surgery. In the past, people either lose the use of their arm or this is actually one of the #1 causes of surprise death--
ISAAC: --in the US…
TAYLOR: --in the US…
ISAAC: Pulmonary embolism.
TAYLOR: Pulmonary embolism. So, we’ve had amazing support from all over the world… fans.
SUCHITA: Well, we are so glad to see that you’re doing well and you’re feeling great.
ISAAC: As am I.
SUCHITA: Well, let’s talk about what you guys have been up to. All three of you married.
ALL: Yes.
SUCHITA: Two of you fathers.
ISAAC: Yeah.
SUCHITA: That’s got to have changed your perspective on everything in your life, including your music. Tell me about that.
TAYLOR: Well, yeah. We’ve all married southern ladies too. Zac and I’s wives are both from the Atlanta area and I think, yeah, it just adds a new inspiration and we’ve always talked about—we’ve done this as our life, taken our life with us everywhere we’ve gone and so being in a band, having kids, having a family, those things gotta go hand in hand.
ISAAC: It’s kind of the rock & roll circus, of sorts. Taylor’s 5 year old—almost 5 year old child—constantly refers to things like, “Hey dad, so when are we going on the bus?” and stuff like that. And they grow up around this crazy lifestyle, and I hope that we can be, you know, good enough dads to keep them fairly well balanced but also give them the opportunity to be exposed to a lot of cool stuff.
TAYLOR: We’re very, very, very lucky to have amazing wives.
SUCHITA: Yeah, it sounds like it. Really quickly, gotta talk about—mention the album, The Walk. Great album. And you were partly inspired by a trip to Africa. Tell me about that, and then tell me really quickly about the song “Great Divide.”
TAYLOR: Well basically, we spent a little time in Africa during the making of the record and our whole experience there—what we left with was one, seeing what’s going on with AIDS. There’s a lot of trendy causes. You see celebrities endorsing things and people feel like, “Oh yeah, somebody went to Africa, it’s done.” What’s going on there is such an emergency and especially for our generation. So, our whole idea, “Great Divide,” which is what we’re going to play, is a charity single. Buy it on iTunes and all the proceeds go to a hospital in South Africa to help the prevention of the transmission of AIDS from mother to child in South Africa. And also, we’ve partnered with a shoe company called Toms shoes on this tour and I’m wearing them--
SUCHITA: Oh, those look comfortable.
TAYLOR: Yeah, and every time you buy a pair of their shoes, a second pair of Toms gets donated to a child in Africa and through the tour we’re helping to sell over 50,000 pairs and literally go to Africa, South Africa, and deliver shoes one by one.
SUCHITA: Wow, that’s wonderful!
TAYLOR: And actually, as part of the tour we encourage people to join us for a walk that we do, that’s a part of The Walk Tour, at 3 o’clock from the Roxy Theater today. Every show. This will be our 21st mile, I think. Walk a mile and we encourage people to come join us for the walk, we tell you about Toms, and just to talk about the idea—like we always say, we’re all guys in our 20s. We’re a generation that is coming of age and I think what we can do different than anybody else is take actions, with simple actions.
ISAAC: We’re an action generation, not the awareness generation. Really do something. Cos now’s the time.
SUCHITA: I like that. I love that.
TAYLOR: Really look for ways, whether it’s a pair of shoes, whether it’s buying a song, whether it’s just deciding to make different decisions about what you do in your life and we’re more connected with one another than we’ve ever been and we have more power to change things.
SUCHITA: Wow, powerful message, guys. Thanks for spreading it and thanks for being here this morning, it was great seeing you again.
ISAAC: Good to see you too.
SUCHITA: Well, we’re going to hear from Hanson now. In just a moment they’re going to be performing the song from their latest CD called The Walk. The very inspirational song, they just told us about, it’s called “The Great Divide.”