76.1 InterFM
Tokyo, Japan
11 February 2004GUY: There's a song we've all heard before ["MMMBop" plays in background]. I'd like to welcome to the studio this afternoon Isaac, Taylor, and Zac. Hanson! Good afternoon!
ISAAC: Good afternoon!
ZAC: Hello!
GUY: How you doing?
TAYLOR: Doing really good.
ISAAC: Very good, yeah.
GUY: Back in Japan, now you did your show on Monday night.
ISAAC: Yes we did!
ZAC: First show ever, actually, in Japan. First official show, so, really excited about getting to do that.
TAYLOR: The Japanese fans are amazing to play for. I mean, they're just singing back every word, totally enthusiastic; it was great.
GUY: We've had tons and tons of mails and faxes from people who are very excited that you're coming in here today.
TAYLOR: Hey, my grandma is doing a good job. She's really on it!
GUY: Someone is!
GUY: She can write in Japanese, yeah.
GUY: I'd like to go back to the early days, you know, when "MMMBop" came out, the album Middle of Nowhere. I mean, this must have been an incredible time for you.
ISAAC: It was an incredible time, in fact I remember very clearly coming into Japan for the first time and just the response to the music and just seeing the Japanese fans for the first time and really being exposed to Japanese culture for the first time and how cool it was that you're able to do the music that you love to do and yet it was still able to kind of communicate to Japanese people, to people who are speaking a totally different language.
TAYLOR: You know, honestly it's just like… in some ways it feels like such a long time ago, but at the same time, you know, we were saying like it felt like we were in here just a couple days, cos of memories of places you've traveled to, the fans you've seen. You know, this is what we love to do. It's amazing to be back.
GUY: You've obviously been in lots and lots of places around the world. Got a couple of favorite places you'd like to share with us?
TAYLOR: Tok-yo!
ISAAC: Actually, Tokyo has been a really cool place to get to visit, I mean, how many guys from Oklahoma get the opportunity to come to Japan? Time after time after time.
TAYLOR: About three!
ISAAC: Exactly! So, we feel really lucky that we've had the chance to travel around and see all these places and Tokyo is a really incredible city and Japan in general is a very incredible country.
TAYLOR: It's been good to us.
ISAAC: Yes, it's been very good to us. And also we have had the chance to visit a lot of other places in Asia too, you know, Korea and Singapore and so on.
GUY: Cool. You had such incredible success at such early ages for all three of you. Did it sort of jade your view of the world and the music industry or did it give you a good kind of ground to fight back?
ZAC: I think everyone in the music industry is jaded. Somewhat.
TAYLOR: We're all jaded.
GUY: Come on, I love my job!
ZAC: We've just always wanted to do it from a very long time and young age and it's just given us the opportunity to do it for an even longer period of time than most people even have the option of.
TAYLOR: Yeah, for us people are always like, "why did you guys start so young?" And we're like, "why would we wait?" You know, I think really we were just prepared for all of the things that might come with the goal of success and I think we-this has always been what we wanted to do, so I think we were just built for it. You know, we're built hopefully to be able to handle the potential, if you could ever reach that dream of having fans, having success, you know, I think we want it badly enough that you just try to take it in stride.
GUY: Good for you.
ZAC: Something like that.
TAYLOR: Yeah, I haven't told you about my malformed brain, you know, that's growing a cyst.
GUY: Has it been tough to keep critics happy, because you are so young? Do you think there are people out there that are like, "ah, it was all a fluke the first time around"?
ISAAC: Well you know, we've actually, we've always had a really positive response from critics in general. I mean, for instance, going back recently to This Time Around, the last record which we released around the world, we had extensive critical acclaim all across the US and the world…
ZAC: But you can never really worry about the critics.
ISAAC: Yeah, exactly.
ZAC: All you worry about are the people who love the music and the fans and everybody else…
ISAAC: That's the icing on the cake. But honestly, we've never really had any trouble with that; people have always been very responsive to the music, to the songs.
TAYLOR: It's nice to have people or peers in the industry go "hey!" or give you a tip of the hat and say, "hey, you guys made a solid record," or people who are really into music go, "hey, that really makes me think of this record or that record."
ISAAC: But at the end of the day it is about the fan base and it's really about people that you're selling records to more so than anything.
GUY: Gonna talk about your new album, Underneath in just a moment, but you're going to do some live tunes for us.
ISAAC: Yes, we are.
TAYLOR: That's the rumor!
GUY: What are you going to do?
TAYLOR: This is a… I think we're going to play the first single. This song is called "Penny & Me," first single off the record.
GUY: We have Hanson live in the studio this afternoon.
PENNY & ME
GUY: Alright, Hanson live in the studio this afternoon. Thank you very, very much.
