MYKE: You're listening to AM1570 WIUS, free student radio in Bloomington. My name is Myke and I am here live in the studio with Hanson and Pat McGee who are playing a show tonight at Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union. So how are you guys doing?

ISAAC: We’re all doing pretty well, I think. Yeah.

MYKE: Awesome, awesome. You’re also showing a documentary this afternoon in the Whittenberger Auditorium in the Union.

ISAAC: That sounds about right.

ZAC: You actually probably know better than we do.

ISAAC: I just know it’s screening somewhere.

TAYLOR: We produced the documentary. It’s called Strong Enough To Break and it’s basically, we started our independent record company a couple years ago and it basically chronicles the path that we took on our last record and the struggle we went through because when we were still signed to our old label there was a couple big mergers that happened, big companies buying one another and we ended up moving around to a label that wasn’t our original home and the film sort of shows our struggle to work with a very corporate, piecemealed together label situation and ultimately our decision to start our own label and become independent again, and we wanted to take it to schools because it is something that is not new to music right now. It’s something that a lot of companies have put their focus on quarterly earnings, stock prices, a lot more than the quality of the music and putting people in there that know how to make great records and the struggle that’s show in our film when we’re working to make a film with attorneys instead of music people and can’t get any momentum, that’s the thing that’s happened on so many records these days and so we wanted college students to see that story as an example and kind of just get the conversation going and it’s been amazing. We’ve been doing it all over the country.

MYKE: So you show the documentary in the afternoon and then you play a show at night?

ISAAC: That’s been the thing, yeah, and you know it’s been a really cool experience because every school has been different. Every set of questions is unique. You get some of the same.

TAYLOR: After the screening of the film we come and we do a Q&A and we take feedback from the people that watched it cos we’re trying not to just be “HEY! Here’s our opinion” and throw it to people, but say, “This is a film about a story that happened naturally.” It was a documentary, it was supposed to be about music and it became a documentary about the politics of music and that’s something we want people to see and then criticisms, input, feedback, and we want to kind of take the story full circle.

ISAAC: And the important thing to say is too, like Taylor was mentioning, it’s a bit of an epidemic right now. We were talking to Pat the other day about it, too. It’s this whole thing of you’re in a situation where you end up with opportunities where like a song is doing well on the radio or something like that and it’s just going to take that little bit of focus just as it’s broken Top 20, for example… we had a similar situation where you’re breaking the Top 20 and it’s like, you’re looking around going, “Okay, where are we going to go from here?” and everyone’s focus just completely dwindles away. And you’re wondering, “Wait a minute guys, we’ve spent all this time and money paying attention to trying to make a record successful” and yet it seems that people’s focus will instantly change to something else, to a degree that it’s unproductive. It’s like you’re looking around going, “We’ve got all this time invested in this, you guys do, and yet there’s no end goal, no end result, no long-term thinking.”

MYKE: So you, Pat, you had experience with this?

PAT: I did have a similar experience minus the first stage of their career. Ours is s a little different. But yeah, the merger thing happened to us. We were at Giant Records. We were an independent band for five years, had four of our records and sold them all ourselves and then we decided to sign to Giant, which was basically Warner Brothers, and then the guy who owned Giant Records decided, “I don’t want to deal with this anymore” and sold it back to Warner Brothers and they got rid of everyone but just a few people. Somehow we made that cut. Someone stood up in a meeting and said, “We have our own fan base. We don’t really cost the label that much money. We’re never asking for tour support, we just ask to make records and see what happens with them.” And this would have been our second record. We went over to Warner, made this record, but in the process there was a whole new staff came in, a whole new president came in, and we were like these guys, at a place that no one really cared, a least the people that needed to care didn’t get it. We had a lot of supporters at radio, at the radio department but the marketing and the people that couldn’t really push it over the edge. It’s way more than just getting a song on radio. They just didn’t go through with it.

ISAAC: The unfortunate thing is really just you end up feeling like this is a problem that so could easily be solved, but it’s almost like a completely… it’s a disjointed situation.

TAYLOR: It’s interesting because bands and record companies have forever bitched about one another, but what we’ve been trying to say is we made the documentary without the agenda of—we produced it, it was directed by a guy named Ashley Greyson. We didn’t create the story in an effort to be like, “Let’s go make a story about how much we don’t like record companies at all,” and the film illustrates the struggle with making a record. That’s just one aspect of today’s music business. It illustrates making a record in an industry of labels that have been consolidated to a level that all the people that work there are lawyers and accounts, for the most part, there’s such a high percentage of that. The making of the record is only one part where that’s negatively affected. It negatively affects the whole process. Pat was talking about the promotion of a record, once you’re pushing it, trying to push a single or something like that. All the elements of the system have to work together and ultimately the thing that’s bought together so much great music over the years came from entrepreneurs that started record companies that had passion for artists and sort of long-term thinking. You’re always going to have, “Oh, our label should have pushed that single,” or “They didn’t give us enough this or that.” There’s always going to be struggle but it’s the sense that the structure of the labels needs to be designed to facilitate the idea of long-term bands, building careers, and that’s the thing that’s sort of disappeared.

MYKE: Yeah, when music became a commodity.

TAYLOR: Yeah, it’s totally a commodity.

ZAC: Well, I…

MYKE: Go ahead, Zac.

ZAC: I was just going to say, you said when music became a commodity… music has been a commodity for 50 years. I think what’s happened is originally the companies that we think of as the major companies, the major labels, those companies were little companies 50 years ago and some less than that, and I think what’s just happened is really passionate people started companies, started A&M or Island or Def Jam Records and basically what’s happened is that passion and that understanding of the jobs that need to be done have made these companies huge companies, multi-billion dollar industry, and then because it became so successful, those companies have been bought by… maybe a company goes, “Oh, I’m in the toiletry industry, I’m in the alcohol business…”

MYKE: “I’ll buy an entertainment company!”

ZAC: “That was successful, I’ll buy an entertainment company!” And unfortunately, in almost every case, I think music is just a little harder to sell than just a widget.

TAYLOR: Takes a lot of attention.

ZAC: There’s a lot of attention that has to be given to it and a lot of care and I think because of that, that’s why you do see there are less people listening to radio, there are less records being sold, and overall I think there’s less of a trust from people who want to buy music. There’s less of a sense of, “I’m going to go buy a record and it’s going to be a great record.” They feel like they have to sift through it a lot more because there’s not as much quality in the music that’s being exposed on mainstream levels.

MYKE: So, once again we’re in the studio with Hanson and Pat McGee. So, talk a little bit about how you started 3CG, your record label. How’d you get your staff together and stuff like that.

TAYLOR: Well, we basically, what we do is we have a P&D deal in the states and we have a small staff, a project manager, a couple just sort of assistants and accountant and GM, sort of keep things working. When we release a record we hire an outside publicist or radio promotions people, independent contractors. Then, on distribution we looked around at a lot of different things and settled on ADA, which is Alternative Distribution Alliance. They’re a really good company and basically they have major distribution in the sense the ability to distribute is on the massive scale, but they’re WEA, they’re Warner Electric Atlantic. But the sales staff, the company itself, is an independent entity. They sell, when they go sell a record…

ZAC: When Tay says, “They’re a WEA,” it means they use the same warehousing, they use the same pressing plant. They can distribute on the same level because they’re connected to use the housing and pressing plants, but they’re a separate staff.

TAYLOR: The actual company, the distribution sales, they’re going out to retail saying, “Hey, you should put this record in,” and ADA distributes everybody from SubPop to Victory to us, 3CG. And it was a big challenge. There were 2½ years of slow process of making a record while we were still signed to Island/Def Jam. When once we left it was like, “Okay, great, we’re off now, but we’ve got to start a label.” That was--getting off the label, figuring out how the distribution was going to work, hiring people, that was a pretty massive undertaking.

MYKE: I’m sure, definitely. So do you want to listen to a clip of one of the songs…

ISAAC: Yeah, sure, that’d be great. I was actually going to say, it’d be awesome to take a listen to a song. A lot of the DJs and stuff around the country have really taken a liking to the over of “Optimistic” that we do, it’s a Radiohead song. So, that’s track #1 on the new live record.

MYKE: This is Hanson, they are playing tonight at Alumni Hall in the IMU.

HANSON – OPTIMISTIC (from L&E)

MYKE: So, that was “Optimistic,” first track on Hanson’s latest album. Hanson, Live & Electric. I’m sorry, go ahead.

TAYLOR: No, I was just going to describe it further.

MYKE: Oh.

TAYLOR: Yeah, it’s a Radiohead cover, obviously.

MYKE: Yeah, yeah. And it sounds pretty similar to the original version.

ZAC: It’s similar. I think the thing we just made it a little more rock. Obviously it’s a little more… the drum beat is a little more emphasized. That’s me copying the beat they have on their record but just playing it less English. We always joke, “Zac, this is a song you need to play English, so just fall half asleep!”

ISAAC: Besides people like John Bonham.

ZAC: There are a few.

ISAAC: There are a few that were certainly thumpers, but the English drummers these days have that, kind of…

MYKE: Just push the cymbals.

ISAAC: Yeah, exactly.

ZAC: I think we just heard this song. We were practicing up for a tour and a guy who plays bass with us live and he was listening to it and was like, “This is a really cool song.” We’re like, “Hey, let’s do it! It sounds like something we could totally rock.”

TAYLOR: Playing live, the whole idea is—first of all, you show your influences and you show the breadth of who you are as a band by coming to a show. I don’t think you really know a band until you see them play live. So, putting a song like “Optimistic”—there’s also a U2 cover on there and then of course just the arrangement changes you do when you play live, I think it’s really an important thing for people to check out when you want to find out what a band is really about. It’s fun for us, as a band, cos when you play a live show it’s gotta be different every night. It’s gotta be a variation, you’ve gotta to throw in something that’s unexpected. That’s what makes playing live shows great.

MYKE: That’s what makes it special for the fans, too, it makes it more personal.

TAYLOR: Yeah. I mean, you could just play the same show over and over, then you’d fall asleep. And Zac would be an English drummer.

MYKE: We’ve got a question, an email question from three Dutch girls who say they saw you in Orlando and talked to you in Orlando.

TAYLOR: Gosh, that sounds like a weird love triangle or something. Three Dutch girls.

