Hanson – Interview [2005]

In their 13 years playing together, Hanson has earned many accolades. They’ve been Grammy nominees, chart-toppers and Carnegie Hall headliners. And after entering the Billboard Independent chart at #1 in April 2004 with Underneath, on their own 3CG Records label, you can add to that list industry groundbreakers, with one of the most successful independently released records in music history.

Hanson brothers Isaac, Taylor and Zac continue to demonstrate that evolution on The Best of Hanson Live and Electric, once again released on their own 3CG Records label. Live and Electric spotlights a band that has sold more than 15 million albums performing all their platinum-plus hits, as Entertainment Weekly put it, “newly energized as they kick out brawny guitar-rock jams,” recorded live last June before an enthusiastic audience in Melbourne, Australia. The disc includes new versions of the #1 smash “MmmBop” along with hits like “Where’s the Love,” “If Only,” “This Time Around,” “I Will Come To You” and “Penny & Me,” as well as bonus tracks like “If Only” and “A Song to Sing.” Showing their versatility, the album also includes covers of Radiohead’s “Optimistic” and U2’s “In a Little While.” In addition, a limited edition CD/DVD version will be available with new live footage, the previously unreleased “Being Me,” music videos and a photo gallery among the bonus features.

The album release will coincide with the band’s Live and Electric Tour ’05, a 24-date jaunt that will show a side of the band that has taken what the New York Post calls “talent and perseverance” to “brilliantly display what you can achieve.” Every ticket-holder will receive a free limited edition Live and Electric Tour ’05 CD sampler, to be distributed at each performance.

We talk with Taylor!

You guys have gone independent. I wonder why more bands don’t do it. Are you surprised more bands haven’t done this?

Artists are trained that they can’t do it on their own. They are also told they aren’t the reason why they are successful. They want to keep the artist uneducated and build on the insecurities of being an artist. That process keeps them afraid of taking chances. The real chance is not having control. The other thing about it is that things have really changed in the last ten years… more so in the last five years since Polygram and the Universal merger and those that followed. When the labels started out they were like the indie labels now. They were entrepreneurs and cared about music. Now they just throw their weight around. Our timing was part of a massive transition and we ended up on a rap label and none of the big labels were any different than one another. That is when you are ready to take a chance. The best option is having control and to adjust. You will see it happen more.

The interesting thing is that Geffen disappeared and then artists were dropped—but now the label is back. It makes no sense.

Geffen is nothing more than a logo. Many of those famous labels A&M and Mercury are the same. It’s just a cycle.

To see labels like Elektra, that the Doors were on, is gone is pretty sad.

It’s a business that has made a lot of money over the last 50 years. Those entrepreneurs believed in it. They understood it and knew it was a business. They weren’t just hanging out and smoking pot. They understood what they were doing. You can’t ask an accountant from Yale to work as A&R for a successful band.

In the end those people who started the labels started them because they loved music.

They did, or at least they understood what it was about music that worked. Or what they needed to do. They understood how to work for artists.

A good example would be Clive Davis. He made Arista hugely successful, left and started J Records. Arista fell apart after he left and J Records became hugely successful. That is proof positive.

Exactly. There are countless examples.

I read an article recently that said something like “the votes are in and Hollywood movies are worse than ever.” It would seem that pertains to popular music today. The mergers have created less quality.

The movie industry is going to suffer the same problems. You take a commodity and they figure they can turn it around. They always want to figure out how to put it on autopilot. They want to figure out how to make it a system. So they spend more and more money and put more eggs into fewer baskets. They put more money behind a sure hit every time. You see how many remakes there are? Dukes of Hazzard, Bewitched. They aren’t putting in people that are creative.

Was there a breaking point where the band decided they had to leave the record label?

We have this documentary coming out which tells the story of making our last record with our label and then leaving. It was a process that had no real focus on long term goals. Nobody had a champion anymore. No one had anyone that gets it or why we were there. They didn’t want to let us go but they didn’t know what to do with us. We went through this struggle of pushing and pushing so we wanted to take a chance and do it ourselves. We didn’t have any other options at other labels because they were all becoming more and more the same. Ironically, the person we were having issues with at the label ended up becoming the head of another company that wanted to sign us. We spent two and a half years trying to get things done. I have friends that spent five or six years trying to get an album done and then ended up leaving or getting dropped, or let go. It is that pattern that isn’t rocket science—it’s a lack of focus on having goals and more focus on the bottom line.

It drives me crazy that they can’t hire good A&R people because I’d think that would be a great job. I’d take that job in a minute.

Because you love music. You know one of the most disturbing things ever was when the President of Island/Def Jam, before we left, came in when we were demoing and said to us ‘you know what? I don’t even like music. Just make me look good so I can buy really good shoes.’ And the shoes she wanted to buy were $2000. This is after we spent two years of working with this company and trying to do this thing and you think ‘this is the system.’

Were you in a position with the label where they said they only wanted a hit and didn’t care what else you did?

That is exactly the system. What is ironic is the reason they say they need a hit isn’t because we are Hanson but because its currency. They only want a hit. Even worse they wouldn’t know one if they heard it.

Hanson’s Official Site: http://www.hanson.net

+ Charlie Craine