There's also no denying the impact that these clean-scrubbed young lads have had on both pop music and pop culture. Not only have they almost singlehandedly kick-started the sagging teen pinup mag industry (not since the peak years of Duran Duran mania have so many issues of Tiger Beat and 16 flown off the shelves, and it's all thanks to picture-perfect cover boys Hanson), their guileless feel-good pop has, for better or worse, ushered in a carefree new bubblegum era that includes the sugary sounds of Aqua, Savage Garden...and yes, the Spice Girls.

~Lyndsey Parker for Launch.com

Thanks to CrisST85 for the use of her collage of the guys in Monterrey!

"It's ironic, " reflects Donny, "because for a guy like Miles Copeland, who is so wired-into business to make this happen, is amazing because the Bootcamp is not a business. But I think because it wasn't concerned with business, it turns out to be incredible business. I mean, how else would I have a chance to write with Hanson?"

~"The Verve Pipe's Donny Brown Gets Invited To Miles Copeland's 'Songwriter's Bootcamp'", www.vervepipeings.com, by Robert E. Martin, 2001

Thank you, Marica, for sending in the Dodger video collage!

C: Every article I've read recently describes, in detail, your pubescence. Is that annoying?

Zac: Well, I find it slightly annoying sometimes, just because it's basically way off the point. I mean the point of everything is we're doing music, whether we are prepubescent or whatever the heck, I think unfortunately sometimes that does get blown out of scale, the whole young thing, but everyone has to deal with something, and if ours is the fact that we're young, well, we're not going to be young all the time.

~"Cadenza Chats With the Princes of Pop", by Matthew Haber, 10/19/00

Thanks to Mandy for sending in today's graphic of Zac!

This isn't the first time Hanson has made a surprise appearance with a more seasoned musical act; the brothers were surprise guests of Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir at a benefit in New York two years ago.

~"Hanson Joins Ben Folds Onstage In Los Angeles", by Jeff Miller for Allstar/CDNow, October 17, 2001

"Loud praise for your wonderful article on the Hanson brothers and their grandmother! I am 25 and have been a Hanson fan since they made it big in 1997. You hit the nail on the head when you said they are talented and respectful."

~Dave Neill, Salem, Oregon, Letter to the Editor, Modern Maturity Magazine, September/October 2001

"I don't think of myself as a rock star, it's more like musician." He explains, "I've always done music basically as far as I can remember. I've been performing live and writing songs and making records my whole life. It's not like all of a sudden I'm like in a band. It's just something I've always done. It's not really about the rock star thing it's all about the music. And that's what it will always be about. As far as me being the cute one, if they knew me they wouldn't say that. I'm about the opposite of that in the band."

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

Unlike the factory-made, prepackaged project/product the Spice Girls--to whom Hanson are often unfairly and erroneously compared--Hanson are blessed with organic talent.

~Lyndsey Parker for Launch.com

What are some of the best compliments you've recieved from fans?

Taylor: It's inspiring when we get letters from people saying "You've changed our lives" or "I was gonna commit suicide, and not I'm not because of one of your songs."

Isaac: Those are cool! But even the littlest compliments like somebody walking up and saying, "I just wanted to say I really like your music and I think you guys are cool", encourages us to keep going. Not only because we love doing it, but because people identify with our music and actually get something out of it.

~Jump magazine, June/July, 2000

C: Who's hotter, Britney or Christina?

Zac: You know, I've got someone else in mind, but I'm not gonna say.

~"Cadenza Chats With the Princes of Pop", by Matthew Haber, 10/19/00

Ooh, wonder who that was??

The pop trio had previously discussed their desire to work with Folds on future projects, and their admiration of the songwriter was obvious as they bowed, a la Wayne and Garth, as they made their way offstage.

~"Hanson Joins Ben Folds Onstage In Los Angeles", by Jeff Miller for Allstar/CDNow, October 17, 2001

Taylor: "We're just gonna be happy to be there, and enjoy it and all that."

Isaac: "and enjoy them saying 'And the nominees are . . .'"

Zac: "I think that's when the show's at its best . . . 'grammys -- and the nominees are'" (Zac flutters his eyes and makes a spasmodic movement.)

Taylor: "Zac, I think that's your vibrating underwear."

~ITZ commenting on their grammy nomination, E channel interview, February 1998

We didn't start playing instruments as a band until I was nine. That's when we got drums and guitars. We'd all played piano before, classical piano, but we hadn't really done it in the pop/rock music sense. And then we got instruments and we started playing live with the band.

~Zac, Nick Interview, January 2001

I've always dabbled in the drums. But I am a guitarist not a drummer, so I would refrain from saying that I actually play the drums.

~Isaac, Yahoo chat, 12.24.00

"The earnings are divided in three parts,"says Taylor, who's comfortably lying on a gigantic king-sized matress in a suite of the Four Seasons Hotel, while Zac and Isaac are sitting on chairs nearby. "Someday we won't live together anymore and then we will need separate accounts anyway."

The share is identical for all three of them because they have decided not to make narrow-minded differences in songwriting. "Hey! I wrote the bridge, it's much more important than the song," jokes Zac in between. "The song has 400 bars, we have to divide the incomes in 400 bars!"

Isaac smiles and shakes his head: "This is exacly what we want to avoid."