ISAAC: Oooh really? I remember…

MYKE: One question they asked was, of the covers you guys played on the last couple tours, which has been the most fun to play live?

TAYLOR: Hmm. I would probably say “In A Little While,” the U2 song, for me.

ZAC: That is actually on the live record.

TAYLOR: Yeah, it’s the one on the live album. We don’t play it as much on this particular tour, but the last tour we played it a lot. It’s an album track off All That You Can’t Leave Behind, that record, and just an amazing song. It’s fun to play.

ISAAC: I’d say, the one that I have enjoyed is “Ain’t No Sunshine,” which is a Bill Withers song. And we tried to do it as similar to the original as possible and it’s just a really, it grooves really great and it’s just a very soulful type song and Tay plays a little solo stuff and it’s fun.

ZAC: “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s… doot-doot-doot-doot-doot” (sings). I can’t help but think of one of the first places I heard that song…

TAYLOR: Pat, have you ever played that song?

PAT: Yeah, I don’t think you can be in a band and not have at least played it in some shape or form.

TAYLOR: It’s such a great song.

PAT: It’s an amazing song. I saw, I don’t know if you guys know who Will Hoge is.

ZAC: Yeah, yeah.

PAT: He crushes that song.

TAYLOR: Will is awesome.

PAT: I saw him when we were in Orlando on the first week of the tour. I went and saw him on a night, one of our many hurricane cancelled nights off.

TAYLOR: Do you know him?

PAT: Yeah, yeah. He is unbelievable. But our band has been around for a while. We’ve circulated; many have covered through the show and we’ve been doing this Tom Petty/Cheap Trick thing, which is a blast. It’s probably the most fun to play just cos it’s somewhat silly.

ISAAC: And the reaction…

PAT: Yeah, and the reaction is ridiculous, but it’s a little—you feel a little bit like you’re cheating, cos you’re giving them the full… the easy way out, you know.

ISAAC: I know that. I kind of feel that way a little bit with the “Feelin Alright” cover sometimes.

TAYLOR: That’s old though, nobody really knows that song.

PAT: You’re not playing “American Pie” or anything.

ISAAC: Yeah, true.

MYKE: So, as far as crowds go at the shows, like the audiences, Hanson has pretty much always been an all-ages fan base. I know the last couple times I’ve noticed that Pat, when you come through Indiana, you’ve been playing 21 and up places.

PAT: I think the Bluebird is always 21 and up, right?

MYKE: Yeah. The Bluebird always is.

PAT: That’s a bummer.

MYKE: Yeah, I really is. Indiana is really weird about…

PAT: That makes it tough.

MYKE: Yeah, but how is the reaction, how is the audience? Is it different playing to an all ages?

PAT: Definitely. You know what? I find them to be way more focused because they don’t have drinks in their hands.

TAYLOR: They’re way better at clapping.

ZAC: And being in time.

PAT: Yeah, the whole thing. You don’t get as many drunken screams at you. But definitely, it’s been amazing. Every night to walk out and have that. I remember last night, our drummer was like, “Man, I hope we can get a crowd like this.” We may have the same amount of people in the same sort of town, but it’s a different vibe and I was like, “We do. They’re right there. We’re about to play in two minutes.” And it’s like, “Let’s go play.” Every night to have those people waiting to hear what you’re going to do is an honor to have that, it’s a blast. Ever night is fun. Really fun.

ISAAC: And Pat, his band definitely puts on a great show.

TAYLOR: You guys have played here—have you played actually at the school?

PAT: I don’t know if we’ve played the school, we’ve always played the Bluebird and I don’t know, maybe if we have we maybe back in the day played at a frat house of some sort. Not too much of that out in the Midwest, a lot of it on the east coast in the early days. By the time we get out here… we play Chicago so many times at the House of Blues or up in Indy there’s a few stations up there that really have taken a liking to the band and the Bob & Tom radio show are friends of ours. Those guys really give us a big push. So, to go right into the Bluebird was pretty easy, and there’s a AAA station here in town…

MYKE: WTTS?

PAT: TTS, yeah, they played our first record a lot.

MYKE: Independent commercial radio station.

ISAAC: Wow, that is rare.

ZAC: That’s rare. That’s a sore thumb in the industry right now, but a good sore thumb!

PAT: They were very good to us, but they really helped us in the early stages, cos the club is 21 and over it’s not just a college bar, so.

MYKE: And with Hanson’s fan base, have you guys noticed as your careers have progressed, has your fan base still the same age or have they kind of grown up with you?

ZAC: I think it’s the same people, but obviously in the same way in that… when I was 11 I think our fans, Ike was 16 I think our fans were around that, that’s what you saw. You saw people that was our age group.

ISAAC: Between like… actually, it was probably and it’s always tended to be in the realm—there’s a fairly concentrated group that’s around taylor and Zac’s age and there’s always the youngers and the olders.

ZAC: You continue to see the same thing.

TAYLOR: So now Ike’s almost 25, I’m 22, Zac’s 20. So, a lot of our fans are in college.

ISAAC: 20, 21, 22.

TAYLOR: And you have like, people’s younger brothers and sisters or whatever that are now being introduced to it, or somebody that’s older, but the core group of fans, a lot of them are our peers. So, 18-25.

ISAAC: I’m noticing more and more the kind of, in kind of the positive sense, there’s certainly an influx of girls bringing their boyfriends, things of that nature. That element is kind of evolving in the way that the crowd also reacts to certain songs and stuff like that. There’s slightly a different reaction these days to certain ones.

ZAC: In the mellow part of the show, we notice a kindling of each other. I don’t know what Ike’s point is about.

ISAAC: I don’t know. I was just saying the crowd is definitely evolving and has been evolving in the last few years.

TAYLOR: But you never focus on a demographic. Obviously, if you have certain fans you’re going to try to fuel those fans and go to those places. Being here and screening the documentary at schools has been really cool cos we have a lot of fans who are in college. But you just make your music and hope people react to it and it’s nice when they do.

MYKE: The documentary that Taylor is talking about is called Strong Enough To Break and it’s showing at the Whittenberger Auditorium at 1:30pm this afternoon in the Indiana Memorial Union and there’s a Q&A afterwards.

ZAC: So come! And ask us all the questions you’ve been dying to ask for so many years.

ISAAC: Besides the stupid ones.

TAYLOR: Yes, no stupid questions.

ZAC: We want all the questions to be about the Bay of Pigs and nothing else.

ISAAC: Exactly. Bay of Pigs invasion and, you know, nuclear proliferation.

MYKE: Ancient classic Indian literature.

ISAAC: We’re refocusing.

TAYLOR: International religious studies, we’ll be focusing on that too.

ISAAC: Yeah, so. Actually, Zac only wants Bay of Pigs invasion questions, I only want nuclear proliferation, and Taylor would like international religious studies questions.

ZAC: We’re becoming a band more based on old modern… stuff…

TAYLOR: Okay, guys.

ZAC: I was just trying to say something…

TAYLOR: You’re trying to say something smart!

ZAC: No, no! I was trying to say something—we saw this record store, we were driving. It wasn’t here; it was he other day in like Washington and it said, “Specializes in standard and hard to find CDs” or something. You’re like, “You can’t specialist in both!”

MYKE: “We specialize in music.”

TAYLOR: “We specialize in the everyday and the very obscure.” What? I’m sorry.

MYKE: So… well, before we wrap this up, we are going--WIUS is going low power FM, so if we could get maybe somebody to say, maybe, “This is Hanson!” or “This is Pat McGee and you’re listening to WIUX!”

TAYLOR: That would be pretty easy.

ISAAC: Oh, so are you changing, your call letters are changing over?

MYKE: Yeah, it’ll have to be WIUX, cos turns out there’s a WIUS FM in Illinois. Yeah, in January, whatever. But WIUX is like, a new age! New step!

ZAC: Yeah, it’s incredible guys. Everyone in radio land… the changeover. It’s happening right now.

TAYLOR: Well, before we wrap it up we should—one thing we didn’t talk about is the… one of the things we’re doing is with the tickets to the shows, everybody gets a sampler of music. It’s called the Live & Electric, that’s the tour, Indie Sampler. Pat McGee is on there, the Pat McGee is on there, plus some of our stuff, and also some stuff, some other independent bands. And it’s just an effort to give people a sense of some really good independent music and have people walk away with something—it’s free, it’s free with your ticket. So it might be cool to play one of Pat’s tunes.

MYKE: Oh yeah, definitely.

TAYLOR: Because one of the things that’s obviously really cool is the idea… whenever you play with somebody else, we were talking about different fan bases and on a big level I think it’s important to cross-pollinate and connect with other artists and introduce each others fans to each other.

ISAAC: This is a very direct way to do that.

MYKE: That’s a really good idea. I don’t know many other bands that give away a sampler.

ISAAC: Well, it’s hard to kind of get it all together to be able to do it, in some cases, but we were lucky enough that Pat was really receptive to the idea and all the other bands that we contacted were also really receptive and we felt like it was totally perfect to be able to do that for each other, because you’re spreading the word of each other’s music simultaneously in a way that’s effective. I mean, some of the other guys on the sampler, for example, I talked to one of the guys who’s in the band called The Hero Factor and I talked to him the other day and he was like, “Dude, we’ve noticed a really strong influx of people,” specifically on the MySpace account, because it’s easier to track that right off the bat and he said, “We’re getting countless people saying, ‘We’re going to buy your record now.’” That’s a really cool thing, especially for a band like them who’s even more localized. Pat’s band obviously has toured around a lot over the years, and these guys have only sold just a couple thousand records over the last few years, this other band, The Hero Factor, and so anyway.

TAYLOR: Every kind of band.

ZAC: Pat, you want to give an intro?

PAT: “You & I” is the track that’s on that and I was floored when you guys put this thing together. I thought it was amazing. We’d already agreed to this tour and I would have agreed to it. I love the whole idea. I wish we could… it’s a costly thing to do that, to print your own music and give it away for free with the hope to tuning people into new stuff, just like you did when you made mix tapes for people back in the day and now with your playlists and podcasts or whatever. But it’s really, we really appreciate it, and we’ve seen the same thing. I’m sure The Hero Factor has seen a jump and we’ve seen a huge jump on our website in addition to obviously touring with these guys, but a lot of people are saying because of this song or whatever, “I’m going to go check out the rest of your catalogue.” Anyway, this is one of the tracks off there, it’s called “You & I.”

