To see a video of Hanson in Pittsburgh this morning head to KDKA at: http://kdka.com/video/?id=75293@kdka.dayport.com

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―

A band of three brothers is in Pittsburgh today for a concert and to film a music video.

Hanson wanted to give fans a chance to participate in a music video and many took them up on that offer, but they’re no longer the band that had many people singing “MMMBop.”

The trio from Tulsa, Okla. has just released their eighth studio album called “Shout it Out” and tonight they will be playing a concert at the Carnegie Music Hall.

This morning, they stopped by the Carnegie Science Center to film a local music video version of their single “Thinking ‘Bout Something.”

Q92.9 came up with the idea and the band was all for it.

“The spirit of anybody can dance, anybody can do this. Let music [kind of] set you free a little bit. Cut you loose. So, the idea of them doing this, I think it connects with at least that part of the idea of the video,” Zac Hanson said.

The idea put them up close and personal with the fans.

“It’s all about the music and all about connecting with fans,” Taylor Hanson said.

Kat Shoop was delighted that one of her favorite bands allowed her to interact with them and be in the video.

“It’s like being 14 again. Every time I’ve seen them over the past 14 years, it’s the same feeling. It’s exciting,” Shoop said.

The feeling was mutual for the band.

“As an artist and a musician doing it, I think I [kind of] feel like it has a similar effect on you as it does on the people in the crowd. You’re playing it, but you’re enjoying yourself when somebody is smiling, when somebody’s dancing around having a good time,” Isaac Hanson said.

The concert kicks off at 5:30 p.m.

Cincinnati.com

Hanson, which burst onto the pop music scene as a ’90s teen trio with the breakthrough hit “MMMBop,” has several things in common with today’s reigning boy band, the Jonas Brothers.

MMMStop.

“Besides the fact that they’re brothers and there are three of them, their path is really different from ours,” says Isaac, the eldest Hanson brother. “We were coming from R&B influences. They do a lot of a lot of guitar-driven punky pop stuff, very little R&B.”

The Hansons, who will perform Monday at Coney Island’s Moonlite Gardens, continue to display that love of R&B on their new album “Shout It Out.” The video for the album’s lead single “Thinking ‘Bout Something” visually mimics Ray Charles’ performance in “The Blues Brothers.”

Isaac, 29, with brothers Taylor, 27 and Zac, 23, have persevered through ups and downs since they emerged from Tulsa, Okla., to score more than 10 million sales with their first major album, “Middle of Nowhere” in 1997.

“Our youth maybe skewed people’s perspective,” Isaac says. “People had a sense we were fleeting: ‘Oh, they’re just kids, tap, tap, tap.’ ”

The brothers have stayed in the game since, though an early shock occurred two years after “MMMBop,” when a corporate merger dissolved Hanson’s label and moved them under the umbrella of Island Def Jam Records, a rap label.

“Everybody we had for support got fired,” Isaac said. “So we had no effective support system, and we were on a rap label where we didn’t have a home. You can call Hanson a whole lot of things but hip-hop isn’t one of them.”

He has advice for today’s teen stars.

“I hope they can survive the chaotic world of rock ‘n’ roll,” Isaac says. “A lot of potential scenarios create challenges. It’s all about how you grew up, values instilled in you. Your parents, do they say ‘Take what you can get’ or ‘Be careful, be suspicious.’ The more I look back, the more I think it has to do with parental advice and the support system around you.

“Kids will ask us ‘How do you become famous?’ It’s the wrong question. Focus on the craft, not on the fame.”

BaltimoreSun

Train’s career seemed all but stalled when, seemingly out of the blue, the band rebounded with the monster hit “Hey, Soul Sister.”

Pop radio carpet-bombed the country with the upbeat acoustic single, and suddenly Train was back in the limelight. “Hey, Soul Sister” became the San Francisco band’s highest-charting hit to date, making it all the way to the No. 3 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. On Sunday, Train headlines Mixfest at Pier Six Pavilion, along with the Backstreet Boys and Hanson.

