RACHEL, DJ: What’s up? It’s Rachel, Anything & Everything. Today we have some special guests: the one and only Hanson.

TAYLOR: Hey. How’s it going?

ISAAC: Hellooo.

RACHEL: Alright guys, we’d like to welcome you. I know last night you were in Cleveland.

TAYLOR: Yes. It’s good to be in Ohio.

ISAAC: The lesser of the Ohio cities. Cincinnati is crucial.

TAYLOR: Hey, watch it. You could be in Cleveland again and have to say it the other way around.

ISAAC: That’s true.

RACHEL: Very true.

TAYLOR: No, thanks for having us.

RACHEL: Oh yeah, definitely. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. I know you guys started at the end of October and will be going through the end of November. Are there any locations you’re looking forward to or any particular places you like to be performing…

TAYLOR: Well, I mean we’ve been on this run and we’ve played so many shows. Last year we finished the tour for the last album, almost two years of touring, so I think in some ways the concerts are more—we’ve been to a lot of these venues, a lot of these cities we’ve visited, but one of the more cooler things I think has been going to schools cos going to college campuses. I mean, obviously today it’s Sunday morning so we’re not actually screening the documentary that we produced, which is the thing we’ve been doing at a lot of schools, but I think in general that’s been the highlights cos it’s been something different that we didn’t really focus on.

RACHEL: A new approach?

TAYLOR: Yeah, it’s just been really exciting cos we’ve seen a lot of true music fans and it’s been really cool.

RACHEL: I was going to say, I know this is a college tour. When you started to do that were you expecting to give something to the fans or receive or both ways?

ISAAC: Giving and receiving, certainly.

TAYLOR: I think you should, I just kind of like jumped in there but I think this is unique in the sense that we’re sort of on two tours now, cos we have a live album, which is called Live & Electric and that was released a few weeks ago and we’re playing these shows and touring behind that, that’s the thing we’re kind of promoting in the sense of the concerts. But then coming to schools was primarily about the fact that we’ve got a documentary we produced, which is called Strong Enough To Break, and it’s really about sort of our experience in our old major label, the one we were a part of, and sort of the struggle we went through once the company turned over and merged into becoming a bigger corporate company, and then ultimately the story of us starting our record company and becoming independent again. So, that story is something that I think—taking it to schools and screening it hopefully gives to the people, schools, students, but also in a way to give back to you for the feedback.

ZAC: It’s not even about Hanson fans, it’s more about music fans, it’s more about using this as an example of what so many bands go through. It’s not important that Hanson went through it; it’s important that Hanson went through it, Wilco made a documentary about the same problems, Fiona Apple is an example of a very prominent artist that took 6 years to release an album. That’s not because she couldn’t write a song or couldn’t get an album made.

ISAAC: There are countless friends of ours that will remain unnamed that have been in similar situations. People go, “Why did a band go away for 4 years?!”

ZAC: Five years…

ISAAC: Five years. Well, there’s a reason. And the documentary articulates that in a lot of ways.

RACHEL: How did you guys approach that, having to be faced with that whole situation?

ISAAC: What’s important to say is the documentary Strong Enough To Break did not start off as an idea for a movie about the struggles of the music business. It started off as someone that we’d known and worked with multiple times, a friend of ours named Ashley Greyson is his name, he came to us and said, “I’d really like to go and try do a documentary with you guys. We’ve done some filming things here on the road and stuff like that, but I’d like to approach this whole thing completely differently. I’d like to get inside of the creative process, I’d like to really be there as a fly on the wall when you’re writing songs. I’d like to be there as a fly on the wall when you’re talking to your manager about what you guys are going to do with this next record, and so on. I’d like to be a part of that.” And we kind of were like, “Well, okay… we’re comfortable enough with you and with the situation these days that let’s go for it!” Cos we’re also pumped to show people who we are as artists and who we are as musicians and the in-depth nature of what we do as a band. And what it turned into was, halfway through the film you start to see the change in not as much filming of the actual recording of music cos there was less recording actually going on and mainly focused on conversations with A&R people who are at the record company, chairman’s of record company, managers, and so on. And it became much more about… how the heck do you even get a record made at all?!

RACHEL: Behind the scenes almost…

ISAAC: But a very intense behind the scenes, I mean, we had this New York Times writer look at us after the screening and he wrote a small little blurb about the film in the business section of the New York Times, but he looked at us and said, “I’ve seen the Wilco film; I’ve seen a lot of documentaries. I don’t think I’ve seen a documentary film like that, that is a music film. I don’t think there’s a music film that has done that before. And I was just…” and he was just like, “I was really intrigued by it, if nothing a purely historical element music films that have told stories, I can’t think of one that is that in-depth.” So, it’ s a pretty in-depth “fly on the wall” perspective of everything.

RACHEL: So that pretty much lets your fans see, music fans see into it and there are different struggles that you’re going to face.

ISAAC: The most important thing we want fans to get out of it, both music fans and Hanson fans, is that the music industry is changing and there are certain things that are really broken right now and that fans can do something about it. Fiona Apple’s record, in large part, was assisted in being released in that her fans went out and said, “We want the record. We’re sick and tired of this. We heard Fiona is in trouble and we’re here to help her out.” Okay? So there’s that. And there’s also the fact that there’s things like BearCast, things like college radio as a whole, really are being fueled and encouraged through the music communities and we just want to encourage that fueling of those communities in addition to the fact that I think all the listeners on BearCast and many others should really go out and say to themselves, “What can we do to change mainstream as much as we can support alternatives? Cos we want to hear the music that we love on the mainstream outlets cos we want our favorite indie bands to go mainstream, sell a gazillion records, and all of us to be able to go, ‘HAHA! We told ya!’”

ZAC: Well, I think it’s not even about mainstream or alternative. It’s about finding the places that are doing it right. That are giving you the choice and the quality of music, that are giving you the element of discovery that should be there when you listen to radio or when you go somewhere to find music you want to discover new things. It shouldn’t just be the same five bands you already know.

RACHEL: You don’t want to be limited.