ISAAC: Glad to a… play it.
GUY: The live version of your brand new single, "Penny & Me."
TAYLOR: Yeah!
GUY: From your brand new album Underneath. Thanks for the live music!
TAYLOR: Yeah, thanks.
GUY: Is it hard work?
TAYLOR: [laughs] playing live? Well…
ZAC: It's enjoyable. This is what we do it for, to be able to play music in front of people, to be able to hopefully affect people with the songs you write and I guess be an inspiration.
GUY: I always ask musicians, is playing live their favorite part of your job?
ISAAC: It is definitely a perk.
TAYLOR: It's a vicious cycle.
ISAAC: We really enjoy it a lot, I mean, you know, when you're in the studio and you're working on new music it's definitely the creation process and then once you're out there live it's really more of … it's very instantaneous gratification and you feel the energy from the audience, you're giving the energy to them, and it's a very interactive thing, it's really enjoyable. We just love singing together, we love playing music no matter what, so…
ZAC: It's a funny cycle because when you're in the studio you want to play live and when you're playing live you can't wait to record the songs that you're writing in the studio, so yeah. We love both sides!
TAYLOR: Oh god! It's never going to stop!
GUY: Now how do you write the music, what's the process for you?
TAYLOR: Well, the thing about Hanson has always been there's three definitive writers. I mean, we could all be off doing our own thing separately like three different artists sort of in one band and I think that's one of the strengths about it. A lot of times somebody will bring an idea like, "hey, check this out." And sometimes we'll just sit around like this, I mean, sitting around with a few guitars and somebody's inspired to start a piano riff or a guitar part or has a lyric and BOOM! You write it.
ISAAC: Or then there's a song like the one that's actually playing in the background right now, "Underneath," which we wrote with Matthew Sweet, which happened in four hours. I mean, it just clicked.
GUY: How did you get together with Matthew Sweet?
ISAAC: Well, we actually got together with him because of a mutual friend who invited us to dinner. She said, you know, "I'm hanging out with Matthew tonight, you guys should come, you guys should meet him, he's a great guy." And we got to talking and…
TAYLOR: Just kind of hit it off.
ISAAC: We were like, "hey, we're going to be rehearsing tomorrow, you should come by, you know, who knows what could happen." And he said, "yeah, that sounds like a good time!"
GUY: Cool.
ISAAC: And Zac actually wasn't even at dinner with us. it was just Taylor and I and then when we came back we were kind of like, "hey Zac, we think we're gonna like, write with Matthew Sweet tomorrow," and he's like, "okay, cool!" [laughs] So we kind of go in there with him and by the end of the evening, within four hours… it was actually more like a couple hours the song was actually written, but by the time that he had to go back and have dinner with his friends, we were done with the song and it was a real cool experience for sure.
TAYLOR: Yeah, much like collaborating with each other, when you bring in another person to collaborate with writing-wise, it's like they're joining the band. It's like, hey, be a part, and with him, where he comes from and where we come from, there was just a great blend of styles.
ISAAC: It was kind of seamless.
GUY: Great moments in the studio.
TAYLOR: Yeah, I think so.
ISAAC: It's true, it's true.
ZAC: Definitely.
GUY: Your new album, Underneath, it's on your own label, 3CG Records. Now, you're pretty much doing it all yourselves. That's a pretty mammoth task--
TAYLOR: Ohh, nah.
GUY: …to be an indie label out there in the big wide world. I'm kind of interested in this, the way you're taking hold of your career.
TAYLOR: The thing about it is… well, first of all, we're working with different labels all around the world. 3CG, really what it comes down to is, we saw the opportunity to really move our career forward in a different way. Labels are changing, the industry is shifting, and we just wanted to have the opportunity to get closer to our fans. To have the opportunity to really sort of take charge of where our career was headed in a more direct way, and we really sort of believe that you know, it's kind of the future for bands to really build an infrastructure around themselves in order to feed the music and to feed the fans in order to give them more. And also it was about finding passionate partners all around the world, really focusing on each part of the world and saying, "well, okay, JVC, we're going to work with you guys in Japan." We're going to work with Universal, our old partners, in the UK, to distribute a record. We're going to use ADA in the US, you know, we're going to use Sony in Southeast Asia. You know, we're going to work with different companies so that each part of the world is really, like, going, "I want this record. I'm excited about making this happen in my part of my market," and they're really communicating directly with us and with 3CG, which is based out of New York, out of the states. I don't know. It's about just kicking ass!
ZAC: That's a long answer.
ISAAC: But your question or your point about saying that it is a lot of work is true. It does require a lot of folks, a lot of work, but we have a lot of really competent and good people helping us with that and really pulling their weight and it's just really been a positive experience, it's really been the right thing to do.
