Hanson is celebrating the 20th anniversary of their independent album 'Underneath' with a deluxe re-release and a North American tour featuring two nights in each city, revisiting both acoustic and electric performances. They share how the Grateful Dead influenced their career model, their “MMMBop” hit, connecting with Billie Eilish and Ed Sheeran and more!
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00:00We've definitely written songs at each other.
00:02I really love you a lot!
00:05They're usually not the best songs.
00:07They're not the best songs.
00:08I think Mom accidentally broke up a fight.
00:12Maybe even fist fight.
00:14There was no fist fighting.
00:15There was someone punching a wall.
00:17That's what it was.
00:18Is that what you called it?
00:20Yeah.
00:22Hey, I'm Isaac.
00:23I'm Taylor.
00:24And I'm Zach.
00:25And we're Hanson.
00:26And you're watching Billboard News.
00:28I'm so psyched to be here today with a couch full of Hansons.
00:33That's actually our new band name.
00:35Couch full of Hansons.
00:36Couch full of Hansons.
00:37I feel like every few years there's always something exciting happening in Hanson world.
00:41And right now you're celebrating the 20th anniversary of your first independent album, Underneath.
00:46There's a deluxe re-release called Underneath Complete that I recommend everyone listen to and revisit.
00:52You're also on a headlining North American tour, which is kind of a cool concept.
00:56You're doing two nights in every city, right?
00:58Going back to when we started promoting this album, Underneath, 20 years ago,
01:02we started by doing an acoustic tour.
01:04And we ended that whole album cycle by doing an electric tour.
01:06We thought, well, if we're going to remember this record, let's remember the whole experience for the fans,
01:11especially the ones who came out.
01:12That was such a transforming of the Hanson identity, the ethos really kind of becoming solidified.
01:21People knew who we were as a band, I think, by the second album.
01:24But Underneath is our third record and we had to leave the label and go independent.
01:28That relationship with the fans sort of changed in a way.
01:32Pretty significant in a way.
01:33It was like, we know you like this band, but will you support this band?
01:37Will you help us start over?
01:47Underneath is being celebrated through this tour in a cool way.
01:51We are doing an acoustic and an electric night.
01:53And the album itself, we added the songs we did, the songs that were demoed,
01:58some songs that we thought would have been on the record but didn't end up on the final record,
02:01because we wanted to tell the complete musical story.
02:04The Underneath record was very influenced by sort of textural records,
02:09bands that were from the first Coldplay record, people like Nick Drake,
02:15the singer-songwriter kind of folk hero from the 60s.
02:18So when you listen to Underneath, I think people hear an era.
02:22You hear Strong Enough to Break as the start of the record.
02:31These songs are all sort of richer and layered and we produced a great deal of it
02:36as well as with great producers as well.
02:38So it's a record that really works well in a live setting
02:43and it's exciting to sort of go back and just really lean into those songs.
02:47Yeah, I mean it feels like an independent record in sort of every sense.
02:50And at the point at which it came out, you had certainly experienced a lot of chart success already.
02:56You had a three-week number one, as we all know, with Mbop.
03:05Not only did you get a number one Top Independent Albums entry with this,
03:09but you also made the Top 25 of the Billboard 200.
03:11So that seems to me like it must have been, I don't know how much you paid attention to chart success at the time.
03:16Oh, we did.
03:17Yeah, no, we did.
03:18And if I remember correctly, I think we also...
03:20I feel like Penny and Me, the single itself, which back then sold a lot.
03:30For an independent record especially.
03:31It was very unusual.
03:32Yeah, that was a radio hit for sure.
03:33I just remember hearing it on the radio all the time.
03:35It was on the radio at a level...
03:37You know, the reality is when people talk about the radio costs money, it does.
03:42But not necessarily in the way that it's like, here's a bag of cash and a guy with a cigar.
03:46You know, there's maybe a couple of those.
03:47But it's really the mechanism of how do you get in the line and how do you cut through and say,
03:53don't play the Beyonce record or whatever, play the Hanson record.