ZAC: It should be groups of really great artists, new things you’ve never heard of. That discovery element I think is really important for the life of music as a whole because I think as fans, finding a new cool band or finding a sound or something you didn’t think you’d like is really important, and I think hat needs to be there. Find the places that are doing that. But also, I think what Ike’s saying is, don’t be quiet as a music fan. Tell the places, tell your local radio station, “Hey, this is what I want to hear.” Even though they’re not going to pick up their phone and you’re going to get an answering machine. Support the places that are doing it right, but at the same time, let your voice be known, cos as a generation, this music is what’s kind of what’s representing us and we need to go out there and make sure that it is the music that we want to hear, cos I know that most of the people we talk to say, “Well, I don’t listen to the radio, it’s not the music that I listen to. It’s not music I want ot be a part of.”

RACHEL: So really you guys want your fans to take action, more or less?

TAYLOR: Well again, we’re diving in head first, throwing at you all our spiel but I think what we want is for the visits to schools to spawn something that lights a fire in music fans, which says, “There are issues out there with what’s happening with the labels. We can show you an example of what our struggle was with our old major record company system,” and the same thing is happening with major record companies merging companies and becoming bigger and more corporate is happening with a lot of media outlets too, and so because of all that, I think now is a really good point and time for fans to play a role of being active and supporting music and supporting the places that are doing things right like college radio and like independent record companies and independent bands. So yeah, it’s about being engaged in the process now. Every era or every generation of students kind of wants to have their own identity in music…

RACHEL: Their role in music.

ISAAC: A kind of revolution of sorts.

RACHEL: Exactly.

TAYLOR: And this particular time in music is not, it’s actually a time when things are going to be able to change and things are changing and just the fact that you guys are streaming and you’re not on FM right now, but you still reach so many people, is a sign of the times. It’s a sign of the way things are changing and the fact that technology is playing a role in giving people a choice. And this is a time where whatever we do as music fans, we can actually influence much more than we could in the past how the music business is going to evolve. So it’s just trying to say, support the bands you love, let your voice be heard at the traditional places you know of, and play a role in getting your opinion out there and supporting the things that are going to change the music business.

RACHEL: Do you want to take a question?

ISAAC: Oh, okay, sure… do we have…?

RACHEL: We have many questions, I believe. Let’s see.

TAYLOR: Some callers?

ISAAC: Callers? Text messages?

RACHEL: Yeah, this is an IM.

ISAAC: Okay, great.

RACHEL: They want to know if you’re planning on releasing the documentary on a wide-scale aside from showing it at the colleges, like such as DVD, theaters, stuff like that.

ISAAC: That’s a great question. We really, really want this film to get out even more than it already has. The element of success for us with going to colleges has just been really, really exiting and very cool. I mean, every single college is different. Every single set of people that come are going on different paths in their lives, different majors and everything like that, and certain ones are more technical about the questions they ask, some are just more broad. But the cool thing is its had an affect on pretty much everybody that’s seen it, so we do want to release it as, on a larger scale and certainly on a DVD at some point, hopefully early next year. We don’t have an exact release date though.

ZAC: We’re talking about the message of the film and what it shows but I think for us there’s been a lot of time and care put into it by the director and editor of the film and I think it’s something we’re very proud of and you want to get it out to as many people as you can. Let as many eyes and ears hear and listen to what it shows, and I think hopefully we’ll be able to find ways to release it or whatever it is.

RACHEL: To get a big audience.

TAYLOR: But ultimately, we want for more and more schools to use it. The whole thing about taking it to universities is, in a way it’s sort of like another film festival, you know? The idea of going to film festivals is you reach a certain audience of peers or people in the film business. In our case we said, “This is a music film. This is a film that is about struggle of a band, which is an example of the many struggles of bands,” so we wanted to go to these schools and what we’d like to have happen is more and more schools not only have screenings but we’ll actually be there, but incorporate the film into their curriculums and things. That’s something that’s happened not because we instigated it, but cos professors said, “Hey, here’s something we can use” and I think we just want that to be the groundwork. We want that to be the foundation the whole thing is built on. Releasing it on DVD, screening it in select theaters, TV placement, all those things there’s interest in, but I think we just feel like the foundation of it is something that we want people to go away from seeing the film that are actively sort of shaping their future, people that are young and that are thinking to themselves, “What career am I going to approach now?” and ones that are actively music fans, and that’s why this is so important, but hopefully it will end up reaching lots of people beyond that.

RACHEL: Yeah, they’re going out there to actually take initiative. Alright, we’re going to take a question from a caller for Hanson.

ISAAC: Cool. Hello, you’re on BearCast. Question?

ALEXIS: Yeah! I am actually—my name is Alexis Cone, I’m actually an artist that you have listed on areyoulistening.com.

ISAAC: Yes!

ZAC: We only have one set of headphones so only Isaac can hear you.

ISAAC: Yes.

ALEXIS: Oh, okay! I just wanted to say, give the listeners a little bit of a perspective on exactly how Are You Listening affects the artists. I’ve gotten in touch with many great people just from literally IM’ing me and getting in touch with me saying, “How can I buy your CD?” People from California, people from Alaska!

ISAAC: That’s great!

ALEXIS: People from everywhere, and it really makes a difference when I’m so, so small. On MySpace I have less than 600 people on my friends list so people buying my CD, wanting to make me t-shirts to promote and stuff like that. Also, just getting to listen to all the other independent artists that are on this list is also good, getting in touch with them.

ISAAC: Well, I really appreciate your call. For those of you guys who don’t know exactly what she’s talking about, it was Alexis, right?

ALEXIS: Mmhmm.