PAT McGEE BAND – YOU & I

MYKE: So that was Pat McGee’s song called “You & I,” that’s on the sampler CD that is free with your ticket.

ISAAC: Yes, and it’s also on their full length album Save Me. It’s from that record, yeah.

ZAC: Right sittin’ on yo desk!

ISAAC: And you know, coming from… so Pat doesn’t have to say himself, it’s a really good record.

PAT: It’s a really great record.

ISAAC: Pat’s like, “It’s a great record, everybody should go buy one!”

PAT: It’s out on Kirtland. It was out on Warner Brothers and basically long story short, they weren’t getting the job done and we asked to get out of there and we were looking for people that believed in the record and could get the job done and Kirtland Records came out of nowhere. The guy that was running the radio department at Giant Records at the time and I thought he was the only guy at the business I actually trusted. So, he went over there and I met John Kirtland, John Kirtland actually used to be the drummer in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, is that the band, or the song?

ZAC: Oh really?

PAT: Is that the song or the band?

MYKE: That’s a song.

TAYLOR: Deep Blue Something.

PAT: Deep Blue Something, he was the drummer in Deep Blue Something. And he has gone on to be very successful in all kinds of different businesses in Texas, so he opened up Kirtland Records. He started by obtaining Bush’s catalogue, so he has all of Bush’s catalogue and they have a new album out by a band called Brill, a very cool band from California. Sort of an alternative label, but we’re the alterative on their label. They’re small, mainly based in Texas. Last year he decided, “I’m hiring an LA staff, I want this to be a real label.” He went after—he got Bush and then he said, “I want to get a band that was actively touring” and it sort of made sense to sort of hand him the record and they’re going to run with it and that’s the song they’re going to come out with next year. “You & I.”

ISAAC: That’s great. I didn’t realize, that’s really the right way, it seems to me, to have somebody like the drummer from Deep Blue Something as a part of a running record company mix. Makes sense! He’s a music guy!

PAT: It’s different how they react. We flew to Texas a few weeks ago and just did a couple shows and it was literally like 2-3 shows in the area, so he hooked us up in a studio and gave us a van and a trailer for a few days to go a few hundred miles, and when you call him to say, “Hey, the break lights don’t work on the trailer” and he’s like, “Oh man, that sucks when that happens.” He was in the van and trailer, he knows how this works, this is not some pretentious guy that’s like, “I can’t take that call right now. Have my peons deal with it.” He sends out another fleet of vans for us. They get it. So.

ISAAC: Very cool.

TAYLOR: It’s interesting to share, cos we share so much with Pat in the sense of the story, of being different bands in today’s business and both choosing to sort of take the path of independence, but believing in sort of the future of independent music cos it’s growing so much, cos there’s so many stories about this industry that’s sort of forgotten where it came from. Music.

MYKE: This is like an increasingly common story I’m sure, bands like Pat McGee Band and Hanson starting off independent, getting on major labels, and then realizing, “That’s not really what we want to do,” and then going back.

TAYLOR: I think for us in specific, and I think in the same case with Pat for the most part, it was really just that it’s not even that major labels are bad per say, it’s just that what they’re doing now is no good.

ZAC: There’s nothing wrong with a large company of people, it’s more about the focus.

TAYLOR: Who are those people? It’s like if you are a huge group of really passionate people, great. But the problem is, when you literally go from being signed to a label that is one of the most successful labels in history, Mercury Records, who signed us originally, to moving over to a rap label owned by a toilet company.

MYKE: You weren’t joking about that?

TAYLOR: No, Vivendi!

ZAC: Vivendi.

TAYLOR: Vvendi was a company that manufactured toilet seats and pipes for plumbing and they were the parent company of our old label. We were on a rap label. We’re a pop/rock band on a rap label owned by a toilet company. We’re just like, “Where are we?! The twilight zone!”

ZAC: I think it’s also—we’re talking about the industry, Tay was saying “indie” and moving to being a band that is running an independent label. I think it’s really important for people listening… “independent” doesn’t mean what it once meant.

TAYLOR: It doesn’t mean a style.

ZAC: It doesn’t mean a style, it doesn’t mean… even nowadays I think the gap between big major label and independent label is really shrinking because technology is really letting you reach the same kind of numbers and things that other people can and the ability to be focused on what you’re doing in a way that’s long term beyond a 3 month period or a 6 week period helps you to really get the job done with exposing the music the way you want to.

PAT: I think also you can’t put all the blame on just the labels. Obviously, the radio business has turned the music business—they’ve made each other a lot worse. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat in a big Top 40 stations and the guy who could make the decision on whether or not to play our music… like, I gotta tell you, before we were about to play for his staff, a little acoustic thing, he said, “I got your song on repeat on my iPod, I’ve had it on there for nine months, I love it. I absolutely love it.” The obvious question is, “So why don’t you play it?” If you love it, why wouldn’t your listeners love it? We’re talking about not some 60 year old man, this Is a guy who’s in his late 20s who’s obviously the demo of his radio station. So you’re in a weird position as an artist not to beat someone over the head and say, “So why can’t you play it again?” He’s like, “Well, I can’t be the guy to step out on it. Why would I do that? Cos I’ll look stupid if I play it and my boss asks me, ‘How come you’re spending this number of minutes on an artist that doesn’t have airplay anywhere else?’”

ISAAC: Because that’s how hits get made. Or have people forgotten that? Pat’s point is true though, it’s this weird catch-22 where the radio industry and the record industry, which were in essence one business, for the most part, cos they fuel each other, they fuel each other. Radio station needs content and a record station needs a way to expose its music. And somehow it’s become, as opposed to like a productive working together type of relationship, although there’s always been competition to a certain extent cos someone wants money or something like that, but really it’s not—they’re not working for each other’s greater good, because it’s almost like they’re thinking to themselves, “Well, we don’t need you as much as you need us,” and it kind of goes back and forth, one way or the other.

MYKE: I’m going to try to take this phone call. It won’t be on the air, but we’ll see if I can answer the phone. It’s a weird system. You guys can keep talking.

TAYLOR: You’re taking the phone call, that’s totally awesome.

MYKE: I guess I was a half second too late, cos there’s a dial tone. I got a dial tone.

TAYLOR: Sorry we wouldn’t stop talking.

MYKE: No, that’s fine. So, we have about ten minutes left and whoever just called, call back and we’ll try it again. I promise we’ll try again. Or if not, IM us on AOL Instant Messenger, WIUSREQUEST. We’ll try to take a question or two for the guys, for Hanson and Pat McGee in the next then minutes. So, yeah.

TAYLOR: Maybe… go ahead.

ZAC: No, the thing I was going to say was, I think we’ve, in a lot of ways I feel like we’ve gotten off on talking a lot about stuff, but not talking about what we want to do and why we’re here. Everybody can talk about the bad sides of the industry or get indulged in, “Radio has these problems!” or “This company has these problems.” Those are things that will always exist, not necessarily agreeing with the way different companies handle things. I think the point that we want to make when we come to schools and when we talk to students is about their role in music right now and the fact that their power is becoming more and more important, what they do as music fans. Their activity in music is becoming more and more important with the way the industry is right now and with also with new technologies developing, creating more power for people to speak to each other and spread their opinions and really create what is going to be the new thing that people wan tot hear. You’re looking more to your peers than you are to what that ad was or what that thing you saw on TV or what you saw in a magazine. You really think people are looking more and more to their peers to find great music and find new things they want to trust and they want to be involved in.

TAYLOR: And if we can, as not just fans but as the new companies that are involved in bringing forward great music. If we can all get into having a conversation and working together, then that conversation can start. We can actually focus on building whatever the future of the music business will be, the future of business that’s gonna focus on long term thinking and build careers and it’s about getting something in motion and saying as music fans and as artists and as industry companies that care about the future of music, “Let’s interact, let’s get involved, let’s make sure that we’re not sort of sitting back and being complacent and saying, ‘I don’t like radio’ or ‘I don’t like this and that’ and ‘I’m going to go remove myself.’” No, we’re music fans and we need to be a part of what happens next.

MYKE: Try to take an active role in the change.

TAYLOR: Yeah.

MYKE: The call we just got… I’m not sure how that works, this is a weird phone we have here. I mean, it was from Lauren though, she said she wanted to thank Pat for the show last night but she never would have heard about Pat McGee Band if it wasn’t for the sampler that we were just talking about.

PAT: Nice. There you go.

MYKE: So that’s something relevant to what we were just talking to.

TAYLOR: Nice. That’s awesome.

ISAAC: And that’s, I think, the biggest thing for us right now about this tour and about what we’re doing and I think what I hope other bands will be able to do in some way, is we really feel like that element of exposing each other’s music to each other’s fans is a really big positive because it’s getting around the traditional avenues and instead of saying, “Oh, so and so plays, we want your fans,” you’re actually going to bands and you’re saying, “Look, we’ve all got this similar mindset going on here, let’s work together collectively,” because when you get 10 bands together that have 2,000 fans, that’s a lot of people. That’s 20,000 fans.

TAYLOR: It’s sort of like commercial radio stations, the difference between a lot of commercial radio stations and an independent college station. What you do is you guys have more of a passionate base. The people that listen to your station are engaged. They really choose to listen cos they like what a DJ says or the stuff that’s going on. A lot of commercial stations are sort of playing to this lowest common denominator thing of, “As long as I don’t play something that’s too good or too bad, I will keep people listening cos it’s equal.”

ZAC: Versus basing it on passion.

TAYLOR: Versus basing it on passion. As bands, we need to focus on connecting passionate people, not hoping that we can ask someone else for access to a bunch of passive people. If you can get lots of passionate people to meet each other, whether they share the same opinion, they can connect on the idea of passion. When she calls and says, “Hey, I went to see Hanson and I find out about Pat McGee and I’m going to tell my friend about Pat McGee” and then all the sudden those two friends are going to go to that show. I’m sure the same thing—I’m sure Pat has fans who come to the show and go, “Wow, Hanson. That’s cool.” Those people are the ones that are active, they’re going to see shows, they’re checking out music. Those are the people that you want to be meeting each other.

MYKE: I just got a question on AOL Instant Messenger from Hazel in England.

TAYLOR: Whoa.

