fayetteville, Arkansas    Bud Walton Arena Interview
(I tried to type everything word for word so it would be just like the
   real thing, but it wasn't easy to hear all things said)


            June 4, 1998

So guys, how did this new album come together?

Ike:   Um, this is actually - it's funny people say it's a new album, 
       it's actually an old album, that's the irony about it.  Um, this
       is the music that actually got us signed.  It has the original
       versions of MMMBop, Thinking Of You and With You In Your Dreams
       which are all on Middle Of Nowhere.

Tay:   Yah, songs that were recorded you know just locally in our home
       town just kind of tryin' to get signed as demos to push to
       different record companies.  So you kind of, it's really there
       because the fans just kept asking and asking and asking, so  we
       said yeah, here it is.

That's what I heard, that there was such a demand for more material 
from your fans that you had to put something else out there.


Ike:   Yeah we just, you know we decided just because there were so
       many requests for the old stuff because we've mentioned in a lot
       of interviews, we've talked about the old recordings and every-
       thing like that we decided that - we got so many requests - we 
       decided to put it out, so.


Is that exciting, how does that make you feel Zac to know that all 
these fans want this music out there?


Zac:   Uh,  you know it's a pretty cool feeling to think that you have 
       that many fans...


Yeah


Tay:   Wanting to hear your music, definitely
Ike:   Yeah

Yeah definitely, and you did this in a garage too or is it just 
different studios, that kind of thing you were working..


Tay:  No this was just - 3 Car Garage is really, it's just independent,
      it was, I mean there's nothing special about it, we just, we did
      about 4 hours a song, and it's, you know it's there, it's 
      independent stuff, I mean it's..

Ike:  Yeah, it was actually done in a garage, it was actually done in
      a 1 car garage, not a 3 car garage.  Um, and just on 8 track 
      recorders, spent 4 hours a song mixing and recording and you 
      know it's..

Tay:  A couple years ago, yeah

Ike:  couple years ago


Well now, you've written over a hundred songs, right?


Ike:  It's a lot.  

Tay:  (answering at same time, I think he says): we're always writing
      songs, yeah


'cause music's so important to you, you're always writing something, 
putting something together.  What's your process like, how do you do
that?

Ike:  Um...

Zac:  You know, just kinda comes naturally, whatever you're thinking
      about usually, sometimes you see somethin', you go OH!, that
      would be the... you come up with an idea

Ike:   .. a song..yeah I mean you know sometimes one of you will come up
      with an idea and then kind of throw it at the other guy and say,
      what do you think of this? and you know and you'll probably 
      finish the song or say Oh that's not very good.

Tay:  And you're always, whenever you're writing songs it's just, you
      know whatever comes to your mind, something you think about

Ike:  Sometimes you're on the bus and you're playing the guitar and 
      all of a sudden you know you look out the window and maybe you
      see green grass, but it inspires you to write a song about
      something totally different, you never know.


Yeah, I mean here you are now pop stars, and that's kind of a weird
feeling a little bit, but


Ike:  Yeah it definitely is...


Does it limit you that you have all these people around you making 
things happen for you, does that limit you from the normal fun stuff
you like to do, like you want to get pizza or something?


Tay:  We're, you know, we're not, we're not pop stars, we're just three
      guys that got lucky enough..


To us you are!


Tay:  ...to make music, yeah.  I think we're, I think it's just cool
      to get to make, to get to do what we've always wanted to do and
      that's what we're doing right now.  I think, hopefully we'll be
      able to keep doing it, yeah.

Ike:  and really it doesn't limit you or nothing, actually we do just
      what we normally used to do, It's just, I guess sometimes you
      think about the consequences a little bit more, but you know go 
      to movies, go to the mall, that kind of stuff, we just do 
      whatever we normally would do, yeah.


yeah, now how 'bout the fun stuff that you never expected to do because
of what you're doing.


Ike:  Oh, well like, we've travelled to so many countries now, it's
      incredible and the fact that we have fans in all those countries,
      is just, is just incredibly humbling is really the only way, the
      only way to put it.  I mean because not only does your own
      country embrace your music, but other countries do, that's just
      very very cool.

Zac:  One of the cool parts is when they don't even speak your
      language and they're singing your song in English

Ike:  Yeah, that's pretty wild, 'cause that's something you don't
      really experience in the States.


Yeah, that's true, speaking of that, you have this Albertane Tour 
coming up..


Ike:  hmmm mmm


..tell me what's that about, tell me what's going on with that.


Tay:  Uh, we're just going to be touring, it's really a pretty short
      tour, just because we wanna get out and play, we've wanted to
      play for the last year and finally we're just going to get out
      and play some shows.  We'll be doing around the States, a few 
      dates in Europe, and then in Canada, you know we're just very
      psyched about getting to play some shows and looking forward to
      it very much.

Ike:  Actually after this show here in Fayetteville, we're then heading
      to Paris to do the show


Paris, France Wow!


Ike:  Yeah, it's going to be pretty cool.
 

Have you played there before?


Ike: Uh, we've been there before, actually haven't played a concert
     yet, so that's going to be very very exciting for us.


Wow, now I hear that someday you may or may not go to college or you're
thinking about it, where do you want to go?


Ike:  yeah, um I, you know I haven't really thought about where exactly
      I want to go....

Zac:  I think he's thought about kind of a college...

Ike:  (not sure what he says)

Zac:  with a school

Ike:  yeah that helps!