ISAAC: She is on a list of artists on a website called areyoulistening.com, which is a website that we’ve been large proponents in, we’ve been the ones who sort of initiated the whole process of starting this site and have gotten a lot of other people involved and have contacted a lot of other artists and it’s a growing community of bands right now. Currently, areyoulistening.com is basically just a list of links and it says, you know, “Here’s the message, we’re just trying to spread the word of independent music. We’re all frustrated music fans saying to ourselves, ‘Why can’t we get more quality? There’s all this great music out there, how can we make it easier to find good music?’” And so what we’ve tried to do is, we’ve put together a list with the help of a lot other people and have been going through a lot of emails and a lot of websites all over the place and have been trying to find the best independent artists that are out there. Currently, there’s around 40 or 50 artists, Alexis is one of those, and she was just saying that she’s been getting a lot of activity from people, an influx to a degree that is pretty noticeable and very positive for her. And I think that’s really important, because a lot of people have noticed how MySpace and others have started to really have a lot more reach and a lot more power in exposing music, and we believe that things of that nature and things like Are You Listening, which certainly will expand to more of a community-based site, as opposed to just links, are going to be really, really important in the reshaping the way that the industry works. So, thank you very much Alexis.

TAYLOR: That’s an interesting segway because we couldn’t all hear the question, but he was talking—we’ve been involved in this website called areyoulistening.com. That is one specific example of the way the music business is changing. What we’ve seen so much is that obviously websites play a significant role, but not just websites but the whole concept of using the web for discovery, because what the web has done has opened up a huge channel. Like, if you could break up all the FM signal into millions more signals and everybody could have their shot at a station.

ISAAC: What’s so cool, like Alexis is calling and this is a stream on a web but she’s listening and calling in. and although you guys do that all the time, yet it is a really unique thing to the last 5-6 years, really.

TAYLOR: But the thing that’s interesting about it too is you see more and more is trusted communities have begun thriving cos you’ve got so many options out there. You’ve got your TV, you’ve got all the video games, films that are being promoted, radio, bands playing shows, all the outlets for media that you trust groups of people that you’re a part of and that’s something that I think bands, the idea of sort of connecting with one another is something that has become even more important cos artists need to find other artists and fans need to find other fans and artists need to find fans and you can get this direct connection that you could never have before, and the idea of really developing strong communities where people trust one another is something, like MySpace, even though it’s sprawling and is ridiculously huge, is something that creates opportunities.

RACHEL: There are just so many outlets now.

ISAAC: There are. And then the hope is that you can find is that certain ones can get names for themselves and become portals, basically, which will allow for…

ZAC: I think part of what Tay is talking about is because there are so many outlets, it’s becoming more important for people to talk and your voice is becoming more and more effective. He’s talking about community-based sites and trusting your community more.

ISAAC: Fans voices are heard.

ZAC: You, YOU, everyone listening, I mean, your voice is actually more important than it’s ever been. Your opinion about the bands you’re listening to and the things you like and the movie you saw or whatever it is is becoming more important and the people around you are looking to you. You’re not as much about looking to, “I saw this cool ad!” or “I was watching MTV and I saw the one video they played within six hours of programming.” It’s more about people looking to each other going, “Hey, what are you listening to?” “Hey, what do you like?” Because we have the ability now, we have the ability to communicate on such a level globally but these community sites, people talking to each other, is becoming the future of how we define ourselves and how we find new, cool things.

ISAAC: We’re being flagged down because there’s another caller on the line. Hello caller.

ISAAC: Hello.

ISAAC: Hi. What’s your question?

MELISSA: Hi, I want to know if you had the chance, the opportunity to go back in time to a point where you were first approaching the music industry as a whole--

ISAAC: music industry, yeah.

MELISSA: What would be the one thing you would have done differently in your approach to it?

ISAAC: That’s an interesting question. Rephrasing the question for all those who don’t have headphones: her question was, what would we do, if anything, differently if we knew what we knew now looking back on the industry and what we’ve done. I would start by saying, overall we are really, really proud of the choices we’ve made. Historically, we’ve always voted for ownership of our music and whatnot in the cases of publishing and stuff. For those of you who don’t know what publishing is, it’s basically just the ownership of your songs, so we’ve maintained ownership and control of those publishing elements, those rights and that’s kind of continued on into owning a record company.

TAYLOR: I think if we could have changed something we would have not left as much time in between our second album and our third album, Underneath.

ISAAC: We would have toured, like, right after that…

TAYLOR: That space was left because of a struggle with a record company that was inherited because of record companies merging together and that story, that four years, that ended up being what we made our documentary Strong Enough To Break about, but the irony is that we never would have left that space if it would have been something—if we would have been independent at that point. But at the same time, the story of those four years wouldn’t have been documented in a film, we wouldn’t have struggled and decided the best option was to become independent. It’s odd that even things you would have changed, that might have made your path easier… often times, there’s a result that you didn’t expect.

RACHEL: We now have 21 trillion listeners.

ISAAC: 21 trillion!

RAHCEL: Yes, I can say you guys have some fans out there. We’re going to go to “Optimistic.”

HANSON – OPTIMISTIC (from L&E)

ISAAC: Alright everybody, that was “Optimistic” off our album Live & Electric. This next one is—we’re just gonna go to the next track, which is a song called “Every Word I Say.”

HANSON – EVERY WORD I SAY (from L&E):

RACHEL: My name is Rachel and we are back with Hanson. During this tour you guys are having an opening band contest. How do you go about that? The whole organization…?

TAYLOR: The organization is pretty intense. You know, we’re lucky in a couple ways. The one thing we’ve always done from the very beginning is we’ve taken out unsigned bands. Obviously everybody starts out as an unsigned band, everybody’s out there trying to find fans, and we’ve been helped by so many people but whenever we’ve had the opportunity we’ve… first and foremost, we want to introduce great music. Our first tour we took out a local band from our hometown, our second tour Michelle Branch, she was just an unsigned girl from Arizona. She opened up for us, she ended up getting signed. So, this tour we wanted to just take that up a notch and take the whole idea of introducing local music. So, we tested it out with contest in a couple specific cities just to see how it would work and the reaction was so great that we had so many bands submit music that we said, “Let’s try to do this the whole tour.” So basically, this entire run of about 27 shows, every city—we’ve worked with college radio stations, media outlets and stuff, the promoters—and basically have gone out and put the word out to local bands and said, “Submit your music if you want to open up the show.” And bands submit their music. Us and our team, the record company and other people that are working with us sort of narrow down the list to about three bands, and those final three go up on the website and anybody—people vote. Local fans vote, anybody on the web can vote.

