![\"hanson-group-1\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mmmboptastic.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/hanson-group-1.jpg?resize=652%2C435&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\nBy\u00a0Matt Williams<\/p>\n
October 12, 2015<\/p>\n
Zac Hanson, founding (and youngest) member of\u00a0Hanson\u00a0along with his brothers Taylor and Isaac, rings me up just before embarking on the band\u2019s 10-city Roots &\u00a0Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll\u00a0Tour. The number registers as Oklahoma, the Hanson Brothers\u2019s home state, but he\u2019s already on the road, calling from \u201cPhilly.\u201d Zac explains the band is playing some \u201c30 under 30\u201d thing for Forbes. And then it dawns on me: Zac Hanson isn\u2019t even 30 yet. He was born in 1985. Hanson has been a live and touring band since 1992. You do the math.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Despite their young ages (Taylor is 32, Isaac 34), Hanson has been around forever. They\u2019re probably best known for their 1997 mega-hit \u201cMMMBop\u201d, from\u00a0Middle of Nowhere<\/i>, which sky-rocketed to the top of the Billboard 100. Despite sounding incredibly \u201890s, as it should, it holds up really well. Their biggest moment since has likely been the\u00a0single and title track\u00a0from 2000\u2019s\u00a0This Time Around<\/i>, but you\u2019d be forgiven for thinking that Hanson was a one-hit wonder. The band (obviously) never stopped putting out music, and instead have maybe found themselves in an even better position than holding on to all their old fans: consistently making new ones, at least according to Zac, who tells me he often meets new fans who don\u2019t even know what \u201cMMMBop\u201d is (I almost refused to believe this until I mentioned to a friend that I interviewed one of the writers of the song, and he had no idea what I was talking about). Some of their fans are actually younger than the song itself.<\/p>\n
Along the way, Hanson has started brewing their own craft beer (MMMHops!) and do a one-mile walk as part of the Take The Walk campaign with fans before almost every one of their shows, to help fight poverty and the transmission of AIDS to young children, among other things. They donate a dollar for every person who joins them in the walks pre-show. “It’s not much, but if you can do a little bit, and we can all do a little bit of what we can\u2014give up 20 minutes of your day, walk a mile\u2014then it’s surprising, the impact we see on the other side,\u201d Zac says. \u201cAnd that might be the thing that helps somebody start the next big great button that saves the world, or it might just be something that provides a bottle of water for a kid today.”<\/p>\n
The Roots & Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Tour, which just kicked off in Chicago at the House of Blues, features two shows in each of the 10 cities they\u2019re stopping in.\u00a0The first night is basically a tribute show where they play a set of songs that influenced their music, like the Jackson 5 and Billy Joel, and the second is all Hanson songs. “We want to continue to tell a story…” Zac says. \u201cThis is a way to kinda talk about our influences and the DNA of our band in a different way than we ever have.”<\/p>\n
Noisey: You guys have been around for so long, but I think most people still know you because of “MMMBop.”\u00a0Does that ever get frustrating?\u00a0<\/strong> Have you noticed any changes in the complexity of \u2018MMMBop\u2019\u2019s scatting portions?\u00a0<\/strong> Yeah.\u00a0<\/strong> Isn\u2019t the choice to do one night of songs that influenced you per stop kind of working against that idea?\u00a0<\/strong> Can you tell me what MMMHops tastes like?<\/strong> Oh yeah. I work at a craft beer bar here In Toronto.<\/strong> Do you guys know about\u00a0the Hanson Brothers from the movie\u00a0Slapshot<\/em>?<\/strong> Are you fans of the movie?<\/strong> There\u2019s also a Canadian punk band named The Hanson Brothers who play\u00a0hockey-themed punk rock.<\/strong> They call it \u2018puck rock.\u2019<\/strong> What have you learned about family after playing together for so long?<\/strong> Matt Williams wouldn’t say no to a case of MMMHops.\u00a0Follow him on Twitter.<\/a><\/p>\n
