After three years of resting, writing and recuperating, the band came back this spring with the amazing This Time Around. At the ripe old ages of 19, 17 and 14, the boys were ready to rock. “It was a natural evolution of the band," Taylor says. “The songwriting, the voices. I think with three years goiing by, you’re going to try new things. You’re going to experiment.”

But in a time of pop, the guys’ experimental sophomore effort wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms at first. This was due, in part, to their lingering early image--which, needless to say, was very frustrating for the guys. Think about it, haven’t you ever looked back at a picture of yourself from a few years ago and asked, “Why did I do my hair that way?” or “Why did I wear that?” Now imagine that happening in front of millions of record buyers! Talk about embarrassing!

One of the first things Ike and Taylor did to prepare for their comeback was part with their signature feature--their long golden locks. That’s right, the boys both chopped off their hair--which wasn’t nearly as awfulf or them as for some of their loyal fans.

“There’s this Hanson hotline where people call up and say [fake crying] ‘Oh, we support you!’” Taylor says. “Then their are other people who are like, ‘Dude, it’s cool.’ It’s hair. I mean, it grows back.” Zac’s mane, however, is longer than ever. “I always thought it would be cool to have short hair,” Zac says. “Ike has not promoted having short hair.”

“I swear,” Ike says, “I’ve had so many more bad hair days than when I had long hair.”

Now, with their hot new looks and a brand new sound, the guys are ready to be looked at not as a boy band, but simply as a band. “Technically, we are boys. We are a band,” Ike says. “In truth, we’re really just a band. The reason we get put in the boy-band category is because we have a lot of young fans. There is definitely a certain bias because we are young,” Zac agrees. And he believes he has pinpointed the reason for the misconception.

“We’re not ugly,” he says. “The point is, people focus on the hair, the girlfriends, all that stuff, and it’s not something we care about. Ask us about writing songs. Ask us about writing music.”

And writing music is the guys’ strong point. Not only did the guys write all of the songs on This Time Around, but the new songs deal with more serious subject matter, such as war and true love--which causes disbelief in some of their critics.

“People make the mistake that because you are young, they think you can’t express feelings or that you can’t describe them with a straight face,” Taylor says. “I dunno, we’ve been writing about that kind of stuff since we were maybe 5 years old.”

And just where do they get their inspirations? I can come from anything, anyone or anywhere, the guys say. A big influence was their 1998 tour. “A lot of these songs were written while we were traveling,” Taylor says. “While we we’re in a hotel room with a little piano.”

The guys also say they’re influenced by people they’ve met, places they’ve seen and just from living in a fishbowl of fame. But they also say just growing up is an inspiration of its own, even though they don’t necessarily see the changes all the time.

“People go, “Wow! you guys have really changed a lot.’” Taylor says. “And we’re like, ‘Really? Wow, I didn’t notice it.’ And we were actually listening back to Middle of Nowhere, and we were actually going, ‘Oh wow.’ It’ll be interesting to see how people respond because if you’re only familiar with ‘MMMBop’ and you haven’t really listened through Middle of Nowhere, followed by This Time Around, it’s gonna be quite a jump for people and they’re gonna go, “That’s really different!”

If you were pleasantly surprised with the edginess of This Time Around, then you’ll be in for a shock when it comes to Hanson’s future albums. In the style of classic rockers such as the Beatles, the band hopes to evolve into a legendary musical force. Along with age will come experience and a more adult--but still signature Hanson--sound.

“The music is going to continue to change,” Taylor says. “The next record is going to be different, and the record after that is going to be different. I’m just hoping we’ll be able to do it for a long time... Musically, I hope we’ll still be talking to reports 40 years from now.”