ISAAC: Our hundreds of thousands of regular visitors are voting.

TAYLOR: And what you’re doing is, each of those bands are getting—even the ones that don’t win the contest. Like, for instance tonight it’s a band called Glass Halo that’s opening here at Bogarts, and there’s the two other bands that were put up as finalists… they’re still being exposed to fans from Norway, Japan, and all over the United States, even if they didn’t win the contest, and we just feel like the power of connecting with fans and artists is so important.

ISAAC: And plus, if you’re in a band and you’re out there, you certainly want to be exposed to the Norwegian fans cos those Norwegian girls…

TAYLOR: Not to mention, our fans are truly some of the best fans I’ve ever seen. I’ve been to so many shows. We’re as much fans of music as we are fans of playing and writing tunes, so when we go to see shows I’m so blown away by how dedicated our fans are and so we want that to crossover to other bands, especially local bands, because those local fans, fans of Hanson that are here—they’re sleeping out on the sidewalk to see the show and those fans that live in Cincinnati, they’re also into other bands and maybe they’ll go out and check out a local band here and they’re going to build a local following, and before you know it they’ll be selling out big venues and building a fan base. That’s what it’s all about.

RACHEL: That’s awesome.

ISAAC: Also, in addition to that, I feel like I should comment cos it’s the perfect point to make is the Live & Electric Indie Sampler, which is one of the cool things that we’re trying to do also. With every ticket you buy on the Live & Electric tour you get a CD with that ticket.

TAYLOR: Why don’t we play… I mean, I don’t know, we were just playing music, but…

ISAAC: It is radio.

RACHEL: We can play it.

TAYLOR: This is talk radio. But no, one of the awesome things about—we were talking about the opening band contest, but the other thing is on this tour we’re also—Pat McGee Band is actually also playing with us too and Pat is an awesome artist and a rockin’ band and with the sampler that we’re giving away, we’re giving away music. There’s some Hanson music, there’s a Pat McGee song on it, and several other independent artists. The idea is that everybody that comes to the show walks away with something. They actually walk away with music that they’re going to discover. Maybe they’re not as active in independent music right now or they’re just getting into that. They’re going to say, “Wow, I didn’t know about this band.” I think Pat’s gonna sit down and chat with us a little bit, but we should play one of his tunes. This is one of the songs that you will get a hold of when you come and buy a ticket to any of these shows, like the one at Bogarts tonight, for instance.

ISAAC: This song is “You & I” and it’s off his latest album called Save Me.

RACHEL: Pat McGee.

PAT McGEE BAND – YOU & I:

RACHEL: Alright, that was Pat McGee Band with “You & I” and we actually have Pat with us right now.

PAT: Hello.

RACHEL: Hello, how are you?

PAT: Fantastic.

RACHEL: Fantastic. Alright, the Hanson Live & Electric Tour, you guys have the opening band and then Pat McGee. How did you guys end up collaborating?

TAYLOR: Well I don’t know, maybe Pat can…

PAT: I think you guys had worked with Michael Tolcher and we have the same manger, and same agent, and we just talked about it. “Would you like to go out with Hanson?” I said, “Okay.” I called Michael and he said, “Oh my god!” Michael just sings your praises like no other.

TAYLOR: And Michael’s awesome.

ISAAC: Great guy. For all of you who don’t know who Michael Tolcher is...

TAYLOR: Another great band.

PAT: And Ingram Hill I know very well, those guys have opened for us. I think Michael has opened for us probably 100 times. So I went and asked those guys and they’re like, “Yeah, go do it.” I’m like, “Okay.” It was that easy. Sort of. I’m lying. I’m sure there’s a lot of other things that happened.

TAYLOR: This tune that you heard, that’s obviously Pat’s tune, “You & I,” but it’s off of—again, for anybody who came in—it’s from a sampler of music we’re giving away with the ticket. One of the things that when you buy a ticket to a show these days one of the things that we’re all trying to figure out—I know we’ve been really focused on, is how do you build back trust with your fans? How do you build back excitement?

ISAAC: How do you get your fans excited about music that’s outside of yours once they leave the show, for example.

TAYLOR: And one of the ways is obviously to give them more. When you hear… somebody if it’s primarily a Hanson show or primarily a Pat McGee show, those fans are mostly into that particular band. But you give them music and all the sudden they’re going to walk away and we were talking about communities, you trust your friends. You trust your friends. It’s also you trust your bands; you trust the ones you’re fans of. So when a band that you love says, “Hey, here’s some other music” you’re going to say, “Wow, I trust that opinion, too” and the concept of really cross-pollinating. Pat is an amazingly toured band. They’ve toured like mad for years and they have active fans and the idea of getting those fans to meet each other is something that’s so important for music now, for the survival of great music.

ISAAC: And also, we try really hard to make sure that every band that was on the sampler was a band that you can buy the entire record. If you guy Pat McGee’s record, you heard that song, you will not be disappointed. I promise you. I was telling Pat that when I downloaded the record from iTunes before they came on the road when his manager was talking to our manager and so on. I just went onto iTunes and downloaded it and I was like, “Heck yeah!” Cos the songs are there. Pat’s a really good songwriter, the band, they’re a great band, and so it really gives you something more than just a single. It gives you an experience. The first three or four songs on the record in particular, just right off the bat, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You’ll be able to sing every single chorus. You’ll know those songs from the first few listens. “I can hum along to that!” And that’s really important cos these days you feel like you can’t trust the quality of music but Pat is certainly not one of those people.

TAYLOR: Oh yeah, we’re in your fan club. We forgot to tell you that.

RACHEL: Haha, that’s awesome.

