So there’s this band scheduled to perform at The Hop Jam.
All the band’s members are brothers.
The name of the band is the brothers’ last name.
Are we talking about Hanson?
Or are we talking about Kongos?
Hanson (roster: Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson) will headline the music and beer festival scheduled Sunday in the Brady Arts District.
But Kongos (roster: Johnny, Jesse, Daniel and Dylan Kongos) will be among Main Stage acts. The band will perform in Tulsa two days after a gig at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas.
This was pitched to Dylan during a recent phone interview: Tell me something nobody else could understand about being in a band with your brothers unless you are actually in the band. What will an outsider never understand about that dynamic unless you are in it?
“They probably wouldn’t understand the ability to go from an explosive argument — which seems like it’s the end of the world and the band is going to break up — to immediately being able to go on stage, and then come off stage and be over the argument and not even be concerned with it anymore,” he said.
“I think maybe they can understand that just from being in a family. Sometimes you go from one emotional state to another pretty quickly. The difference here is we’re in a band and when we have to go right from that to performing. You have to change your state of mind and your emotional state pretty quickly.”
When you’re in a family, it’s easier to slip into explosive arguments, and it’s easier to move on from them, Dylan suggested.
By the way, explosive arguments aren’t the norm for Kongos. Dylan said he was just offering an example in response to the question that was pitched to him.
The brothers are in the family business. Their father, John Kongos, is a South African singer and songwriter who charted singles in the 1970s.
The bros — with roots in South Africa, London and Arizona — have produced chart singles, too, including “Come With Me Now,” which went platinum and rose to No. 1 on the U.S. alternative rock chart in 2011. “Take It From Me” on the band’s most recent album, “Egomaniac,” ascended to No. 9 on the alternative chart and No. 16 on the rock chart.
Because of the brothers’ background, influences came from everywhere.
“We grew up with our dad’s record collection, which was everything from classical music like Bach and Chopin to classic rock and then African tribal music and Burundi music and opera,” Dylan said, adding that his father was among early experimenters with computer and electronic music.