MYKE: Yeah. She said, well first that Hanson’s new music is “astounding,” I think is the word that she used. But she asked if there were logistical problems with promoting and touring overseas now that you’re independent, and also if those shows that were canceled in Florida because of the hurricane, if there’s any plan to…

TAYLOR: Two years in a row that’s happened because of a hurricane.

ZAC: We’ve been stopped by acts of God or nature or whatever you call them. Touring in Europe, the way we work now that we’re an independent label… we were in 30 countries last year, so it’s not a matter of being an independent company. It’ not stopping us--

ISAAC: In fact, we did our first extensive European tour on this last album.

ZAC: We work with a lot of different labels. That’s the way we do it. We fully run the label in the US, it’s all 3CG Records, then we work with other companies outside, other independent labels outside the states who really can specialize in their market, really know the avenues and the effective ways to get the music out there, and especially that becomes a problem in countries that speak foreign languages. You don’t want to go and think you can figure it out. You just go, “Let’s find a label that’s really passionate and can get behind this and help us find the right avenues to expose the music.” But touring, internationally has been more effective as an indie now. We’ve been able to focus more on that and keep the whole team of people working on the album saying, “You know what? Touring, playing concerts, this is are ally important part of who we are.”

MYKE: That’s why you started playing in the first place, right?

ZAC: Exactly!

TAYLOR: That’s why bands play.

MYKE: Cos it’s effective.

TAYLOR: Because you reach people.

TAYLOR: It takes a lot of work, but it’s effective.

ZAC: I think—briefly, Florida shows—I don’t think we’re going to be able to make those shows up. It’s just going to get too late in the year and then it’s always this thing of, do you move on to making another record, or do you make up the shows that were canceled in Florida because of the hurricanes? I think we’re just going to have to come back to those fans next year with a new album and hopefully they’ll forgive us. We have to put the records first, I think.

MYKE: Do you have any comments?

PAT: Have anything to say about touring in England? Ah… One thing I want to say about these guys is the live show to me, to me it’s what they’re about to me now cos I didn’t really know them before that. We may have one perception of who Hanson was or is now, but like the girl who wrote from England, Hazel, I mean… she’s saying their music is what, astounding? It is. I was astounded when I heard it. I downloaded the entire catalogue off of iTunes when we took this tour so I could figure out…

ZAC: Who you’d be playing with?

PAT: What I was getting myself into. *laughs*

ISAAAC: “I hope they don’t suck!”

PAT: No, I knew you didn’t suck. I knew that.

ZAC: Pat, you know you thought that.

PAT: I did not think that! I did not think that! Plus, as I said yesterday, Michael Tolcher gave you guys such a big, “Oh! You guys are going to freak out!” and my agent and my manager said and some guys at EMI, anyone that’s ever seen the show understands what these guys are now and if you haven’t seen it, you really, really should come out tonight to see the show. It’ll blow you away. The fact that they have a Radiohead cover, I hadn’t even heard that before. That was great.

MYKE: Are you guys planning to play that song tonight?

TAYLOR: We could if it was by request.

ZAC: I don’t know, we’ll see. We’ll definitely play—we always play songs from all the records, we play different covers. Usually we break it up. We haven’t been playing that cover but we’ve been playing some Doobie Brothers, some other stuff.

ISAAC: It’s kind of weird because it’s that counterintuitive thing, you release a live record and then you go and you tour, but the funny thing is…

TAYLOR: You don’t wan to play the same thing as the live record.

ISAAC: Yeah, cos the reason we recorded the live record was cos we’d done like 100 and something shows and we were like, “Okay, we gotta record these songs now.” And now we’re playing new songs.

TAYLOR: So now we’re playing songs that aren’t necessarily on the live record.

ISAAC: But “Optimistic” is definitely in the group of songs that do get played at some point. We haven’t played it yet on this run, though.

ZAC: Maybe tonight.

MYKE: Sop once again, that concert is at 8pm at Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union. That’s following a documentary showing Strong Enough To Break at 1:30pm in the Whittenberger Auditorium in the Union.

PAT: Which is amazing, by the way. The documentary.

MYKE: The documentary.

PAT: Yes. It really is. And this is not a Hanson speaking. *laughs*

MYKE: I’m not sure how much tickets are, I think they’re $20-some for…

TAYLOR: For the show. The screening is free.

MYKE: Yeah, the screening is free.

TAYLOR: But the show is, I believe you’re right.

ISAAC: I think it’s somewhere between $20-$30.

ZAC: We always try to keep our tickets really reasonable. ************

TAYLOR: Zac said he didn’t know who the opening band is, and he doesn’t know cos what we’ve done in every city we’ve set up contests so that local bands can submit their music and be the first band on. So when you come see the show, there’s three bands. The idea is, we’re talking about us trading fans with Pat McGee and the indie sampler and touring together. Those things are important, but take it to another level. We wanted to literally empower local bands to get in front of these audiences and that’s what it’s about.

ISAAC: And the reason we don’t know is cos the fans chose the band.

TAYLOR: The voting is obviously done now, but we’ve been on tour so I’m not sure what the final decision was. Go to hanson.net and find out who the winner was of the opening band contest was for tonight. They’ll be opening and rockin’ it.

PAT: I think it’s Mellencamp.

TAYLOR: Is that right?

PAT: Yeah, John Mellencamp.

MYKE: He still lives here, you know he still lives here.

ISAAC: Yes, yes, yes. I know he lives in Indiana. Our old manager… our old manager—our manger used to manage him. Not our old manager, our current manager.

TAYLOR: It’s a small world.

MYKE: Someone from Scotland and somebody else is also asking what your plans are for international touring. It’s like a global phenomenon.

ISAAC: We look forward to touring around the world and around the US again very soon.

TAYLOR: The documentary, we’re sort of again doing two tours. We’ve got a live album and we’re playing shows but we’re also obviously coming to schools and screening the documentary. The documentary, we want that to reach people, especially universities, and it’s going to happen internationally too, so we want to give that the time to reach people, but we are focused on making the next studio album, so we will probably have the next studio album out next year and we’ll be touring.

MYKE: So are you going to be working with some of the same producers that you worked with when you were on Def Jam and Island?

TAYLOR: On our last record, for instance, Underneath, we produced almost the whole record ourselves. We worked with some really good people. On our last record for instance, the couple songs we didn’t produce, one was with a guy named Danny Kortchmar, who is an amazing producer, player.

ISAAC: Billy Joel, “River of Dreams.”

TAYLOR: “River Of Dreams,” yeah, Billy Joel, was his last main album, he produced that. He’s amazing. And other people we collaborated with like Matthew Sweet, writing with him. Michelle Branch, a friend of ours, she sings on the record. Gregg Alexander from the group the New Radicals we wrote with. Sam Farrar from the band Phantom Planet, he’s a friend, he plays bass on several tunes.

ISAAC: Our friend David Garza who’s opening up for Fiona Apple on about a dozen shows coming up soon, starting actually in 10 days or something, he’s starting to open up for her. He played on there too.

TAYLOR: He’s on three songs.

ISAAC: He’s a guitar player and a singer.

TAYLOR: The records, when we make a record we’re always turning upside-down. You work with people you’re into, collaborate with people that you think will make good music together. Producing-wise, we’ve always produced so we’ll probably do a lot of it ourselves, but there’s some—it’s always nice to have somebody that you trust to come in and help give it another flavor.

PAT: From my standpoint, it sounds exciting cos the last record we made with Warner, it was very much, the second record they let us stay, thanks for letting us stay at the big Warner, and “We gotta make the right record!” So, there was so much pressure. You can’t sit there and be like, “I really want to bring in this guy to do this or that…” We didn’t have those opportunities. We did on our previous records when we were indie and I’m excited about making another, just hearing you talk about that.

TAYLOR: Being an indie and actually making a record…

PAT: Making a record and being the one that’s in charge of what ends up on that record.

ISAAC: And what’s important to say about that is we’re expressing the same problem and phenomenon. Part of the reason this day is why records aren’t as good, I believe, is because of the overemphasis on certain aspects of making records on the part of people who’ve never made records. So it’s like, “Write me the single.” But, would you hear the single if it hit you like a freight train? Cos I’m not sure you would.

ZAC: Well, I think making albums is the element of having people in a certain input is a great thing, it makes it better when you have great people around you to have input and vision for your records. Ike was getting to that, but I don’t think input--our first A&R guy was a great guy who really knew music and we butted heads. Sometimes he had a vision for the band that maybe wasn’t the same vision we had.

TAYLOR: At least he had a vision.

ZAC: He had a vision, and I think that’s what you need in music. That’s what you really need in any industry, but especially the business of making music right now, cos it’s so important to have that vision for what you are as a band and to be able to go forward with that in mind and I guess…

ISAAC: Either way, all four of us, Pat and ourselves, are all looking forward to making records in a very liberated way.

PAT: I think artists also have an obligation to make a record that’s song 1 to whatever it is, 12 or 14, is an album. Cos everything is now, “I only want that song and that song.” It’s your job as an artist or the band to put out a record and listen to it and say, “Is track 7 as good as rack 1?” You gotta believe that before you say, “Okay, print it.”

ISAAC: Absolutely, and it’s about the songwriting quality, is what Pat’s saying, is so key and it’s too… I always think the problem with chasing the single thing, too, is you’re put in a situation where you’ve got all the nice 3½ minute bits but you may not have that one song that would have given the record more unique. So that’s also an element of quality that’s crucial.

ZAC: I think they’re talking about making records, but I think it’s our job to build trust in fans by making great records, by putting great products, by always giving people records they know they can trust whether they’ve heard the new single or gotten it burned from a friend. They know they’re going to get a great record when they hear the new Hanson record or the new Pat McGee record or whatever band you are is coming out, and as an industry, as musicians, we need to activate ourselves to make sure we’re building that trust with our fans so that’s there so people have that trust in music to say, “I want to send my money on that, I don’t want to buy a video game or a DVD or whatever it is, I want to get a new record.”