PAT: Are my parents here? This is awesome. We were probably on the same time going on iTunes cos when I found out we were going to do this tour I went on to iTunes and I literally just purchased every song that you guys had cos I had to educate myself on their music and I was blown away. I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I hadn’t heard a lot of these tunes. And I was surprised the songs that I knew that I wasn’t even aware that were their songs. Cos I’ll see fans of ours that are at the show and they’re like, “I think I only know one song!” I’m like, “You’re going to know more than one song. Maybe you didn’t realize it was them.” Songs like “Where’s The Love” and “This Time Around” and maybe they didn’t realize they were bobbing their heads in the car to that song. It’s way more than “MMMBop.” It’s been amazing. I’ve never witnessed a fan base like this, other then when I was in high school and saw the Grateful Dead. That’s about it.

TAYLOR: What we’re trying to say is we have a lot of pot smoking hippies in this fan base. Which, ironically, yet we do have most of our fans are our peers, most of them are college aged. A lot of girls are at our shows, but the fans… what I’ve always been blown away by is there’s an insanely eclectic fan base.

PAT: Big time.

TAYLOR: And one thing that always blew me away and I think is so amazing about music is we got fans—we’ve been in the mainstream, quote unquote, for about eight years. 97 was our first major release and you’ve got fans that have grown up with you and are now in their early 20s or whatever and may be into death metal but they’re also into Hanson.

RACHEL: That’s great though, it’s so contradictory.

ISAAC: …like three rows back, third row, here are these two girls. They have a dozen piercings on their face. Each one of them. They’ve got whacked out hair, funky makeup on their eyes, the whole nine yards. One of them is wearing black lipstick. The whole nine yards. And they’re like, singing… every other song they’re—you can tell they’re belting it out. And the other one’s bobbing their head. You’re sitting here going, “That is just the most random!” Right next to the preppy girl, right next to the girl wearing the little tube top thing waving her hands in the air.

TAYLOR: Pat was talking about, he went to see a guy named Butch Walker the other night, who is an amazing artist and talking about his fans. He’s a guy who’s a real song-based artist, Butch is, and having really eclectic group of fans. Having the guy with the tattoos and the girl in the polo shirt. And the thing, to me, I’ve always found with great music—and not saying that our music is great music—but it seems like the bands that I’ve always loved, they’re respected and admired by random people that like all kinds of music. Cos even people like—maybe you’re not crazy about rap, maybe you’re not a metal fan, but bands that are great and have been doing something for a long time, they really have something, you like them. You see random people go in and say, “This is kicking ass.” And I think that’s what music is truly about, is sort of bridging those gaps and breaking the boxes that people like to draw around music.

RACHEL: That’s great that you can pull all these different types of people together and forget what type of people are, if you’re the jock, if you’re the punk rocker.

TAYLOR: Hopefully you can break the cliques a little.

PAT: You can. For us, that’s been the biggest thing for me. After our show I’ll go out and sign stuff before these guys take the stage and I’ll see everyone from—I even asked a girl last night, that band Him, a big metal band and she was decked out in black, everything about her was death metal to the bone. I’m like, “Did you go see Him?” She’s like, “Yeah, I did.” I’m like, “And you’re here tonight?” She said, “I went to see Simple Plan last night, I’m here tonight.” She was like, “I’ve been a fan forever.” You have that and then you have our fans that show up and say—they stick around after the show, they say, “Oh my god. I’m totally sold. I can’t believe I’ve never seen this.” That’s my reaction. I can’t believe I missed all their shows. Even me and Chardy were like, “When this tour is over and we’re not on this tour, we’re definitely going to be at these shows.” You may have to hide! But it’s just too much fun. You guys remind me of—I’m a big Springsteen fan, I like the vibe of a Springsteen show. Everyone from song 1 is so into it and it doesn’t matter what the song is, they’re just into it and that’s the vibe and it is about the songs you can sing and the musicianship and that’s what this tour is about, to me. I think it’s so cool what you guys do with your set. You break things down, you swap instruments and they’re up there singing and they’re doing all sorts of different things. They’re exposing their fans to not just, “Here’s a 50 minute pop set.” It’s way more than that.

RACHEL: Some variety.

PAT: Yeah, that’s what their fans—the best part is they just want to share that with other people. Just like you discover a band or whatever and you want to trade it with your friends, like, “You gotta check out this band, it’s so good!” And that’s what their fans are doing and what hopefully our fans are leaving the show going...

ISAAC: And that’s why we felt it was really important to put Pat on the sampler, to do a sampler, was because we feel people like Pat McGee Band, people like the Hero Factor that’s also another band. The Hero Factor—Pat’s been doing this for years. Pat has been able to go over the country and have toured and have been able to really do pretty well for themselves over the years and Pat is obviously an accomplished songwriter and a lot of these other bands are in varyinjg stages of their career.

TAYLOR: Basically you’ve got Hanson. You’ve got 28 Days, which is an Australian band that’s unsigned. Our friends The Hero Factor, they’re from our hometown.

ISAAC: They’re unsigned. Actually, three of these, three of the five are unsigned. And the other two—Pat’s on an indie label and we are on our own indie, so. I think it’s important cos music needs to be spread around and there’s a lot of good stuff. I’m just gonna say again, Pat McGee’s record is really good.

PAT: Thank you.

RACHEL: Alright. Melissa from New York says “Hi.”

TAYLOR: Good to know. Thanks Melissa.

ISAAC: I don’t think any of us know who Melissa is.

RAHCEL: A lot of people are wanting to know—you guys are saying how you present variety in your shows—what kind of things they can look forward to at Bogarts and even just at various shows.

TAYLOR: We’ll speak for Hanson. The whole thing with this tour has been interesting cos we have a live album out, obviously, and so there’s not a brand new studio album. So one of the things that a lot of the hardcore fans have been asking is, “How is this going to be different from the tour last summer?” And for anybody that’s coming to the show tonight, the whole idea is that we’re playing the songs that we never play off the records. Like we’re playing, if somebody is a real big fan, like a song like “Madeline,” a song off the first record or “Can’t Stop” off the second record, or… let me just go down the list.

ISAAC: Songs like “Runaway Run,” that we only off and on played but it’s one of those songs that’s a hit amongst the fans but was never actually a single.

