Toronto Star

Zac Hanson says he and brothers Isaac and Taylor are grateful to be back onstage, seeing fans.

Twenty-five years after it topped the charts and made them international sensations, Zac Hanson of the sibling pop band Hanson says people still don’t quite understand what their song “MMMBop” is about.

Although it’s set over a happy beat and buoyant harmonies, drummer and singer Zac — who complements guitarist and singer Isaac, and keyboardist and singer Taylor — says the song has a much more sobering meaning that most realize.

“‘MMMBop’ is a song all about loss and making adult choices as kids,” he said recently over the phone, as Hanson celebrates its 30th anniversary with a new album, “Red Green Blue,” and a 90-city world tour that touches down at the Danforth Music Hall on Wednesday.

“When you have success, you realize very quickly that people aren’t always hearing everything that you’re saying and some don’t even catch it by the 10th listen. I think that’s probably the biggest takeaway we’ve had with this song is that people are still surprised these days. It touches people on so many different levels.”

For Hanson, “MMMBop” was supposed to be the beginning of a glorious career for the Tulsa, Oklahoma, rockers and an endless string of chart-topping hits, mainly because the talented trio wrote all their own earworms and had a musical maturity beyond their years — which were 11 (Zac), 14 (Taylor) and 16 (Isaac) at the time.

Signed to a worldwide deal to the Mercury label in the U.S., the hype of the three brothers becoming “the next big thing” was shouted from the rooftops of the eager record company’s building to anyone within earshot.

Hanson’s 1997 debut album “Middle of Nowhere” — their first major release after two indie albums — sold more than seven million copies around the world, including 500,000 in Canada, yielding the aforementioned “MMMBop,” “Where’s the Love” — which reached No. 2 — and “I Will Come to You” and “Weird,” which lodged themselves in the Top 20.

The project also earned them three Grammy Award nominations and the future looked extremely rosy.

As with all arrangements, however, when the organization’s chemistry is altered stuff happens: Mercury’s parent label PolyGram ended up merging with Universal and, suddenly, Hanson didn’t have the label support that was first assigned to them.

Eventually, they went their separate ways and, to their credit, founded their own label, 3CG, and exercised creative control over their own releases, still managing to fill theatres around the world with their “fansons.”

“We’re the youngest heritage band in the world, you know,” Zac declared half-jokingly. “We’ve lived long enough and worked long enough that we’re a different class of band.

“I think Mercury understood what we were through a certain commercialized lens that every label has with their bands, right? They were interested in finding that balance between, ‘Hey, I see that there’s a market for what you do,’ while our A&R guy (the record company reps who sign artists and develop talent) was really more looking like, ‘Where are the next Beatles … the next Monkees?’”

Youth has always been a bit of an aphrodisiac for long-term-thinking record executives and, when things didn’t work out, Zac said Hanson realized “very quickly in the media world, we weren’t really going to be understood.”

“We were just too much of an anomaly,” he said. “Only time was going to fix that. We were writing really mature music for our age and having to make, like, hard choices — obviously with the help of management and our parents — on issues like, ‘Do you want to sign this record deal? This is what it costs. This is how long you’ll be legally obligated’; crazy things that kids don’t normally have to do.”

Fast forward to today and Hanson has 14 albums in their catalogue since they went independent in 2004, including “Red Green Blue,” a 16-song, hour-plus effort where each brother produced a third of the album independently rather than creating a true communal experience.

They’ve worked with everyone from Weird Al Yankovic (appearing at the Danforth Music Hall Monday and Tuesday) to Blues Traveler to Owl City, and even appeared last season on Fox TV’s “The Masked Singer.”

But perhaps the biggest off-the-radar accomplishment for Hanson is personal: between them, Isaac, now 41, Taylor, 39, and Zac, 36, have 15 children.

“I think we’re working on a horn and string section,” joked Zac, who accounts for five of the junior Hansons.

“The fans that come to our shows now represent three generations,” Zac noted. “There’s the moms that (were) bringing their kids to shows in the ’90s. Now those kids are bringing their kids to shows. If these songs can last for 30 years, what will they look like at 60 years? Everything about who we are will be true at that point.

“Our longevity is a very hard thing to grasp. How do you get people to invest in you in a way that says, ‘Hey, I’ll keep coming back … you’re still part of my life … I’ve changed in every which way, but I still listen to your band’? I don’t know what that is, but we have really been very conscious about everything we do being very real. The songs that we’re writing are our life and our views, and we’re not trying to be anything that we’re not.

