PAST APPEARANCES 97.1 Free FM
Backstage At The Grammys Broadcast
07 February 2008TIM: Alright, welcome back everybody. It is the Conway & Whitman show, we’re live on 97.1 Free FM backstage at the Grammys. We’re going to be talking to… who’s up next?
BRIAN: Hanson!
TIM: Oh, Hanson man.
BRIAN: Alright now, let’s have them get close to the mic folks. There’s three Hansons, they’re like roaches, they multiply!
TIM: Oh Jason Salanko, major fan of Hanson.
BRIAN: I actually am a Hanson fan… here they are!
TIM: Hey, how are you? Nice to see you! Have a seat fellas! Three of them!
BRIAN: Hi, I’m Brian! Nice to see you!
TIM: Hi, nice to see you everybody, welcome. Hanson!
BRIAN: I know it’s Zac, Isaac, Taylor, but I don’t know who’s who.
TIM: Gotta talk right there in the mic there, whoever’s talking.
ZAC: Zac, Isaac, and Taylor.
BRIAN: Zac, Isaac, Taylor.
ISAAC: And for the listeners, hi, I’m Isaac.
TAYLOR: Hi, I’m Taylor.
ZAC: And hi, I’m Zac. And collectively, we are known as Hanson.
TAYLOR: Sort of like a superhero. You combine us and it’s this very powerful…
ZAC: Well, like the super friends of music.
TIM: Well, two of you kept the hair and one of them said, “F it!”
ZAC: Well, actually we all cut…
TAYLOR: See, it’s been ten years. It’s come and gone.
TIM: Right there in the mic, dude.
TAYLOR: Since it’s been ten years it’s come and gone a few times since the original long hair, but it’s kind of shaggy these days.
TIM: How old are you guys now?
BRIAN: Yeah, I was going to say…
TAYLOR: 36!
TIM: 36?
TAYLOR: No, I’m just kidding. 24, 22, and 27.
TIM: Woow.
BRIAN: Cos the first hit, “MMMBop,” was 1997, correct? Alright, so that’s 11 years now. Still making money, I would assume you are, off of that song?
ZAC: Well, not necessarily off of that song but the tours after that and the record we just released last year.
BRIAN: Not a lot of people know that the follow-up to “MMMBop” was “Where’s The Love,” correct?
ISAAC: Yes.
ZAC: Yeah.
BRIAN: But I knew that.
TIM: He’s a major fan.
ZAC: Well, you know that song I think was a #3 song so a lot of people knew about it.
BRIAN: It did well.
TIM: It nicer now when you perform it’s not for like, 8 year olds anymore?
ZAC: Honestly, it’s for the same people it just so happens…
TIM: They’re a little older.
ZAC: I was 11 when “MMMBop” came out. Now, 11 year later, those fans that were 11 are now 22, so most of our fans are college-aged kids—kids? People. Human beings. Whatever you want to call them.
TIM: Are you guys on tour right now?
ZAC: We are not on tour yet but we are going on tour starting in March.
TAYLOR: We’re doing a show at South x Southwest and then we’re taking off and doing a spring tour and yeah, we’ve been touring since—we did some touring last fall.
BRIAN: Now when you guys perform, do you do “MMMBop” or is this something you haven’t done in 10 years?
TAYLOR: No, we do it all the time. You know what? We’re proud of that song, we’re here at the Grammys, we were just talking about that—Zac is the youngest Grammy nominated songwriter in history, for that song, when we were nominated for that tune.
TIM: You were 11 when you were nominated?
TAYLOR: Yeah. I think it’s interesting, it’s like we know what that song was and our fans know and I think we’ve always been really proud of it. And also, it’s a reflection of our influences. It’s a throwback to doo-wop, it’s a throwback to 50s music that we first heard, and we’ve carried those influences with us the whole way.
TIM: What’s nice is obviously you guys were brought up correctly cos you guys still have a spirit about you where you’re not angry, you know…
TAYLOR: Luckily.
TIM: Three guys who are drinking all the time… well, you may be.
ZAC: Hey, hey, hey. You can’t speak for everything. We might be angry. We might be drinking.
TIM: Yeah, but at least not on the air.
ISAAC: Yeah, not on the air cos we might drop the F-bomb if we were. We’ve been known to do that.
TIM: Now obviously three brothers traveling around, you’ve been known to argue occasionally?
ZAC: Of course.
TIM: But has anybody ever punched each other in the face?
TAYLOR: Not the face but other parts of the body but punches have been thrown.
BRIAN: But not the face, cos you guys all know…
TAYLOR: Black eye, nose is broken…
BRIAN: and you guys have to go on stage, people are going to ask, “What happened to the face?”
ISAAC: But if you rupture a spleen, people won’t know.
TIM: Are there any other brothers?
ISAAC: …until he falls over.
TAYLOR: There is a much younger brother.
TIM: From a different marriage?
TAYLOR: No, not from a different marriage, but we’re the oldest of a pretty big family but it’s always been--the three of us had a unique connection with the music.
BRIAN: You guys are from Oklahoma, right?
ALL: Tulsa, Oklahoma, yeah.