This isn’t the first time Train has been near the top of the charts. The band formed in 1994 and toiled in relative obscurity until cracking the charts with “Meet Virginia,” a charming song from their first, self-titled album.

Train’s second album, “Drops of Jupiter,” which came out in 2001, made the band famous. The song “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me),” which used astronomical metaphors to describe a broken relationship, climbed to No. 4 and stayed in the Top 40 for nearly 40 weeks. The 2003 album “My Private Nation” went platinum, but the follow-up, “For Me, It’s You,” didn’t generate much buzz, and the band went on hiatus for three years.

It’s possible that Train will have the most new fans in the audience at Sunday’s show. While the Backstreet Boys were huge in the ’90s and early ’00s, the band’s latest album failed to make a splash in the U.S. — though it sold briskly overseas. Hanson, who helps round out the lineup, is most famous for the hit single “MMMBop,” but still has a dedicated, loyal fan base.

Mixfest is 6 p.m. Sunday at Pier Six Pavilion, 731 Eastern Ave. Tickets are $35-$85. Call 410-783-4189 or go to piersixpavilion.com.

NewsOK.com

The last time Hanson played Cain’s Ballroom in their hometown of Tulsa, Zac Hanson wasn’t old enough to buy adult beverages at the bar, brother Isaac had only been of legal age a couple of years, and Taylor-in-middle was barely 21.

Yet they were already seven-year veterans of the recording industry, had just established their own label, 3CG Records (stands for Three Car Garage, which is where it all started in T-town), released “Underneath,” their third studio album — not counting holiday and live packages — and Taylor was a husband and proud father of a 1½-year-old baby boy. They had come a long way from “MMMBop,” the infectious pubescent-pop megahit that had made them stars in 1997 at the ages of 16, 14 and 11.

They’re all married with children now. They’ve just released their fifth studio album, “Shout It Out,” and are on a national tour that brings them back Wednesday for their second appearance at Cain’s. This time, the bar will be open to all three of them, should they choose to imbibe.

“We didn’t play a lot of bars,” Taylor Hanson said of the band’s early days, which date all the way back to 1992. “We played everything else and literally anything else. I mean when you’re a local band, you just hope people hear you. You’re just trying to build a little fan base. And so, we played arts festivals, and we even played block parties, and some cases we played outside of bars.”

Their parents, Walker and Diana, were supportive from the beginning. Dad was a “frustrated poet” who worked as an accountant for an oil company so that Mom, who majored in voice on a “full ride” scholarship at North Texas State University, could stay home and raise their seven kids.

Creativity was encouraged in the Hanson household, particularly the musical kind.

“Our parents continue to be huge supporters and facilitators,” Taylor said, speaking from the band’s Tulsa recording studio in a recent phone interview. “We’re all adults now, obviously, but from the beginning they were just right there with us. Our mom would be selling merchandise and trying to help get us another gig. And our dad would be back there at the soundboard, working the sound.”

At home around the dinner table and throughout the house, there was a lot of a cappella harmonizing on 1950s and ’60s rock and R&B classics and gospel tunes.

And the influences of those family singalongs can be heard quite clearly on “Shout It Out,” which serves up Hanson’s signature style of bright pop-rock with a generous measure of soul seasonings. These come in the form of guest artists such as Funk Brothers bassist Bob Babbit, who has played on some of Motown’s greatest hits, and horn arranger Jerry Hey, who has worked with Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones and Earth, Wind and Fire, to name a few.

“Musically, every album is a reflection of what’s going on around you,” said Hanson’s lead singer, “and this record is called ‘Shout It Out’ for a lot of reasons. Just that title, it’s a call back to old soul records. The title of the album is reminiscent of Stax/Volt record titles and Motown, and it’s kind of a celebration sort of record. Part of it is really shining a light on our influences from when we started.”