ZAC: I guess it's even more-if you can't bet on yourself, who can you bet on?
GUY: Right. Well, let's forget the work, back to playing. You're going to do another song for us, what are you going to do?
ISAAC: We're going to do a song called "Deeper." It's actually one-it's actually a good example of collaboration. This song actually started-the chorus idea was something I kind of had lying around and the verse idea was something Tay brought to the table.
TAYLOR: In Rio, Brazil. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil last tour we were writing this tune. It's called "Deeper," off the new album.
GUY: This is Hanson. Live.
DEEPER
GUY: 76.1 InterFM on a holiday Wednesday afternoon. Hanson live in the studio, thank you very much guys…
ALL: Thank you.
GUY: … for the live music
ZAC: Love being here.
GUY: We've had tons and tons of mails, like I've said, from a lot of fans who are very excited about you being in Japan and a lot of people saying great things about your show on Monday night. I want to just read out one of the emails here because we need a message from you guys!
ZAC: Ah!
GUY: Maka and Nadusan have sent in a mail saying that they love the acoustic live, it was very satisfying, "it made us feel great and we will continue to support all of you until you stop singing!"
ZAC: Ah, that could be a long time!
GUY: Right, good, that's what I was thinking. And also, they're now studying, they've got exams for promotions and I think they need like some sort of message for their exams. What do you reckon? Do you guys study at all?
ZAC: Not in any conventional senses, I think just in our personal advancements.
ISAAC: Exactly.
TAYLOR: Of course we know, it's our daily phrase that we keep up with: "desire to inspire."
GUY: "desire to inspire," all right.
TAYLOR: That was kind of an inside joke earlier when we were working on the press yesterday.
ISAAC: But I don't know, a message to them… if they're studying for their exams, best of luck!
GUY: Alright.
ZAC: And… go for it.
TAYLOR: Man, we are really giving good advice here!
GUY: Apart from giving great advice, what other things have you done while being in Japan the last few days?
ISAAC: Well, we've had some good sushi!
GUY: Oh yeah?
ZAC: We went down and saw the Muse show, they were in town. Great band.
TAYLOR: Love those guys, they were really super cool too.
GUY: Black Eyed Peas tonight.
TAYLOR: Yes, they are. We were just talking about that earlier. I guess those guys… you know, there's so many collaborations on this album but believe it or not, we almost worked with Will from the Black Eyed Peas at the end of this record. Cos we-our old managers began to work with some of those guys and right at the end of the process we started meeting those guys and touching base with them and almost had some collaboration on that.
ISAAC: Yeah, I'm not sure if it would have wound up on the record but it definitely would have been cool. Will is a great guy, very talented, and obviously--
ZAC: The whole Peas crew.
ISAAC: The whole crew is a killer bunch of folks.
TAYLOR: Those guys are amazing live, too, they put on such a great show.
ISAAC: Good show, very entertaining.
GUY: They can be your farewell gig, maybe you can check that out tonight.
TAYLOR: Yeah, maybe.
ISAAC: Hopefully.
GUY: Now you've given us a bit of a present here in Japan. There's a bonus track on the album for Japan only.
ISAAC: That's right.
TAYLOR: In fact, actually there's three bonus tracks.
GUY: Oh really?
TAYLOR: Well, earlier we were talking about writing with Matthew Sweet and we actually wrote a second song with him after we wrote "Underneath," the title track. And that song is one that we decided to put just especially for the Japanese album.
GUY: Oh, okay.
TAYLOR: In addition to a special live song and another extra song.
GUY: So, the song "I Almost Care." We're just about to check it out from the album…
ISAAC: It's a little facetious. It's about… there's a word for all you Japanese. Little facetious. It's really kind of a song about wanting someone back cos you finally realize that you like them.
TAYLOR: You sort of realize that you've screwed up--
ISAAC: that you made a mistake.
TAYLOR: The character, we could say, that's singing the song, the version of the song, it's kind of like, well, he's not the coolest guy cos he's sort of saying, "I almost care enough to want you back." So, have a laugh with it a little bit.
GUY: So this is a character, it's not one of you?
TAYLOR: We call it a character cos we don't want to be the jerk in the song.
ISAAC: Yeah, right, exactly.
GUY: Isaac, Taylor, Zac: Hanson. It's been a pleasure.
TAYLOR: Thanks so much.
GUY: Thanks a million for dropping in. Let's check out the cut, "I Almost Care," from the new album Underneath. And thanks a million for the live music.
TAYLOR: Yeah, thanks, no problem.
I ALMOST CARE
typed up by Heidi (me)
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