03:57That takes muscle.
03:58And so we were really beating the pavement, you know, like we were re-beginning.
04:02But the difference was we weren't.
04:04We already had met people all over the world with our music.
04:06So it was, you're right, it was an indie record in every sense of the word.
04:11But at the same time, we already had this pedigree.
04:13We already had this kind of relationship.
04:14And so it was really just another chapter in the Hanson story.
04:17Just another chapter of people didn't know what to do with us.
04:20Exactly.
04:21Sounds like the name of our next documentary.
04:23What are we going to do with Hanson?
04:26Going back to that moment 20 years ago, where you guys were at, you were a huge band.
04:31It was not common for a band of your size to go independent at that point.
04:35One of the key things about that decision was it wasn't obvious to anybody.
04:40But for us, it seemed clear that the path to independence was the path for our career.
04:45It was a path of stability.
04:47It was a path of stability.
04:48And like you said, we kind of have, at that point in our career, accomplished things few bands ever get to.
04:54You have this worldwide success.
04:56You're touring all over the world.
04:57You have fans.
04:58Amazing.
04:59But immediately after our first record, there was a huge merger of companies, totally separate from our label.
05:03Second record was put out with a new label.
05:05And so by the time we got to that third record, it was really just that way of saying,
05:09OK, well, where do we want to be in 20 years?
05:12And we felt like we had just enough people that we sort of rebuilt our team around taking that chance.
05:19And so underneath, it was very New York, actually.
05:22We moved to New York.
05:24We set up shop here.
05:25We could walk down to Soho to our distributor, to our label office we set up.
05:29I mean, it was actually kind of a very New York season of our lives.
05:32But it was also really betting on the fans.
05:35Because one of the things that we all now live with is just the devices in our hands.
05:39Remember the smartphones?
05:40That was not a thing yet.
05:42It was forums and it was website interactions.
05:46And we were definitely on the front end of that just because of the era of our lives and all of our fans.
05:52We grew up with the Internet.
05:53And the industry really didn't realize what we did, which was we knew that there was an audience out there.
05:59We knew that there was an audience in Chicago and in Sao Paulo and in London because we saw them online.
06:04And we said, you know what?
06:05Maybe we're not going to have a number one record top of the charts, but we can have a number one independent record.
06:11And we can build our touring base and we can be who we are.
06:14Frankly, I don't think we'd be here 20 years later if we hadn't taken that kind of leap.
06:18I mean, when you started 3CG, did you feel like there was any kind of blueprint you could follow?
06:22Were there other artists you were sort of looking to as examples?
06:24And by the same token, I would think you guys became an example to other artists very quickly.
06:29We became a cautionary tale.
06:31Yeah, exactly.
06:33Don't do what they did.
06:34It's very challenging and expensive.
06:36There really are no blueprints for what we tried to do, but there were pieces.
06:43We were hugely influenced career-wise by observing the Grateful Dead.
06:47Our first manager was a huge Deadhead.
06:49And just observing the non-hit career.
06:53They had no radio.
06:54And here's a band that's very pop-oriented to us and having released singles.
06:58So we believe in and we value that side of things.
07:00But then here's the band like Grateful Dead.
07:02It's filling stadiums.
07:03It had this legacy.
07:04So we really loved that.
07:05And we adopted that in our culture of live music.
07:08That's why we still play, almost never play exactly the same show.
07:12Even if it's pretty close.
07:14Because we watched and loved the idea that fans would go to multiple shows.
07:18We went to 50 colleges during that first major cycle.
07:22Showed the documentary that was about making that record and launching the label.
07:25And at this time, we were just barely out of college age.
07:29Right at that same time.
07:30We would say you've got to understand what we're doing is not about crying over Hansen's struggles.
07:35It's about looking around.
07:36This is the industry we're in right now.
07:38Artists, fans need to engage in building the future that we want to see.
07:43Unfortunately, we've kind of handed it over again in a lot of ways to corporations with this last 20 years.
