LBC 97.3
London, England
22 January 2005

PAUL ROSS: LBC 97.3, "Penny & Me."

"Penny & Me"

PAUL: Lads, that was fantastic! Thank you so much for that! With their new single "Penny & Me" off the album Underneath, which is what, the third album?

ISAAC: Third album, yeah.

TAYLOR: Third studio release.

PAUL: Now your first album Middle of Nowhere, which I think Rolling Stone said was one of the essential albums of 1997, Top 50 must have albums of all time, stuff. You were how old Zac…

ZAC: 11.

PAUL: 11. You were the richest 11 year old on the planet! You're still only 19 now?

ZAC: I'm still very young.

PAUL: So how did that whole thing work when the first huge rush of fame and expose happened, what about school? Do you go on the road with tutors?

TAYLOR: Well, we basically just took it on the road. We always had really supportive parents and they just kind of quit their thing and jumped on the road with us and we did it as we went.

PAUL: If my son was selling 8 million copies of his album I'd be like, "lads, whatever you want to do!"

TAYLOR: But you know, we'd done, gosh, close to 500 gigs before we ever got signed. We released three independent records and so it wasn't like, "oh my god, they're a band!" People had been supportive of us since we were even younger doing gigs and playing shows.

ISAAC: We just had a passion for music and always wanted to kind of make it more than just a hobby and so being able to go out on the road and tour the world and play music that you're writing and that you love is every guy's dream come true.

TAYLOR: Of course it was an amazing thing.

PAUL: And the weird thing was at the time, you came out and at the time I know you had an independent single out first but you seemed to coe from nowere and was so young and so talented and then there wa a similar following of people obviously trying to find another Hnason like a restraining bolt in different bands turned up and played around but then you guys came out with a second album which also sold a million copies.

ISAAC: Yeah, that's right.

PAUL ROSS: So why so long between this #2 and #3?

TAYLOR: Well, there's a lot of reasons. Very simply, not to bore everybody, but the record industry has changed a lot and basically we became-record company mergers happened and we became a part of a rap label and basically just didn't have the relationships with people anymore and went through a really, really slow process and eventually said, "hey, look guys, we don't have any connection with you. You don't know what to do with us." They wanted to release Underneath but we said, "you know guys, we don't want you to release it if you're not passionate about it, if don't really share a vision and don't kind of get behind it in a real, passionate way." And so we said, "look, we're going to take this record" and we started our own independent record company and now we're releasing it around the world with our own ownership but then finding partners to release it.

ISAAC: Yeah, like here in the UK and Europe we actually found a really great company to help us distribute it called Cooking Vinyl and they're awesome.

TAYLOR: It's just… you know, there's sort of a new era in music I think, because the majors have become so big that they really don't have the same kind of artist relations people and there's just… it's happened with a lot of bands. Our choice was, as we saw things changing, as we saw our relationships change, we said, "you know what? We want to be in a place where we can own our music." Just like we always have had passion for our music, we want to be able to bring good people around us to release the music and so it's a crazy thing, but it's good.

PAUL: It's interesting you mention that because, of course, like with any businesses they can be quite monolithic and conservative, and it was interesting, I was reading up on you guys that artists as diverse as you: (?), The Eagles, Janis Ian, you're very much interested in the internet bringing music to people. A lot of record labels are very conservative on that front.

TAYLOR: It's because it's something new. Whenever something kind of really different comes along, everyone just starts-instead of trying to evolve to see how they evolve to be a part of it, they start to protect what they do have and it makes sense when you have billions of dollars invested in companies and infrastructures, but the real deal is the internet is not going to go away and we have distribution in retail and all those things traditionally, just like anybody, but we're also a band that has fans that are in their early 20s and younger and older but mostly early 20s, college aged students and those people are very oriented towards the internet and it's only going to be more so, so…

ISAAC: It's just a great way for us to communicate with them and potentially allow us to release things that we wouldn't necessarily put in the stores but make stuff available on a consistent basis.

ZAC: It's just not going to be that long before CDs don't exist, before DVDs don't exist because it's all going to be on your iPod, it's all going to be on your computer.

PAUL: That's blasphemy young man, blasphemy!

TAYLOR: But the real thing about it is it has nothing to do with whether great music is there. And that's really the thing that people aren't looking at, which is the internet is a place for people to find things and for people to discover music…

ZAC: There's so much information on the internet; you can find so many artists.

