The Hanson brothers were a little-known threesome from Tulsa, Okla., before the ubiquitous "MMMBop" turned them into international teen-pop idols. Three years and numerous haircuts, voice changes, and growth spurts later, Isaac, Zac and Taylor Hanson return with their long-awaited follow-up, This Time Around.

Featuring guest turns by such artists as Blues Traveler's John Popper and Jonny Lang, This Time Around is a full-fledged rock-and-roll album. The work has more in common with that of bluesy rock artists like Shannon Curfman than with the Backstreet Boys or 'NSync, artists who are Hanson's ostensible peers.

CDNOW sat down with Hanson recently to talk about making records, being famous, and growing up.

Special Video Feature: Hanson
The members of Hanson have come a long way since their 1997 breakthrough hit "MMMBop." Join the brothers for a unique look at life on the road and hear what they have to say about traveling and their fans.

CDNOW: Your new record sounds a lot more rock and roll than the last one.

Zac: It's taken a twist; it has just kind of evolved, and that's what music always does, as we've said many times. Music keeps changing, and that's really the beauty of it. You don't have to be this or that. You can be anything in the spectrum of classical to death metal.

Taylor: Of course we wouldn't be classical.

Zac: Everything is possible, and you don't have to stay in this area as a band or a group. You can change your style and go back to...

Taylor: You can always do something new.

Isaac: That's also particularly true with us, because we're always wanting to try something new. Every song that you write and every day that goes by, something changes slightly. Therefore, with the more time that goes by, the more differences there will be.

When you listen to the first album, can you describe what changes have happened since then?

Isaac: You know, what's funny is that people are always saying that there are so many changes on this album, and I think that I don't really hear so many differences. Actually, I hear more similarities than differences.

Taylor: Yeah, there's definitely a change, but I think you can still listen to it and go, "Yeah, that's Hanson."

When you look at the career of [This Time Around guest star] Jonny Lang, he started out really young, too. He has definitely evolved, and people really look up to him now, and respect him. Do you feel like you're following that same path?

Taylor: Well, it's hard to say whether people are looking up to us at this point, but I think it is cool to have people acknowledge us and say, "This is a really good record." And we've gotten a great response from people in the industry and from critics, and people talking about the album, and that is always a very cool thing. It is cool to be able to go from one thing and continue to change, and not only have people in the industry say, "I like this." And to have your fans, most importantly, kind of grow up, and change [too]. You know, three years between the last album, and this album to the next album, they'll grow up, and it's interesting to kind of take them on a little bit of a ride and a journey of music.

Do you want to keep that same fan base? You know everyone wants to keep the fans that they have, but do you want to keep that?

Taylor: Put it this way, if you start complaining about your fans, like, "It has to be between this age demographic … You can't like us if you're this or that." If you have fans, that's great.

Isaac: That's really where we stand on it all, because music is for everybody. We are not saying, "Let's write a song for a 15-year-old or a 35-year-old, or someone in the middle." That's not what it's about for us. We are just writing music that comes out of us, and it hopefully can appeal to a lot of different people, and I think it really does. It's just a matter of whether people gravitate towards the music or not.

And you've all grown as well. How does that play into it? You got haircuts for instance. Lots of people commented on that.

Taylor: Basically, we're just taller. Yes, we are bigger and taller and that is different, but when we cut our hair, first it was, "When are you gonna cut your hair?" and now it's, "Why did you cut your hair?" No matter what you do, people are going to question it. And if it weirded us out by this point, then we would have to go see a psychiatrist and stuff, because the little things that the band would never care about are things that people are going to talk about.

Zac: We think it's really funny.

Isaac: There are multiple levels of that kind of stupidity.

Taylor: We just kind of go, "OK, whatever," and then when people start wondering about toothbrushes or boxers, we say, "OK, I'm not going to answer that."

Isaac: Of course we've grown up; it happens. We're young guys, and in three years, things change.

Taylor: And we'll continue to get older and grow.

Isaac: It will probably be that way for the next five or six years at least.

Taylor: Actually, you know what, we'll always be getting older.

Zac: Hey, guess what? We turn 25; we're going to get gray hair, and then wow, it's gonna change. And then we're going to get flabby.

Isaac: I doubt we'll have gray hair at 25.

Zac: Then all these different things. Like our hair will grow in, and come out on our faces.

Taylor: OK, she [the interviewer] gets the idea.

What about other things? You guys are brothers, and you're always playing music together. Do you ever get a chance to...

"The little things that the band would never care about are things that people are going to talk about." -- Taylor Hanson

Taylor: Do our own thing? Or just be brothers?

Isaac: "Be brothers," that's a weird phrase.

Taylor: Well, we are brothers and in a band all at the same time. And when somebody says, "Do you have time to have fun when you're being in the band all the time?" Well, we're always having fun in the band. Of course, there's the work. There are always those things, but it's kind of all-in-one. The fact that we're brothers and that fact that we're in a band is like the same thing. Because we do both, and that's just what we are.

Isaac: A lot of the time, in our free time, we'll sit down and play piano or the guitar, because that's who we are. That's who we are; that's what we love. It can be one of the most relaxing things, or it can be one of the most intense moments of your life.

Taylor: And then you're just normal. I mean, when you go home you see your friends or you go to movies or...

Isaac: You do all kinds of things … all kinds of crazy weird things like that. Who would have thunk it? Three guys from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and then [makes hand movement] whish!

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 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 going to 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.

"MMMBop" was just an enormously huge hit. Did you think of that as a blessing or a curse? There was that skit on Saturday Night Live …

Zac: First of all, with that you've got to make fun of yourself.

Isaac: It's Saturday Night Live.

Taylor: You should always be able to laugh at yourself, because you always should have a sense of humor about your own self. But as far as whether it was a good or bad thing, of course it was a good thing. The success of the last album is the reason why we have a second album. And that's enabled you to have fans all over the world and made it possible to continue doing it, so yeah, it's a huge, huge blessing.