TAYLOR: But the concept of talking about trust, in a lot of major record companies the business, they’re not even—the concept of even thinking that way is so outside of the box, but it’s so elemental. It’s so basic. You know, when they created the Ford Pinto, it damaged the brand of Ford. It was such a crap car that every time for a long time they had to really… “No, we’re not going to pout out any more Pintos.” After you put out thousands of Pinto records, you know, people start—fans start thinking, “You know what? I don’t trust that this is going to be good.” And the thing is, you’ve got to go, “Why are those records being made?” The reason they’re being made that way is people working at those companies don’ know music. So if you can go back to the beginning, fix the problem and get good people in companies, not make Pintos, but make reliable, great records that you’re gonna—people are gonna be like, “You know what? I don’t really care if I download it or buy a record or whatever but I want to support by bands cos they’re great. I assume the best instead of assuming the worst about music so I assume it’s pretty good cos I heard two songs that were good” and that’s what the business—we’ve got to get back in giving that to our fans. Bands have to do that so they’re like, “You know what? Pat McGee told me to go buy his record, and if he lets me down next time I’m not going to listen.”

ISAAC: Same with Hanson.

TAYLOR: Same with Hanson.

MYKE: One question that we had, is the documentary going to be publicly released on DVD, to buy in stores?

TAYLOR: We’re probably going to release it next year sometime, yeah. There’s a couple people that have, there’s some interest in releasing it on limited screening and TV and stuff. That’s kind of up in the air, but we really do want to spread to more and more schools first. Some schools are incorporating it into the curriculum in their music school, like USC in LA and NYU, both are using it in the music business programs and we want that to happen more and we want that to be the groundwork. Instead of going to film festivals we’re really going to the core.

ISAAC: Why ask critics for praise when you can ask the people that really matter, which is fans?

TAYLOR: The fans are the ones who are really going to change the business. But definitely we’re probably going to release it on DVD, so keep in touch. Keep looking for it if you’re interested.

MYKE: Well, I think it’s probably about time…

TAYLOR: Yeah, probably.

MYKE: To head over the documentary here pretty soon, probably should grab lunch beforehand.

TAYLOR: Do you think we can play another tune before we roll?

MYKE: Oh yeah, definitely. Off of yours, off the sampler? You want to play one off the sampler?

TAYLOR: Yeah, maybe we should play… well, why don’t we play one off the live record and then when we roll I want to tell you about another band’s song to play off the sampler. This is—you want to play the last—sorry, #13 on the live record. It’s called “Rock & Roll Razorblade” and I don’t know, after this tune’s finished I think if you want to it would be cool to play another band’s song off the Live & Electric indie sampler. Following “Rock & Roll Razorblade” you can play the song by David Garza, which is called “What Do I Know.”

ISAAC: He’s opening for Fiona Apple.

TAYLOR: Yeah, he’s opening for Fiona Apple next month.

MYKE: When I worked at a record store I actually got a sampler of him.

TAYLOR: Of David? He is one of the greatest artists of our time.

MYKE: So this song is called…

TAYLOR: “Rock & Roll Razorblade.”

MYKE: “Rock & Roll Razorblade.” So this is Hanson and Pat McGee. Stay tuned cos they’ll be here for a few more minutes after this song and they’re playing at the Indiana Memorial Union tonight.

HANSON – ROCK & ROLL RAZORBLADE (from L&E)

HANSON – THIS TIME AROUND (from L&E)

DAVID GARZA – WHAT DO I KNOW

28 DAYS – JUST CALLING

ISAAC: Hey everybody, this is WIUS and I am Isaac Hanson and Taylor is also around here and we are just playing some music.

TAYLOR: Taking over the radio station for just a few minutes. That was a song by 28 Days, it’s actually on the Live & Electric indie sampler. It’s a CD that we’re giving away with a ticket to our show, which is tonight right here on campus.

ISAAC: The artist you’re hearing in the background we played a little bit earlier also and his name is David Garza and David is going to be opening up for Fiona Apple starting on November 22nd. I think he’s playing like 8-10 shows on the west coast. Another couple minutes here… Anyway, so that’s “What Do I Know” by David Garza, also in the background. So, I actually wanted to play a random song. I thought that maybe since you know the guys in Moldy Peaches a little bit better than I do… Adam Green…

TAYLOR: Well, Adam Green is a friend. He’s one of those guys who’s truly an eclectic lyrically, so we figured we’d play a song from his former band, the Moldy Peaches, a cult classic. “Who’s Got The Crack.”

MOLDY PEACHES – WHO’S GOT THE CRACK?

ISAAC: Hey everybody, this is Isaac Hanson and we are here on WIUS. We are taking over for just a little bit. You’re hearing in the background 28 Days. We had a question earlier, I asked her to call back in a few minutes—she may be calling in, hang on one second, this may be our caller. (answers phone). Hello, WIUS… hi… yes… now it is… now we’re on air.

CALLER: Hi! I was just wondering how did you guys get into 28 Days, which is a band from Australia? And I was just wondering how did you guys got into that? I’m sorry, I’m having feedback in the back, I guess cos I’m listening to this?

ISAAC: Yeah, you should turn down your radio or turn it off unfortunately while you’re talking. But we’ll take your question, thank you very much for calling.

CALLER: Okay, thank you so much and good luck with the rest of the tour. I saw you guys in Washington DC and you guys were just awesome.

ISAAC: Aw thanks very much, I appreciate it.

CALLER: Thank you, buh bye.

ISAAC: Thanks, bye. Her question was again, the band that you’re hearing In the background is 28 Days and they’re kind of a punk/rock type band from Australia and her question was how we got into them and so on. The reason we got into them was in large part because we actually met Damo, the bass player. He came to one of our shows, his girlfriend in particular was a big fan and he also knew our manager pretty well, so because of that we ended up getting into him. I also just wanted to give a quick recap on some of the songs that you heard. You just heard right before we came back on the air the Moldy Peaches. The song was called “Who’s Got The Crack” and we just wanted to play that one cos we know Adam pretty well.

TAYLOR: That’s an interesting segway. Anybody that just tuned in, we’re Hanson, taking over, playing some tunes. We were in Australia at the end of our last tour for our album Underneath and when we met 28 Days guys we just really shared the passion for music. They’re independent guys, they have their own label, and we just thought they were really great. And we working together to do a couple different things to promote independent music and we just wanted to help get their music out to a lot of our fans here in the states, and that’s something I just don’t think happens enough between bands. It’s an interesting segway though because we’re going to play a couple tunes off of our live album, which is called Live & Electric. It was recorded while we were on that tour I was just mentioning in Australia. After touring the world we finished off in Australia with the last few shows and the live album, Live & Electric, was recorded in Melbourne, and actually Damo from 28 Days was actually at this show, hanging out backstage and I think we’re going to play a couple tunes off the record. Give you a little bit of a live experience, a natural segway. Ike, what tune are we going to play here?

ISAAC: I think we’re going to go into “Where’s The Love” first. The album is called The Best of Hanson: Live & Electric, so this is one of the singles. The song is called “Where’s The Love,” so here we go.

HANSON – WHERE’S THE LOVE (from L&E)

ISAAC: Hey everybody. This is WIUS. I am Isaac Hanson, we’ve got Taylor Hanson and Zac and we’ve also got Pat McGee hanging out. Right now we’re actually hearing in the background some music from Pat McGee’s latest album Save Me and the song is called “Don’t Give Up.” And actually, just to comment—one of my favorite songs on the record. It’s really, really cool. It’s just really good straight up rock & roll, really good songwriting, really great melodies.

TAYLOR: Really large sounding.

ISAAC: Very large. Huge! Massive! Like Sputnik. “It’s got it’s own weather system!” (in Scottish accent).

TAYLOR: Are you going to play into this too?

ISAAC: I don’t know, I’m just Scottish. I can’t decide!

TAYLOR: He’s got a serious issue.

ISAAC: Anyway, I guess what I was going to try and say real quick was just that we’re taking over the station, we’re taking requests too if people are wanting to call in.

TAYLOR: Why don’t we just go ahead and give away—we’re going to be giving away tickets all afternoon and we’re going to be giving away 10 tickets.

ISAAC: Five pairs in total.

TAYLOR: So if you guys want to call in, you might just be that lucky caller and get some tickets for tonight’s show.

ISAAC: So, if you like the music in the background…

TAYLOR: You’ll like the show tonight.

ISAAC: You’ll like the show tonight. We’re just going to go to Pat McGee for a few minutes. This is “Don’t Give Up.”

PAT McGEE BAND – DON’T GIVE UP

ISAAC: Hey everybody, this is WIUS. Isaac Hanson behind the controls, Taylor hanging out. Pat McGee is hanging out. In the background we’ve got Pat McGee Band. This is an acoustic version of the song “At It Again” and Pat McGee Band is playing with us tonight right here on campus. Hang on, Taylor is lipping some things to me. What is this? *laughs* I’m sorry, I’m not good at reading lips and talking at the same time. I can’t do more than one thing at once. Anyway, so we’re going to be giving away some tickets everybody, so if you want to come to the show tonight just call up the WIUS line. I actually don’t have the phone number in front of me so we need the phone number. So, we’re going to get the phone number, we want you guys to know where to call. In the meantime, listen to some Pat McGee Band. Thanks for listening to WIUS, it’s a spastic afternoon.

PAT McGEE BAND – AT IT AGAIN

ISAAC: Hey everybody, this is WIUS. That was Pat McGee Band, that was a little acoustic vibe going on. We had “At It Again” off their album Save Me. Pat McGee Band is opening up for us tonight. Is there any interesting story about that song, Pat?

PAT: That song… that song in particular we did with your old pal Marty Fredrickson, producer, out in Monrovia, California. His fabulous little state, salt water pool he’s got out there.

ISAAC: Does he have a salt water pool, really?

PAT: Of course he does. Kick ass. His backyard is like a putting green with a salt water pool in it. it was pretty awesome. That was our first… that was six years ago we did that, first time we’d ever made the major label record. To go out there and see that. We were going to make the record at one of the big fancy studios but we just did it at his house. We had the place booked, one of those ridiculously priced places in LA. Like, “Marty, why are going there again? What’s wrong with this pool and the fact that we can do whatever we want here and it sounds great?” “Well, we just have to get some more microphones we can do it here, man.” So, that’s about it.

ISAAC: And that acoustic version was obviously not the version that you’re speaking of…

PAT: No, that little acoustic version you heard was something we did in the back of the bus.

ISAAC: Sweet.

PAT: We just decided we were bored one day and made an acoustic version of our record for fun and gave it to the label. So.

