Hot 100
Darwin, Australia
07 April 2004MATTY: Up next in Hot 100's Hot 30 I'm going to be speaking to Isaac from Hanson regarding their new album and what's been going on with them for the last 8 years. Of course 8 years is the last time we heard from them and that was the song "MMMBOP," do you remember that? Well, in that time they should have released at least 8 albums but they've only released 3, we'll talk about that tonight in Hot 100's Hot 30.
* MATTY: I've been talking about it all week, I'm now about to start talking to Isaac from Hanson, how you going?
ISAAC: Hey, I'm going really good.
MATTY: Now okay, let's just go through the past of Hanson. 8 years ago…
ISAAC: Yes.
MATTY: You hit our shores with the song "MMMBop," which was phenomenal in fact; I believe it went doubled platinum.
ISAAC: Yes.
MATTY: Now… following that we had "Where's the Love?"
ISAAC: Yes.
MATTY: Then "I Will Come To You" and "Weird" and "Thinking Of You," "If Only," all of these singles happened then all of a sudden there's been this dead patch with no Hanson.
ISAAC: Yes.
MATTY: And you guys are back.
ISAAC: Yeah.
MATTY: You're back in a very big way. Now I believe that you guys are now making the rules up by yourselves. Please explain.
ISAAC: Sure… Well I mean much like any band you're always defining the world you live in and making your own rules, that is of course the process of creating music but nonetheless, when we parted ways with our record company about two years ago we decided to form our own label because we felt that the state of the music industry was a very rapidly changing one. And we wanted to be able to adapt as quickly as possible to the changing industry so we decided to start our own record company and released the new album Underneath completely independently all around the world.
MATTY: And it's doing very well for you around the world, I mean you guys are now doing, I believe, a world wide tour as a result of this release. Now how does that feel knowing you've challenged the way it should be and you're doing it by yourselves?
ISAAC: Well you know, the coolest thing about it is we have fans around the world, not many bands ever get the chance to be exposed to a world-wide audience. To be able to tour in Australia as much as you tour United States and Europe and South America and Asia. Most bands never get the chance to do that and we have been incredibly lucky to be able to have the opportunities that we have to get in front of that many people from so many different cultures and countries and we look forward to not only releasing a lot more records over these next few years but touring a lot more in places like Australia, cos we have always put a lot of emphasis on our live shows but have never played as many shows in Australia and we are really intent on changing that because it's such a big part of who we are as a band and we wanna make sure that our fans get the opportunity to see as much of us as possible.
MATTY: It's Hot 100's Hot 30, Isaac don't go anywhere cos we're gonna come back in a tick.
* MATTY: Now I must confess Isaac, I'm not a fan of Britney Spears. In fact I wish she would just curl up in a corner and die, is that a rotten thing to say?
ISAAC: Well, that's a little bit hostile.
MATTY: Well, I mean look at her. She goes and marries her childhood sweetheart for 52 hours. At her concert she leaves her mic on and she abuses the audience. Then she marries Kevin and now there's a reality series coming on and… OH! Got no time for her, however, you guys…
ISAAC: Yeah I agree, I really don't have time for the inner workings of Britney Spears relationships either but I do have to say on a human level, I do wish here the best and hope that she's not, you know, making mistakes.
MATTY: I think she has, that's the problem. That's what's got my goat. She's made too many mistakes but this isn't about Britney, this is about you guys who have gone so far, now we were talking just before I brought you onto air here and you were telling me what pissed you off.
ISAAC: Well, what pissed me off was the fact that we've only released 3 major records so far in 8 years and that's a really bad extent of time. Basically, you know, for a record every 4 or 3 ½ years or so.
MATTY: Hmm.
ISAAC: So you know, it's like that's something that we're intent on changing. Also and that was in big part due to the extensive period of time between our last album This Time Around, which was released in 2000 and this new album Underneath, which just now got released, you know, in the last few months. And so I think really the bigger differences now is fans are going to be hearing a lot more music from us a lot more quickly because we have constantly been writing and creating music. But, you know, the fans have not been hearing that much of it. So we're intent on changing that because we feel like that the best place for the fans to be in is a place of constant evolution and constant attention from the band. And we wanna make sure that they hear as much from us as possible.
MATTY: Now, was it the record company that actually sort of stifled you releasing albums or was there other factors involved?
ISAAC: Well, it was primarily that we just had an un-productive relationship with our past record company and, you know, I wish them the best at the end of the day it's not about us VS them. But it's a bout a career and they put us in a very awkward position of not being able to kind of feel the fan base and give them music when we were ready to and it was really just a matter of them having a lot of uncertainties about who we were as a band cos they were a rap label and we were a pop/rock band.
MATTY: Yeah.
ISAAC: And they just didn't really understand where we were going creatively and so we had to find a way to change that and the best way to achieve that was go independent and do it the way we want.
MATTY: Now we're gonna talk about that in just a tick but Hanson, have absolutely done one of the most cleverest strategies in getting themselves back out there that I have ever seen and Isaac, if you don't mind, we're just gonna go into a flashback now in Hot 100's Hot 30 and then I'll come back and talk about that because this is pure genius what you've done.
ISAAC: Oh cool.
* MATTY: Unfortunately, we lost our line with Isaac but while we were talking I did get this out of him. And that was me talking about the fact that they've managed to enlist their own die-hard fan groups around the world and there of course is one in Darwin. This is what he had to say…
ISAAC: I'm not actually sure what the exact… I know there is various, you know, groups of people that have, you know, different code names for themselves you know they've developed their own little fan communities which a lot of fans have but in this particular case…
MATTY: Unfortunately that's where we lost the line, isn't that shameful. So hopefully we will be able to re-establish that a little bit later in tonight's Hot 30 or we'll catch up with them in the coming weeks. Of course Hanson and their new song which is out right now, in fact it took out #22 tonight in Hot 100's Hot 30 voted in by you guys, and that's "Lost Without Each Other." I'm sure we're gonna see more things coming from Hanson.
typed up by Rach
edited by Heidi (me)