TAYLOR: That's the thing, you see… like, music fans are kind of crying out, "give me choice! Give me choice!" because in general, as a whole, play lists on radio stations are smaller and they want to be able to discover music, they want to be able to find artists, and hopefully everybody is saying, "we want to give you choice, give you new music."

PAUL: And it's exactly your point which is what Prince did for a while, I know it was. he would do things that he'd never get released commercially and wouldn't have the record company, but he could actually play with stuff and try out ideas and try things that are outside normal CD release.

TAYLOR: It's all of the above but I mean, obviously, like I said, this album, this is one where the record company we were with did want to release it and we said, "well, we'd actually like to release it because we feel we'll be able to put a different plan forward and take a different perspective on how we're doing this."

PAUL: Okay, the new album is called Underneath, the new single "Penny & Me" we've just heard. We have another track and more chat with Hanson coming up on the show. this is London's LBC 97.3.

*

PAUL: You're here on London's LBC 97.3. Hanson, playing live, having a chin-wag, just for you on this particular frequency. We've mentioned the third album, Underneath is knocking about now. How would you categorize this being different as a progression of what you've done before?

TAYLOR: Well, I mean, just like any album you're changing. This one, I think we were more influenced by some more alt-country and sort of mellower…

ISAAC: Actually a few UK bands.

TAYLOR: Yeah, UK bands. Travis, a little bit of Coldplay, a little bit of things like the Jayhawks or Ryan Adams and it just happened that those were the records we were listening to more and we began to, with each record we've always had a pop sensibility, that's sort of-we grew up listening to classic rock & roll and R&B and so that's engrained into the way we write, but we wanted to have this record really be an album that you could sort of crank up loud and kind of rock out to and also turn on and have it kind of be the textural musical record--

ISAAC: In the background.

TAYLOR: The one you sort of mellow out to at the end of the day. It was hard to do but that's why we chose to produce the record because we really knew we could achieve that sound.

PAUL: That's one of the reasons why, both of your previous albums I love but this is interesting because my favorite period of the Stones is when they kind of got country influences going.

TAYLOR: Just a little bit. More of things like Ryan Adams where those sort of trickle into the record when you hear that.

ISAAC: I'm just curious as to what were some of the era of the Stones that you felt were like--

PAUL: Like "Sweet Virginia" some of the Sticky Finger stuff, some on Main Street there's that odd kind of country… also when Keith Richards started hanging out with Graham Parsons.

ISAAC: Yeah, that's true *laughs*

PAUL: And then Ryan Kuda (?) who parted in bad terms with the Stones cos he said they ripped off his tuning, weird and wonderful ways he tuned his guitar, but that kind of thing became part of the Stones's melting pots.

TAYLOR: News flash: you can't copyright a tuning.

ISAAC: Yeah, exactly *laughs*

PAUL: Ryan, if you're listening, back of buddy! It's what you do with it!

ISAAC: Exactly. It is what you do with it, and that's the interesting thing, is there's only so many notes in the scale, yet somehow…

TAYLOR: It's all about what you do with it.

ISAAC: For 50 years we'd keep evolving, and what Taylor was talking about with our influences being like, 50s and 60s rock & roll, people like The Beatles, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, stuff like that… you know, I think that for us that pop sensibility thing is so important because the simplicity of the music then. It was both complex and incredibly to the point. Straightforward, to the point, you know, don't bore us, get to the chorus. *Paul laughs* Really kind of get to the point. And for me that's a really important part of a record. You have to have songs that really kind of… there's always room for very really mellow moments and kind of introspective, not necessarily a pop chorus kind of songs, but to have that kind of ebb and flow and continue to…

TAYLOR: Just to put it all together.

ISAAC: …find the important parts of the song.

PAUL: That's a great take: "don't bore us, get to the chorus."

ISAAC: Exactly.

PAUL: Hanson certainly aren't going to bore us, I'm going to impose on you for another number. This is off the album Underneath and this is called, this is "Deeper?"

ISAAC: "Deeper," yep.

PAUL: Hanson, playing live on London's LBC 97.3, here's "Deeper."

"Deeper"

PAUL: Not bad. That was fantastic!

ISAAC: Thank you very much.

PAUL: That was absolutely-are you guys playing anywhere on this tour?

ZAC: We're coming back in March to play tours and gigs later on this year.

PAUL: Okay, so we'll keep an eye on the website, coming back in March for that and the album Underneath…

TAYLOR: Comes out February 7th actually,

ISAAC: Yeha, and…

PAUL: Oh, sorry.

