Dermot O'Leary
London, England
22 January 2005

DERMOT: Hey Hanson!

ZAC: Hello!

TAYLOR: Hey, how's it going?

DERMOT: Sorry, for a second I thought you misheard me saying "Hello Handsome."

TAYLOR: We wouldn't have assumed that.

DERMOT: You are very handsome.

ZAC: I would not have responded!

DERMOT: How you doing boys? Listen, thank you so much for coming on, firstly. Appreciate it. It's nice of you. You are busy boys!

TAYLOR: Well yeah, we've been all over the place. And just even being in the UK we've been all over the place. But yeah, got the new record coming out finally after a long time.

DERMOT: When someone goes to America they see a lot of differences in different towns and so forth. Do you guys see the same thing when you come over here?

TAYLOR: Well, I mean, I think there's always differences, yeah, I mean we recorded our Christmas album outside of Redding and it was a totally different vibe, but definitely, we spend a lot of time in London so it's always good to come back.

DERMOT: Where are the craziest people in England, do you think?

TAYLOR: Well, I have to say…

ISAAC: Manchesterans, however you say it, Manchesterians?

DERMOT: Yeah, Manchunians.

TAYLOR: We played an acoustic show before the release of the record last fall and they were pretty, pretty out of control.

DERMOT: Your fans, by and large, really are out of control as I experienced to my fate this morning.

TAYLOR: Yeah, you don't want to get in the way! But you know the thing about them is? The fans, we have to give them props, because they-it's been almost 5 years since the last record and they've stayed so active, so attentive. I mean, just to the true fans, and that's an amazing thing.

ISAAC: And they're true music fans at the end of the day, I mean their record collections in most cases and the things they're into, it's pretty cool to get to talk to them.

DERMOT: But that's the weirdest thing, cos that's the heartening thing for you guys cos we came downstairs today and there were people here to see… like Slash was on Jonathan Ross's show. There were people here to see Slash and you! And that must sort of swell your heart, right?

ISAAC: Yeah, well, that's what music is there for though, you know?

ZAC: That's amazing to just… you meet these people and people who have been coming to concerts and buying your records for 7 years and they may like punk music and Hanson or pop music and Hanson, it doesn't matter. It goes over those barriers.

ISAAC: I was gonna say, I've run into actually a few fans that, it's kind of interesting cos they got into Hanson really early on in their lives and the continued to get into more heavy music in particular, people like Marilyn Manson and so on but have continued to be big time Hanson fans at the same time and it's really, really interesting cos they'll show up and they'll be decked in black with black lipstick and everything.

ZAC: Gothed out.

ISAAC: The whole deal.

TAYLOR: You know, on this record we collaborated with a lot of artists that were peers of ours or were doing things we connected with like Matthew Sweet who is a great singer/songwriter or even Carole King or Dan Wilson from Semisonic and we also produced stuff with a guy named Bob Marlette who produces stuff like Marilyn Manson and Black Sabbath and like, those are the things that once you start speaking the same language and making the same music you often find there's so much of a kinship even between different styles. I mean, it sounds a little "we are the world" but it's true… *laughs* That's the way we've always made records.

DERMOT: But the nice thing for you as well is everyone says "we grow with our fans" but you literally grew up with your fans, right?

ZAC: Well yeah, from a very young age, younger than most, I mean, most bands are starting now. I'm 19 and I was 11 when the first record came out.

DERMOT: I remember! Cos I saw you on television and thought, "that guy's hyperactive!" I remember watching you on TFI Friday.

TAYLOR: Well you have to be to be an 11 year old rock & roll drummer!

DERMOT: Exactly! You were everywhere! Now you're quite mellow!

ZAC: I guess I was more of a stereotypical drummer then than I am now.

TAYLOR: He was driving cars into pools at the age of 12!

DERMOT: So where have you guys been for the last couple of years? What have you been up to?

