PAST APPEARANCES Frokost TV
Oslo, Norway
11 February 2005HOST MAN: Good morning boys!
ZAC: Morning.
ISAAC: Morning.
HOST WOMAN: A little bit older and a little bit wiser?
ISAAC: Uh, well, definitely…
ZAC: That was almost a decade ago! It's crazy, you look back and you go, "damn." We've been a band for 14 years together and that's from very close to the beginning.
ISAAC: 8 years ago. Yeah, exactly. 8 years ago.
HOST WOMAN: It seems like a decade?
ZAC: Well, almost a decade.
ISAAC: It is almost a decade. 8 years, so it's been quite a bit of time in between then and now…
TAYLOR: This is actually our first time to officially come to Norway as a band though.
HOST WOMAN: Okay! So double welcome!
HOST MAN: But you know Norway well and you know especially Norwegian girls well.
ISAAC: Yes, of course. Yeah, I dated a Norwegian a few years back.
ZAC: I also dated a Norwegian.
HOST WOMAN: You can name her name if you want.
ISAAC: Fairly famous Norwegians, yes.
HOST MAN: Marit…
ISAAC: Marit Larsen.
ZAC: Well, I wasn't saying their names cos you clearly already knew.
HOST WOMAN: All the papers are writing about this today, so we know everything. But do you still keep in touch?
ISAAC: We do still keep in touch. She actually came to Copenhagen when we played a show, Marit did, and so that was really cool. She's got a lot of potential, I think, in the future to make a lot of good records.
TAYLOR: It's exciting that she's --
ISAAC: Cross your fingers and hopefully she'll be making a good, new record soon.
TAYLOR: Also Marion lives in New York.
ISAAC: Yeah, we've run into Marion.
HOST MAN: Marit played in (?) last night and the papers are writing really nice things about her music.
TAYLOR: That's what we hear. That's great.
ZAC: When we took those guys out on tour, that was the reasons why we had them come out and obviously after that, relationships and that stuff happened.
HOST WOMAN: I'm just wondering… you are young but you were younger. How did you deal with all that rock & roll circus?
TAYLOR: Well, for us we were the rock & roll circus. We never got caught up in a lot of the stuff that people get wrapped up in, the idea of fame and stardom. For us, we were always passionate about making music, and obviously it's strange to be - I mean, I was 14 when that video you played came out and that song, so I was young, but we'd been playing already for 6 years. We'd done 500 shows at that point and made 3 albums and it was like, "this is what we do." But it's an amazing thing, I mean, that's why we're still here. That's why we're here 8 years after that record because this is who we are.
HOST MAN: And the last 5 years you have spent making this album.
ISAAC: Far too long spent making an album, but nonetheless the album Underneath is just released. It's actually on our own label, which is very cool. We parted ways with our old record company because of a lot of difference issues. The record industry has changed a lot and we really felt like the only place that we could be in a stable position was owning the record company. And in addition to that, musically the record is definitely a new direction, I think, at least for people who are not as familiar with our music. They'll definitely be surprised by it. It's a pretty mellow record in many ways.
ZAC: It's still a Hanson album. There's still… the way we write songs, the way that we sing together and just I think there's a sense of Hanson but obviously this album is a slight departure in just what the songs that we were writing for this album were calling for. I think they were more influenced by artists like Ryan Adams and The Jayhawks and things like that. So it leans a little more in that direction.
HOST MAN: And your new single "Penny & Me," inspired by The Beatles? The name?
ISAAC: It is in some form, yes.
TAYLOR: The name came from there. The song is really all about music, it's really all about - you read the lyrics and it's really all about the songs and the moments that go through your life, that you sort of carry with you. That's what Penny represents. "It's always Penny & me tonight."
ISAAC: The song is almost all about a nostalgia in some form or remembering…
TAYLOR: It's memories, yeah.
ISAAC: Remembering the memories and always saying, "no matter where I go, no matter what I do, those memories are always with me."
TAYLOR: And it also references other songs like "Feeling Alright" by Traffic or Pink Moon, which is a record by an artist named Nick Drake. I mean, there's a lot of music references because that's part of our memories and our history.
* show clip from "Penny & Me" *
HOST WOMAN: As you said Zac, it's still Hanson music.
ISAAC: It is!
HOST MAN: Nervous about the release?
TAYLOR: No, not at all. No, it's exciting.
ZAC: I think… just proud - we spent a long time working on this record obviously and all that's just sort of come up to releasing it - the tours that we've done in the states and all around the world. And so you're just proud and excited to finally get it out to the fans all around the world and hopefully people will enjoy it.
TAYLOR: Like Ike was saying also, we're being independent and we started our own record company and we're working with other independent labels releasing it. That also changes the feeling about the music, or at least about the project and about where we are and the things that we want to do for our fans, like come back to Norway again. And also playing more concerts all the way across Europe. That's one thing we're going to be doing, end of next month we'll be coming back. And we don't have a confirmed date for Norway yet but only half the tour is confirmed so far; we're working with all the dates and putting it together.
HOST WOMAN: Very proud! Yes. So thank you! And good luck!
HOST MAN: And you'll show up tonight NRK 1, Topp 20? This afternoon?
TAYLOR: Yeah, we will be.
HOST WOMAN: Stay tuned!
ISAAC: Yeah, exactly.
ZAC: Keep watching, all day.
HOST MAN: Thank you very much for coming!