ISAAC: Well, that is really excellent.

PAT: You got some callers? What do you go there?

ISAAC: Yeah, we’re actually going to go and announce to everybody if you call 855-9487, that’s 855-WIUS, we’re going to be taking some callers and I believe they’re just let’s say the fifth caller that calls in will win some tickets and we’ll keep doing that all day long, so just keep calling in if you want tickets to the show tonight. It’s at the Alumni Hall. Doors open at 7 o’clock and Pat McGee goes on at 8:30 and we go on at 9:50. So we’re going to be playing some more music and whatnot. In fact, let’s see. What song should we go to cos I actually don’t know right now. I’m talking and opening the CD player at the same time.

TAYLOR: Hey man, that’s a talent. You’re becoming very talented here.

PAT: I’m very impressed with the way you’re working the controls.

TAYLOR: I think we’re going to play a tune off the indie sampler. Is that what you’re going to play?

ISAAC: Yes, this song. Or, I don’t know, we can play this one. Let’s play this one. This is The Hero Factor and it’s a song called “Come Down.” Here we go.

THE HERO FACTOR – COME DOWN

ISAAC: Hey everybody, this is Isaac behind the controls here at WIUS. We just had a request from somebody. We’ve mentioned various band that we’re into, bands we listen to and have referenced different ones and this girl was very surprised that we reference Coheed & Cambria, so she actually had a request that we would play a song from one of their records, so we’re playing a song… this is track #3 off of In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth III, and here is track #3. It should be the song “Three Evils.” There you go.

COHEED & CAMBRIA – THREE EVILS

ISAAC: Hey everybody, this is WIUS. I keep saying that. We’re taking some calls on air and so… still got this song going, I guess. There we go.

TAYLOR: That was Coheed & Cambria. We’ve got a caller on the line with a question. Hey, are you there? It looks like we don’t have a caller.

CALLER: Hello?

ISAAC: There she is. Hi. Can you hear us?

CALLER: Sorry, I’m having trouble hearing you.

TAYLOR: What was the question you had?

CALLER: The question was, you guys are part of the Are You Listening campaign. I was wondering what your plans are for that campaign in the future.

ISAAC: Thank you very much for your question. The plans for the Are You Listening campaign… it’s a website for all you guys who don’t know, it’s a website. Areoyulistening.com is the website. The goal of AYL is just to expose quality music of all types, primarily independent artists. Trying to give fans an opportunity to pull together and work together and expose each other to music. In some ways similar to MySpace but more focused and it’s really an artist and fan community, is the goal.

CALLER: I just wanted to say “thank you” for it, the Are You Listening campaign and the sampler CD, because I don’t know if you remember. Yesterday during one of the interviews Pat McGee mentioned some Scottish girls and that’s us and me and my friends were thrilled, and if you guys had never introduced us to their music, it never would have happened, so I just wanted to say thank you.

TAYLOR: No, thank you. That’s really awesome.

ISAAC: Thank you very much.

TAYLOR: For anybody else, the whole concept of we’ve been talking about where music is headed and I think areyoulistening.com, that’s something that we’ve taken an active role in and we’re lucky to have active fans and we’ve been talking about it a lot, but ultimately communities of fans are so important to music right now and the idea of really sharing ideas and connecting fan bases and areyoulistening.com basically has links to a bunch of bands and it’s really helping to expose a lot of bands and fans to a lot of music and connecting those fan bases. Myke, you were talking about one of your friends bands that you think is… you said the best band in the world. That’s a huge endorsement.

MYKE: Yeah, well, best band in Indiana.

TAYLOR: Indiana/the World.

MYKE: Whatever, you know, it’s cool. This band’s called Margo & The Nuclear So & So’s and they’re based out of Indianapolis and it’s kind of like a local super group. It has members from a couple other bands that were pretty big in the area beforehand. But we’re going to play a track off their last album called The Dusted Retreat. This song is called “Bar Fight Revolution Power Violence.”

TAYLOR: Awesome title.

MYKE: They refer to their music, they label their music as urban scarf-folk.

TAYLOR: Hey, there should be no label, right?

MYKE: Right, exactly. So this is Margo & The Nuclear So & So’s.

MARGO & THE NUCLEAR SO & SO’S -- “BAR FIGHT REVOLUTION POWER VIOLENCE”

MYKE: That was Margo & The Nuclear So & So’s with “Bar Fight Revolution Power Violence.”

TAYLOR: That was really cool.

MYKE: So, we’re in the studio with Hanson. They’ve kind of taken over.

TAYLOR: You’re like, “I feel overwhelmed!”

MYKE: I mean, it’s cool though. It’s making my job easier, just sitting and letting them your thing. We are taking calls and people calling in. I’m not sure how it’s going with ticket giveaways…

TAYLOR: I think we’ve been getting so many calls we’ve missed a couple. We’ve had a lot of calls and I think we’re about to give away some tickets. We’re going to be giving away tickets… we’re going to give away some tickets to tonight’s show. It’s at the Alumni Hall. Pat McGee Band is playing with us. We’re Hanson. Were playing at 9:50, Pat is playing at 8:35, and doors open at 7 o’clock. Of course if you just want to check out the show you can go buy tickets. There’s only a few left. We’re about to pick up a call for the winner for the first set of tickets. So, what should we play next, Myke? What do you think?

MYKE: Give me a second and I’ll find something that looks good.

TAYLOR: One of the things that we were talking about was there was a question about a website community called areyoulistening.com. One of the things that we’ve seen—we’ve gone to a lot of schools and we’ve been seeing how the amazing factor of community strength, like the power of fan to fan discovery of music and that’s one of the things that as music fans we need to embrace more and more is the role we can play in supporting music and spreading music. More than ever, we have a role where we can actually affect what’s going on, the trends that are being set, cos we have reach through the internet. A lot of college radio stations are some of the only places that actually have the freedom to play the songs they want to play. As music fans, we need to be out there talking about people like the band we just head, a local, great band and empowering them to reach more fans and ultimately empowering yourself as music fans. The more you talk about the music you love, you’re putting yourself in a position to be a leader and be the first one to say, “Hey, did you hear this band? Did you hear this music?” It’s really cool.

MYKE: Well, college radio is one of those mediums where there’s a lot of people, myself included and I’m sure you guys, where you’ll hear a band and you’ll hang out with some friends and like, “You have to listen to this! I just heard this!”

TAYLOR: That’s so great.

MYKE: But then like college radio and other non-commercial community radio stations even, you’re able to do that on a more grand scale. Instead of saying to one friend at a time, you’re saying tp potentially it to hundreds or thousands of people at a time. “This is my favorite new band!” and turning them on to it.

TAYLOR: That’s what radio is meant to be.

MYKE: Exactly.

TAYLOR: But a lot of times, we were talking earlier and you were interviewing us about why we’re going to campuses. What’s happened with a lot of media is it’s so consolidated and they’re playing so few tunes that they’re not really doing what you just described. But you guys are, and what’s popping up are some really powerful and really broad reaching internet radio stations, website communities, and we were at BearCast the other day.

MYKE: Another cool stream is WOXY, also in Cincinnati, is another huge, influential online stream.

TAYLOR: And now those stations are reaching anybody. Ultimately, the reason I was mentioning this website areyoulistening.com, it’s attempting to help pull together lots of small fan bases and independent people to help work together and share ideas. Ultimately, the little guy now has such an ability to compete cos you can be the streaming station and ultimately reach so many people and I think it all comes back to, how good is the music you’re playing? Are you really introducing people to music? Cos I know when I find somewhere where I discover music, I come back. I want to come back and hear it again. It’s so great to actually stumble across something that you really love.

MYKE: So are you ready to play another song? This is The Constantines. I haven’t heard anything off this new album, but I know the last one is incredible on SupPop Records. The CD is called Tournament of Hearts and the song is the second track called “Hotline Operator.”

THE CONSTANTINES – HOTLINE OPERATOR

MYKE: Once again, that was The Constantines with “Hotline Operator” off their last album called Tournament of Hearts.

TAYLOR: Let me just examine what you just did. You played a song off a record that you’d never heard. I think that’s amazing.

MYKE: I have little stars that say which songs are the good ones.

TAYLOR: But still, it’s hot though. I mean, because what you have the ability to play whatever it is that you want at the station but you pick up the record and were like, “Hey, this is on our priority list so somebody liked it but I’ve never heard it. Let me throw it in, let me check it out.” It’s just… again, the feeling of discovery is cool.

MYKE: One thing I was going to say… oh. It slipped my mind, sorry.

TAYLOR: No, it’s okay. BLANK! Dude, it’s all that religious studies you’ve been doing.

MYKE: Yeah, all that Sanskrit they’ve been cramming down my throat.

TAYLOR: Your brain is too full.

MYKE: I wanted to say something about The Constantines it seems like, but oh, anyway. Well, we’re still taking calls though, giving away tickets to the show tonight at 8pm at Alumni Hall, doors at 7.

TAYLOR: And we’ve had a whole host of calls, but we need… we’ve also had calls from all over the place, so we need some local calls… so there’s not enough phone lines here. But thanks for the IM’s. Pat McGee is actually manning the computer. I just want everyone to know. We’ve got a little production team here.

MYKE: The IM’s are probably a record. There’s no less than 30 IM windows he has. Yeah, right. Every continent is represented. So, if you don’t get an immediate response on IM, please forgive him.

TAYLOR: He’s getting carpal tunnel as we speak.

MYKE: Yeah, exactly. It’s the express mode.

TAYLOR: You might ruin the show tonight cos he won’t be able to play guitar. He’s been typing. “Sorry, it’s all those IM’s! I can’t take it!”

MYKE: So where you guys headed after Bloomington?

ISAAC: Chicago.

TAYLOR: We’re actually headed to Chicago. We’re doing two shows in Chicago.

ISAAC: Pat McGee is going to the Apple store.

TAYLOR: Yeah, actually Pat is doing kind of a special acoustic performance at the Apple store on Michigan Avenue. I think that’s something that they’ve started doing more with the artists. And then Pat, they’re doing to feature your tune on iTunes, is that right?

PAT: Yeah, something like that!

TAYLOR: Yeah, it’s like an exclusive iTunes song, they’ll be recording. So that’s cool. And yeah, we’re doing two shows at the House of Blues in Chicago, which is an awesome venue. We’ve actually recorded a couple different things actually at that venue. So yeah, Chicago has always been a great market for us and a great city too, so we’ll have a good time.

