PAST APPEARANCES On-Air With Ryan Seacrest
Hollywood, California
03 March 2004RYAN: Let me break it down for you, it's pretty simple. Three young men from Tulsa, Oklahoma released a hit album, scored a gigantic single, a few Grammy nominations, another critically acclaimed disk, and go to sell over 15 million albums. You know them as Hanson. Take a look at this. [cuts to footage from 1997-2003]
RYAN: They came out of the middle of nowhere with their debut disk seven years ago, storming onto the pop scene with their hit song "MMMBop." The song went to #1 in 27 countries. While the album itself quickly sold 8 million copies, earning three Grammy nominations. Rolling Stone named it one of the essential albums of the 90s. It took three years, the year 2000, to come out with a second album, This Time Around. To date they've sold 15 million records worldwide. Now, coming off last year's highly successful tour, 23 year-old Isaac, 20 year-old Taylor, and 18 year-old Zac are ready to introduce their latest masterpiece to the fans. Underneath and its new single, "Penny & Me," are already getting rave reviews, proving once and for all Hanson's first super hit back in 1997 was clearly not their last.
RYAN: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Hanson! Wow!
TAYLOR: They know how to make some noise, don't they?
RYAN: I told ya. I'm not kidding about the fact that many of them were in sleeping bags all night just to see you guys. Are you sure this isn't the cast of The O.C.?
TAYLOR: And they don't smell bad…
RYAN: No, they smell great!
TAYLOR: They all look so good.
RYAN: They've all sprayed themselves down.
TAYLOR: They're out of the sleeping bags and they look great.
RYAN: Well you guys have… well, you've basically grown up!
ISAAC: It happens!
RYAN: You're officially adults, aren't you? Let's just--don't you think we should run it down for those of you who haven't seen Hanson in a while, let's run it down. Let's start with Taylor, how old are you Taylor?
TAYLOR: I'm 20.
RYAN: 20 years old. And Taylor is married.
TAYLOR: Yes, wow, with a 15 month-old baby boy--16 month-old…
RYAN: Congratulations!
TAYLOR: Thank you so much.
RYAN: A lot of responsibility.
TAYLOR: Yeah, but a good responsibility. It's fantastic.
RYAN: And then we've got Isaac.
ISAAC: Yeah.
RYAN: Alright Isaac, how old are you now?
RYAN: I'm 23, and I'm the only single member of the band.
RYAN: And professing it proudly, ladies, so listen…
ZAC: "I'm single! Hello, everyone!" Ike is single!
ISAAC: I just thought I'd run with Taylor… he's married, I'm not.
RYAN: So you follow these guys around and you're like, "hey, don't try it with them, cos I'm the only one you'll get a chance with."
TAYLOR: He's got a t-shirt, you know, "I AM SINGLE."
RYAN: But you would never abuse the power of being in a band to get a date.
ISAAC: No, no, no, I would never, I'm a nice guy, I promise. I'm romantic at heart.
TAYLOR: Oh, it's all lies.
RYAN: You wouldn't even go out with a girl unless you knew for sure that she liked you for you and it had nothing to do with Hanson, right?
ISAAC: Absolutely.
RYAN: You make me proud!
ISAAC: Well thank you.
TAYLOR: You're a good role model, I like that.
RYAN: Yeah, I'm trying to be a role model, can't you tell? And then Zac, how old are you now?
ZAC: I'm 18.
RYAN: 18, so you're still… you're the kid of the group.
ZAC: Yeah, I'm the kid! No, old enough to vote though!
RYAN: Yeah, you are!
ZAC: And will be.
RYAN: Yeah, and that's important. So these guys give you a lot of advice or they act like the…
TAYLOR: He gives us advice.
ZAC: I think it's more that I give them advice, you know, I'm the old wise soul.
ISAAC: We actually laugh about it, but it's actually kind of true. Zac's like the one who always walks in, we'll have these hour long discussions about, you know, what we're doing and you know, what we're doing on tour and this and that and Zac walks in and in five minutes he recaps the whole thing and we all kind of look at ourselves and go, "wow, boy, we just wasted an hour."