07:50But some things have changed, which are amazing.
07:52Which is we do have a direct-to-audience communication.
07:55Through Facebook and Instagram and things of that nature.
07:58That is really such a different world.
08:00And there's still no exact model, except that more people own their masters than they used to.
08:07They're doing licensing deals more than just doing full deals.
08:11But then you also have these 360 deals where labels own everything.
08:14And so young artists need to be educated that they're an entrepreneur.
08:18I mean, you are an entrepreneur if you're an artist at some level.
08:21Your art is your business.
08:22Yes, yes.
08:23We have to talk about Penny and Me.
08:25There's a new version, the Moonlight version, on this re-release.
08:35When that video first came out, I remember because the star, Samira Armstrong, iconic actress from The O.C.
08:42Yes.
08:43Very big at the time.
08:44Huge show.
08:45And she's back in this new video.
08:48And then your daughter Penelope is in it too.
08:50So tell me about reuniting with Samira, working with your daughter.
08:54There's a lot going on in this video.
08:55I specifically kept in touch with Samira just randomly over the years.
08:59And so I took a rough mix and sent it to her.
09:02And she responded immediately.
09:04She's like, oh my god.
09:08Samira being a part of it was amazing to have her reprise her role.
09:10I have a daughter named Penelope, who is Penny.
09:13And so when the concept came, the idea of like, wow, could Penny actually be Penny today?
09:19Like could this be Penny?
09:21So that was a really cool concept.
09:23And for her to sort of say, yeah, I'd actually love to do that.
09:25And so the video ended up being actually shot as three stories that when you watch them, you kind of could see them each.
09:33You have young Penny and older Penny, original Penny.
09:35And then you have our story in the studio.
09:37And by the end of the video, when you watch it, you see all three of them.
09:40They all come together.
09:41It's like the music brought us all back together.
09:43I was curious, like, are there artists over the years who you've been surprised to learn are Hanson fans?
09:53Or who have sort of come into your orbit in particularly surprising ways?
09:58Well, I mean, it's always interesting to me probably most that some of our peers you've influenced.
10:04Because guys, we were so young.
10:07Yeah, when we started.
10:08You know, like we not that long ago were doing some stuff with Corey Wong and sort of the whole Wolfpack gang.
10:15And you're sitting with those guys and they're going, yeah, dude, I grew up listening to you.
10:18And you're like, how can you grow up because you're my age?
10:20You're the same age.
10:21What a dickhead.
10:22We have been working for the time that a lot of people consider an entire career already, like over 30 years.
10:28We sat in our studio with Billie Eilish and Phineas when they happened to be in town.
10:33And they're their parents talking to us.
10:34They're like, we basically decided they should make music because we saw Hanson and you guys seemed like you were OK.
10:40And I'm like, that's insane.
10:41Homeschooling.
10:42Like homeschooling.
10:43Like doing a non-traditional life.
10:45And then they pursued art.
10:46And here they are.
10:47They've done incredible, beautiful work.
10:48In that same studio, Ed Sheeran.
10:49Ed Sheeran.
10:50When he was opening for Taylor, he was like, I want to play you some songs.
10:54And we're like, OK, this is awesome.
10:56And he's like, oh, no, no.
10:57And he was talking about songs of ours that he liked and things like that.
11:01And you're just going like, this is really fun.
11:03Again, we're just glad we get to be doing what we do.
11:05Yeah.
11:06I was noticing a lot of friendship bracelets on you.
11:08Yes.
11:09This has become a bit of a thing.
11:11He loves friends.
11:12Yeah, yeah.
11:13My arm could be full.
11:14It has been somehow 10 years since you entered the world of beer.
11:18Yes.
11:19Changed forever.
11:20With Mhops.
11:21Now Hanson Brothers Beer is back.
11:23Yes.
11:24With the re-release of Mhops, which I'm personally very excited about.
11:28We started off 10 years ago because we were excited about it.