“I think that’s really helped us musically to be relevant to people whether they’re 12 or 35.”

As for the long-term view, Zac said Hanson is looking “at more bucket list ideas” than just making conventional albums.

“A few years ago, we did an album with a symphony (2018’s “String Theory” with the Prague Orchestra, conducted by Toronto-born David Campbell),” said Zac. “I think we’ll do more projects like that moving forward, as we wonder how to tell bigger stories.

“But right now, it’s been two years since we’ve been able to tour. We’ve put out two albums during this period and we’re finally getting to play them live. We’re just grateful to still be a band, be onstage and see fans.”

TMZ

Getty

The pop rock band ‘Hanson’ emerged on the music scene back in the early 90s and has continued to captivate their fans for decades. Their 1997 hit song “MMMBop” put the stamp on their success and fame.

‘Hanson’ consists of brothers Isaac Hanson, Taylor Hanson and Zac Hanson. All three of the bros sing and share instrument duties including guitar, drums, bass and piano. Their 1997 album “Middle of Nowhere,” which included the track “MMMBop,” scored three Grammy nominations and hit the top of the music charts all over the world.

‘Mmmbop, oh yeah!’

Guess what they look like now!

 

The Anniston Star

Lincoln resident Callie Wells with Hanson during the band’s 2020 ‘Back to the Island’ destination event in Jamaica. From left to right is Zac, Isaac, Callie and Taylor.

Submitted photo

It was the spring of 1997 when Callie Wells, age 11 at the time, heard a new song on the radio. It was “MMMBop” by pop music band Hanson, a trio of harmonizing Oklahoma brothers named Isaac, Taylor and Zac. “That bright, poppy music struck a chord in my young heart,” Callie said.

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The Age

Fans are whipped into a frenzy at the Southland Hanson concert.CREDIT:JOE CASTRO

More than 20,000 hysterical fans were in pop heaven when Hanson brothers Isaac, 16, Taylor, 14, and Zachary, 11, performed a short but spirited set.

They are on a whirlwind promotional tour of Australia.

When the group took the stage just after 11.30am, the crowd surged forward, jamming young girls against a barrier.

While security guards were lifting about 50 distressed fans to safety, some being taken away on stretchers, the Hansons pleaded for calm.

“Everybody step hack… we don’t want anybody to die here,” said Taylor Hanson.

From then, the only discomfort was caused by the pitch of the screams once the blond trio, dressed in simple pants and skivvies with their hair in ponytails, had launched into their first song, ‘Madeleine’.

The group, with Isaac on acoustic guitar, Taylor on tambourine and Zachary shaking a maraca, performed three more songs — ‘The Man from Milwaukee’, ‘A Minute Without You’ and ‘MMMBop’, its smash hit.

Tears flowed as each girl mouthed the words and hopped to the beat.

Their devotion was rewarded by an encore of a perfectly harmonised, a cappella rendition of ‘MMMBop’ — and then the idols were gone.

It was all too much for distraught Greenvale youngster Erin Nelson, 14.

“I want Zac to come back – why can’t they ask them to come back?” she pleaded.

The St John Ambulance treated 48 People for minor complaints. “I think for most of them it was just hysteria,” a spokeswoman said.

“It was a very young age group and they got a little bit overcome with hyperventilation or just being tired and emotional.

“Most of them we just sat them down and, once they stopped crying, everything was OK.”

Two people were taken to hospital, one with a back injury, the other with possible concussion.

About 30 people had slept the night in the car park to ensure a front spot.

Mrs Lee Stevens, daughter Tiffany, 11, and friends Brad Osborne, 13, and sister Rebecca. 11, from Laverton, slept in sleeping bags and on blankets near the stage.

Mrs Stevens said: “My daughter said, ‘I’ve got to go, I’ve got to go up the front, I’ve got to see them’.

“And I said yes, without hesitation. This is like the Beatles and Elvis, or Skyhooks, when I was young. If a mother can’t fulfil her child’s dream, who can?”

The crowd started building at 5am. By 11am, with Hanson due, it stretched the length of the undercover car park on the western side of the shopping centre.

The event was to have been in the shopping centre but safety concerns prompted Southland management to stage it in the car park.

The Hanson group screamed on to the rock music charts in May with ‘MMMBop’. Although its words have no apparent meaning, the catchy tune has hooked fans worldwide.

According to the Australian Record Industry Association ‘MMMBop’ was nine weeks at the top of the singles chart before falling to second last week.

‘MMMBop’ is said to have sold more than 140,000 copies in Australia since its release on 19 May.

Times Union