KIM, DJ: It’s Sirius 9 The Pulse. Alright, so I think you’ve probably figured out who my guests are, but I’m—let’s go around the room, let’s go from my left around the room, so your right.

TAYLOR: This is Taylor Hanson.

ISAAC: This is Isaac Hanson.

ZAC: And this is Zac of the same last name.

TAYLOR: And collectively we are Hanson.

KIM: Thank you guys so much for coming here, you have no idea. This is such a blast for us. It’s been two years since I’ve seen you.

TAYLOR: Is that right?! Has it been that long? Oh, cos we were here…

ZAC: Right before the last album we were here during the acoustic stuff.

TAYLOR: Well, it’s really good to be back. We’re glad to be playing music now instead of just talking about it.

KIM: Yeah, that’s great. And we got more to do with you guys. Oh, I have to thank you so much cos we have a contest going which you’re very well aware of now cos you’ve made so many of our Sirius listeners so incredible happy. What we’ve been doing—and it’s still going on, people, cos you can still get online at Sirius.com and click on The Pulse page—is you enter and basically the deal is they get to pick the venue of their choice where they get to see you and then we drag them backstage and you guys have been so gracious amd jave met the Sirius fans that are your fans and it’s been awesome.

TAYLOR: Yeah, it’s been really cool.

ZAC: We’re glad to do it. You can never, just not appreciate those fans, those incredible fans that will drive halfway across the country or come to four shows or any shows. You have to always be thanking those people for supporting you.

KIM: We had a very interesting thing happen, cos you had some shows cancelled because of the hurricane. One of several hurricanes, unfortuantely.

TAYLOR: That’s the second year in the row that that’s happened.

KIM: Really? What’s wrong with you guys?

TAYLOR: We just have really bad timing.

ZAC: No touring in Florida between September and November.

KIM: You might want to write that down for next time! So this one girl that won, she actually called us and said, “Don’t worry, I know when the makeup date is.” Meanwhile, your manager hadn’t known yet when it was. He was like, “Yeah, that’s right actually,” So, she knew.

TAYLOR: She’s on the inside track.

KIM: Yeah, completely. More inside than the person that works for you.

TAYLOR: That’s a little scary.

ZAC: Often times, you can ask our fans where we’re going to be. We’ll be coming out of the hotel it’s like, “Where are we going?” And it’s like, “You’re going over to Sirius to do that event!”

TAYLOR: Part of that obviously is the era of technology. People with information, it’s out there. But even early on, even when we first stated out or at least on the national, worldwide level in 97, it was amazing cos you’d look at your fans and they’d be already ahead of you. Somehow they’d get a schedule. I guess it only takes one, it only takes one person. And we also have, we really empowered our fans to do things and be a part of promoting music with street teams and internet forums and people communicating. So, I think in some ways it’s a double edged sword cos we’re really glad you’re there but oh my god, how did you know we were going to be here?!

KIM: Now I want to talk about the first song that you just did, “Strong Enough To Break” because there’s a lot of fan interaction with that particular song.

TAYLOR: Yes. Right now, we finished a film, we produced a film, a documentary that was directed by a long time friend and a person that has worked with us on a lot of things. His name is Ashley Greyson. He was a student at USC, really passionate about film, and he asked us about five years ago now about making a documentary and the documentary was supposed to be about the music, just about how bands make music and how we make music, from the very beginning of writing music all the way to the release.

ISAAC: He particularly mentioned, “I want to see songwriting happen, I want to be there when the lyric comes into your head and I feel like because I’ve worked with you guys before I can get that kind of access,” and we’re like, “Yeah. Let’s try this.”

TAYLOR: So the story of the film, it started out as that and we captured that, but it came to be more of a film about the political struggle because we were one of many bands a part of record company mergers, record companies merging into one another. We ended up on a rap label and the story was about just trying to get to the point of making an album, making music. The ultimate end of the story was us starting our own record company, taking our masters for that record, and having a lot of success as an indie. We’ve had a #1 independent album, we’ve toured all over the world, we are our own record company. But the story we felt was really important for young people, for our peers to see because we’re not the only band that’s been in that situation. So this tour, along with promoting the live album we just released a couple weeks ago, we’re also promoting the film at universities, we’re going to schools.

ISAAC: And the film is called Strong Enough To Break.

TAYLOR: Looong description.

ZAC: That was the name of the song that we did.

ISAAC: Exactly, just recapping it.

KIM: Thank you for doing that for me, that saved me a lot of time. And we want to talk about how successful you’ve been as an independent and really how you’re encouraging others, cos you have a contest, and we’re going to get to that. But I do want to get to another song right now. So would you guys do “Penny & Me?”

ISAAC: Yes, we should do that.

KIM: Alright, so we’re talking to Hanson and this is Sirius 9 The Pulse.

”PENNY & ME”

KIM: We’re talking to Hanson on Sirius 9 The Pulse. Thank you again guys for being here, it’s awesome. My name is Kim Ashley and I think I speak on behalf of all girls and women when I say, “You’re hot!” Of course I could be you mother so that’s just wrong!