ISAAC: I was going to say, check out-for the actual tour dates, cos we will be coming through London and throughout the UK, hanson.net is the website. So they'll definitely be able to see the tour dates there.

PAUL: Hanson.net, tour dates for March. The album is called Underneath, which is out next month. And the single is "Penny & Me" and believe me, you tune on MTV. It's on all the time! Do you… now obviously you guys got to control what you do cos it's your creations, do you have that much input, say into your videos as you do into the album?

TAYLOR: Well, I mean videos are different but we've always been really…

ISAAC: Really hands on.

TAYLOR: Hands on with the stuff we do, mostly just because we care, and this video actually was a huge collaboration. It was with us and Chris Applebaum directed it who's done everything from you know, heavy metal to pop stuff.

ISAAC: Britney Spears, yeah.

TAYLOR: Yeah, I mean, all the way across. So he was a great person to work with and also…

ISAAC: Samaire Armstrong from The O.C.

TAYLOR: Yeah, the show The O.C. She's a real cool actress, she just fit the part really well for the music video. So definitely. With a music video it's the way people are seeing you for the first time again, it's like, "okay, here's what you look like, here's the message you're getting across."

PAUL: That's what I like too, cos there are some great ones around, there's one I've been watching where they all kind of knit each other and there's all this knitting stuff going on.

ISAAC: Oh yeah, I've seen that!

PAUL: It's clever. Well you see it twice and you think, "stop sending it," but yours is kind of classic, where it's there like you're telling a story.

ISAAC: Well, we try to… yeah, thank you very much, I appreciate that.

PAUL: Well, you're not being made out of wool like that other one.

TAYLOR: Well actually, we are made out of wool.

ISAAC: Yeah, exactly, that's what people don't know. But you know, we try to depict as much of the lyrical content in that song as possible. I mean, there's a lot of subtlety. That's the trick with music videos that I've always found is you've gotta figure out a way to both depict what the song is talking about and also make it visually stimulating thing…

TAYLOR: Well that's why we put Samaire in it. She's visually stimulating and we're musical.

PAUL: Easy tiger, behave yourself. Yeah, concentrate on your music. That's what those fingers are for. Behave yourself! Well anyway, thank you very much to Hanson, great to meet you guys!

ISAAC: Thank you.

PAUL: Continued success with the fantastic new album Underneath, the single "Penny & Me" is also out, of course you've heard it now. Worth picking up as well, of course, and also check out hanson.net, hanson.net for details of the tour coming up in March. And now a bit of a treat for people. If you want to take part in a reality TV show with an old friend of London's LBC 97.3, our mate Paul Watson, the old Chinese astrological romance and relationships expert, here's how you can take part, okay? A production company called Leopard Films is looking for a London family… get a pen and paper now folks… with at least two teenage children-Zac, you could be one of them!

ZAC: Eh, no. I'm not a London family.

PAUL: You're an honorary Londoner. Could be in a pilot broadcasted for ITV1 with Paul Watson as well as appearing on prime time television. You get the chance then by our very own astrologer Paul Watson. You also get advice on how they can improve their life for 2005, so we want a family with at least two teenage children, London based. If you're interested folks, here's the number: 020 7704 3336. That's 020 7704 3336. Or email lauramcnaught@leopardfilms.com. Better to call though 020 7704 3336 if you want to take part in the Paul Watson show. A bit of a (?) on today's show, got a couple more now. Just one will do in fact. For the first time this week my wife saw Taxi Driver. You seen the movie Taxi Driver?

ISAAC: Ahh… yeah, I've actually seen bits and pieces, I've never seen it all the way through.

PAUL: It's a fantastic film but as you'd expect it to be dark and provocative.

ISAAC: Oh yeah, no, definitely.

PAUL: But she saw it for the first time this week. Went off to be depressed cos it is a bit of a fierce, old film. And I notice in the papers today… she'd seen it for the first time and in the papers today Robert DeNiro is at last making a sequel to it, revisiting the character 40 years on a (?).

ISAAC: Really?

PAUL: That's a spooky coincidence, isn't it?

ISAAC: Oh wow, yeah.

PAUL: Okay, thank you for listening! This is London's LBC 97.3. HUGE thanks to the fantastic Hanson, great to see you guys.

ALL: Thanks.

PAUL: Good luck on the album Underneath, check out the website hanson.net for tour details, I'm back next week.