MYKE: So, keep those calls and IM’s coming. I’m not the one responding to the IM’s so I can say that… yeah, 855-WIUS is the phone line and the IM screen name is WIUSREQUEST. We’re going to play another song by a band here in Bloomington, a band called The Impossible Shapes. This band is one of Bloomington’s incestual, this band has people in the Cokedares and The John Wilkes Booze and some--

TAYLOR: Did you say there’s some incest going on in this band?

MYKE: I’m saying… uh…

TAYLOR: That’s weird.

MYKE: Eh, you know what I’m saying. Anyway. I mean, it is Indiana, right? I’m just kidding, I grew up here, I can say that. This song is called “She Let Me Run.”

THE IMPOSSIBLE SHAPES – SHE LET ME RUN

MYKE: That as The Impossible Shapes with “She Let Me Run” off of their album, We Like It Wild. So, we have a winner?

ISAAC: Yes, hello, are you on the air there?

EZSTER: Hello?

ISAAC: Hi!

TAYLOR: You are the lucky caller, you’ve just won…

ISAAC: A pair of tickets.

TAYLOR: A pair of tickets to tonight’s show at Alumni Hall to see Hanson.

EZSTER: That’s awesome, thank you so much.

TAYLOR: Yeah, no, we will see you there and I think just so you know, just come to the show, pick it up at will call and we’ll have tickets for you and once we jump off the air we’ll get your name.

EZSTER: Okay, it’s Ezster.

ISAAC: Just out of curiosity, where are you calling?

EZSTER: We’re outside, like where the venue is.

MYKE: Oh, so you’re on a cell phone then.

EZSTER: Yeah.

MYKE: Where’d you drive from, are you from Bloomington?

EZSTER: We came from Cincinnati; we were at the show last night.

TAYLOR: Oh, that’s cool.

MYKE: Oh wow.

TAYLOR: Awesome.

EZSTER: Yeah, we’re from Toronto.

TAYLOR: Whoa. See, we’ve got some international people here.

MYKE: Oh, so you’re following the band?

EZSTER: Well, just for the weekend and then we gotta go back home to school.

MYKE: Oh, school. I’m skipping school to be here with Hanson.

TAYLOR: Yes, exactly. Hey, well cool. Thanks so much for your call and keep on listening to WIUS.

ISAAC: Spread the word.

EZSTER: Okay, we will.

MYKE: So, I mean you’re talking more about the areyoulistening.com, talking about like it’s more like a sharing, individuals kind of send in ideas, right?

TAYLOR: Well, I was talking to you again, we’ve sort of been active cos we’re lucky to have a lot of active fans and wanted to sort of expose the message. But if you go to the website, anyone can recommend something specifically, but also we’ve been reaching out to people that we think have a lot of great opinions and people that are exposed to a lot of music and want to get their input on stuff that they’re hearing. Basically help to build a large group of great independent bands at a place where people can find out about them. One of the things that I found when I started really searching for different bands that were recommended to me, different independent bands, it would be so hard a lot of times to find band’s music and find out about them, especially indie bands, that don’t have time to focus on getting a rockin’ website or downloads available or streaming music, and the idea is that now in today’s business again, like the small independent entity, they can compete but we can really compete stronger if we work together to share ideas and build a community. And if you go to areyoulistening.com right now, it’s just a website with a lot of links to different band’s websites and kind of a message, but the list is spawning from input from people coming to the website, radio station DJs from all over the world, journalists…

MYKE: College radio stations…

TAYLOR: College radio stations. But people that have opinions and are really passionate about music.

MYKE: One thing that sounds different from this website—I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but one thing that sounds different from this website is as opposed to like, MySpace and Purevolume where record labels pay attention to those websites. I’ve talked with A&R people and they have meetings, huge record conglomerates, like at Sony and Vivnedi and things like that, where they discuss the bands that have the most plays and the most buddies on MySpace and they actually look at that kind of thing.

TAYLOR: They’re starting to, yeah.

MYKE: And areyoulistening.com sounds like a place where there are just artists, it’s more like a collective—in a way, am I right?

TAYLOR: It is, yeah.

MYKE: That can help fight the evil corporate system.

TAYLOR: Well, I think the goal is that anything that has reach ultimately will get attention from people that want to make money. Right? So, if MySpace is big eventually people will be like, “Hey, what’s going on at MySpace?”

MYKE: It’s owned by a newscorp now.

TAYLOR: Now it is, yeah. And so ultimately, like if you have success, you will have leeches looking at you. But the concept is that if artists and fans of music are the ones that ultimately suffer when there’s not great music out there. So people like you guys that are playing all kinds of different tunes, introducing people to music, music fans and artists need to be the ones working together to help expose one another and help music fans find great music and build a strong community where internationally, nationally, people are sharing ideas, introducing each other to music and doing it with a—it’s not just a sprawling thing, it has a message, which is that the little guys need to focus on, work together and focus on quality, focus on choice, and focus on building back trust with fans. And those are the kind of things that are happening and…

MYKE: It’s part of what the documentary is about too, also, kind of? Not the website so much as far as like…

TAYLOR: That actually reminds me, I just… it’s actually now started. What time did it start?

MYKE: 1:30.

TAYLOR: 1:30.

MYKE: It’s been going for 10 minutes. You just missed the previews, right?

TAYLOR: The documentary Strong Enough To Break is a documentary we produced, which is about our struggle with our old major label and our path to becoming independent. If anyone has not shown up, I’m not sure how packed or crazy it is over there, but yeah, it’s been playing for 10 minutes. What’s the venue it’s playing?

MYKE: It’s playing in the Whittenberger Auditorium.

TAYLOR: Yeah, it’s playing right now. We’ve got a caller, winner of a pair of tickets to tonight’s show.

ISAAC: Hey there, is this Amanda?

AMANDA: Yeah, this is!

TAYLOR: Amanda, congratulations.

AMANDA: Hey, how’s it going?

TAYLOR: Going good. You’ve got a pair of tickets to tonight’s show at Alumni Hall.

AMANDA: Oh how awesome, I can’t wait to see you guys!

ISAAC: Cool. And how did you hear about the giveaway and everything?

AMANDA: My friend goes to school here and she’s a Hanson fan and she was telling me to listen online while she’s in class and I heard you were giving away tickets and she doesn’t have one yet.

TAYLOR: Awesome.

ISAAC: Great.

AMANDA: So. Yeah, and you know college students don’t have a lot of money.

AMANDA: That’s awesome, thank you so much.

ISAAC: Yeah, well we’re excited to have you, again Amanda you’ll have tickets under your name at the will call window, okay?

MYKE: Amanda, Amanda. This is Myke from WIUS. I just have one quick question. Which of the Hanson brothers do you think is the cutest?

TAYLOR: Oh dude, you’re retarded.

AMANDA: What was that?

ISAAC: Amanda, the DJ was asking which one of the members in the band you thought was the cutest.

AMANDA: Oh, what kind of question is that?

TAYLOR: Yeah, thank you Amanda, don’t even answer that question.

MYKE: It was a rhetorical question.

TAYLOR: It was a retarded question.

AMANDA: Well, I just really like their music a lot.

MYKE: That’s the right answer, that’s what we were looking for.

TAYLOR: Awesome. Hey, thanks for calling in. We’ll see you at tonight’s show.

AMANDA: Hey, thank you guys.

ISAAC: Bye.

AMANDA: Bye.

MYKE: So, I think Pat has a list of shout outs.

PAT: I have to make an announcement, I don’t have to type anymore.

TAYLOR: Pat has been manning the IM booth over there.

PAT: It’s ridiculous. So anyone who is IM’ing right now, I can’t answer your questions, there’s like 50 windows over there. So I have to say “Hi” to Tina in Finland, Marie in Scotland, UK, a bunch of people from the UK, Sarah in New Hampshire, Melissa in Long Island, and a million other people.

TAYLOR: You guys have a lot of people checking out the station. Awesome.

MYKE: It’s really exciting, it means they’re all listening to you also.

TAYLOR: That’s awesome. Well, thanks for listening everybody.

MYKE: Definitely.

TAYLOR: What should we play now?

MYKE: This band is called Great Lake Swimmers. I’m not sure where they’re from, but the CD is called Bodies & Minds and this song is called “Song For The Angels.”

TAYLOR: Cool.

GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS – SONG FOR THE ANGELS

MYKE: That was Great Lake Swimmers. Hanson is still here. They might take off in a little bit to go make random cameos…

ISAAC: Yeah, exactly. Well, we’re here on campus and everything like that and we were just wanting people to take a listen to the radio station and hear some good music and everything. We’re playing a lot of random stuff, a lot of good stuff, but I just wanted to give a shout out to everyone who is winning these tickets so far. We’ve got Ezster, she just won a pair of tickets. She came all the way from Toronto and was waiting in line hoping to get tickets and heard the radio station and so she called in, so thanks for calling in. Also, we got Amanda, she also won two tickets. She was hanging out in her friend’s dorm and then also we got another girl, Brittany. Brittany, your tickets will also be at the ticket booth, ready for you, so guys just give them your names and you’ll have a pair of tickets there for you. Thanks everybody for listening so far. We’ve got a few more pairs of tickets to give away so feel free to give us a ring, especially if you guys are Indiana University students, we’d love to hear from you.

MYKE: Alright, so to switch things up a little bit from the Great Lake Swimmers, to kind of wake you up, I suppose, this is Propagandhi, which is really popular with the Mohawk kids. They’re on Fat Wreck Chords and this song is called “Badalah’s Horse,” or something? (editors note: The correct title of the song is “Fedallah's Hearse”)

PROPAGANDHI – “FEDALLAH’S HEARSE”

MYKE: Oh. I hit the wrong button. Alright, that’s Propagandhi, that’s kind of a change to what we were listening to earlier. I think we’re going to play another song or two from the free sampler that comes with your ticket to tonight’s Hanson show at the Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union. The show starts at 8, doors at 7, so you should definitely go to that. I think we’re still giving away tickets?

TAYLOR: I think we have three more pairs, is that right? We’ve given away a couple?

ISAAC: Two more pairs.