TAYLOR: "What are we talking about?"
RYAN: He puts it all together for you. Three guys with great hair known as Hanson. We're going to take a break and we'll come back. Lots to cover, we've got a big performance coming up, we are on air live in Hollywood, don't move. Back in just a few seconds.
COMMERCIAL
RYAN: All right, back on air with Hanson. They speak a little French, these guys. Good to have you here. Let's talk about success at a young age, you guys brothers, when you first made it on the music scene you were what… you were different ages, but…
ISAAC: Zac was 11.
ZAC: I was 11.
ISAAC: I was 16, and…
TAYLOR: 14.
RYAN: And you've already had this accelerated life. You've got the baby, you've got the wife.
TAYLOR: Oh sure, yeah, yeah. Well I'm just insane I guess, you just gotta go …
RYAN: It raises interesting conversation about celebrities at a young age and how they sort of have accelerated lives, cos if you think of Mackauly Culkin…
TAYLOR: Well actually, I'm 84. No, but the thing is, we always knew what we wanted to do. We always knew we wanted to make music. And people would say, you know, "You guys are so young! You're out there writing songs and touring and playing and…"
ISAAC: "Don't you feel like you're missing something?"
TAYLOR: Well, it's like, we could wait and sit around and think about doing it but that's not who we are.
ISAAC: We've been doing this for 12 years. Since I was 11.
ZAC: It's kind of like, once you know what you're going to do and what you want to do…
RYAN: Go for it.
ZAC: Why not spend as much time as possible becoming better at your craft and spending that time working on doing music.
ISAAC: And there are very few things that are better than going out and playing for people like these guys [points to audience].
RYAN: Sometimes the tanning bed can be fun, but other than that… you know, you're in for 12 minutes…
ISAAC: Or mystic spray.
RYAN: Or mystic spray, that's nice, I'm not really--
ISAAC: The whole Oscar phenomenon.
TAYLOR: Do you do the mud bath thing?
RYAN: Only on Sundays, I'm not a…
TAYLOR: Sundays, that's kind of…
RYAN: Well, I'm a spa lover but that's more about me and not about you. Let's talk about the hit single "MMMBop." This comes out of the gate and it couldn't be bigger. Is that a blessing or a curse having that song, because you say Hanson, you think "MMMBop."
TAYLOR: Sure. Yeah, well, I think the thing is, people think of anything. It's like, as a band you make music and you're excited to have fans, but then all the sudden when you have fans, you go, "Okay, how do I hold on to this? This is incredible to have an audience you can make music for. So, I think you're just proud of everything you put out there, and when so many people recognize a song, when all around the world people recognize a song, it's incredible. And you just hope you can go forward and keep making music and keep introducing people to new music.
ISAAC: It's also ironic, because, not to compare us to Paul McCartney by any means, but you have people like Paul McCartney who even 40 years later when he gets married it's "she loves him," you know, a play off "She Loves You."
ZAC: When you can have a song that affects people that much and sort of gets into popular culture it's just a blessing.
RYAN: And tell me about the vision for the new album, because you had to sit down and say, "we have to do something a little different."
ISAAC: Well yeah, we had a very specific thing in mind when we started out this record. We first of all we really felt like often times when you start out records you go through this whole long process of writing and demo-ing songs. We didn't want to demo anything, we just wanted to get in the studio and hash it out--
TAYLOR: Make it a record.
ISAAC: Make it a record. And really we feel like we got the most spontaneous, the most pure…
TAYLOR: The most visceral.
ISAAC: The most visceral, honest music from that because there was no space between the beginning and the final product.
TAYLOR: The other thing is there were a lot of collaborations. We wrote the title track, the album's called Underneath and we wrote the title track with Matthew Sweet, he's just a great artist. "Penny & Me," the first single…
RYAN: The first single, we're going to get to that in a second.
TAYLOR: We collaborated with a guy named Danny Kortchmar as a producer. He's worked with Carole King…
ISAAC: Billy Joel.
TAYLOR: Billy Joel and just-there's a lot of great people we worked with that really helped move the vision of this album forward.
