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[Translation via Google Translate]

At the Magazzini Generali the concert of the trio of brothers from Oklahoma who at the beginning of the nineties experienced success as a baby band. And now, as adults, they continue to play together.

Among the advantages of starting to make music at a very young age is that of still being artistically and physically fresh to celebrate important anniversaries. The Hansons were a trio of Oklahoma wunderkinds founded in 1992 when the members were 12 (Ike), 7 (Tay) and 6 (Zac). So now these young adults can celebrate their thirtieth anniversary with a record, Red green blue, and a tour that today touches the Magazzini Generali. Zac, the youngest, the drummer, tells us this story.

Let’s start with the disc, which are actually three, one piece each.
“Oh yes, to celebrate these 30 years we have done a work divided into 3 parts: Red is written and produced by Tay, Green by Ike and Blue by Zac. Five songs each that tell each of us. We wanted to make people understand how much – while being a group – we are also three different people, three artists who then know how to put everything together and produce something homogeneous. Here you can feel the different styles, the different abilities of each brother, but also that as a band we still choose to make music together ” .

And what do you understand about her with “Blue”?
“That I am a romantic, I like ballads, pop, telling stories of serenity about the future to live with friends. They are songs that I wrote a long time ago, before this idea, about all the ballads. most of the melody, but it seemed to me that it was a song in need of a special place, and the end of this record seemed to me the perfect place. ”

In the concert, however, you also have another record to present, “Against the world” from 2021.
“Effects of the pandemic. And it won’t be easy to put these songs on the lineup, those of Red green blue and our hits. We will have to invent something. At the moment there are two ideas: a nice long concert, over two hours, and some medley”.

Speaking of this thirty-year anniversary, what are your balance sheets? Child prodigy bands usually have a bad end, not to mention siblings.
“But then there are the exceptions, and I am extremely happy that we are part of it. I understand the difficulties: playing with two people you grew up with, and above all as a younger brother, sometimes it is an amplifier of controversy and quarrels, but all that remains. between us also because it is precisely because of our family relationship that everything settles down in the end. Of course, then I like to be the youngest because it means that I have a lot of time in front of me. I have always loved being the youngest in the room because it meant that I would have had a lot of time in front of me. Thinking about it now, I am 36 years old, which is not many, but not too few, and I have 5 children “.

Who have no plans to start a band themselves?
“Not at the moment, not that I know of. But I tremble at the idea of ​​asking him.”

But is being a rock star as a child a good or a bad thing?
“In the end I think it’s good, of course I know how to do it. I reflected that at the time two out of three things didn’t interest me at all from the famous slogan” sex drugs and rock and roll “.

And have you ever thought about why your success in Italy? Make music that has little to do with our local melody.
“I asked myself yes, as in all other countries where we have a good following. The obvious answer is that we use a universal language like that of music is that we know how to communicate emotions, feelings and passions. In short, straight to the heart. we have never asked the question to Italian fans: we are afraid of breaking the magic “.
WHERE AND WHEN – Magazzini Generali, via Pietrasanta 14 at 20.30. Admission 25 euros plus presale, www.ticketone.it or 892.101

Canberra Times

Each brother wrote and produced a third of RGB – Isaac takes the lead on the green segment, Taylor, 39, on red and Zac, 36, with blue – with Grammy Award winners David Garza and Jim Scott as co-producers. While the brothers played on each other’s songs, Garza also helped “fill in the holes”.

“For all intents and purposes they are very much, they’re about as close as any band can ever get to making solo records,” Isaac says.

“Honestly, without breaking up, it is about as close as you could ever get to a solo record, because truly those sections on the record are really very much Taylor’s vision, my vision, Zac’s vision.

“It created a scenario where you could be as creative as possible without having what I would refer to as excess debate, because it was really a question of ‘Hey man, do you feel this is serving your idea of the song?’, not whether everyone’s happy.

“This record is kind of like a giant trust fall, ‘Hey man do you trust me? I hope so because here it goes’ …

“We certainly didn’t squeeze the sponge dry by any means, but we definitely allowed for them to have unique enough flavour and unique enough personality that I think it articulates the point that I think all of us had hoped to make, which is [we are] a band of three lead singers, in some sense.”

Isaac’s green segment is “the most singer-songwriter I have probably ever allowed myself to be” and spans a range of styles, from acoustic ballad Write You A Song dedicated to his daughter Odette, through to the funk and soul fusion Cold As Ice.

But he says another track, No Matter the Reason, which tells the story of fighting for a relationship despite hardships, “may be my favourite song I’ve ever written”.

He says there are songs on RGB that most likely would not have appeared on a Hanson album, but he was not consciously “trying to move away from something that Hanson is or is not”.

“I’m just trying to make the best group of five songs I can make that speak the most to where I am at that moment,” he says.

“If people learn something new about your band, if they hear something they like better than something they liked before, it’s only a reflection of the fact that you put your whole self in.”

RGB follows Hanson’s 2021’s release Against The World, which saw the brothers release seven songs over seven months, and 2018’s String Theory, which re-imagined their back catalogue with symphony orchestras.

The trio is always looking for new ways of approaching their craft, Isaac says.

“If you’re not feeling challenged, if you’re not, shall we say, sore after the workout, then you didn’t probably push yourself quite hard enough.

“I think we had enough trust in each other to strengthen the individual parts of this unit by doing a record like this.

“I would never say that this record was a walk in the park, it was not, it was actually one of the more difficult things I’ve probably ever done, but it was also one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.”

Through the process, Isaac says, each brother learned new things about themselves and each other. He says Taylor and Zac “shared what they wanted to but nothing more than they absolutely needed to”, while he preferred to float his ideas with the band.

“I think there were certain things about myself that I was afraid of leaning into,” he says.

“I really play a certain role in the band that I feel very, very happy with in so many cases, but I’m also one to defer to other inspirations and other ideas because I have a tendency to be really of the moment and really like what the unit is bringing and sometimes the downside is that you find yourself, even though you’ve contributed significant amounts to what’s going on, a little * a little bit less like you’re in control of the outcome.

“That’s not bad, but it does sometimes leave one feeling a little bit – there can be insecurity that you bring along with you and this allowed for me to … conquer some of those demons of being a little bit afraid of finishing it exactly the way I wanted to and it being good enough in my own mind.

“Is this going to be OK for me to get this done this way?’ And that shows a certain level of insecurity on my part, which I’m OK with talking about, because isn’t that really where songs come from, some level of searching? Some level of vulnerability?”

Isaac admits that a 20-country tour in five months is ambitious, despite the band playing shows at home in Tulsa over the past two years that were live-streamed across the globe.

“You’ve got to get your sea legs again. I’m sure we’ll fall right back into the rhythm of things and all that, but it is a little bit like going from running sprints to running a marathon,” he says.

Hanson perform in Perth on November 6, Sydney November 9, Adelaide November 12, Brisbane November 14, Melbourne  November 16 and Auckland November 19. frontiertouring.com/hanson