TAYLOR: It's kind of a complicated story but basically we have been working on this record, believe it or not. But the real thing that slowed it down was we kind of got in the wash of record company mergers and things like that. We were signed to a major label on our first and second record and then around the second album a lot began to change and we went to another record company; we became part of another record company, a rap label, just because of mergers. And as we went into making this record we just realized more and more and more that we didn't have the same connection with that record company, and if we wanted to have people around us that really, truly understood us in the same way that with our former record company, the original record company that signed us, that we really wanted to be in a place where we could own our music and we wanted to start our own record company.

DERMOT: The nice thing is you didn't feel pressured to do anything anyone wasn't telling you to do.

TAYLOR: Well you know musically, it's interesting as we started talking about starting a label people say, "so now you can be creative and do different stuff!" And it's actually more that we started the record company so we could continue to do what we'd always done, which was to make records that represented who we were and continue to change and when we're owning our own record company we can actually work with people and find people to sort of make our own infrastructure as opposed to sort of attaching ourselves to someone else's.

ISAAC: And I think importantly it's about stability. It's like, 10 years from now, god knows where the industry is going to be, or frankly what exactly is going to be going on with Hanson. So you kind of have to be able to be with a consistent group of people to kind of continue to evolve over the next 10-15 years. You want to be able to kind of grow and change with them in the same way that you grow and change with your fans almost.

DERMOT: Do you think it's… obviously you've got nothing to compare it to, but do you think it is a little bit difficult growing up and being in a band and being that high profile? I mean, you've been through puberty the last few years, you've had a-who's had a kid?

TAYLOR: Yeah, a 2 year old and married, yeah. Well you know, life is difficult no matter what. Everybody has their own batch of issues and doing what we've done is by no means easy but it's also by no means, you know, a drag to get to play music and to get to do what you love doing. And if you're going to work at something, we always said, we might as well work at something we actually care about, which is music.

DERMOT: Obviously you've kind of come of age now but when you were sort of properly growing up, did you have to study while you were touring and stuff like that?

TAYLOR: Well yeah, sure. I mean, doing high school…

DERMOT: You did self education when you were 11, right?

TAYLOR: Of course he did.

ISAAC: Well actually, he did graduate a little bit early.

ZAC: I graduated when I was 16, which is a couple years early for the states but you know, the thing we'd always done which we just fell naturally into… the state we're from is very high on home schooling, and so we'd already home schooled for most of our lives and then as we went into being a band it was just natural to keep doing it.

DERMOT: Thank goodness, I get the idea of you being some sort of wolf boy. *laughs* No education from 11. *someone makes wolf sounds*

ISAAC: He bangs on rocks.

ZAC: I'm still a drummer in a band so I can't spell, but I can create a sentence that's slightly coherent.

ISAAC: Zac would have been, like, Doctari meets Deliverance.

DERMOT: So the new stuff, tell us a little bit about it.

TAYLOR: Well, I mean every record, like we said every record changes. We produced this record. The reason we chose to completely produce this on our own… we'd always produced but we'd usually collaborated with another producer. On this record we just had a really clear sense of the sound we wanted to have, the sound of-the sonics of the record and we were writing stuff that was a little mellower influenced by some sort of UK style bands like Travis or Coldplay and even a little alt-country stuff like Nick Drake. I mean, Nick Drake's not alt-country, but alt-country like Jayhalks or Ryan Adams, those kind of things. And it just happened going into the making of this record that we were writing songs more of that style and we really wanted the record to carry forward and have that mellower quality, be a little more textural and sort of be the kind of album that you could turn up loud and rock out to but you could also turn it down and mellow out to it.

DERMOT: Okay, the first thing you're going to play for us is "Penny & Me." Okay, thanks a lot guys.

"PENNY & ME"

DERMOT: Boy, that was great. Thank you so much! That was terrific. Is it strange sort of going away for a couple years and then coming back and still seeing that you got that grounds for support… I'm not going to ask you to answer that question, you've been singing your heart out there, you're about to collapse there, don't worry about it Taylor.

