17 September 2012
It’s been
two decades since three effeminate brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma
performed their first live show, and fifteen years since they dominated
global radio with a pop track lead by a wordless hook. Taylor, Zac and
Isaac Hanson have been wholly in charge of their careers since 2003 when
they started their own label (3CG Records), so it shouldn’t have come
as a surprise that when the phone rings from Los Angeles, the middle
child has even cut out the middleman. “Hi this is Taylor Hanson, I’m
calling for the interview.”
The 29-year-old singer-songwriter/ multi-instrumentalist
doesn’t use phone operators it seems, and has been taking the lead since
he was nine; from the outside, it’s been a steady, wholesome twenty
years exempt of any teen idol imprudence.
“It’s interesting how when people think of rock bands they
think they idolise excess, being completely excessive, drug overdoses
and rehab,” lists Hanson mannerly. “But honestly that stuff was just
never,” he pauses, “I mean who really wants that?”
Since the runaway success of their magnum major-label debut Middle Of Nowhere,
Hanson went from three boys toying with borrowed instruments to the
muse of every young girl’s wet dream, and while they’ve successfully
created solitary space-now each married with eight (soon to be nine)
children between them-closet owners of the band’s Poster Power
collection are selling out shows across the country, armed with new(ish -
the 2010 record is only now seeing an Australian release) album Shout It Out. Currently on our shores for the first time since 2005, when they recorded The Best of Hanson: Live & Electric in Melbourne, the band has been living in a carefully crafted paradox, a situation Hanson doesn’t find remotely odd.
“We can go out, have a good time, do some stupid stuff
where no one took pictures or video of us and embrace life in a positive
way,” he says, as if one of his zealots may be within earshot.
“We’re not running away from having a good time but we’re also not looking every day for something to do in excess.”
Over the phone, Hanson can come across perfunctory and
media savvy but as the conversation flows it’s apparent any preconceived
ideals he has, however diplomatic, have been ingrained since childhood -
a disposition most pop stars would envy. Perhaps it has something to do
with the five embryonic years the band spent touring their two
independent albums, or the years ‘pre-Def Jam Records contention,’ when
they were forced to prove they weren’t just a manufactured band. “When
you have success you’re gonna have to choose which battles to fight.”
Hanson doesn’t sweat the specifics. “We were really young and we had
success so there was a natural inclination to go ‘oh my gosh, this can’t
really be for real?’ That’s just part of our story and we’ve never let
the idea that some people didn’t get it in the beginning get in our
way.”
It’s also possible the boys just came from good stock.
Hanson says parents Clarke and Diana were always the comforting presence
in the wings. “They were never involved from the point of view of
telling anyone what they could and couldn’t do but they were definitely
at our side... we never had that Svengali in the back steering
everything we were doing,” he says, quashing rumours of the early years.
“We always had a real strong sense of self and we had people close to
us that were protective of what we were doing, and thankfully we came
out of it in one piece!”
Their parents were largely responsible for Hanson’s sound:
infectious harmony-drenched hooks affixed to classic song structures
that mined ‘60s pop records, and while the world was shocked at the
talent of the three pre-pubescent brothers, the boys themselves were
only mimicking the maturity and grace of their idols.
“We’d always looked up to great musicians and rock ‘n’
roll icons,” remembers Hanson. “Many of them were much older than we
were, you’re talking about The Beach Boys and The Beatles and people
like Ray Charles, all of which were in their teens when they first had
success, so we felt we were right on schedule!”
For such a famously uncontroversial pop group, the band do
inspire a sense of surprise that their private activities haven’t
changed much since the early family outings to Redwood forests (re: 1997
documentary Tulsa, Tokyo and The Middle Of Nowhere). For
Hanson, a legacy reminiscent of The Beach Boys-who just finished up
their 50th anniversary tour of Australia-has always been the zenith
aspiration.
“It’s always been about having a career,” Hanson states.
“Having a long career, and honestly being able to make this our day job
and continue to go out there and make music, as our lives. Thankfully
we’ve been able to do that.”
While the honeyed third of Hanson has always been the
dominant voice of the group, in charge of most press commitments,
blogging, and the co-writing of Take The Walk-a
philanthropic-heavy book created “to turn our simple pursuits of being
artists into something positive so that people could begin to join us,”
–he’s inadvertently in charge of the band’s public image; a role which
spearheaded the charge from small-town family band to big-city bubblegum
giants.
“You are aware of it and you do have some sort of
responsibility to kind of handle yourself,” he admits. “But that was
never particularly difficult because I guess we had a gauge of: we make
records, we play shows, we travel - that’s a pretty good thing! It’s
worth it to have the constant sidenote of ‘be a good guy and deal with
the pressures right.’”
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