RADIO TRANSCRIPTS Los Angeles, California's 104.3 MYfm
Backstage At The Grammys Broadcast
07 February 2008ST JOHN, HOST: Backstage at the 50th annual Grammy awards, St John here, it is 104.3 MYfm and ladies and gentlemen, Hanson is here!
TAYLOR: Hey, how’s it going?
ST JOHN: Man, how are you guys doing?!
TAYLOR: Good. You guys have the primo spot here, you got all these…
ST JOHN: They gave us the prime real estate cos we’re here in Los Angeles.
TAYLOR: Like, “Remember that time you didn’t give us the good spot?!”
ST JOHN: Yeah, exactly. The only thing they didn’t give us was the wet bar. We’re still working on that one.
ZAC: I don’t know, I keep—stutters.
TAYLOR: He can’t talk. That was kind of crazy.
ISAAC: He already hit the wet bar.
ST JOHN: I was just gonna say!
TAYLOR: Yes, he stopped on the way over.
ST JOHN: So, what’s going on with ya’ll? Brand new project?
TAYLOR: Well, we have an album that actually came out at the end of the summer but we’ve been touring on it over the fall. We’re about to launch a spring tour that’s kicking off really soon.
ISAAC: Release of “Great Divide,” the single.
TAYLOR: The song “Great Divide,” the single off the record we’re about to go to radio with it pretty soon and excited for fans to hear that and just really looking forward to getting back on the road. Isaac—the rock & roll guitarist that he is, had kind of a health scare, had a big blood clot in his arm and we had to take a break from the tour and said, “Hey, everybody’s gonna break” but we’ve—we’ve been warming up for the tour so it’s been a pause…
ST JOHN: That’s got to mess with your mind! Cos you can’t do your thing if you can’t do your thing!
ISAAC: No, no, no, no. I had a blood clot that stared in my shoulder and went down my arm and definitely was a risk situation.
TAYLOR: Scary stuff, yeah. Put the tour on hold.
ZAC: He said a “risk situation”—what he means is, “I could have died!"
ISAAC: Exactly.
ZAC: Thankfully he didn’t.
ISAAC: Exactly. But we’ll resume the tour and I had to have another surgery in order to kind of permanently fix the issue. Now we’re resuming—we’re doing South x Southwest in March, which is going to be awesome.
ST JOHN: I was going to say, that’s always a great time.
ISAAC: It’s going to be a really good time down there in Austin, Texas. We’re really looking excited about playing; we got one of the opening slots, you know, for the festival, which is really exciting and we’ll be having a good time down in Austin, Texas and then roll right into playing shows at the end of March, so…
ST JOHN: And the tour goes on!
ISAAC: The tour goes on.
TAYLOR: And the tour goes on. Rock & roll circus with Hanson.
ST JOHN: So, you’re involved in AIDS/HIV. Why?
TAYLOR: Well, how do you say that—we’re involved. We’re really inspired by—WHOA! Wow, that was rock & roll! Dude, stop trashing the place! A guy throwing a TV out the window, there’s not even windows in here! We were really inspired by some guys in our hometown, we’re from Tulsa, Oklahoma and we saw an example that was set, where people had a technology company and said, “We can use this, we can save lives with this.” And they decided to give it away to this hospital in Africa and I think it just struck a chord with us. And ever since then, we were in Africa on the making of this record, the song “Great Divide” is a charity single on iTunes to support AIDS research. We’ve partnered with a shoe company called Toms Shoes.
ISAAC: We walked 48 miles barefoot in an effort to raise…
TAYLOR: To sell shoes…
ISAAC: …to raise awareness of the needs of kids in poverty needing shoes…
TAYLOR: …basic issues…
ISAAC: You gotta understand what it’s like to not have a pair of shoes and how do you do that? Let’s walk barefoot. Tens of thousands of people walked with us across the 48 miles that we did across the United States. We helped Toms shoes sell 50,000 pairs of shoes and those 50,000 pairs of shoes turned into 50,000 shoes in Africa.
ST JOHN: Wow.
TAYLOR: Honestly, the whole thing for us has been about—you know, we’re a generation that’s connected. We talk to each other. Everybody has a phone, everybody has a computer. I think we should just—we should be looking at simple ways that we can make a difference. Not in a heavy-handed way like, “You should feel guilty or feel bad!” Just in a positive way.
ST JOHN: If people want to join with you, how can they do that?
TAYLOR: Well, 1) they can go to hanson.net. You can find out about a couple different partners that we’ve supported. You can download the song, buy a t-shirt, buy a pair of Toms shoes. And we’re actually getting really close to launching a couple of really exciting initiatives so people can go direct more. So people can learn more. Start with hanson.net and we’ll keep giving you ideas, we’ll keep giving you things you can do.
ZAC: Also, when we start back up this tour later this year then we’re going to be walking again, we’re going to be doing more walks, so people can take off their shoes and come walk with us.
TAYLOR: Hey, you want to take your shoes off!
ST JOHN: And the CD is called…
TAYLOR: The Walk!
ST JOHN: Check it out, hanson.net!
TAYLOR: Yes, that’s right.
ST JOHN: Guys, thank you so much for being here. They’re giving me the wrap-up, we have other stations to get to but hey, thank you so much for taking time and being with us.
TAYLOR: Not at all!
ST JOHN: 104.3 MYfm, backstage with Hanson at the 50th annual Grammy Awards.
typed up by Heidi (me)