Translation:

Hanson : Little boys become big

Biggest hit: Mmmbop
New: Single Penny and Me
Cd: Underneath


“Cool. A comeback when you are twenty”

When Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson had a smash hit in 1997 with the catchy tune ‘MMMBop’ they were respectively 17, 14 and 12 years old. They've sold more then 8 million copies of their very first record 'Middle of Nowhere'.
Successor ‘This time around’ moved ‘only’ 1 million units. Over the last years there was a silence around the brothers, but now they are back with the great single ‘Penny and Me’. The enhanced cd ‘Underneath’ is already available in shops.
“Cool. A comeback when you are twenty”

You were still kids when you became very popular. Hanson played for thousands of fans around the world. Then once of a sudden it became quiet. What happened?
Isaac (guitarist, 24): Everybody talks about our ‘comeback’ but actually we have been busy the last couple of years. In the past year we have already been on tour around the States. It's not like we've been completely gone, we just didn’t release a new album and we didn’t score hits.
Zac (drummer, 19): It’s quite funny to read everywhere that we are totally back. I still have to become 20 and am already having my 2nd career.
Taylor (singer/front man, 21): We’ve built our own record company, 3CG records, up from scratch. That took a lot of time.

You are only 20 and have an own business. Aren’t you supposed to go out and chase girls?
Zac: Sometimes I wonder by myself ‘what did we start’? Loads of times I don’t even know what is going on. But now we are our own boss. We had an interview with everybody that now works for us.
Isaac: There have been so many changes in the record industry over the last couple of years.
It’s a crisis. The one company takes over the other. It’s almost as if there is a new person sitting on the other side of the table every week, who you have to work with.
At one point we even ended up with a rap-label (laughs) At that point we knew: we have to leave here.

For this record, you worked together with people like Gregg Alexander from the New Radicals, who also helped Texas on a few hits. Is it easy for an ‘outsider’ to work with you?
Taylor: Obviously it is not that evident. We are a close trio. We have been writing songs together for a very long time so it has become a real routine. And we are brothers, we live together. From the moment we raised our own company, we moved to New York, where we bought a house together. We are so close that we don’t need many words to explain something. We created sort of our own language. I think it has to be really weird sometimes to see us busy like that. (Laughs) But I think we’re still reasonable to work with after all.

Can you take criticism from each other?
Isaac: We are always honest against each other, and of course that can be hard sometimes. And sometimes it will start an argument, it would be rather weird if we never argued. For example: next to making music, we also draw. Taylor is a painter, Zac is more of a cartoonist, and I’m stronger graphical wise. For our website I had some ideas lately, and I was very enthusiastic about them. But Taylor had some comments about it. First I was shouting about the fact he doesn’t know anything about it. But afterwards, I had to confess that he was right.

You've become older yourselves. What about your fans? Have they also evolved with you?
Isaac: Our female fans still are very enthusiastic. They still do everything to meet us. Especially in Europe they are very inventive. We are still having trouble to know how many kisses to give in witch country. Sometimes it are two kisses, than again 3, or 4. Many fans abuse the fact we don’t know the difference. Once a girl came to us – I think someone from Paris – and she wanted to let us believe that in her city it was normal to kiss on the mouth. A nice try, but it didn’t work.
Zac: Surely not when she also wanted us to believe that a French Kiss is very normal at a first meeting (can’t stop laughing)