Hanson started all the confusion of what a "Boy Band" truly is composed of. The boys are young, cute, and their music does appeal to the mass of teenys, but they are not a true "Boy Band." They do look good, they do dress well, and they do harmonize. However, they do not dance and they do not heavily depend on synthesized music, instead they go back to the important basics of writing and playing their own music.

~Debra Halpern, Staffwriter, The Tartan, "Reviewer Analyzes Definition of 'Boy Band' to Discover Hanson's New Image", October 2, 2000

"It's all about going out there, performing live, making music. But, obviously, being a guy who has thousands of screaming female fans doesn't exactly make it less fun."

~Zac, "Hanson Works To Bridge Gap From Teeny-Bop To Adulthood", by Steve Penhollow for journalgazette.net, October 8, 2000

Hanson's first encore was a violently pure cover: "Sunshine of Your Love." It was a juicy display of reverence for classic rock. That's the cool thing about Hanson. "This Time Around" has it in spades. Their creative force is tempered by historical sense, humor and love. These gents can write rock.

~Hanson Rocks Lloyd Noble Center, by Doug Hill, November 10, 2000

Enjoy your Holiday today! :o)

Hanson is the anti-MTV definition of a "Boy Band." The dirty work of a "Boy Band" is for N'SYNC, Backstreet Boys, and 98 Degrees. Hanson, BBMak, and even the dreaded Canadian band The Moffatts do not follow in the "Boy Band" category. If one were to associate them with true "Boy Bands" than one should toss in the Goo Goo Dolls, Third Eye Blind and the rest of the pretty boys of pop. It is time for MTV's generation to be able to recognize the difference between raw talent and manufactured talent.

~Debra Halpern, Staffwriter, The Tartan, "Reviewer Analyzes Definition of 'Boy Band' to Discover Hanson's New Image", October 2, 2000

"I don't have a drummer; really a list of drummers I admire. But, to be honest, I'm not really all that interested in flashiness. I just want to be one of those guys who just does a solid job of keeping it funky, who just sits back there and keeps the beats steady and fat. Those guys are underrated. I don't want to be known as an amazing drummer. There are lots of amazing drummers who blew themselves up and are dead now," Zac says, laughing.

~"Hanson Works To Bridge Gap From Teeny-Bop To Adulthood", by Steve Penhollow for journalgazette.net, October 8, 2000

Much of Hanson's strength is in its own apparent affection for guilty pleasure pop music; this is a band with a great deal of knowledge of blues, R&B and classic rock, yet it faithfully returns to sugar-coated hooks. Songs, particularly "Lucy" and "If Only," were centered around simple major chord struts and meticulous harmonies; even an a cappella finale of "This Time Around" showed the blond-locked siblings' considerable deft at layering its vocals.

~Brad Cawn, "Sweet Style", for chicagotribune.com, October 4, 2000

What would you do on a date to make it really cool?

Z: Go skygiving!

I: It could be any of a bazillion things.

Z: The thing is, you could plan the ultimate date, and something could still go wrong and screw it all up.

T: You can have the best time going to a movie or a romantic dinner. If you want to do crazy stuff then you can take her skydiving. It depends on the girl.

I: Hopefully, she's the kind of girl who doesn't mind if it's not perfectly romantic-she has a good time because she enjoys my company, and vice versa. That's actually what makes any relationship good at the end of that day.

~Jump magazine, June/July, 2000

Yet there was a certain playfulness exuded upon messing up "Money"--they are, remember, just kids--and they imbued "Love Song" and "Runaway Run" with a colorful innocence, even as they subtly gave "Mmm Bop" a slightly rougher sheen. It may not have been all that much to sink into, but the sprightly hooks sure tasted good going down.

~Brad Cawn, "Sweet Style", for chicagotribune.com, October 4, 2000

Every single day you write a song, your writing changes. You get better on your instrument. I know I'm a much better guitarist than I was three years ago. Of course, that's all relative; I would never say I'm a great guitarist. But you know more chords and you're smoother on your blues scale, so that changes how you write. You try out heavier stuff and softer stuff, even if it's stuff people would never expect from Hanson.

~Hanson Is the Only Teen Band That Matters, guitar.com, March 2001

They won't bite you. But they're the snakes, when they get really big they get huge, then they'll choke you. And then they'll eat ya.

~Zac, TTMON

A huge thanks to Marica for today's cool HAD. It is from the CD UK Show, May 2000. :) Enjoy!

Well, yes, the songs do reflect our feelings. But if we wrote literally, all the songs would be, "I'm in a hotel room and I'm all alone and feeling sad," and that wouldn't be very interesting. So you have to come from somewhere else, from the perspective of another character. It's like writing a story.

~Isaac, Hanson Is the Only Teen Band That Matters, guitar.com, March 2001

"In the long term, it's going wherever it goes. We're doing the kind of music that comes naturally coming out. I know I'm going to be around-just whether it's successful or not....I'm going to be doing music, and making records and performing live for a really long time."

~Zac, "Hanson, In For the Long Run", by Craig McKee for WestSide, Motreal, Canada, September 27, 2000

Hanson is the only teen band that matters.

In a pop-music world dominated by acts like 'N Sync, Christina Aguilera and the Backstreet Boys, Hanson is the one most likely to last. That's because these three blond boys from Tulsa, Oklahoma, are not puppets dangling from the strings of some adult svengali. Isaac, Taylor and Zach Hanson play their own instruments, write their own songs, sing their own harmonies and co-produce their own albums.