ISAAC: No, no, you’re far too… young.

KIM: Thank you.

ZAC: I think what she’s talking about is the fact that the air conditioning is out.

KIM: Right! Actually, it’s not. It was just a plan on my part to get you guys stripped down. Isaac’s got the whole Brad Pitt thing working too. I like the little goatee thing. It’s nice.

ISAAC: Oh, thanks. It’s the only hair that I can grow. I come from a very hairless family.

TAYLOR: It’s all the Danish blood.

ISAAC: That Danish blood for some reason, there’s no facial hair.

ZAC: You’ll never see lamb chops on anyone named Hanson.

KIM: Well, you have any idea how many women are going to try to rub up against me just cos I’ve been around you? You have no idea. Which also is wrong.

ALL: Yes!

ZAC: Yes, I agree. I’m getting awkward pictures.

KIM: I’m sure you are! Alright, let’s change the subject quick!

TAYLOR: Swiftly moving on!

KIM: Alright, so you guys have your own contest and this is really to help out artists that cannot get a break. Cos let’s face it, how can you get a break? I get questions all the time, “I have a band, how do I get some record label to come and see me?” So you guys have really taken this to heart so tell everybody about this contest.

ZAC: Well, the contest is an opening band contest and every market in the tour bands get to submit their music and then people who work for our record label select the three best bands. They listen to all the bands and a couple people decide on what they think the three best bands are and fans all over the world get to vote on our website for who gets to open up the show. For us, it’s a way of those bands to get in front of hopefully a couple thousand people visit our website all the time, so fans in Japan or fans in Mexico or fans in New York City getting on…

ISAAC: In addition to that, they get the local exposure once the final band is selected to actually open the show. And the cool thing for us is that not only is it us exposing people to fans around the world but it’s really an opportunity for these bands to gain local exposure so that they can hopefully grow in their immediate city.

TAYLOR: And have a legitimate addition to their fan base in the place where they’re playing gigs. Naturally, as a band, everyone starts off independent, quote unquote, everyone starts off without something, without support, so you have to start and you have to build a fan base and there are a lot of great avenues for independent bands but there’s also an education and we’ve been helped out by so many people. It’s not hard to do something like that and provide an avenue for new music. So, for us it just makes every show we do unique. It puts a different kind of fan in the audience. Some fans of these local bands and also every one of these bands also gets die hard Hanson fans who are passionate music fans.

KIM: Very passionate fans.

TAYLOR: And they will go and get these records form these bands and they’ll legitimately have new fans.

KIM: It’s amazing. All right, I have a band. How do I do this? I don’t personally, I’m just pretending.

ISAAC: Some of the bands, some of the shows obviously have been selected. What you can do is go to hanson.net. On the homepage there it says “opening band contest.” You can click on the page. It clearly explains how to submit your information. Basically we’re requesting between 2-3 mp3s that you can put on an FTP site, which is just a file download/upload site. We also need contact information and a web address so we can get to know about you a little bit more. But basically once that’s done, there are dozens of people that submit in every city and we go through those people and do our best to select three that we feel like people would respond to. We even selected a couple hip-hop acts cos we really liked them.

TAYLOR: Everything from folk to… honestly, what’s been so amazing about it is everybody from a folk artist with their guitar to hip-hop bands to heavy metal bands all submitted music and there’s every single show there’s something different, so for fans they can reflect their local music scene through the bands that they vote for.

KIM: I bet you guys find yourself rooting for these guys too?

ISAAC: We definitely are. Well, because it’s localized content.

ZAC: The other thing I was going to say is if you’re a band that doesn’t even have a website, go create a MySpace site and that way we can find out your information.

KIM: Wow, that’s great. We’re talking to Hanson on Sirius 9 The Pulse. My name is Kim Ashley. Let’s get back to some music, shall we? You guys want to do “I Will Come to You?” I would love that.

TAYLOR: Yes, this is a song again off the live album but it’s originally off our first record, Middle of Nowhere. We’ll slow the pace down just a little bit. Here we go.

I WILL COME TO YOU

KIM: It’s Sirius 9 The Pulse. Hanson is here. Can you tell?

TAYLOR: We’re changing the pace on you.

KIM: No, that was awesome! It sounded great you guys, you sound good acoustic.

ISAAC: Well, we have a lot of fun playing some of these old songs. It’s been so many years since that first recording and since Middle of Nowhere, pretty much eight years now.

TAYLOR: But we’ve been a band for 13 years. I’m 22. That’s a lot of life. That’s a large percentage of the life.

KIM: How are the babies, by the way?

TAYLOR: They’re really, really good. I have two… a six month old… almost six month old and a three year old. So.

ISAAC: It’s fun to play. It’s fun to play.

KIM: You know, you can tell that you guys actually really still enjoy it and that’s huge. My firm belief is that if you love what you do you’ll do it incredibly well and people will come to see it.

ISAAC: Well, we do definitely love what we do and we’ll cross our fingers and hope we do it really well.

