This Time Around: Hanson Returns to SXSW
March 2017
Originally commissioned by Noisey Australia
Late on the Friday afternoon of SXSW Music this March, the brothers Hanson were holding court on the seventh floor of a luxury loft building in downtown Austin, Texas. Through the window behind them, Sixth Street, where they had busked as children decades earlier, was buzzing with music fans, promoters, and a new batch of artists hoping to get lucky.
The band, whose first single (and first number one hit), “MMMBop”, was released twenty years ago this April, were in town to launch what will be several months’ worth of touring and events, surrounding their 25-year anniversary. They formed “officially” in 1992. “We’re celebrating our birthday as a band,” Taylor said. “In that 25 years there’s all these stories, there’s all these albums, there’s lots to acknowledge.” The “Middle of Everywhere Tour,” which begins in June, has dates in Europe, Australia and all around the U.S.
Isaac, is now 36 years old, Taylor is 34, and Zac is 31. They no longer have their trademark long hair (although Zac seems to be growing his out again), and each has adopted a different facial hair styling — Zac has a short almost-beard, Taylor a casual five a-clock shadow, and Isaac sports something close to a “soul-patch”.
Among their various accessories – chains, sunglasses, collections of wristbands — they all have one in common: a crucifix necklace. As their lives have evolved over the last twenty years all three have quietly remained devout Christians (though they are not Mormon or Catholic, as some have speculated). Each now has a family of his own — among the three of them they have 12 children — but they still act very much a unit, and frequently finish each other’s sentences. Until only a few months ago, they all shared one public Twitter account.
They were set to play several shows, both public and private, over the course of SXSWeek – an outdoor show a the Whole Foods parking lot, a tribute performance for their hometown hero Leon Russell at the Grammy Block Party, and a showcase for the Tulsa office of Film, Music, Arts and Culture.
While they had played Austin several times over the last few years, this trip was a particularly special one for Hanson. Not only did it mark the beginning of their 25-year anniversary run, but it also marked 23 years since they crashed SXSW, and met their first manager.
In March of 1994, Hanson headed south from their hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, to SXSW for the first time, in hopes of finding a record deal. They hadn’t been selected to play the festival officially, but they thought if they showed up and busked they just might get the right industry executive to hear them.
“Anyone we thought might work for a record label we approached, like, ‘Hi, we’re Hanson, can we sing for you? Who do you work for?’” recalled Zac, who was all of 8 years old at the time. His brothers weren’t much older: Isaac was 13, and Taylor had just turned 11.
They were accompanied by their parents Walker and Diana, but seemed to have a sense of ambition that was all their own. Taylor had decided very early on, he told the Austin-American Statesman in March, that he wanted to be signed to a major label at a younger age than Michael Jackson, who was a few months shy of 11 when the Jackson 5 signed to Motown. He didn’t quite accomplish this goal, but he came pretty close.
SXSW Music, which now draws over 30,000 participants each year, was a much different affair in the early ‘90s. In 1994, there were fewer than 5,000 attendees, and most of them were music industry executives. “It truly was an industry event then,” Taylor said. That year, Johnny Cash gave the keynote address, and performed at a small downtown bar called Emos, where Beck filled the opening slot. Jello Biafra, Marilyn Manson, Ben Harper, and Rodney Crowell, also had popular events at the festival.
So for three long-haired tweens singing a cappella versions of ’50s hits, this environment did not seem like an easy place to break through. “We sang for a lot of people that weekend, and almost everyone was like ‘That’s weird. Who are these three little blond kids?’” Zac said.
“It just seemed completely out of context and irrelevant compared to what was swirling around at Southby,” remembered music critic David Menconi, who attended SXSW 1994. “Which was all this kind of hipster-y stuff that critics care about, but that the public is a lot less interested in.”
The streets of downtown and Four Seasons lobby were their “stomping grounds,” that weekend, Isaac Hanson said. Roland Swenson, SXSW’s managing director, also remembered seeing them “working the halls” at the then brand new Austin Convention Center.
It was the annual SXSW softball game and BBQ at Krieg Field, though, where they finally got lucky. The game, held on a warm Sunday afternoon in late March, was the place to be on the final day of the festival. “It before the era of the SXSW Day Party, so the Sunday afternoon softball and BBQ was a pretty big deal,” Menconi said. Record labels and media outlets would play on teams against each other, while onlookers sipped beer and ate brisket in the stands.
As they had been doing in downtown Austin, Isaac, Zac and Taylor set up shop and began to sing, backed only by a boom box. “I remember seeing these little blond kids wandering around the grounds, and seeing them sort of randomly sing at some group of people,” said Nick Barbaro, one of SXSW’s founding directors.
Again, most people turned them away. “I was wandering about, beer and BBQ in hand, with a gaggle of my cynical asshole critic pals, and we came upon these three kids,” recalled Menconi. “The reaction from all of us was ‘Oh bless their hearts, that’s adorable, they’ve come to sing for their supper.'”
But one attendee, a music attorney named Christopher Sabec, who had been working with the Dave Matthews Band, heard something he liked. “I wanna be your attorney,” Zac remembered him saying. The band already had legal representation, they told him, but they did need management. Sabec agreed, right then, to become Hanson’s first manager. He followed them back to Tulsa a couple of days later, and stayed for two weeks, the band said.
“Standing in the hot sun, with the mix of porta-potties, barbeque and dust — that could be your moment,” Taylor told the Austin-American Statesman on a trip back to Krieg Field on March 16.
After quitting his job and moving to Los Angeles, Sabec made it his mission to get Hanson signed. Between 1994 and 1997 they met with and were rejected by 13 different labels, Zac said. In 1996, though, they signed a deal with Mercury records. Middle of Nowhere, their debut album, was released in May of 1997, and the first single from it, “MMMBop, “became an international hit — reaching number one on the charts in 27 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia.
