RADIO TRANSCRIPTS

3FM
Amsterdam, Netherlands
18 January 2005

DJ: I'm standing next to Zac, Isaac, and Taylor, also known as the Hanson brothers. Good morning guys, welcome to the show. It's nice to have you on. A new album Underneath and a great new single "Penny & Me." It's been a couple years though since we last heard from you guys here in Holland. What have you been up to?

TAYLOR: Well, we've been up to a lot. Of course making the new record.

ISAAC: Since 2003 we've been on the road getting ready for the release of the album. The album came out about 9 months ago in the United States and also it came out in Japan last February, so we've been promoting the album but now the album is coming out here in Europe and then Holland and we're really excited about the fact that we're getting the chance to talk to the European fans and everybody in Europe about the album.

DJ: Well, obviously we know you by the world by the smash hit single "MMMBop." You were called the Jackson 5 of the 90s. All young, famous, probably very busy at that time. Instead of Michael Jackson, did you have a nice childhood?

ZAC: Yes. Yes, I had a good childhood. Maybe different from some, but it was what I wanted to be doing and an amazing experience. I'm still doing amazing things that people my age usually don't get to do. I'm 19 and I've been to most of the countries in the world and traveled playing concerts for thousands and thousands and thousands of people and been able to sell millions of records. It's an amazing achievement for somebody at my age.

DJ: Well, as I already said, the new album is brought out and it's brought out independently and self-produced. Why did you guys choose to do so?

ISAAC: A big part of why we had felt we had to go independent was the people that we were working with at our previous record company didn't really understand the music that we were making anymore but to make a long story short, we're just excited that we've finally been able to kind of get things rolling here in Europe. And with regards to self-production and all that kind of stuff, that's kind of the thing that we've always done but I think with this new album Underneath, the kind of production of the album and us doing it mostly on our own was a little bit of a change because, in the past although we'd produced with other people, it was a process we decided to kind of take on completely on our own because we had a very clear vision and knew that anything else just wasn't good enough and we wanted to make sure that we could take the time to really get it exactly right.

DJ: Is there a special message you want the fans to hear when they're listening to your new album Underneath?

ZAC: I think you're just always searching to inspire people with your music. You know, the last time people heard Hanson was four years ago in 2000, almost five years ago now because it's 2005, with our second record and so you're constantly evolving and I think you're just… you want to inspire people with your music and what you're doing and the messages and the songs you're writing and hopefully you can mean something to people.

DJ: So it's no time for quitting yet?

ISAAC: Oh no, absolutely not. I mean, I think we'll be doing records and touring and whatnot for another 25 years because we can't stop, we can't stop making music. It's a part of who we are. It's kind of funny cos people will talk about how we did it when we were so young but I never really think about it as being young. When people say, "Did you enjoy your quote unquote childhood?" But it wasn't really a childhood, it was a career, it was a passion, it was music.

DJ: Avril Lavigne said that Hanson was one of the main influences on the recording of her multi-platinum debut album. Michelle Branch is known to be a big fan and she actually contributed on this album. Who's next on the list?

ZAC: You're always looking to just fuel a community of artists working together and being creative with each other, and I think having things like Michelle Branch play on the record and writing with people like Matthew Sweet. We wrote "Underneath," the title track with him. Gregg Alexander from The New Radicals, we wrote a song with him called "Lost Without Each Other." Doing things like that is just something that we strive to do because you want to build a healthy community in music and you want to keep inspiring not only the people buying records but the other people making records.

DJ: Is there an opportunity for us, the fans to see you live on stage here in Holland?

ISAAC: Well, there definitely will be an opportunity for fans to come to shows. We're going to be touring in Europe in the early spring around April and March, but if people want to find out information about it they can go to our website hanson.net and that'll be the place that they can see concert dates when they come up and find out more information.

DJ: Alright, thank you very much you guys. As my last question, it's always the same, we won't let you go until you let us play your favorite of all time song on the radio. Which one can we play for you?

ISAAC: Oh, wow. Ah! I think one of the songs that was most influential on us as a band collectively, one of the reasons why we got inspired to play music in the first place was a song from 1958 by Chuck Berry called "Johnny B Goode," so that's going to I think be the band pick for the day.

"JOHNNY B GOODE" - CHUCK BERRY