TAYLOR: Sometimes you can love something and not be good at it, but no, this is what we started out doing when we were so young that there’s a connection that’s beyond being brothers, or being band members, there’s just sort of a shared passion for playing music.

KIM: Well, you’re definitely woven together, there’s no doubt. You know, we have had so many people here, and I don’t want to say that it surprised me, but I’ll be in the middle of an interview with like, Maroon5 or Edwin McCain and I’ll be like, “Who do you love?” and immediately, without even thinking about it, they always say, “Hanson!”

TAYLOR: Really?

KIM: Now, who is the most famous person or people that you were surprised were fans of yours?

ISAAC: Bono would be one.

KIM: Who?

ZAC: Bono!

ISAAC: Bono would be one.

KIM: Oh my gosh, that’s unbelievable!

ZAC: That’s one of the best ones. He was on a British television show and they asked him about his favorite songs from the 90s and the last ten years and he said, “’MMMBop’ I think is a genius pop song,” and we went, “Thank you, God.”

TAYLOR: And beyond that to say that he admired the band and that’s a huge compliment because there’s very few bands that are raising the bar. U2 has been around for such a long time now but have always been fresh. There’s a couple of those where you’re just like, beyond what you could possibly expect, like them.

ISAAC: I can’t think of a particular quote from Billy Joel per say but I have had the opportunity to meet him and Billy Joel, for me in particular, is a huge inspiration. I always have felt that him, not only musically, but primarily lyrically he’s always so-so good. He’s got such a great way of often kind of changing a chorus to where the chorus is not exactly the same every time, he comes up with a really brilliant lyric twist every time.

TAYLOR: For him to say… to meet him and for him to be like, “I love what you guys do,” that’s a huge…

KIM: And you’d be like, “You wrote ‘The Stranger.’” That’s awesome.

ISAAC: Yeah, or actually the one that I can think of too is Lenny Kravitz tapping me on the shoulder when we were at an MTV awards show back in 1997 and he taps me on the shoulder and is like, “Hey dude!” I’m like, “Hey man… wow.”

KIM: And you have to like, act casual!

ISAAC: Exactly! I’m like, “*stutters*”

ZAC: Are you going to go my way? Or are you going the other way…?

ISAAC: He was very complimentary and he said, “We should get together sometime.” So we’re like, “Okay!”

KIM: Hey, which hair did he have at the time?

ISAAC: I think at that moment he had just gone afro.

KIM: Ah, I got him right before that with the cornrow things. He’s an amazing person too.

ISAAC: He’s really, really cool and musically he’s always really done a lot of great things and is an exceptional guitar player and always has such great grooves. I watch him and I kind of go, “He’s a bit like modern day Hendrix.” He’s not as much of a focused guitar player in that sense but his attitude and the funk and the R&B roots behind a rock band.

KIM: So it’s safe to say, Isaac’s a big fan?

ISAAC: I am a big fan.

TAYLOR: Isaac just likes to talk about music.

KIM: Because you have a passion for it. I think it’s wonderful, it really is. Now, you have a lot of fans that are famous and you have a lot of fans that are just crazy, freaky, die-hard fans. So, can you think of one story… I’m sure you have a billion stories but give me one story that sticks out in your head of a crazy fan experience.

TAYLOR: We do kind of get numb to them in the sense of some of the wild stuff, but one we’ve talked about before which is just specifically crazy is we were in Brazil and I think we were coming to do an in-store and they’d set it up. A very big crowd, there were several thousand people there, and we were pulling into the parking garage below, and they’d shut the parking garage off the night before so people couldn’t get in, cos that was kind of back entrance or whatever. We pull into the parking garage, which had been locked since 6 o’clock the evening before and pull up to the back elevator to go up through the parking garage and out from underneath three cars that were parked right by the elevator comes I think about six girls who had been sleeping underneath the cars, had grease all over them from laying on the cement…

ISAAC: “Come sign our stuff!” We’re like, “AHHH!”

TAYLOR: Just as far as a crazy fan experience.

KIM: Women running at you with oil all over them.

TAYLOR: They were dusted with it. That was one of those, “Okay, this is crazy.”

KIM: Well, there’s a reason that they’re fans and it’s because of the great music that you play. I want to thank you so much for coming. I want you to do one more song if you don’t mind, but it’s been a pleasure to have you here.

ALL: Thanks.

TAYLOR: And with a band. This is a song called “Rock & Roll Razorblade.”

ROCK & ROLL RAZORBLADE

ZAC: One of my cymbals fell over!

KIM: That was unbelievable! That was unbelievable.

ZAC: Thank you!

KIM: You’re listening to Hanson on Sirius 9 The Pulse. Thank you so much for being here, I’m sure the fans really enjoyed it. We loved having you here. Please come back any time.

ZAC: We are glad to be here.

KIM: And good luck on the rest of the tour and we’re going to send more fans your way!

ISAAC: Alrighty.

TAYLOR: Please do, we’ll see them there.

KIM: On behalf of all women, I’m going to go sit on their laps now.

TAYLOR: I’ll have to consult my wife about that.