TIM: How old is the little one? The little brother?
TAYLOR: He is…
ZAC: 13. 14. 14.
TIM: What does he do?
ZAC: He is in school. What 14 year old boys should be doing.
TIM: What’s wrong with that kid?
BRIAN: He works at the Dairy Queen and his other three brothers are touring the world.
TAYLOR: He’s an awesome guy, he’s an awesome guy.
TIM: He’s going to be on radical anti-depressants.
TAYLOR: No, nah…
TIM: Because his three brothers are all millionaires making money, getting all these chicks, and he’s, you know, doing his spelling bees.
BRIAN: Yeah, I wanted to ask about the chicks because Hanson is with us. I think I read in the last 11 years that…
TAYLOR: You read something in this 11 year span?!
BRIAN: I read a few different things…
TAYLOR: Watch, don’t hurt yourself.
BRIAN: Right now I can’t recall exactly what I read, but are you guys Mormons or something or…
ZAC: Wow!
ISAAC: No…
BRIAN: Wow?
ZAC: You read something that was theological. No, we’re not.
BRIAN: But you’re Christians and you’re serious about it, something like that, right?
ZAC: No, not really. We’re guys who, I think everybody has their set of beliefs whether you believe in nothing or something. We believe in what we believe in.
TIM: Brian is a big Jesus guy and he asks everybody who comes by.
ZAC: We’ve never made a point of it.
BRIAN: Would you like to be baptized? I do that here.
TIM: I told you.
ZAC: Oh, so that’s what that baby pool is right there.
BRIAN: I offer that service to our guests, I mean, if you’re interested. It’s not weird or anything.
ZAC: Are you ordained or was it one of those internet…?
BRIAN: I ordained myself on the internet, yes, in 2003.
TIM: Are you guys married yet?
ZAC: We’re all three married. Taylor has three kids, Isaac has one…
TIM: Are you kidding me?
ZAC: I have one on the way and Isaac has a second one on the way.
TAYLOR: If we were kidding we probably would have come up with something far more comical to kid about.
ZAC: Like we all have Siamese twins. All of our children are Siamese twins attached at the rectum!
TIM: But all really hot wives, right?
BRIAN: Now there’s something you don’t hear from Hanson all the time, “attached at the rectum!” Wow! “MMMBop!”
TIM: But all pretty hot wives that you met on the road?
ZAC: All pretty hot wives.
ISAAC: Yes, they are all hot wives that we met on the road.
BRIAN: All fans?
ZAC: Well, to some extent yeah. They were all—our life is so much music. We run our own label, we release all our stuff independently and run our own label so we’re pretty much married to our music and then we see them like mistresses on the side. They have to like what we do or our life is basically hell.
TIM: I read something and not in a religious publication--
ZAC: His wasn’t either, it was in Playboy.
TIM: But I read you guys write like 80% of the music sober and you guys all smoke weed to finish it off.
ISAAC: That’s actually true! No, it’s actually not true.
ZAC: That would be an interesting way to make music! I would like to try speed as the last 20% also, see what happens. “These songs are all too slow! These songs are all ballads! Ahh! Ahh!”
TAYLOR: I think what you were confusing that with is we made an album in the studio next to Ziggy Marley and it was like having 20% of the songs recorded while on (?).
BRIAN: Ahh. Now I’m going to go out on a limb here and I’m going to try to name…
ZAC: Don’t do it or it’ll break!
TAYLOR: Yeah, if you go too far out there... it’s got a weight limit.
BRIAN: I’m going to try to name a third Hanson hit cos I named “MMMBop” and I named “Where’s The Love.” I’m going to try now with “Round & Round?”
TAYLOR: Nope. That would be “Where’s The Love.”
BRIAN: Oh, that’s the hook. Sorry. I’m out.
ZAC: You’re out.
BRIAN: I tried.
ZAC: You tried.
BRIAN: I tried, guys.
TAYLOR: You were working real hard.
ZAC: You tried… uh… that’s about how hard you tried.
BRIAN: But you’re not Mormons, we settled that.
ZAC: No, we’re not.
TAYLOR: And you’re not a Rogaine ad. You’re definitely not.
BRIAN: No, I’m not. No, thank you.
TIM: Guys, thank you for coming by, Hanson everybody. I apologize for my partner, the religious nut.
BRIAN: What did I do? I’m not a religious nut. Is that “no” on the baptisms?
TAYLOR: That would be a “no.”
TIM: Thanks for coming by. Hanson, everybody.
BRIAN: Thank you guys, thank you very much. Continued success to you guys.
TIM: Nice to see you, thanks for coming by fellas. Really appreciate it.
BRIAN: Best of luck, thanks.
TIM: Jason Salanko used to work with us, huge, huge fan of Hanson but he was like, beyond the age where he should have been a huge fan.
BRIAN: Yeah, I knew a few songs and I was very polite to them.
TIM: Alright, we’re backstage at the Grammys everybody and listen to this, caller 10 is going to win something right now.
BRIAN: Did they hate me, you think?
TIM: I don’t know, maybe.
typed up by Heidi (me)