The Oklahoman
by BRANDY MCDONNELL
Published: Fri, May 17, 2019 12:41 PM Updated: Fri, May 17, 2019 1:06 PM

An abbreviated version of this story appears in Friday’s Weekend Life section of The Oklahoman.

Mmmhops: Oklahoma band Hanson mixing up sixth hometown Hop Jam Beer & Music Festival

TULSA – For a half-dozen years, Hanson has been proving that craft beer and live music go together like peaches and cream.

Or, like an Pink Moonlight Peach Milkshake IPA, an Indian Pale Ale loaded with fruit flavors and aromas from peaches, Mosiac, El Dorado and Amarillo hops, and a light creaminess from lactose that will make its debut Sunday at The Hop Jam Beer & Music Festival in the Tulsa Arts District in downtown Tulsa.

The Tulsa-based band Hanson is, from left, brothers Zac, Taylor and Isaac Hanson. [Photo by Jonathan Weiner]
The Tulsa-based band Hanson is, from left, brothers Zac, Taylor and Isaac Hanson. [Photo by Jonathan Weiner]
An abbreviated version of this story appears in Friday’s Weekend Life section of The Oklahoman.

Mmmhops: Oklahoma band Hanson mixing up sixth hometown Hop Jam Beer & Music Festival

TULSA – For a half-dozen years, Hanson has been proving that craft beer and live music go together like peaches and cream.

Or, like an Pink Moonlight Peach Milkshake IPA, an Indian Pale Ale loaded with fruit flavors and aromas from peaches, Mosiac, El Dorado and Amarillo hops, and a light creaminess from lactose that will make its debut Sunday at The Hop Jam Beer & Music Festival in the Tulsa Arts District in downtown Tulsa.

“The festival was born with the idea of bringing together two things we’re passionate about, and I think what we backed into is two really great fan bases: music fans … and then the craft beer community, which has been growing,” said Taylor Hanson, one third of the Tulsa-based sibling trio Hanson, in a phone interview from the band’s hometown headquarters.

“We’ve been very driven each year to grow and to stretch and to really innovate any way we can with the festival and make sure it’s pushing boundaries. But I think the overall success is really just that we’re a part of something that resonates. We’re part of, I think, a movement to return to downtown with energy and business and the vision for our city and our state and also the growth of craft beer and what that’s doing across the country. We were able to, I think, crystallize those things in a form that really resonates, and there’s a lot of passion to tap into, which we’re really proud to be a part of. And we feel like is going to build for a long time.”

The Hop Jam Beer and Music Festival was created in 2014 by the co-founders of Hanson and Hanson Brothers Beer Company. If you’re asking, “Hanson has a beer company?” Oh yeah, the Hanson Brothers Beer Company won a gold medal in 2013 at the World Beer Championships for its first produced beer, the cleverly named Mmmhops Pale Ale.

The free all-ages music festival will spotlight live entertainment on two stages – with Oklahoma and national acts, including the Hanson brothers on the bill – while the ticketed craft beer area, open only to attendees 21 and older, will showcase more than 100 brewers and 350 different beers, promoting the state’s growing craft beer scene, alongside many leading national and international brewers.

Before they pour out any frosty mugs of brew, though, the Grammy-nominated band’s weekend has some strings attached.

Bucket list item

The members of Hanson – brothers Isaac, Taylor and Zac – marked their 25th anniversary as a band in 2017, and along with the career-spanning compilation “Middle of Everywhere – The Greatest Hits,” they celebrated by planning where to go next.

“Really what we’ve been trying to do these last few years is just keep in mind, ‘What’s the story? And what are the things we’re excited to do? What’s on the bucket list?’ And working with a symphony was completely on that list. After we celebrated 25 years, we just were thinking about what’s the next milestone, and in fact, the idea was originally born for the celebration of 25,” Taylor said. “(We) got a lot of excitement from it and a lot of interest from symphonies and a lot of feeling that there was a potential for it to be a big project. So, we pursued all the different aspects of making that happen.”

There were quite a few challenges to work through to create their symphonic double album, “String Theory,” released last year on their Tulsa-based 3CG Records. The trio collaborated with Oscar-winning composer David Campbell to create orchestral arrangements of their biggest songs like “MmmBop,” “Where’s the Love” and “This Time Around,” along with new and never-before-heard tracks like “Battle Cry,” “Breaktown” and “Reaching for the Sky.”