TAYLOR: But for the fans, the whole idea is to give people a totally different show, even though there’s not a brand new album with 15 brand new songs. The live album has a couple new tracks and throwing in—we were talking about covers earlier. Throwing in different arrangements and covers of songs is another way to cerate an original show. You know, like we play an old Doobie Brothers song. We play a Dave Mason song. We play a U2 song. And I know Pat does the same thing. He throws in covers and different stuff. But you gotta change it up. I guess anybody coming to the show, the expectation would be it definitely will not be the show that happened last night or the night before that.

ISAAC: The question is, Pat, what can people expect for you?

PAT: Oh, from me?

ISAAC: Yes, from you.

PAT: It starts with the screeching, screaming that we walk out there…

ISAAC: Exactly! It’s the screams of women losing their virginity all simultaneously.

PAT: Wow.

ISAAC: Musical virginity, come on.

PAT: For us I think we’re new to 99% of the people in there, but it’s so cool to see every night I see a lot of the same faces in the first three rows cos a lot of girls come to every show, and they’re learning our music, so we’re getting requests instead of the earliest part of the tour they’re like, “Let’s see what you guys are all about” and now they’re requesting songs off this record that we’re not even playing. So I actually… I literally made the setlist for tonight as I was singing stuff, “You want to hear what?!” So I wrote them all down.

ISAAC: Cos they bought the record.

PAT: They brought the record and they’re taking it home and like, “There’s more than just those six songs you guys play.” And we’re a band that does tour a lot. We’ve probably done almost 3,000 shows as a band and it’s a great challenge for us to put what we do into a half an hour-45 minutes, whatever it ends up being. I love having to do that and I love having to go out and every night is a new audience even though there might be some of the same people. Our shows, speaking for the Pat McGee Band, is always half us, half the crowd. We don’t play at people. I’ve always been a fan of bands that don’t play at people, they play with them and if they’re into it then it really, really makes a difference for us. It makes a huge difference, just like anything you do. Whether your job is a teacher if the kids care, then cool, it’s going to be great. If they don’t then it’s going to be a bummer class. But you know, it’s really about that and I used to, when I grew up I was really involved in swimming and swim coach, I coached a lot of little kids, and I take a lot of that from what I do in the band and just sort of having to deal with everyone from 4 years old to 18 on the swim team and try to motivate these people whether it’s to get across the pool or if it’s a 15 year old girl who is not wanting to swim cos your boyfriend dumped you. You have to deal with so many different issues and we get up there on stage and I sort of throw that out there too. It’s just a blast to get up there every night and we’ve played Bogarts several times. We’ve been there on our own several times. We played there with OAR one time way back when, and Sister Hazel. It’s a great room. It’s a loud room.

ISAAC: It’s a very loud room.

RACHEL: Very loud.

PAT: It’s a major party vibe cos you’ve got the college right here, it’s always exciting when you’re in a college town,

ISAAC: The other interesting thing about Bogarts is the RF interference that you always get if you’re on in ears. There’s always something going on. No matter how well done your pedal board is, you’ll always end up being an FM receiver. Bzzzzz!

PAT: Some gospel station blaring out of your amp.

TAYLOR: Actually, I think there’s a Mexican station.

ISAAC: It goes from talk radio to Mexican station or something. I have a question for Pat because he and I were talking before, right before he came on and he was talking about songwriting and people always ask us how we write songs. People are always kind of curious. They’re like, “You guys are always credited as a band all the time on songs as the three of you, how do you write songs?” And I always say, “You never really know when a song is going to happen, how it’s going to happen,” and [pretty much everybody at some point, at least particularly in our band, has something to do with that element. Spontaneity is the thing that you can never predict and Pat actually—you had a really interesting story about track #5 on your record.

PAT: Yeah, it’s a song called “Don’t Give Up” and we were, I think we were out in Milwaukee or some place playing. We have a song called “Rebecca” we play pretty much every night, definitely on this tour, but on our tour our sets are a lot longer so we can stretch things out and that’s a song that has this whole jam element to it that I just sort of go off in my own little world and let the band do what they do. And this melody sort of literally fell out of the sky and was in my head while the band is playing another song and I’m just sitting on the side of the stage starting to hum this thing and really work this thing out and it’s crazy how songs can happen like that. Literally I grab my road manager’s cell phone and sang the whole thing into my voice mail and that song has stayed very true, even the lyric was there, the “don’t give up” lyric, the whole melody, the way it built up and I remember trying to tell the band that, “Wait till you hear this song! It’s going to be amazing and I haven’t even played it for you!” I’m like, singing it to them in the car and “It’s going to go like this…”

ISAAC: “With the strings!”

PAT: “And there’s going to be this big moment!” And it really stuck to that, which was cool. In making this record in New York we used the New York Symphony, that was mind-blowing. They all came in and crushed it. That was one of the coolest moments, making our record for me to stand in the room and have that, two years before that having this song I always envisioned being this way and they let me realize that, so it was cool. To me, I wish this song was a single but it may be a little over the top for some people, but we were really close to getting the Olympics…

ISAAC: Really?!

PAT: The Olympic committee came to us and wanted to use it cos it has this element… it’s about a relationship, not giving up on a relationship but it also could be…

ISAAC: Broader applications.

PAT: Yeah, with sports and stuff.

ISAAC: Well, I actually—would it be possible to play that song?

RACHEL: Yeah, definitely. It’s “Don’t Give Up” number 5. And this is the Pat McGee Band.

PAT McGEE BAND – DON’T GIVE UP:

RACHEL: My name is Rachel and we are back with Hanson and the Pat McGee Band. We’re going to give a shout-out to the Hanson listeners in Brazil, England, and the Netherlands. You guys just listened to “Don’t Give Up” from the Pat McGee Band and we’re going to take a question involving the 3CG label. They were just wondering if you guys are going to be adding bands or artists to your label any time soon.