11:31We really got invested in it.
11:32We helped develop, build out breweries with a couple different partners.
11:36We just really felt like this was a great season to really push to grow it into a lot of places.
11:42And so if you're in New York, if you're in Georgia, if you're in Tennessee, if you're in Oklahoma, Texas,
11:50those are all states that it's premiering.
11:53Hopefully it'll also be in the West Coast soon.
11:56And frankly, if you want Hanson Brothers Beer, please ask for it at your local bar and your local retailer and annoy them.
12:03And be like, why don't you have this?
12:05I think it has had a little bit of a lifespan.
12:08It's evolved over the 10 years where when we started, we thought we wanted it to be just this exact flavor.
12:17And as you live with it, you go like, okay, now we've really figured out what we want Mhops to be and how it should taste.
12:23It's slightly hoppier.
12:24It's a Mhops.
12:26It's an IPA.
12:27It's an IPA. It's a proper IPA.
12:29The other style which we're featuring right now is the beer called Pink Moonlight.
12:34So coming back to Penny.
12:35Very pretty can, by the way, which is how some of us judge alcohol.
12:38Absolutely. It's a great can and it ties back to Nick Drake and to Penny and me.
12:43Honestly, it's just about sharing stuff that you care about and hoping other people care about it.
12:48Between the beer and the album and the touring and every other thing that you guys kind of touch in the Hanson universe,
12:55I sometimes do wonder, like, how much time do you guys spend together these days?
12:59Way too much time.
13:01You miraculously still like each other.
13:03Like, how does it work?
13:05How can other sibling fans emulate this?
13:07We play nice on TV.
13:08We're great actors, yeah.
13:09We do.
13:11It's easy to have a good time doing things that are worth doing.
13:14Maybe that's why other people fight and we don't.
13:17I mean, when you're on stage playing songs that have real meaning to you, that have been, you know, your life on display,
13:24I think that feels beautiful.
13:26That feels worth, you know, keeping together.
13:29I mean, there's always hard things.
13:31The world is full of hard things.
13:32That's why we made beer.
13:34So that you can make the hard things less hard.
13:37It's been 25 years. It's time for a drink.
13:40I think for us, we have this kind of special superpower, which is the songwriting.
13:46I mean, so often, someone's working on a song, and even if it's not for you, you kind of understand this is where you are.
13:53And even if you're not involved in it, as you sit there in the studio and you go,
13:57Wow, okay, how do I make this better?
13:59How do I make this fuller?
14:00How do I complete this vision?
14:02That becomes, like, a part of the way you're communicating all the time with each other.
14:08Not just in the things you say, but in the things you share.
14:12What do you guys still want to do?
14:14What's sort of on your future bucket list creatively?
14:16So much.
14:18I mean, fix the music business.
14:21Small goals.
14:22Yeah, meaning in the sense that I think...
14:2720 years ago, we had a shot, and we kind of handed it over, unfortunately, to the same corporations in different forms.
14:35So there's time to start and try again.
14:38But the trick is, we need artists that have a backbone.
14:42Creators have to be willing to stand up for themselves.
14:44We have been very, very lucky, and we've tried to not take it for granted and tried to work hard to keep it.
14:51I hope that in some way, shape, or form, we have been a valuable example that you can do things in a way that maintains your, shall we say, integrity.
15:05I would say at this moment, just like in the beginning, it feels more like possibility.
15:12When we were kids, and I'm 10 years old, and we're going to get a record deal, you kind of go,
15:17I know what that's supposed to be, but I have no idea what it is.
15:20So I'm not going to try and make something of it that it isn't.
15:24I'm just going to experience it.
15:25And I think from the point of view of creating new things, it's to continue that way.
15:30The challenge is not to be youthful or be jaded, but to just be exactly where you are present in that creative experience and finding everything you can inspiring.
15:45If I had a Noom Hops, I would like to.
15:47We would have brought one for you.
15:48Cheers.
15:49Cheers.
15:50Thanks so much, guys.