~Hanson is the Only Teen Band That Matters, guitar.com, March 2000

PeachJJ: Hi Zac, what country that you've visited had the best food?

Zachary: Ohhh..that all depends on what kind of food you like. Me, I'm a meat and potatoes kinda guy. So the States serve me pretty well.

Zachary: But there's always something good in other coutnries...

Zachary: whether you're in Japan and want some Raman noodles or you're in Italy and want some Italian food.

Zachary: Or you're in Ireland and want some haggis.

~Transcript from the Fox.com chat with Hanson, August 17, 2000

Anyone know what the heck he is talking about? Haggis? LOL

cissi_and_emma: Hi Ike!!!Do u write poems??? - Emma and Cissi, 14, Sweden

Isaac: Well, in essence, songs are poems. Just with a melody!

Isaac: But also, I do write poems from time to time. But most of the time those poems turn into a song!

~Transcript from the Fox.com chat with Hanson August 17, 2000

itzatwin asks:"When collaborating on a song, do you think you contribute more to the music, or the lyrics?

Hanson answers: It's easier if you collaborate in music because definitely lyrics are something you stew over for hours or weeks. You can't have music without lyrics and vice versa.

~Hanson.net Chat, July 2001

"Naturally, people are going to think, you know, "Kid group," you know, that we don't play and we don't write, and we don't sing, and it's all fake. But, it's not."

~Zac, MTV , July 9, 1997

But Hanson is undeniably hipper, chiefly because, unlike their manufactured counterparts, the brothers actually play instruments, write or co-write their songs, and came together as a group naturally.

~Wall of Sound, July 3, 1998

Isaac: We've had people like Lenny Kravitz walk up to us and say, "Hey, I really love your record." And we're thinking, Whoa, Lenny Kravitz knows who we are and he likes our music. That was really cool. Actually, we've been embraced by many of our musical peers.

~ Jump Magazine, June/ July 2000

There's one more thing you need to know about Hanson: Zac's a Pepper. "I favor Dr. Pepper, yes," he says. "It's one of the sweeter colas."

~Rolling Stone, November 25, 1999

Ike: What hobbies? Well, we have dirt bikes which is fun. So, we ride those from time to time whenever we get the opportunity, which is cool. But hobbies, gosh! I dunno, we rock climb a little bit.

~ KJ103 Oklahoma City, April 3, 2000

Zac: I don't think I would ever say 'best written song ever', but one of the songs that didn't get on the album that I really beat myself over the head for for a long time, was a song called, 'Bridges of Stone.' I think that song is just a really cool song. It's one of the only songs that was on the album at one point but actually was kinda personal experience. It's about some friends of ours who got a divorce and the guy kinda was saying 'Was it me? Was it her?' you know, 'why did this go wrong?' and eventually saying, 'You've just got to move on and you can't let it, you know.

~ KJ103 Oklahoma City, April 3, 2000

Isaac: Oh... it's incredibly lucky. (laughs) We're sitting here going, 'Wow, three guys from Tulsa, Oklahoma and we've been to Paris like nearly a dozen times'. You know, that's just frightening. So, we're incredibly shocked and just excited about the new record coming out. And we feel privileged to have the opportunity to do this kind of stuff.

~Star 98.9 Interview, April 11, 2000

Whoa, Zac, the drummer for Hanson, is seven feet tall! Okay, not really. But when you crack the door to the studio where the teen-bro trio is jamming between recording sessions, the first thing you notice is that the pip-squeak is gone, his lanky ringer being a pony-tailed, piccolo snare-popping Iron Giant.

~Entertainment Weekly, October 29, 1999

Rolling Stone put it pretty bluntly: They make "all other teen idols sound like Gerber-sucking clowns."

~Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 10, 2000

"I've wanted to do music for a very, very long time," the 14-year-old rock star says. "It's not something that someone can take out of me, and tell me, 'OK, you're going to perform this song, and your dance or whatever it is, and you're going to be the cute one and you're going to like the color green.' It's not like that; it's never going to be like that, because I love doing it too much. Music and performing and being a part of every single aspect of what I do is too much in me for anything like that to ever happen."

~Zac, "Portrait of Hanson", by Jeff Napier for Nuvo.net

A band is a musical group who plays their own instruments. A vocal group sings but doesn't play. So all those so-called boy bands -- 'N Sync, 98 Degrees, the Backstreet Boys -- aren't really bands.

But Hanson is. And since all three of the Oklahoma-bred Hanson brothers, 19-year-old Isaac, 17-year-old Taylor and 14-year-old Zac, are still under the age of 20, they pretty much still hold the title of "boy band" all by themselves.

~"Handsome is as Hanson Does", by Leslie Gray Streeter, 9/11/00

wakkogurl asks: "Who's your fave celeb?"

Hanson answers: (Isaac) Cindy Crawford, or maybe Jonny Lang, although he's more like a friend than a celebrity to me.

~H.net chat, September 12, 2000

"In the future, when teen-pop acts such as 'N Sync and Brittney Spears are as thoroughly forgotten as the New Kids on the Block and Tiffany are today, Hanson will still be remembered in the same way Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers and the Jackson 5 are - as rare examples of puppy-love rock done right."

~Geoffrey Hime, critic for the Washington Post, December 29, 2000

Mr. Hime also chose "This Time Around" as his 6th top pick of the year! :o)