\nZac Hanson:<\/strong>\u00a0It’s frustrating but not always in the way that people might expect. I think what’s frustrating about “MMMBop”\u00a0is that it was such a big song that people who know “MMMBop”\u00a0don’t understand “MMMBop.”\u00a0So it’s not that ‘MMMBop’ is frustrating. I’m really proud of that song, especially when you think about it. We wrote this song when I was like, 8-years-old. I’m really proud of that song. But for the people who know our band, who’ve followed our band, who’ve listened to those early Hanson records in the late ’90s, they\u00a0get it<\/i>, like they understand the influences, they understand who we are as a band. But for the people who just have that pop culture touchpoint, that can be frustrating, because they don’t really understand it. They know you were sort of a pop band and, they’re like, “what are you?! MMMBop\u00a0ba da be dip da buh!”… That’s sort of frustrating, but that’s just life. It’s most like, when you go to a family reunion and you always have that like, second cousin or great aunt who just forever says that one thing about you being cute or forever says… but, you know, you can’t fault her! She’s just old and senile!<\/p>\n
\n(laughs) You mean what the people who don’t know how it goes sing?<\/p>\n
\n“MMMBop”\u00a0is deceivingly simple. It’s basically the same thing over and over again. So I would say from day one to current day, you have the same percentage of people singing it wrong. But it makes you smile. We’ve been so blessed and lucky to be a band who’ve been successful everywhere. We’ve traveled the world and continue to. Our last Brazilian tour, it was funny, I think about that one in particular, just because there was a particular moment where a guy was trying to sing “MMMBop,”\u00a0but he was singing like, ‘tuuuu-ba!’ And you’re like, ‘that’s not even close! That’s not even the same vowel sound!’ So there’s a certain joy and a smile that can’t leave your face sometimes when that stuff happens. You do all this because you continue to have a passion for what you’re doing next. So as much as the past enlightens the future, it’s still always about the future. Otherwise you stop. Bands who stop singing about the future and stop dreaming about the next song and the next album and the next idea are the ones that don’t keep going. All of that is just part of this continued forward motion to do the next great idea.<\/p>\n
\nWell, it only works against it in the sense that the songs often are from the past, but considering we’ve never done it, and so many of the songs we’ve never performed, it still feels like a new idea for us. I mean, life is cyclical. If you think you’re doing something for the first time, you’re just not paying attention. So it’s the first time for us to look back at historic music in this way. In that way, it’s a first. Part of it for me is\u2014it sounds kinda funny, maybe\u2014it just makes you a better musician, to study people’s music in this way. So when we sit down and you have to deconstruct a Michael Jackson song, deconstruct a Jackson 5 song, it makes you better for it. So that’s part of it. It’s kind of selfish, it’s like an excuse to become a better musician and share the journey with people.<\/p>\n
\n[L<\/em>aughs<\/em>]\u00a0What does MMMHops taste like? Well, it’s a craft beer. MMMHops tastes\u00a0delicious. It’s 7.5% alcohol, it’s a pale ale\u2014really more of an English pale ale\u2014it’s\u00a0malty, it’s pretty a smooth beer. But if you’re used to drinking like, Coors Light and\u00a0Budweiser, then it’s gonna seem very, very full-flavored, because it’s a craft beer.\u00a0It’s intended to be what beer should taste like, not just something that only tastes\u00a0good when it’s ice cold and then it tastes like pee afterward.\u00a0We want to grow slowly. We obviously want to get to as many people as possible\u00a0because we really do love this enterprise, like, love making the beer. It’s such a great\u00a0companion for listening to music. It’s just a perfect combo. As far as where you can\u00a0get it, it’s mostly in the US right now, sort of in and around Oklahoma. We’re\u00a0launching in eight states with this fall tour, so as part of the tour it’ll be in a bunch of\u00a0new places around the country, but it’s still limited. We want people to really get a\u00a0chance to taste it and hopefully love it. It’s won some awards, it’s a gold medal beer\u00a0now, which is pretty cool. It’s a totally different creative thing from making music,\u00a0but there’s a similar spirit, surprisingly, to craft brewers and small, independent\u00a0bands.<\/p>\n