This follows the group’s 2007 album, “The Walk,” which was fueled by a revelatory trip to Africa, becoming a fervent humanitarian call for action coinciding with the organization of barefoot one-mile walks to focus the world’s attention on the HIV/AIDS epidemic and extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

And between making these two records, with all the activism and taking care of the business side of the band and raising four children of his own, Taylor Hanson somehow found time in 2009 to join a supergroup side project with Fountains of Wayne singer-bassist Adam Schlesinger, Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha and Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos called Tinted Windows. That group recorded a self-titled album and even managed a limited tour in spring 2009.

“It’s hard not to enjoy working with people that are friends that bring so much talent in their own right,” Taylor said. “It’s kind of a nice way to be able to stretch your muscles differently.”

But is there really that much difference between these two groups that specialize in power-pop?

“The key difference is the sort of backbeat and the roots of R&B and more old-school rock ‘n’ roll that’s in (Hanson’s) sound,” he said. “There are a lot of terms, but (Tinted Windows’) power-pop sound is more Caucasian, to be honest. It’s melodic songs, it’s hook songs, but it’s guitar-driven. There’s no keyboards. There’s no fat bass backbeat. There’s not a lot of sitting in the groove and thick three-part harmonies. It’s really about that driving guitar riff and a big chorus, but it’s definitely a different breed.”

Taylor Hanson thinks there’s a good chance he’ll contribute lead vocals to another incarnation of Tinted Windows in the future, but for now his full focus is on the family business.

“It’s just one of those things that fits in around our main bread and butter,” he said. “And Hanson is more like the essence of what we are, what I am. And it’s kind of the full plate.”

And it’s a man-sized plate. These aren’t MMMboys anymore.

Read more: http://newsok.com/hanson-to-shout-it-out-in-tulsa/article/3486780#ixzz0xAz5HV3J

Columbus Dispatch

Pittsburgh Live

When Issac, Taylor and Zac Hanson first emerged as the band Hanson in the late ’90s, they were placed in the same genre — boy bands — as ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys.

Technically, Zac Hanson admits, this was correct: They were boys, and they were in the band.

What he didn’t understand was why people seemed flabbergasted to learn the brothers not only wrote songs, but also played instruments.

“What were we supposed to do, tell jokes?” he says with a laugh.

Hanson performs Friday at the Carnegie Library Music Hall in Munhall.

While so many of their so-called peers have disbanded, Hanson continues to thrive. Now young men — each of the brothers is married and has children, and Isaac, the oldest, turns 30 in November — they have finally shed the label of teen heartthrobs.

Musically, their music also has matured. The new album “Shout it Out” is a sunny collection of pop songs that is distinct from its predecessor, 2007’s “The Walk.” That release was influenced by the brothers’ humanitarian trips to Africa and had a “heavier sound,” according to Zac Hanson.

The new collection of songs is lighter in mood.

“We generally feel it’s a summer record,” Hanson says. “We wanted to make a record that’s exciting and jumps out at you musically.”

The CD booklet art certainly points in that direction with images of boomboxes and cassette tapes evoking the late 1970s and early 1980s. At times, the music has the same kind of feel, with horns augmenting the tracks “Make It Out Alive,” “And I Waited” and “Voices in the Chorus.”

“I think for us the images of this album in particular are extensions of the music,” Hanson says, “and really represent the visual aspect of the art. But I don’t know if we felt it was important to express that feeling; maybe that was just a subconscious decision.”

Throughout “Shout it Out” there’s an undercurrent of R&B music; not surprising, given Hanson enlisted one of the most renowned bass players from that genre, Bob Babbitt, a Pittsburgh native, to play on five tracks.

Babbitt, who has performed with Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight and the Pips among many others, added a soulful aspect to the music. But unless one is a bass enthusiast, Hanson doubts his contributions will be noticeable, which is how all good rhythm sections function, he adds.