~Musikexpress Sounds, May 2000

Hmmm. I always wonder about these foreign interviews. Sometimes they sound a bit odd to me. Maybe something is lost in the translation, I don't know, but this doesn't sound like the type of thing the guys usually discuss in interviews. BUT, the whole point of me including this quote in the first place is not what was said, it is the fact that it mentions Taylor was lying on a giant king sized bed! Ahhh, VISUALIZE, ladies, VISUALIZE! See, I bet you didn't even comprehend anything after you read THAT fact anyway, now DID you? LOL

NO: When you guys are playing, what's the craziest thing anybody's ever thrown onstage?

ZAC: We get all kinds of things. There are so many rumors about things that we love. I made a comment about Shamu in a magazine as a joke, and for the life of me, people won't stop giving me Shamu dolls, and the big floaty pool toys and stuff. And it's like "Ok, it was a joke, get over it, please!" But you get lots of stuff.

~Zac, Nick Interview, January 2001

Thank you Shirley, for the cool pic!

ZAC: You know, I actually don't know. Ike, he had always been the fondest for guitar, and to tell you the truth, I think part of it was that I found it slightly hard to hold the guitar. And Tay was a better piano player than I was. Tay played drums for a while, but never really live. He learned some drum stuff when I was taking some lessons.

NO: He's good though, I saw you guys in Oklahoma City, when you were out singing...

ZAC: Yeah, he's playing a left handed set, also, so that doesn't help. But Tay's definitely a pretty good drummer, he's definitely decent.

~Nick Interview, Jan 2001

Thanks very much to Enid for letting us use her picture on HAD today!

I feel like a very lucky person to do what I do, to express myself through music and for people hopefully to enjoy it and be inspired by it, and I wouldn't want to do anything else.

~Isaac, Yahoo Chat, December 24, 2000

Happy 21st birthday, Isaac, you wonderful sweetie! :)

For years, they impress with acapella versions of "Summertime Blues" and other rock'n roll classics. Finally in 1995, lawyer Christopher Sabec, astounded, interrupts his dinner to hear them sing. He signed as their manager and recommended the young talents to twelve major labels, which all politely turned his offer down. The first one to show interest was Mercury Records, and 24 months later, Walker's sons were among the most screamed at teenagers of the planet.

~Musikexpress Sounds, May 2000

We just started playing when I was about six years old. We started singing as a group. We had done it before then, but that was our first official concert. And then after that you continue singing and writing songs, and then instruments facilitate writing songs and performing live. So we kept playing for a long time, and we've been a band for I guess close to nine years.

~Zac, Nick interview, January, 2001

When you're going out in your hometown, don't you guys get mobbed?

Taylor: Not "mobbed" or beaten with bats.

Zac: "Mobbed" signifies, like, large crowds of people that hate you with giant pitchforks and torches, you know? I think it's more like hit up for autographs.

Taylor: Yes, but you just deal with it -- people asking for autographs. You just know that when you go somewhere, someone is going to recognize you or say "Can I have your autograph?"

Isaac: You can never really anticipate what the issue is, you know? All you can do is just go to a coffee shop, and somebody may ask you to sign something, but it's just you don't necessarily go to certain places.

Taylor: You're like, "Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't go to the mall today." But it's just kind of like, if you decided that you were never goingto go out and do stuff and if you were afraid of signing autographs and stuff, than you would be, like, locked in your room and never doing anything. So you just do it and have a good time, and it's cool. It's cool to sign autographs for people as long as it's not too much of a pain.

~CDNOW video interview, By Allison Stewart CDNOW Senior Editor, Pop/R&B and Lori Raso CDNOW Video Producer

Thanks, Marie!

mn_darling19: How do you guys feel about the online auctions prices of your old indie releaseds, like begginings and boomerang. Hundreds of dollars!!! Does it shock u?

HANSON Isaac: I guess is someone is willing to pay $100 or however much it is for those records, then I guess it's fine. I don't particularly have a problem with it...If you want it then you want it...I definitely think it's shocking that people would be willing to pay exorbitant prices for records that are definitely....independent.

~Isaac, Yahoo chat, 12/24/00

"I love live shows. I think the focus should be on the music and not on anything else. I don't care for a lot of the rest of the stuff. I think if your band is good enough you don't have to distract people."

~Jewel

'Nuff said!

Happy Thanksgiving you guys!

"We're going to the monkey forest. The people at the hotel told us to watch our wallets because they'll swipe them. The monkeys."

~Zac, TTMON

Awwww....that was one of the most adorable Zac moments on that video, don't you think? {{Little Zac}}

"Tulsa is a very nice place, a lot of very friendly people, it's a very laid back place."

~Isaac, Yahoo Chat, 12/24/00

Well, the three of us were certainly charmed by the place! Someone call a Tulsa realtor, we're ready to move there!

Flying across the desert in a TWA, I saw a woman walking across the sand She been a-walkin' thirty miles en route to Bombay To get a brown eyed handsome man Her destination was a brown eyed handsome man

~Brown Eyed Handsome Man, Chuck Berry

"Hanson separated themselves from the other teen acts to chart in the late '90s by actually playing their own instruments and writing their own songs."

~Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits

"They're gonna be giants in American music if they continue their trajectory."

~Bob Weir, jambands.com, October 2000

"Longevity, thy name might well turn out to be Hanson."

~San Francisco Chronicle, August 7, 2000

"Mark my words, these Hanson kids are here to stay. They're for real."

~ Flint, MI Journal, 1998

Labeled a boyband, but crawling out of that rut to earn a stripe or two in the rock world, the three siblings are quite a team.

~Live From Albertane Review, The Star, Malyasia

Thanks to the Hanson Hotel for the quote. :)