ISAAC: I think what’s important to say, right off the bat, is we’re here talking to you guys about music and whatnot and I think what’s so cool about BearCast and a lot of these other alternative radio formats and college radio and whatnot is that there’s discovery, that there’s quality, that you guys are really deeply invested in what you’re playing on the radio and that everybody’s opinions, not only the DJ’s, but actually the audience’s opinions get reflected in what you do and so what we’re trying to do is, as a record company, as a band, is we wanted to make sure that as we move forward with our record company that we go out and look for the right bands who kind of share a similar passion for the independent scene, cos it is growing so much. Independent music is growing exponentially. 1 in 4 records that are sold are indie records. So we just want to encourage that part of the business, that’s part of why we went indie. We said to ourselves, “This is an opportunity unlike any other. The industry is growing and changing.” And so, in addition to that we’re going to sign bands hopefully in the near future. That was a long, confusing answer. Sorry.

TAYLOR: The whole thing with singing bands, is he was talking about being connected with what the audience wants and listening. You want to work with bands that really are invested in more than just being a pampered artist. The idea of being a band and being committed to your music is an amazingly hard job. It’s a job that is a 24/7 thing. As a label, we want to work with artists that are committed to making music for a long time and are really out there to reach people for a long time with their career. And that have something that are really committed to wanting to make record after record, cos that’s the thing that fans connect with and as a label, we’ve all got to figure out in today’s business, what are the new ways we’re going to reach people? How can we work better with bands? How can we empower bands? How can we empower fans? We’re just sort of in a position there’s no question we’ll sign artists, but we’re really wanting to learn from our own mistakes as a label, from our triumphs, from our success, and sign only people that we feel like we can give our full attention and passion to as a record company. So, keep your eyes and ears open, that will happen.

RACHEL: That’s great. Alright, we are going to be taking calls and to the fifth caller tickets will be given away to the concert tonight at Bogarts featuring Hanson and the Pat McGee Band. And for our one last question, they want to know if you guys put an emphasis on the chart standings?

TAYLOR: Do we put an emphasis on chart standings? Well, the charts are weird now because you know, more and more, the Billboard charts that everyone looks at are less representative of what’s happening in the music business. We’re talking about iTunes, downloads. I think obviously charts are, it’s a reference point, but I think it’s becoming less important and it’s becoming less representative. I think the whole business, as a whole, we’ve all been sort of talking about technologies and things. And that’s the whole challenge now, all the traditional mediums and places you’d always go to, a lot of your commercial radio stations and MTV for that matter and even big magazines that we all think are cool like Rolling Stone or whatever—they’re not as significant cos there’s so many other options and I think it’s important now as music fans to play a role of support and outreach to the new places that are sort of giving you more options because a lot of the places that are supposed to represent you don’t. A lot of the magazines and a lot of the radio stations, they’re supposed to be the beacon of what’s going on, what’s culturally relevant, and then you don’t even have hardly a chart to represent a lot of downloads, so how could that be culturally relevant?

ISAAC: Or the radio spins in comparison to the downloads and so on and so forth. They don’t really correlate. They haven’t decided to incorporate downloads into the charts, so the charts are flawed. Right now.

TAYLOR: It’s something that you can’t turn around and say, “The charts are flawed, ignore them.” But it is a job of the business to figure out how we can facilitate giving people a sense of what’s really happening in today’s music business and really show a sense of who is really reaching people with their music. The charts are there to sort of give you an example of what’s really reaching people and what’s getting people excited, whether it’s a download or whether it’s a radio spin. That’s just one element of the industry. I think—I guess we’re probably going to close it up. I just want to mention one more thing. One of the things on the sampler that we were playing, the one we’re saying Pat’s on and we’re on also, the CD you get with your ticket. One of the thing we’re also doing is we’re been actively involved in a website called areyoulistening.com.

ISAAC: The question…

TAYLOR: Yeah, there was a question earlier. Alexis Cone is one of the artists. She called. She’s an independent artist and she’s on the site and she said she wanted to ask a question. And that’s an example of one of the things we’re involved with, but there are so many other sites trying to do similar things, but it’s a site that’s based on trying to pull together as many fan bases of lots of indie bands to try to cross-pollinate and reach one another, with sort of a mission statement of activating the passion and activating passionate fans, and everybody on this sampler, aside from Pat McGee cos he just joined up with is, is actually on that site. I think for fans that are out there looking for music, you should check out areyoulistening.com. But we’re talking about charts, we’re talking about what represents the music business, I think it’s our job as music fans to get out there and play that active role of pursuit, of finding music, cos you know BearCast, you guys are reaching people all over the world and you have that reach and you’re going to expose music nobody knows about in Thailand, or Ireland, or for that matter the state next door but it’s out there for people to find and it wasn’t there only a few years ago. Hopefully there’s a lot more great things happening like that that are going to give new opportunities to music. *phone rings* The phone is ringing off the hook.

RACHEL: Yes, it is. We’re trying to get a winner but everybody is from out of town.

TAYLOR: Oh god. Well there you go, that’s the issue with streaming. “Hey, I’m in Thailand!”

RAHCEL: “Can I get the tickets for tonight?!”

TAYLOR: “Yeah, do you have a concord?”

RACHEL: That might be a problem.

TAYLOR: Well, I’m sure that you’ll find somebody. Do you want to—is it possible to end with a track?

RACHEL: Yeah, let’s see what we can do.

TAYLOR: Maybe we can play a tune, play a tune off the live record? I don’t know if you guys have that in there yet. Yeah, it’s from the Live & Electric album. What’s that? “Crazy Beautiful” is not on here.

MAN: Oh that’s right, it’s a B-side.

ISAAC: But we could play “Crazy Beautiful” from the actual album.

TAYLOR: I think they’ve got the live record in there, don’t you guys? Yup. It’ll be the last tune. Or, sorry, not actually the last tune. It’ll be 13. Yep. This is a song called “Rock & Roll Razorblade” off the album Live & Electric.

ISAAC: Again, for everybody who’s listening, check out the show tonight. Please come see us. Cincinnati. Bogarts.

TAYLOR: Anybody in Ireland.