“He has a certain sense of the way the bass should be played, ” Hanson says, “and that is something you’ve learned after playing on as many records and playing as long as he has. It’s not just something you’re born with — it’s something you learn after being in the business for years and years.”

Now, believe it or not, the Hanson brothers have been performing professionally for …. 18 years. The hit single, “MMMBop” was released in 1997. They’ve thrived not so much because of their brotherhood — Zac Hanson quickly points that many sibling acts have fallen apart — but because they’ve never taken success for granted.

“We’ve always, from day one, realized that careers are like rollercoasters,” he says. “You’re on a hill, you go down, you come up a little bit, you go down again. That’s the way it works, and you have to make it through the valleys and support each other. We’ve always known we’re just around the corner from the next dip, and if you make it through that, you’ll have another high.”

Paper Magazine has posted Part III of Taylor’s Tour Diary on their site. Check it out to see the latest installment of photos!

http://www.papermag.com/2010/08/on_this_latest_installment_of.php

Playback STL

Isaac came across as someone who has indeed been doing this a long time—but still loves almost every minute of it.

I got a chance to speak with Isaac Hanson—the oldest member of the band Hanson—just before their show in St. Louis in early August. They became well-known in the late 1990s with their album Middle of Nowhere, and have continued releasing albums and touring in the 10-plus years since then, with the oldest member still just shy of his 30 birthday. Considering how long they’ve been making music, it was good to get a chance to chat with Isaac and hear his thoughts on the way music—and the music industry—has changed. Over the course of our conversation, we touched on a number of subjects, and he answered with genuine enthusiasm. He seemed effortlessly chatty and came across as someone who has indeed been doing this a long time—but still loves almost every minute of it.
One of the first things we talked about was the Internet and the changing role it plays in how bands interact with fans. Back when Middle of Nowhere was released in 1997 (the band’s first major-label album but third release overall), the Internet wasn’t nearly as widespread nor did it operate at the speeds we see now. Hanson had a website at the time, one with a chat room. Isaac seems to recall the time with both fondness and a bit of incredulity at the amount of attention their website got. The chat room became a problem, though—he describes it as “a sort of real-time Twitter on crack”—and the lack of ability to control what was there led to the chat room being removed. Said Isaac, “The Internet, in the end, has been an incredible advantage in all areas. There are some unfortunate things that go along with the Internet, such as privacy becomes a problem, and piracy has been a problem.”
The mention of piracy brings us into where we spent the majority of our conversation. Many people are of the mind that piracy simply comes from people wanting something for free. Free music is ultimately better than paying for it, right? Also, the music business can’t be blamed for piracy, can it? Isaac sees things a bit differently. He likens the spread of piracy to proprietors of a candy shop leaving the door unlocked, then becoming angry when they come in the next morning and candy was missing. What they didn’t see, though, was what was being taken. He says that piracy really has a lot to do with the music business as a whole “looking the other way and not caring about their fans.” Isaac explains, “That lack of confidence in the quality of the music prompted many people to want to take one, two, three songs from a record that they liked because they didn’t want to pay $16, $18 for a record. They didn’t feel it was worth it.” He doesn’t think that justifies the piracy, but says that examining what was taken and why leads to a better understanding of what the audience sees as missing from the music industry.
From there, he moves into an exploration of the fact that people often only download parts of an album—and that shows that maybe we need to get away from making albums and move more toward EPs. Having a band record their five best songs is cheaper, both financially and time-wise, than having them invest in recording a full-length album. With that being said, I asked him if he had a problem with places like iTunes or Amazon where you can buy a song or two off of an album. He didn’t have an issue with that, but said, still, “it’s a bummer on some levels.” It’s not all distressing, though; he says he believes in the quality of music, though he is aware of the subjectivity of it. He says, “Not everybody thinks something’s great. But you know what? Who cares?” He thinks there’s enough room for all of the differing opinions. As he says in closing, “I’m not exactly a huge Nickelback fan, but they’ve sold a lot of records.” | Teresa Montgomery