Back in the summer of 1997, three bright-eyed teenagers dominated the airwaves with the infectious pop song "MMMBop." Hanson has since put out three more albums, created their own record label, 3CG, and started their own charity project to help bring shoes to Africa. Currently, the trio is touring around the country playing music from 2007's The Walk. Taylor Hanson recently took a break from the band's busy schedule to talk to recess' Andrew Hibbard.
Could you address more specifically what makes the record unique?
What you hear, obviously, right from the beginning of the record is two very unique things. One is just the chant of the African children's choir. It sets the mood in a very different way. That is partly something that influences the whole process. So that's just the tone. It's something different. And then musically, the sound of "Great Divide," the sound of "Blue Sky," songs like "Tearing It Down," "Something Going Round," I think those songs, they're driven by sort of a musical riff or really the sound of the band playing together, kind of playing off each other and it being really musically identifiable. The energy that's on "Great Divide" -we talked about creating an identity not only with our voices or lyrics but wanting people to hear the record and be like 'Oh, that sounds like Isaac Hanson the guitar player' or 'Oh, that sounds like Taylor Hanson' the keyboard player.' You hear it in style and in a tone that is unique just as players, just as guys in a band, not necessarily as vocalists, which I think is one of the more obvious calling cards of the band. So that was one of the things that came through and it comes to life more in songs like "Great Divide," "Tear It Down," and "Blue Sky." The tone of those songs is a little darker and a little more pointed and it comes from just a lot of energy of us playing together and really just us wanting to sort of come out of this record with drop swinging.
In the decade-plus that you have been in the music industry, you've seen a lot of changes, from the decline of the record industry to the rise of piracy, music blogs, digital music and also personal changes. How have all these factors affected the way you make music?
I think it's made me realize there's so much out there. The experience you create for your fans and the quality you put on your record and the connection you have with the music is that much more important because you really have to captivate people and you have to keep them with you. And I think that as a band we've gone through all kinds of changes in the business, but we've just tried to never follow, to never look at what was happening and reshape our band for a particular style or trend. I think the evolution we have made is to try to cater more and more to feeling our core fan base, feeling our live touring and our approach with our fans around the world that are the ones who have stuck around since the beginning. So our thinking and our approach has always been music first; stay focused on it, stay focused on the best possible quality and delivering that over and over. And as we go forward and see all these changes in the music business, I think we've just said it's that much more important to stay involved and engaged with our fans, to stay focused on putting out great records, to not get lazy.
You chronicled the experience of leaving Island/Def Jam and forming 3CG with your documentary, Strong Enough to Break. How was that experience?
That documentary was something we're really proud of. It was kind of an accident because when we started that process, we didn't know for sure what was going to unfold. We had had tensions with the label and it had been building. The film really began showing the process that a lot of bands go through with a lot of major labels, which is disjointed. You're dealing with people that don't have a background in music. There's a waste of money and time that goes on. The story shows our one example of what goes on that many bands have gone through, which was 'Wow, here we are writing songs endlessly without a goal, spending money and spending over two and half years trying to get an album made and ultimately sort of that crossroads that says this is the way the music industry is, this is the way a lot of labels operate.' They're just kind of waiting around for a good sure thing but they don't have any people within the company to tell them what a sure thing is. So bands have to decide, do you self-destruct and stay in this world or wait for the business you have found yourself in try and help yourself succeed or do you branch out and look for other alternatives? Ultimately, our story came down to us saying, "We can't do this. We can't spend two and half years on a rap label that doesn't have an interest in this band's career." We made the decision to part ways. What was important to the film for us for people from the outside and also other artists was to realize that this has been kind of an epidemic of the music business. Bands and labels just being unable to work together because the system has become so corporate. People aren't willing to take risks because they're not paying attention to the bands they have signed and understanding what the goals are.
Do you hope at any point to expand 3CG to more artists?
We do. What a label does has become harder to define because records themselves are such a limited medium. They shouldn't be as limited as they are but it's become that way because the outlets for buying records are so unappealing to the audience. For a label, we're trying to figure out what we are offering to a band and how can we do it well. Our goal has been to really learn from our experience and not sign a band until we can we help offer something that is going to make a difference for a band. The goal is not just to bring other bands in because we want to but we actually want to do it well.
Your work with Africa and TOMS Shoes has been really interesting. How did you get into that and what do you plan on doing in the future?
What we've been doing with regard to the barefoot mile walks and just getting people involved in looking at AIDS and poverty in Africa, it really comes down to talking about our generation as those who can take action directly. We kind of had a realization and it kind of hit a personal core that we really need to try. Everyone has to start with what they have. Our goals have been to continue to host these one-mile barefoot walks throughout our tour and then encourage others to set up those same events in order to bring people together to unify behind not an awareness campaign but action. Each one of us has these simple actions we can take not just in a donation, but in the role we're each going to play in solving big problems. One of the things was simply providing a pair of shoes. TOMS Shoes is partnered with us. They donate a pair of shoes every time you buy one. Our campaign is about action, so it's so powerful for people to go buy a pair of shoes and know that that pair of shoes is providing another pair. We helped TOMS sell over 50,000 pairs of shoes and we were really honored to bring over those shoes after the last tour in November and deliver those shoes one at a time. Basically the campaign has been all about unifying individuals behind the idea of poverty in Africa by taking simple actions, and it's been incredible to see. We really just want to see a growing wave of people finding a way to reexamine their ability to make an impact.
What can we expect from your show?
Basically, Hanson shows are-I don't know how better to say it--it's a rock 'n' roll show. It's loud. It's fun. We like to just constantly go and have the audience lose themselves in two hours of music. It's a mix of everything we've put out over the past decade and also songs we've been influenced by since the beginning. Mostly, for us, no matter what we're doing, to talk about independent music or trying to make a difference in Africa, we're a band. So there's nothing that replaces the energy of a live performance with passionate fans.
Hanson will play at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach on May 6 and at the Carolina Theatre in Durham on Wednesday, May 7, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the Myrtle Beach show are $19.50 and $34.00 for the Durham show.
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