RYAN: Do you know what, I have to be honest with you. I get this sense and we don't know each other that well but I talked to you briefly before the show and right now. You guys are genuinely happy, genuinely excited about it, I mean, you'll meet some people who put on a little act about it… no, I'm serious. You guys are really…
TAYLOR: We're good actors, actually.
RYAN: Hey, now don't think you couldn't be cast in a WB series if this doesn't work out.
TAYLOR: No, it's just what we love to do.
ISAAC: We couldn't be happier.
RYAN: Hanson's Creek, could be coming up.
ZAC: It'd be a river, okay man? River!
RYAN: Hanson's babbling brook. Let's go to … do we have time for AT&T customers? Cos God loves them, these AT&T wireless subscribers and they text us. I got one from Clarissa in Chicago. She says, do you guys feel pressure to have another hit as big as MMMBop ba---- [tries to sing] That's what she asks.
TAYLOR: Dude, learn the song. It was really good. You should join the band.
RYAN: I only do that so I don't have to sing cos I'd be embarrassed, but do you feel a little pressure since that was so big?
TAYLOR: You know what… no. Absolutely not. I mean, what we're doing right now, every album you make is you know, it's a time capsule of who you are and you just make the best album you can and put it out to people. What we're doing now… we just started a record company.
RYAN: 3CG. 3 Car Garage.
TAYLOR: 3CG. It's sort of like us really taking control of our career in a different way and you know, it's not about going out and selling trillions of records every time. It's about building a fan base; it's about the people that are here, the people that have slept outside, the fans, and making music.
ISAAC: And being true to them.
RYAN: Well you mention those people outside, let's take a shot. Take a shot, Bob, Rosie's down there I think.
ROSIE: Hello there!
RYAN: They didn't get a chance to get in here to see Hanson, but nevertheless, we love them equally. Who are you with sweetheart?
ROSIE: You know what, I think we've got like fan club reps for Hanson from every state in America. We've got people from Texas, New Hampshire back here, and Jill from Utah. So what's your question, Jill? I think it's for Zac, correct?
JILL: Yeah, out of all the places you've ever toured, gone on tour, what is your favorite place and why?
ZAC: Favorite place and why. Ooh, ah…
TAYLOR: Zac, you know the real answer to that.
ZAC: Definitely Utah! [laughs] Definitely Utah. Ah, every place is different, the fans, you know, we were just in Japan for the first time touring there and that was great.
ISAAC: We've been to Japan before but we've never played a show.
ZAC: We've never gone to play concerts and going to play acoustically there was so cool to finally get to those fans and just doing stuff in England and Germany and all over the world.
RYAN: Just getting to see the world, man.
ZAC: Every place is different but definitely love the states and you know, home.
ISAAC: I'm going to have to go to Italy though, because the food…
RYAN: You get into those Tuscan hills and have a little…
ISAAC: Just don't go to work though, cos Italians don't understand the concept of like, being on time. Cos you see, we joke that we're on Hanson Time.
RYAN: Now of course these are just certain Italians, not all, and certainly nobody here. You guys are punctual!
TAYLOR: I don't think the Italians-their culture, they're pretty proud of that.
RYAN: Well, they like to shut it down for a nice lunch.
ISAAC: Like three hours!
RYAN: But you know what, a little wine, you don't want to come back either.
TAYLOR: In fact, we're leaving right now! [Isaac gets up and proceeds to almost tip his chair back when he sits back down]
RYAN: No, now don't leave, we're gonna take a break and come back, I think you guys want to see them perform live. Rosie, thanks for being outside. We're going to invite some of the folks upstairs from down there too, let's bring them in. Coming up, Hanson performs their new single.
COMMERCIAL & OTHER SEGMENTS
RYAN: Hanson! The CD Underneath available on ryanonair.com. Thanks guys! We'll be right back.
COMMERCIAL
RYAN: Thanks to Rosanna Tavarez, Joleen Blalock for being on the show. Isaac, Taylor, Zac--you guys rock, man! Hanson! Thanks for being here. How about a little "MMMBop" on our way out, want to hear a little "MMMBop?" Break it down! We'll talk to you tomorrow! Seacrest out!