ISAAC: You know it is, I remember it kind of was a little bit of a shock as we were just starting to go into this record having been in the studio and working on the release of the album and getting ready for it for so many years. I remember there was a little bit of a feeling when it first released in the US a few months back when I just thought to myself, "wow. Okay, I'm ready for this record to be released, but at the same time, I'm not, cos I don't know whether I'm ready to let it go yet."

ZAC: We'd been working on it for such a long time but I don't think it's surprising as much as it's an honor to have people that devoted to your music and being a part of what you're doing.

DERMOT: And you want to hear devote? Check this out. This is an email we got from Elizabeth saying, "I'd like to thank Hanson, blah-blah-blah, I went to your concert, absolutely loved it. My friend, we went up to see the Manchester show and Taylor spoke to me when he was on stage. My friend threw her bra at Isaac and therefore remained braless for the rest of the evening and she was half naked for the rest of the evening cos she went to see you!"

TAYLOR: That's a support system right there.

ZAC: That's the kind of devotion we're looking for!

ISAAC: Exactly! We're broadcasting across England saying, "you know what…?"

DERMOT: "If you're happy, throw your bras!"

ZAC: When you see somebody and they're like, "I have 34 Hanson records because I bought every import version from around the world that had an extra bonus live version or an extra song that was recorded," that stuff, or the girl that comes and she says, "I've been to every show on this tour. In 40 states around the United States and I'm going to the ones in Canada and I'm going to the ones in South America" and that kind of stuff where you just go, "holy crap!"

TAYLOR: Yeah, again…

ISAAC: Granted, there's not a ton of those but there's enough.

TAYLOR: Again, that's what you're hoping to do is just be able to pull people forward and keep changing. And it's funny when people say, "yeah, well, this record is different." I'm always like, "of course it's different." If you're not changing, you're not trying new things and evolving, you're not gonna have people going, "hey, I want to go get that new record."

DERMOT: Sure. We're playing a Nick Drake song for you guys now just before we chat a little more and you are gonna play another song for us. Why Nick Drake?

TAYLOR: Well first of all, it's just an amazing artist, one that we're all huge fans of, and that was influential in this period of the last five years and also in the song "Penny & Me" we just sang there's a line, "singing along"- "making it by under pink moonlight" and it's a reference to…

ZAC: He has an album called Pink Moon.

TAYLOR: …a song "Pink Moon," his album Pink Moon, because "Penny & Me" is really all about songs like "Pink Moon," songs like "Feeling Alright," which is another reference to a Dave Mason/Traffic song.

ISAAC: And songs like "Penny Lane," which is actually where "Penny" comes from.

TAYLOR: The song is all about basically the things that go through your life and the music and the moments and "Pink Moon" and Nick Drake are one of those.

DERMOT: Okay, let's play that.

"River Man" - Nick Drake

DERMOT: Hey, that was great. You guys are opening my eyes to Nick, I'm holding my hand up here. We were just talking about making out to that song.

TAYLOR: Not together actually!

DERMOT: Come on boys! Jump in!

ISAAC: Well, we were talking about the fact that your girlfriend would probably love to make out with you…

DERMOT: Well I don't know about making out with me, maybe if I played this song and could beguile her into it.

ISAAC: Well that's the point.

ZAC: Everybody knows why you usually turn down the lights when you're about to make out so people won't have to look at you! *laughs*

ISAAC: I still do that. I turn down the lights and my girlfriend, she says, "honey, you know…"

TAYLOR: "Please don't."

ISAAC: "I'd love to make out with you, but your face!"

DERMOT: Stick the Nick Drake on and then we're laughing. I got loads of emails here for you. "Can you ask Hanson if they got the bag of presents that hit Isaac in the face in Manchester, England?"

ZAC: I think he clearly got that one!

ISAAC: I do remember that actually and yes, I definitely got those presents. I wasn't particularly thrilled with the, shall we say the way they were delivered…

ZAC: I think one of my favorite stories about something like that is we were on tour and our manager was out with us and he walked in the front of the stage in the pit and all the sudden a bag of like, M&M's came flying and hit him in the back of the head and he thought he was bleeding. He was like, "oh crap! I'm dying!"