“There’s just a lot of detail to navigate, a lot of detail to fit what you do in contemporary rock band music into working with a symphony. There’s a lot of structure that you have to allow for, and you have a lot of moving parts. Anywhere from high 20- to 60-piece orchestras that we worked with – all ranges – and when you’re dealing with that many musicians and organizing and having the charts and making sure everything technically works in city after city, it’s quite an undertaking,” Taylor said.

“One of the things I’m most proud about the project is it really does weave together many eras of music, but does something very different with them because it’s tied together by a story. It’s tied together by an aspirational, lyrical story that is really sort of painting a picture of coming up against challenges and overcoming them and taking on failure and rising above it. To be able to do that with orchestras and with David Campbell … who’s just a legendary arranger and composer, the final product, really, we couldn’t have asked for anything better. … And we’ve been able to play this concert from the Greek Theatre to the Beacon to Sydney Opera House and Symphony Hall in London.”

For one of the last shows in the “String Theory” tour, Hanson will play a sold-out hometown show Friday night with the Tulsa Symphony at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.

“For all us, it’s something we’re really proud of, and we’ve been able to share that with fans who have joined us on the career up to this point,” Taylor said. “I think for a lot of people, they can see themselves and hear their contribution to our story when they watch that show and they see the story we’re telling.”

Brother’s band

Before they spend much of the summer writing and recording with plans to release new music next year, the brothers are looking to make more memories with their fans at Sunday’s Hop Jam. This year’s musical lineup will include the anticipated reunion of indie rockers Phantom Planet, who broke out in the 1990s with the rambling tune “California” and have been on hiatus since 2008.

“Each year, we look for special things on the music lineup, and the stars aligned with Phantom Planet. We’re looking for something really unique and have known a lot of those guys throughout the band’s career. I guess we met in, gosh, 2001 or ’02. So, we’re just thrilled that they were excited to do Hop Jam,” Taylor said. “For music fans, we know that there’s a lot of people traveling to Tulsa just to see them play because they haven’t done gigs and been out and about as a band in almost a decade. Absolutely that’s going to be a highlight of the festival this year.”

Along with headliners Hanson, the bill will include the fourth Hanson brother, Mac, who will perform with his fledgling Los Angeles-based bluesy folk-rock band Joshua & the Holy Rollers.

“Mac has been really focused on filmmaking and writing for the last, I guess, almost 10 years. He’s been mostly in California and he’s been pursuing that and we’ve been totally behind him. So, this project began a couple years ago, and he began really diving into music, sort of, I think, just really recognizing how important that is to him. … Mac’s a brilliant guy and really talented, so it’s been really fun to see him dive into music and make that something he’s putting forward,” Taylor said.

“The Hop Jam is great opportunity to put on an amazing day of music and community, to see lots of worlds come together, and so having Mac and his band be able to be a part of that is thrilling. It’s exciting. It’s great to be able to share something we’re passionate about and also give people a chance to connect with somebody that we think quite a bit of.”

As with so much that the Hansons are involved with, music finds its way into the mix. That includes the aforementioned Pink Moonlight Peach Milkshake IPA, a collaboration of Hanson Brothers Beer Co. and Illinois-based DESTIHL Brewery that will debut at The Hop Jam. DESTIHL’s co-founder, Matt Potts, originally met Hanson when drumming with them – along with Kyle Hollingsworth of String Cheese Incident – over a three-year stint of The Intersection of Beer & Music Presentation at the Great American Beer Festival. Since DESTIHL launched its beers in Oklahoma in 2016, the brewery participated in The Hop Jam every year since.

“It is exciting to have now, I think, established somewhat of a tradition, and it is definitely bigger than Hanson. It always has been intended to grow past us,” Taylor said. “The beer and the music, this is really us having a great deal of respect for the music community and the craft beer community. But it’s really an honor and a thrill to get to host that and to get to bring people together and be a part of this growing movement. It is definitely for the band, as artists being independent and really choosing to be rooted in Tulsa, it is a great part of our community of music fans. … They get to come here once a year and celebrate with us and really share in something that has roots and it goes deep. It’s great to be able to be a part of watching that unfold.”