\nWell then you get how it is. When you have your favorite beer, it’s a lot like your\u00a0favorite band. It’s good vibes. As we do more and more of it, take the beer to beer\u00a0festivals and meet brewers and things, it’s like, it’s surprising how many brewers\u00a0have a drum set in the back, in a corner of their brewhouse, you know? (laughs)\u00a0Stuff like that. We are kindred spirits. The thing about the beer is, we’re doing it\u00a0because we want to make beer. It’s not like a one time, white label, we make a run of\u00a0beer\u2014’Hanson Beer’\u2014and slap a label on someone else’s beer and we’re done. It’s\u00a0not a promotional gimmick. I should say\u2014Isaac and Taylor are much more beer\u00a0snobs than I am\u2014but, you travel around the country, you travel around the world,\u00a0you’re playing concerts, coming off stage, havin’ a beer, and eventually the idea\u00a0came up: “we should do a beer, that’d be awesome!” And we started joking about\u00a0what it’d be called, and ‘MMMHops’ came up, and it was like, ‘that’s an amazing\u00a0pun!’ Because it’s ‘MMM’ (pauses) ‘HOPS’, right? But it’s also ‘MMMHops’. And it just\u00a0sort of went from there. There was a natural inclination because of the drinking of\u00a0beer, to want to do it. There was a great title for the idea. And we said, ‘let’s go. Let’s\u00a0start.’ So this is our first beer, but it won’t be the last. We started a beer festival two\u00a0years ago in Oklahoma, craft beer and music. It’s been a really fun ride. And there’s a\u00a0lot to go, a lot more to do, a lot more beers to share with the world. But we’re also\u00a0learning. I talk about this tour, learning from playing other peoples’ music. This is a\u00a0real learning process for us, because none of us are master brewers. You’re going\u00a0through sharing your flavour palette, learning how to take those things and refine\u00a0those things. It’s cool.<\/p>\n
\n(laughs) Yes, we do. Way back to our early, early, early days, I remember we had a\u00a0phone number people would call for bookings. And the local hockey team in\u00a0Oklahoma, in Tulsa, had booked the Hanson Brothers to do their halftime show, and\u00a0I remember we got all these calls: ‘man, you guys are doing the hockey show! Yeah,\u00a0man! We’re goin’!” That was my first experience with the Hanson Brothers. Before\u00a0ever seeing\u00a0Slapshot<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nYes and no. I watched\u00a0Slapshot<\/em>\u00a0when I was relatively young, and it went over my\u00a0head a little bit. I need to watch it again, as an adult, I think, to really get most of the\u00a0jokes.<\/p>\n
\n[Laughs<\/em>] That’s a very niche market!<\/p>\n
\n[Laughing near-hysterically<\/em>]<\/p>\n
\n[Laughs<\/em>] I would say firstly, I have zero perspective. I’ve played with family for so\u00a0long that I don’t have good perspective on what it’s like not to play with family. But I\u00a0would say one thing, I think that family won’t keep you together unless you want to\u00a0be together. I think there’s this perception that you’re brothers so you have to be\u00a0together. But it’s a statement that people say, and then almost ironically, they say “I\u00a0could never work with my (insert brother\/sister\/cousin\/whatever).” So I think that\u00a0the beauty of being brothers is that your genes are so similar that your vocal cords\u00a0are so similar. It makes for great music-making, that’s why there are so many great\u00a0examples of brothers and sisters in bands,\u00a0particularly singing together, because\u00a0there’s this undeniable like, it’s as close as you can get without being a clone. But in\u00a0the end, when the shit hits the fan, when life comes up and things get hard, it just\u00a0doesn’t matter if you’re brothers if you don’t have the heart for it, if you don’t have\u00a0the heart for each other. I hear bands will say they’re like brothers, brothers say\u00a0they’re like bandmates. In the end, bands last as long as they can care about each\u00a0other. As soon as it becomes about the bottom line, you know, about me, then things\u00a0fall apart. So it doesn’t matter if you’re brothers or not, if you’re not thinking about\u00a0the guy next to you. It’s a very mild version of going into combat (laughs). There are\u00a0no bullets, nobody’s probably going to die, but you gotta have the buddy system, and\u00a0that’s what keeps it going I think.<\/p>\n