Front Row & Backstage

⚾Humble big innings: Sometimes worldwide superstardom starts at a 1994 softball game in the Texas capital (l-r): Isaac, age 13, Taylor, 11, and Zac Hanson, 8. While well-rounded players in the field, the trio had 1st and 2nd tenor spoken for, but somehow left 1st bass uncovered…no runs, no hits….yet.

Hanson traveled from their Tulsa hometown to play in Austin, TX during their annual, mid-March South By Southwest music festival (aka South By aka SXSW) in Austin, Texas, exactly 29 years ago, in 1994. Essentially, that’s where and when they were discovered.

Zac, the drummer, and the youngest Hanson, now 38, picks up the story from the lads’ 2017 interview with Spin: “We don’t think of it as discovered because we’re pretty positive that someone discovered us before that.

“But we have a deep connection to SXSW, just because we came down here when we were kids, a few years after we had started [by releasing two indie albums in Tulsa the previous two years].

“You know, we busked in the streets, nobody wanted to listen to us, but eventually we found a guy who came up and was like ‘let me hear your music,’ and that guy became our manager [entertainment attorney, Christopher Sabec], helped us get signed [to Mercury Records], and was with us for years.

“I think the real spirit of SXSW is more that kind of a story. There’s so many people in the streets who are trying to find a way to get their demo into somebody’s hands. Not just like the big showcase where the big band from where ever comes to play, but the kind of nobody who meets someone or gets a chance or networks their way into a deal.”

Along with Zac, the trio is filled out by guitarist Isaac, 42, and keyboardist, Taylor, who just turned 40.

Before “MMMBop”

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Taylor Hanson, pictured in 2015. Lisa Lake / Getty Images

It’s March 14th and these are some of the things that happened on this day in pop music history:

– In 1983, Jordan Taylor Hanson was born in Oklahoma. He and siblings Isaac and Zac started The Hanson Brothers in 1992 and performed a cappella. In 1997, as Hanson, they released their debut studio album, Middle of Nowhere, which featured the hit single “MMMBop.” He got married in 2002 to Natalie Anne Bryant, with whom he has six seven children.

Music Times

(Photo : Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Taylor Hanson isn’t the young boy who sang “MMMBop” anymore; he has since grown and forged a new path with his music career.

According to Variety, the 40-year-old musician launched The Voices Project in support of Iranians.

“The idea for The Voices Project was born as a touchpoint, a gateway to connect with the issues [in Iran] in a different way,” Hason remarked. “My hope is it becomes octane towards unifying this overall movement.”‘

One of the project’s goals is to rework a famous song titled “Baraye” by Shervin Hajipour.

The song is known to be a song that calls for change and movement, which seems very fitting for their cause in support of the For Women Life Freedom, a non-profit organization.

“This cause broke my heart,” the musician said. “My whole life, I don’t think I’ve been able to ask myself if I see any difference between the Iranian government and the Iranian people;

“The government [of Iran] has been seen as very much not a friend to our nation. But the people [of Iran] are the ones being oppressed.”

An interesting fact about the project is that it was recorded in the Henson Studios in Los Angeles-the very same studio where USA For Africa united to record the world-renowned song “We Are The World” in 1985.

The song will be produced by Hanson and Hamid Saeidi, a member of the Iranian-American group Opium. They will be accompanied by several other award-winning musicians in the field as well.

Hanson has expressed his passion for both music and the movement by launching this project and working with the non-profit organization.

“My thinking was, ‘What way can this movement breakthrough?’ Music might have a real role to play here.”

​​”Music is always powerful,” he continued. “This recording event at Henson helps communicate, ‘You need to see what’s going on in Iran. This is something we can’t ignore. This is something we need to advocate for’.”

Where is Taylor Hanson Now?

While achieving great success as a child, Hanson kept a relatively low profile during his teenage and early adulthood years.

Although it should also be worth noting that despite no longer being a household name in the industry, Hanson is very much still active in producing, recording, and releasing music. He has a reported net worth of $20 million.

He has dabbled in music throughout the years, as he and his brothers co-founded 3CG Records, and he was also part of a band called Tinted Windows.