MYKE: Two more pairs of tickets, so give us a call and maybe if you’re nice we’ll see what happens. So, are we ready for a Pat McGee song? You want to give it a little introduction?

ISAAC: Yeah, Pat McGee. This is track #1 of their album Save Me.

PAT McGEE BAND – BEAUTIFUL WAYS

ISAAC: That was Pat McGee Band. They are opening up for us. We are Hanson. They’re opening up tonight here at Indiana University. We are playing at the Alumni Hall tonight. Doors open at 7 o’clock, Pat McGee Band goes on at 8:30, that was them just now, and then we go on at 9:50. And to give you an idea of what you can expect, we’re going to play a song from our latest live album. The album is called The Best of Hanson: Live & Electric and this next song is a song called “Hand In Hand.”

TAYLOR: We’ll be taking your calls to give away two more pairs of tickets to tonight’s show. You guys can call in at 855-WIUS. It’s 855-9487. Give us a ring and you guys will win some tickets.

HANSON – HAND IN HAND (from L&E)

KATIE: Alright, you’ve been listening to WIUS, 1570AM and we’ve got Hanson in the studio today.

ISAAC: Hello!

KATIE: Hello.

TAYLOR: We’ve also got Pat McGee, who’s actually on the IM.

ISAAC: Pat McGee is officially rocking it with the fans. He’s talking to everybody about music…

ZAC: Yeah, somebody thought I was dead.

TAYLOR: We’ve been sort of commandeering the station for the last few hours. It’s actually been great. We’ve been having a really good time. Thanks for letting us hang around.

ROB: We’re happy to have you here.

ISAAC: Apparently someone on the IM said, “Don’t say the word ‘retard.’” Why is that, Pat?

PAT: You said, “That is retarded.”

ISAAC: Retarded. Sorry, retarded.

TAYLOR: Is that not PC?

ISAAC: They don’t like that. The word is far too PC, okay? That’s all I got to say!

TAYLOR: Mentally impaired.

ZAC: Re-tard. As in slowing down. He just slipped and put the –ed on the end.

ISAAC: I’m sorry; I accidentally just… reeetarrdeeed. I slowed down.

TAYLOR: You’re using musical terms, like a retard. To slow.

ISAAC: I now will retard my voice. Heeellllloooooo.

ZAC: Hold on. Stop. Everything you’re doing is irrelevant. Continue!

ROB: I forgot. I’m supposed to tell you that there’s a group of people outside that want to see you at some point.

TAYLOR: That sounds like someone who’s about to put a hit out on us.

ZAC: “Hey! Hey you! I want you to go outside and talk to Vinny!”

ROB: Well, there was a girl standing on a catwalk when I waked out and she said she wanted to talk to you, so. At some point if you can go and say “Hi” to them that would be GOOD, I guess.

ZAC: We’ve got to leave at some point unless you guys have a back entrance we can just sneak out of.

KATIE: So you guys are doing a show at the auditorium tonight?

TAYLOR: Yes, yes we are. We’re playing a show at the Alumni Hall

ZAC: Yes, Alumni Hall, tonight, doors open at like, 7 o’clock. I think there’s still some tickets left. And Pat McGee’s playing with us, a really great band. Pat McGee Band and Hanson.

KATIE: We heard some stuff from him earlier.

ZAC: And there’s actually a local band that’s opening up. We’ve done a contest all across the country. Each different market we’re playing in a local band opens up. So it’s Hanson, Pat McGee Band, and then a local band gets voted on. They submit their music to our website and the people that work at our label try to pick out the bands that they think are the best three bands. All kinds of different styles, it doesn’t matter what you play.

ISAAC: And then the fans decide.

ZAC: And then those bands get put up on our website. People get to come to the website and vote on them.

ROB: I was really happy to see that, actually. I was going to actually apply for it but I’m just a solo artist, I don’t have a band.

TAYLOR: You could do it.

ROB: I was going to but I guess it’s too late now.

TAYLOR: In some cases, you got just a guy and a guitar, a girl and a guitar.

ROB: See, I wish I would have done it then but I guess it’s…

TAYLOR: Well, you should just come tonight and maybe next time or something.

ROB: Yeah, yeah.

ZAC: Or you can just play in the parking lot.

ROB: That’s what I’ll do!

ISAAC: I know that there’s a few people standing out in front of the show, we should just go over there. We can loan you some guitars…

ZAC: Last night we had like, 60 people who camped overnight in front of the show in Cincinnati, so not bad. That’s a good little audience. That’s a coffee shop’s worth of people. Right?. 60 people.

TAYLOR: So you do singer-songwriter stuff or is it heavier?

ROB: Yeah, I do like bass, guitar, saxophone, and a little bit of keyboards, so.

ISAAC: That’s kinda hot.

ROB: I kind of play all the parts and stuff like that.

TAYLOR: It’s hard to do that as a one-man band.

ISAAC: You mean you can’t play saxophone and sing? What’s wrong with you, man?

ROB: Yeah, I haven’t gotten that down yet. I’m not doing the Captain B part.

ZAC: There’s gotta be some sort of thing where you can hook up some sort of compressed air to the end of your saxophone and you’d play the notes with your fingers and sing but the saxophone would be going cos you’d have some sort of compressed air unit attached…

ISAAC: The only problem is, the pressure changes the note and…

ZAC: Maybe you could have the equivalent of a wah wah pedal that changes the speed at which the air is coming out of the compressed air unit.

TAYLOR: I think you just got a band member. Zac, Zac would like to join your band.

ZAC: It would probably be less expensive to just hire a guy to stand there and play than it would be to develop that technology.

ROB: It’s just shameless promotion, so.

TAYLOR: But you know, honestly that’s the whole thing that’s so great about setting up… a way to facilitate local bands is we’ve done it all throughout the tour and one example was we were in University of…

ZAC: Central Florida.

TAYLOR: Central Florida, and the DJ of the station found out about the contest and there was some guys that were students at the school that played in their dorm and then the school totally got the vote out and they got so many votes that those guys won. The thing that’s so cool about it is you’re really trying to create avenues for local music cos there’s not that many places to really get in front of new audiences as a local band or musician.

TAYLOR: So thank God for WIUS.

TAYLOR: Yeah. Honestly.

TAYLOR: No, really!

TAYLOR: It’s true though.

ROB: But all college radio stations really around the country, there’s such a great place for bands to tour around and…

ZAC: College to radio, it’s always been something that’s been a leader in finding new music and sort of the new styles and waves that are going to kind of take over. Grunge or hard rock. Whatever it is, those are always being found first at places like college radio stations. But it’s even more important right now than it’s ever been because the amount of music that’s getting exposed on radio stations that aren’t college radio stations is even smaller than it’s ever been. The amount of videos that are being played on music television channels are so small. Payola is practically—well, it’s been going on for 50 years, but just the playlists are so small. The amount of music they’re playing is so limited and they’re playing more and more and more spins than they’ve ever done so it’s more important for people to be active that have avenues like college radio stations.

KATIE: So, if I can present a little segway here. Do we have any more tickets for your show tonight?

TAYLOR: We do, I think we still have two pairs that we haven’t given away.

KATIE: That sounds like something for the phones. So, if you want these tickets call 855-WIUS and maybe you’ll get a chance to talk to Hanson and see them live tonight.

ISAAC: I’ll man the phones.

ROB: I think we’re going to play some music now, the band 28 Days, “Just Calling” here on 1570 AM WIUS.

28 DAYS – JUST “CALLING”

KATIE: Alright, well, I just got word that Hanson has got to head out so, bye. Thank you.

TAYLOR: Yeah, thanks for having us. You guys still have a couple pairs of tickets. The calls have been coming in so guys, you can get a couple pairs of tickets to the show and see us tonight. Anybody else can come to the Alumni Hall and see is. Doors open at 7, Pat McGee Band also, but I just wanted to say… I gave you guys some more music, there’s a couple—stuff you guys probably already play. Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, couple of really good Australian—an Australian artist and a South African artist.

KATIE: It’s so refreshing that you are promoting for other bands other than just yourself. That’s admirable.

TAYLOR: We’re just fans of music.

KATIE: Right on.

ISAAC: We should play “Wasting Away” just for the heck of it.

TAYLOR: Well, it’s on there. It’s the first track on the CD I just handed him.

ISAAC: It’s frickin’ cool.

ROB: We’ll go to that as soon as we’re…

ISAAC: Yeah, I just actually wanted to say one thing, which—cos I was really kind of touched by this. This is really cool. This girl just called in from New York and I was like, “Do you want tickets?” And she was like, “No, I’m from New York, I just want to let you guys know that—“ I couldn’t hear very clearly cos the phone is kind of loud and noisy, but basically I’m not sure whether it’s a brother of hers or whether it’s a friend or hers, but someone who has autism and he really has not been communicating over the years very well and then I guess because of music and stuff and she said specifically because of stuff she’s been listening to from our records and stuff he wrote a big letter to Zac and gave it to us and she was just reminding us of that letter, so I gotta go make sure I find the letter and everything and that was just really cool, cos it’s not about us as a band, it’s actually about music in general and I just think it’s so important that music is a part of people’s lives and it’s so important that the quality of music is there and that’s why I think college radio is so cool, cos it’s exposing potentially such large amounts of quality music and hopefully life changing. And for that kid, music is a life changing thing for him and he’s inspired by it music of all kinds and whatnot and I think that’s just really, really cool and I just had to comment.

TAYLOR: No, I just want to say thanks for your call though, by the way, the girl who called. We’re going to actually do the Q&A, after the screening of this documentary.

KATIE: So you guys are going to be coming back to the studio today?!

TAYLOR: We may be, no. That’s where we’re headed right now actually, so anybody that’s watching the film we’re going to go answer their questions. But we’re also going to leave you with a couple CDs, some signed Hanson CDs, so you can give those away and thanks for listening everybody, thanks for letting us hang out.

KATIE: Alright, well thanks for coming in!

ISAAC: Should we intro that song, just for the hell of it?

TAYLOR: Yeah, sure. This is a guy named Andrew Duggan who’s a great artist, pretty heavy rock stuff out of South Africa.

ISAAC: And Zac played drums on the record.

TAYLOR: Oh yeah, Zac’s playing drums actually on this song.

ROB: Very cool. Thanks again guys.

ANDREW DUGGAN – “WASTNIG AWAY”