“Flash forward three years, and I started hearing ‘MMMBop’ on the radio, and think, ‘Oh, that’s kind of catchy,’” remembered Menconi. “Then I saw a picture of them and realized, ‘Oh my God it’s those same kids,’” he said. “It was a humbling example of just how frickin wrong you can be.”
“It was kind of a badge of honor that we had turned down Hanson,” Nick Barabaro wrote in an email after SXSW 2017. “And that's not in any way a slam on them —just the opposite: it's like, we know there are a ton of great artists out there that we don't pick to showcase, and that's a bummer, but these guys still came anyway, and SXSW still worked for them anyway. Just the way it's supposed to work.”
When you look at the yearly highlights on the SXSW website now, Hanson are listed as having been “showcasing artists” in 1994.
Since 1997, they have released six albums, the latest of which, Anthem, came out in 2013. In 2003, after several years of struggling with major label politics, the band also founded their own independent record label, 3CG (which stands for 3 Car Garage, after a compilation of early tracks they released in 1998). They have been independent ever since.
While none of their subsequent albums have been as successful as Middle of Nowhere, they have maintained a sizeable and loyal fan base — so loyal, in fact, that some paid of $2,000 to see them perform at resort in Jamaica. And they still have an active online “fan club.” “That community was there early, a lot earlier than for most artists that are our age,” Taylor said of their web presence. Every May, they organize a three-day event for fan club members in downtown Tulsa called “Hanson Day,” where they perform, host lectures and parties, and coordinate a one-mile charity walk. According to their website, many of the ticketed events for 2017 are already sold out.
Tulsa is still home base for the band. “Over the last 10 years we’ve got a lot more actively involved in the community,” Taylor said. They have built their own recording studio there, along with the headquarters for their record label.
“I think we like the idea of being from somewhere,” said Zac. “We’ve always been from Oklahoma, and we connect with the heritage of the music that comes out of there.” Leon Russell, J.J. Cale, and Woody Guthrie are all from Oklahoma, they point out.
Since 2014, they have also hosted an annual beer and music festival in Tulsa’s Arts District called the “Hop Jam,” which is produced by their craft beer company, “Hanson Brothers Beer Co.”
“It’s not quite as bizarre as it sounds,” Taylor said of Hanson’s move into the world of craft brewing.
“It’s such a similar culture to music culture,” Isaac said.
Their interest in beer goes back several years, to their 2005-2006 “Live and Electric” tour, when Taylor and Isaac had finally reached legal drinking age (Zac would have another year to go). One of their technicians was a craft beer expert, they said, and introduced them to the different breweries in each city. “Then it just became a constant thing, trying new stuff from all over the country,” Isaac said.
During one “front lounge of the tour bus” conversation, they decided to create their own beer variety. “How cool would it be to have your own craft beer?” Isaac remembered thinking. The first step, they thought, was to think of a name.
“There are always these irreverent names for beers,” Isaac said. “So bad name 101: MMMHops.”
“It was kind of a convergence of ‘Wow, that’s a great idea’, and ‘That’s kind of so bad it’s good,’” Taylor said. After a long stretch of planning, creating recipes, and tasting, they launched the “Hanson Brothers Beer Company” in April 2013, along with their flagship beer, MMMHops, a pale ale. “MMMHops: From the Guys Who Invented MMMBop,” the label reads.
The beer is primarily available in Oklahoma (where it is sold at 80 different locations), but is also sold in certain venues in Chicago, Kansas City, Orlando and St. Louis. They are planning to bring it to some shows on the “Middle of Everything” tour, but are not certain about specific locations.
Given Hanson’s attachment to their hometown, it was fitting that the main showcase they played at SXSW this year was for the Tulsa Office of Film, Music, Arts and Culture.
The show, on the outdoor stage of Bungalow in Austin’s Rainey Street district, seemed to reach capacity long before Hanson were set to begin. Outside the gates, at 11 p.m., a long line of 25 to 30-somethings stood waiting, hoping to get in. That night, Rick Ross, Future Islands, Spoon, French Montana and hundreds of other acts were playing in different venues around the city, but these people had chosen to be here, to see Hanson.
The band started almost an hour late, due to technical issues. They didn’t have their usual backline, and hadn’t been able to sound check, they said. When they did eventually start, none of them were able to hear their monitors. Zac later described the event as a “throw and go” show. “You just let the muscle memory kick in and enjoy yourself,” he said. “Don’t even worry about what you can’t hear.”
Even so, the crowd didn’t seem to mind and the set, which they said was shorter than they had planned for, still managed to span their 25-year career. They began with a song called “Fired Up,” from 2013’s Anthem, followed by their second single “Where’s the Love,” from 1997.
They didn’t shy away from their very early songs, allowing the crowd several nostalgic moments. It sounded like the whole room was singing along to “A Minute Without You,” and of course “MMMBop” from Middle of Nowhere, along with “If Only” and “This Time Around,” the title track of their second album.
This energy was sustained through most of their newer songs, too, including an unreleased track called “I Was Born.” A surprising number of people even seemed to know the lyrics to the brand new song. “It had good energy,” Taylor said after the show. “It was loud, and it was raucous and it felt really good.”
“It takes you back to the first bar gigs you play,” said Zac, before remembering how old he was at those first gigs – he hadn’t even turned double digits. “We’d have to play on the patio outside, with the dumpster behind you.” Maybe it even felt a little bit like their first SXSW.
In 2017, “Southby is still an important part of our story,” Isaac said. “We met our first manager there and we also had really good barbeque,” he said. “It was the first time I had some proper Texas brisket, and I went, ‘OK, I get it. This might change my life.’”