RACHEL: Anybody who’s around.

ISAAC: Anybody who’s in the Cincinnati area. And for those of you who are not in the Cincinnati area, the Pat McGee Band, their URL is patmcgeeband.com. Check them out, they’re great.

TAYLOR: Or hanson.net.

ISAAC: Or hanson.net.

PAT: Because of these guys we’ve had to have some of our posts on our message board translated.

ISAAC: Oh really?

TAYLOR: Really? That’s awesome.

PAT: I’m not sure if that makes any sense, but yeah. Norway or something.

ISAAC: I’m curious, where? Norway? Really?

PAT: Norway. I’ve met so many amazing people the first week of this tour from France, from Scotland, from Spain, from Tahiti. We’re sort of out there everyday talking to these kids on the street. It’s really amazing that they come over in a group and I think they started and they flew into Philadelphia and did a run of dates and are like, “I’ve never been to New York City” and they’re like, they go there and they just can’t believe it. We played in Times Square, which is obviously… and they just couldn’t believe it. These people are sleeping in their cars, on the streets. It’s really amazing.

RACHEL: That’s dedication.

PAT: And they have crazy stories, I’m sure they go back—you guys probably don’t even know this, but some of these groups, this certain group from France and this certain group from Scotland, they’ve become fans of our band and they want to hear these other songs. I’m like, “Come on, come into the back lounge.” And I don’t ever do this with our fans, I would never do it, but I’m like, “Okay, come on back here. It’s early enough in the night.” I bring back like, six of them in the back lounge and just play like five songs for them. They don’t even speak English. They don’t speak English but they sing the words to the songs better than our own fans do.

ISAAC: That’s great.

PAT: They’re just singing what they hear and they’ll have one guy that translates and is like, “What is that word mean? ‘Don’t Give Up?’” Like a song like “Don’t Give Up,” I played that for them cos they really wanted to hear it, and then I tell them what it means and they’re like, “Ooooh.” It’s just amazing to do that. I’ve never had that experience of having an international fan base of any kind, so to have five of them sitting there in awe. We did it in New York with like, an English crew. It was hilarious.

TAYLOR: I think that is one of the cooler stories I’ve heard, actually, cos the coolest thing about that is you know, cross your fingers that those kids are going to go back, whoever they are are going to go back and talk about Pat McGee to their French friends in Paris and wherever else they are from across the country, and that’s—we feel really, really lucky that we have fans that are involved in that way because I want people to be into Pat McGee…

TAYLOR: That are our fans.

ISAAC: That are our fans. I want people to be able to say, “Not only I like Hanson, but I like their opening band. I like Pat McGee, I’m going to now come when Hanson is not playing with Pat McGee, I’m going to fly to the United States and I’m gonna come see Pat McGee or I’m going to get a bunch of friends who are in France to go buy Pat McGee records” and maybe you guys have a big following in France or anywhere else.

PAT: It’s the same way with you guys and I’m sure our fans are now going to be able to go if they get on the ball quick enough and get tickets cos you guys have the most active fan base I’ve ever witnessed, but it’s weird. For some reason I feel a connection with their fans that I haven’t felt with even our own fans, it’s almost—where you’re at a show or you’re talking to somebody and you’re willing to spill your guts to somebody that you don’t know cos there’s no real risk there. You don’t know them and they don’t know you and you’re not risking looking like an idiot. With their fans, I don’t know them at all. “Okay, come on in.” I can be somebody else cos our fans know who I am and how we are, so I’m sort of already this one person to them. But with the Hanson fans we can sort of just go, “I’ve always wanted to do this, but I don’t know if we could do it with our fans, so get in here and I’m going to try this.” But don’t knock on the bus door, it might not happen tonight. I’m losing my voice.

TAYLOR: Yeah, you need to stop talking, dude.

ISAAC: Yeah, we need to all stop talking, we’re…

TAYLOR: I was saying that cos Pat has been doing shows in between our shows. You’ve been singing like a madman.

PAT: Yeah, I’m trying to set some record or something.

TAYLOR: You’ve set a Guinness Book of World Records…

ISAAC: How many shows? You said you guys did 103 run… it was 99 shows…?

PAT: Yeah. And that was in a van and trailer.

TAYLOR: That’s unbelievable.

ISAAC: Dude. That is stunning.

RACHEL: How did you survive?

PAT: I don’t know, I don’t remember thinking it being that big of a deal. We just after the tour was over—no tour, we don’t have tours. We do now, but back then it was like, “Here’s another year. We’ll just keep going.” There was never like, “What record are you supporting?” We’re just supporting what we do; this is how we make a living and we’re on the road all the time. So, I don’t know. We just play a lot and that’s been the basis of our whole band. The grassroots thing.

ISAAC: And I will say, cos Pat has been so complimentary but I have to be really complimentary of them. Their band is really, really good. The Pat McGee Band is excellent and if you get a chance, whether you come to a Hanson show and see Pat with us on this tour or whether you go see a Pat McGee Band show at any other point, they put on a great show. You really do. You not only do you do good covers, good originals, the whole thing it just all kind of comes together. Cos I actually have to say, it’s like one of those things where bands… there are a lot of bands that don’t cover a lot of other people’s music, and then there’s bands that play their own and can cover other people’s music and make it their own in such a way that you’re sitting here going, “That’s as good as any other version of the song that I’ve ever heard,” and in addition to that, I love all the originals.

PAT: Well thank you.

ISAAC: I kind of made an emphasis on the covers. Cos I was thinking about it. I was thinking about “American Girl” and fact that you guys do “American Girl” and we were kind of thinking about it but you guys do it better than we would. I was like, “On second though, I’m not going to do it cos they do it better than us.”

PAT: Oh, god.

ISAAC: In addition to everything else that they play.

RACHEL: Great. We are going to wrap this up. I am going to thank the Pat McGee Band and Hanson. We’ve had a good day, we’ve had a lot of listeners.

ISAAC: A big old love fest over here.

RACHEL: And we’re going to close up with “Rock & Roll Razorblade” from Hanson.