Hanson in Manila

by Patricia Anne Garcia

They came onto the scene in 1997 – three tow-headed boys armed with the infectious pop that quickly wiped out the darkness and gloom that had been so prevalent with the music of that time. I distinctly remember an American entertainment magazine asking if the presence of these boys in the music scene was any indication that happy music was again making itself known.

Those three boys made up a band named Hanson. Isaac (Ike, to the fans), Taylor and Zac: three brothers from Oklahoma, who barreled their way into popular radio via MMMBop, the song that made them music world sensations. What made it even more amazing was the boys were not even eighteen when the song hit the airwaves.

A couple of albums down the line and Hanson lay low for a while. The last we heard of them was from Middle of Nowhere, an album that received generally good airplay but was, unfortunately, unable to match the success afforded them by their debut. But while the rest of the world was ready to write Hanson off as has-beens, the boys had another idea. It took them four years to make it happen, but they’re back on top again.

Their newest offering, Underneath, has been hailed by critics as an amazing album, and it certainly lives up to the praise. Even to a non-fan like me, it’s evident that now we have a more complex Hanson. These young men (and that they are, because while still under 25, the boys have gone through so much growth – one even has a two-year-old son!), have certainly come into their element. More confident about their sound and themselves, Underneath presents a more complex mix of sounds and styles that are still distinctly, wonderfully Hanson.

PinoyCentral was granted the opportunity to listen in and record Hanson’s interview by Myx’s VJ Iya. Here are excerpts from that interview:


VJ Iya: Hi guys! Very good looking, what have to say about that? Would you agree to that?
Zac: We’ll leave that up to everybody else. We’re just going to do what we do best.
Isaac: Exactly. I mean, we got a good-looking host, which is good, you know.
VJ Iya: Oh, wow! They think I’m good looking!

VJ Iya: So, how’s your stay here in the Philippines?
Isaac: It’s been good!
Zac: We’ve only been here a matter of hours, but…
Isaac: It’s been good so far.
Taylor: It’s just exciting to finally come. I mean there’s a lot of places that we have wanted to come to for a long time, and just haven’t been able to visit and the Philippines is definitely one of them. So, it’s very cool.

VJ Iya: Well, first I just want to congratulate you guys for having a great comeback with your Underneath album.
Hanson: Well, thank you very much.
VJ Iya: You know (your song) Penny and Me has been in the MYX Hit Chart for weeks already…
Z: Cool!
V:So keep up the good work guys!
T:Yup! Well, fans keep up the good work!
V: Oh yeah, which reminds me: is there anything you’d like to say to your fans who’ve been texting in..
T: Well, I say thank you! Our fans have always been amazing. You guys, thank you so much for calling up, voting and, I hope you keep enjoying the video and also…we have new videos coming. Lost Without Each Other and other music videos down the line. Hopefully you guys will enjoy those.

V: Now, before you came here to the Philippines what were you guys busy with?
Z: Well, we’ve been touring just all around (for) the promotion and release of the new album – doing concerts and things. We just came from Jakarta and before there we were in Japan…
I: Before there we were in Australia…
T: Before there we were in Europe…and…again it’s great to come back and visit places we haven’t been to for several years and see the fans. And I’m just blown away by how we’ve been able to see the fans just kind of go along with us over the years even between big gaps in between albums.
I: The exciting is there won’t be those big gaps these days….
T: Yeah, we won’t be leaving those big gaps…four years between records.
I: Yeah.

V: Speaking of promoting, I heard that you guys trust the internet a lot, and actually the internet’s your medium of promoting…
I: True.
V: So, are you not afraid of the piracy thing that’s happening?
Z: Well, we’ve always been very active with the internet - using it to keep in touch with fans and things…But really, utilizing the internet and saying, ‘We’re going to embrace this as a new medium, as a new way to sell music and show people new music…’
T: It’s a tool.
I: Yes, exactly.
T: The internet is a tool. I mean, there’s no way around the changing music industry. It (the internet) already has, I mean it’s changed every industry. Film…every promotion of anything, music is just one of them…it’s just a way to reach people. And it’s an amazing thing to be able to communicate with fans in the Philippines over the internet – giving them information – even when you’re not here. Be able to give them new music, videos, and it’s all about, I think, the way you approach the music that’s out there. And also, I think, because people can go and take music, and find it and not buy it every time, I think it causes musicians and record companies to really have to step up and make really great records because that’s the only thing that’s going to make somebody go out and buy this record and go ‘I’m going to go get the real thing.’ I’m going to get the best quality I can find and so, people have to sort of rise to the occasion a little bit. Which is not a bad thing, you know.

V: It took you four years to come up with Underneath…
T: Yes, because we’re very slow. ::laughs::
V: Exactly! No just kidding, so why four years?
I: Well…a combination of a lot of things. I mean a big part of that was just the process of making the album. Some of the stuff took longer than we had originally anticipated, but at the end of the day, a lot of it had to do with the fact that, uh, the situation we had with our record company which was not our original record company, was kind of…we had been inherited into a larger conglomerate because of corporate consolidation, and so we found ourselves in a position where we needed to make change. The company we were with was not really…
V: Why the change?
I: Well, they were mainly a rap company and the last time I checked we weren’t rap. ::laughs:: So that made it kind of hard to see eye-to-eye on the creative process.
Z: We were being held down and it just made the process longer, and since then, we’ve started our own record company and really kind of gone through the process of really setting up this record in a very long-term sort of way. We’ve done the acoustic tour before the release of the album in the US and then Europe. And it’s just taking on the whole mindset of: ‘How do we really bring this music in the right way?’ especially when there’s been such a gap in between records.
V: I think it won’t be long…
Z: It’s a new beginning for us. It’s amazing to have already done what we have done and still be…everyone under 25. And uh, at the same time…this is phase 2 or 3.

V: So why Underneath?
Z: The title? Uh, there’s a song called Underneath on the album. The song Underneath on the album was one of the first songs to be written for the record, so it was a constant thread through the whole album-making process. And we wrote this song with Matthew Sweet, who’s a great artist, and it was just a song that came and flowed very well, and easily. Some songs take days that song took hours…
T: It became a term for the record without us even meaning for it to. It also represented a lot of aspects of this record…texturally, it was like that song…musically, it made a lot of sense with it. And al