TAYLOR: Cos of the way it broke, like you take your hand and trickle like this and move it down, it shattered all over his head so he thought that it'd like, crushed his skull.

DERMOT: Shrapnel.

ISAAC: Exactly. Or the other one is the jar of peanut butter that I remember. Somehow at the performance we did at…

TAYLOR: Red Rocks.

ISAAC: Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. It's a very, very steep amphitheater so the seats just practically go straight up the mountain…

ZAC: In other words, they can hit you with something 30 rows back!

ISAAC: Exactly, so somebody decides that since they'd had a picnic before they went to the show that they were going to throw this jar --

TAYLOR: Offer their food…

ISAAC: --this jar of peanut butter towards the stage. Needless to say, here I am *plucks out notes to "MMMBop"* I'm singing the song "do do do do do" and then look up, "OH MY GOD!"

DERMOT: Here comes Skippy!

ZAC: Here comes Jiffy or Skippy or…

ISAAC: I almost had a heart attack.

ZAC: Peter Pan.

ISAAC: I almost had a heart attack, or maybe it was like a defibrillator maybe could have had the effect that it would have had on me.

DERMOT: So what happens next for you guys, how long you in town for, how long in the country for?

TAYLOR: Well, we're all over Europe and the UK for the next… well, we're actually leaving to go to Italy today but we're going to be back in the UK in March to do some shows and we'll be doing several shows across the UK. Look at hanson.net which is we'll put up all the tour dates.

ISAAC: We're about to announce it soon.

TAYLOR: And we're gonna be in the UK for a couple more days this coming week.

DERMOT: Do you like it over here?

TAYLOR: Yeah! We always have a good time. Love spending time in London. Like we said…

ZAC: Look for Indian food, there's no better place.

TAYLOR: Right, no better place to find the curry.

DERMOT: And what about the wealth of English or British artists?

TAYLOR: Well we were just talking about it, Nick Drake, he's…

ZAC: There's a lot of British bands, UK bands that we're fans of. You know, Travis…

DERMOT: Bono said last week, he was talking about you on CD:UK! Did you hear about that?

ISAAC: I heard about that, I heard about it, he was very complimentary with us. I have to say, we heard about it from across the ocean and I was sitting there going, "ooh, Bono said something cool about us."

DERMOT: That's the hyperventilating time.

ISAAC: Actually it was. In fact, one of the only times I've been truly star struck was when we met Bono. We actually had the opportunity, we went to a few of their shows, I'd talked to Edge, that was a really humbling experience, I mean, I'm a huge, huge fan of their music and just also kind of who they are as a band and just in general. I think it's almost more than their music, they're dynamic, they're just so powerful and talking to Edge was really humbling, but then as we walked into a party for a Grammy party in the United States we heard somebody yell from behind us, "Hey Hanson!" And we're like, "what? Huh? Who?" Turn around and it's Bono!

DERMOT: Oh my god. Then you got that choice, "do I go and talk to him or do I go run away?"

ISAAC: Or do I just pee my pants?

ZAC: I think they're a band that we look up in particular to because of the way they're able to… they've created such a sound that's so unique you know who's playing. When U2 starts up it's such a powerful group of musicians. You know, I don't have to mention that it's really 3 musicians and vocals, that's another thing, but they're just so defining themselves as a band, creating a place for them in musical history where nobody else can sit next to them.

DERMOT: And yet you never accuse them of being samey, you know what I mean?

ZAC: Oh no.

DERMOT: Which is astonishing. Okay and the next track you're going to do for us you're going to do a cover. You're going to do "Teach Your Children."

ISAAC: Yep. This is actually a song also written by a British artist, Graham Nash. And this is a song called "Teach Your Children." So here we go. *starts playing* Actually, sorry, wrong key. Down one key.

"TEACH YOUR CHILDREN" - CSNY

DERMOT: Boys, thank you very much, that was beautiful. Thanks so for coming on today.

TAYLOR: Thanks for having us.

DERMOT: And good luck with the tour, okay?

ZAC: Thank you.

TAYLOR: Thanks a lot.