Radio2 AVRO
Denmark
18 January 2005HANS, DJ: How do you call that?
ZAC: Oh, we were just saying this is good music. This is what we grew up listening to.
TAYLOR: It's old school!
ZAC: It's old school, yes.
HANS: And guess what's on the b-side? It's a live version of "MMMBop" on the single. So is that to remind people of what Hanson stood for?
ISAAC: Well, I think we just like that performance of that song and felt like it was appropriate. It's an acoustic version of that song, which I think is a little reminiscent quality. It'd been a few years since people had… since we'd released a record and we wanted to kind of throw something old on there and "MMMBop" seemed like the right thing to do.
TAYLOR: It's also a song that--it's a new performance of that song. It's a new, acoustic performance from our acoustic tour on this album.
HANS: And you like to change now and then?
TAYLOR: Well it's good, it's sort of like bringing old and new together and giving something special.
HANS: We didn't hear from you for a long time and it took a four year break to make this album, Underneath, we're talking about, and that's a very long time in pop music.
TAYLOR: Well, we feel the same way.
ISAAC: We feel the same way that it was a long time.
TAYLOR: It was a long time, yeah. There were a lot of things that happened. One thing was that we started our own independent record company. We left our old label.
HANS: Why did you do that?
TAYLOR: Well, we just-you know, the music industry has been changing a lot recently and more and more you got a lot of really big labels that don't care… that don't really know music and don't really have interest in long-term careers.
HANS: And they didn't care about Hanson.
TAYLOR: Well, we ended up with a record company that we hadn't been signed to, didn't have relationships, and we said, "you know what guys? Neither one of us are happy here, we're not moving things along as fast as we want to…" It took a lot longer cos we didn't have relationships. And it also took longer cos we looked around at the industry and said, "there's no label that fits what we want to be doing and the way we'd like to work."
HANS: So how frustrating was that Zac?
ZAC: Well it was frustrating just because you're in a situation where the labels that are supporting you are unstable. They're constantly changing and people are getting fired, you have new employees coming in. you know, we were on a rap label and we don't make rap music. We make, you know, rock & roll music so it was just not a good place to be and that's why we formed our own record label.
TAYLOR: But where we are now… it took a long time and there were a lot of things that went into it, we took a long time to set up the record once we left the label, we toured a lot in the United States and we toured the world with the record. But now where we are, we're in an amazing position. We own our own music and we're also just ready to continue putting music out more frequently. We want to put another record out next year.
HANS: And you can afford all of this because of the success you had in the 90s? You have to pay…
TAYLOR: Well of course, but the way we do it… we don't spend money in stupid places. We try… and we have really good partners, passionate people that really believe in the project and it makes itself work.
HANS: You are very serious in this because your whole life's in music, but…
TAYLOR: If we weren't serious we'd be really screwed!
ZAC: We'd be in trouble!
HANS: You have fans here, you have big loyalty… how… how do I put this question…?
ZAC: Why?
HANS: Why, yeah, why is it so serious for you?
ISAAC: Well, I think you would have to ask our fans why it's important for them, but I think for us, for us I think the reason why it really matters is because hopefully the fans are responding to the passion that we have for our music and I think that's part of why because when I talk to fans I ask them, well, "what is it about the music?" And they say, "well, you've taken me through good times and bad times. You've given me these emotions and these ways to help deal with my life and I appreciate that and I enjoy your music because of those things."
ZAC: I was going to say the same thing, just I hope the reason why we have passionate fans is because we try to do everything passionately. We don't release anything we're not proud of, we don't put out bad albums, we try to put out the best quality of everything we do and hopefully that translates into people being able to enjoy the music.
TAYLOR: It's also unexplainable in a way.
HANS: It's very… I mentioned that when I'm talking to you, it's unexplainable. What do you fight about? You must fight sometimes.
TAYLOR: Well, I mean, everybody fights. We get along pretty well but of course, anybody that spends as much time in a band, runs a business, tours together, we are brothers. We're gonna fight sometimes.
HANS: And what are the fights about?
ISAAC: The disagreements vary. Most of the time it's not silly things, it's important things.
TAYLOR: If we're gonna fight, actually fight, it's gonna be something pretty serious.
ISAAC: Exactly, and most of the time it has something to do with music in a lot of cases because when we're in the studio and we're very passionate about something the emotions run high and you say, "no, no, no, that's the wrong thing to do" and so you go back and forth about these things.
TAYLOR: Or somebody just needs a good sock.
ZAC: I was gonna say, I mean, we are three very different guys so the way I communicate and the way Isaac communicates and the way Taylor communicates doesn't always fit together and sometimes one guy's stubborn and the other guy's passionate and it's a bad combination and that's usually what causes a disagreement.
HANS: There's a lot of energy between you. Thank you very much! Nice talking to you!
ZAC: Thank you very much!
HANS: This is your new single.
PLAYS "PENNY & ME"