Zac:  and you know, teachers...

Ike:  and books..um, you know we, you know you're always preparing for
      college, preparing for the SATs and all that and we're doing
      that, um, but as far as exactly what college you go to, I really
      don't know, it just kind of depends, I'm still waiting to 
      finish high school, which I'm dying to do.


What's it like now, the schooling situation, how do you do that?


Ike:  Um, it's just, you just continue to do it on the road like, you 
      know we've home-schooled all our lives so we have the books with
      us that we take them on the road with us and you know you do 
      your algebra and all that kind of stuff on the road and it's
      pretty cool, actually it really makes for an interactive 
      education, because you can study about the countries that you're
      in and you get more of an interactive history lesson or 
      literature lesson about that kind of stuff.


Yeah, now speaking of interactive, you got this website, Hansonline


Ike:  yes,Hansonline.com


That's very cool, tell me about that


Ike:  We actually just kind of remodelled the site for a, to make it
      a little bit easier to get around.  We're putting some more 
      stuff up when the tour comes around we're gonna be putting a lot
      of video clips up from the shows and different things like that,
      and we're just trying to make it even more interactive and make
      it even more informative as we go, because you wanna really 
      just, you wanna have a site out there that everybody can go to
      get the true information about what's going on.


That's right, if you want the final word of what Hanson is doing


Ike:  yeah, exactly


go to their www.hansonline.com, that's cool
Tell me about this web dog, okie, what's this about?


....silence...web dog. hmmmm (not sure who is saying what)


Some web dog that you're gonna put online, I don't know


Ike:  I haven't heard.... I haven't heard rumors

Tay:  There's a lot of rumors


There's a lot of rumors


Tay: yeah

Ike:  There's a lot of rumors

Tay:  That's the one thing about the Internet, you can find out things
      about yourself that you don't even know.


That's true


Tay:  What??
(can't quite make out everything they are saying)


Speaking of rumors, what's this about MOE magazine?


Tay:  uh, MOE is, yeah MOE is our fan club magazine.  It like um, it
      has, it's a magazine and we have all different kind of articles
      that were written by people that are part of our group, we put
      exclusive pictures in there, all kinds of different things.  You
      can get special merchandise.  It's just a way to kind of 
      communicate with the fans, sort of like a website, but it's
      really, I mean you can.. it's $20, and you get this magazine
      from, 4 magazines, and um it's very cool.


Ike:  You can actually check that out on Hansonline.com. You can find
      out all the information about that, yeah it's just our fan club.
      You get 4 issues of MOE, you know it's a quarterly magazine and
      you can get all kinds of cool in-depth information about what's
      going on, so.


Your musical influences, uh, you grew up a little differently 'cause
your Dad was in the oil business, you went to South America and you
listened to a lot of what, what were you listening to?


Ike:  Well we listened to 50's and 60's rock and roll to start out.
      Um, and that was actually a weird coincidence, because our..right
      before we left, our Mom actually ordered a tape from.. that she'd
      just seen that was from 1958, it just had the biggest hits from
      1958 and so we listened to that.  You know it had Johnny B. Goode
      and all kinds of different classics like that, and we listened
      to that and then of course you know modern music has very much
      been an, it's kind of influences you in a sub-concious way I 
      think..


Sure


Ike:  anything that you listen to kind of changes your music to a
      slight, to a little bit, you know.  So if you're listening to
      heavy metal or something, you know you're gonna kinda tend toward that
      grungy guitar or something.


Tay:  right


Yeah, now you being a guitar player, uh who are your influences? that
you like to listen to?


Ike:  Um, well you know, people actually ask us a lot like who are
      our most influential like musicians for guitar, for keyboards,and 
      drums, things like that, honestly...

Tay:  The thing is with the instruments, we basically just picked it
      up.  We had been singing for about 5 years before we actually
      played instruments, and then we just said you know let's do
      this.  And we picked up a guitar, piano, keyboard.. I mean 
      guitar, piano and drums and then started doing it.  It was one
      of those things that just happened natural.

One of my producers is telling me his son loves MMMBop.  What was it
like growing up in South America, was it kind of different for you,
did you learn to play soccer?


Ike:  We actually played soccer in our hometown of Oklahoma.  I 
      actually refereed soccer for awhile, so


Cool


Ike:  Yeah, you know

Tay:  played a lot of soccer

Ike:  Yeah we played a lot of soccer for awhile


That's the world sport, isn't it?


Tay:  Yeah, soccer's fun, we love soccer


Are you gonna watch all the France, the World Cup in France?


Ike:  Yeah, you know the World Cup actually I think is getting ready
      to start or just starts when we do our show, so that's gonna
      be wild


Ohh, somebody is gonna sneak you into a game

Ike:  Yeah, we're gonna, we're hoping, yeah!

Zac:  exactly


I heard tickets are really hard to get right now, it's impossible to 
get them


Ike:  I imagine so, yeah I imagine so, it's a pretty amazing event,
      I mean people from everywhere come, so


Maybe you'll sing the National Anthem, or something, get you in there


laughter


So you got your MOE magazines out, your new CD - 3 Car Garage - indie
recordings '95-'96, uh, anything else you wanna talk about, about the
tour, anything..

Ike:  Uh, you know we're just glad to be here, it's gonna be a very
      cool show and we're hoping that everybody enjoys it, so 


Cool, Well it has been great having you guys here.  You're wonderful,
we love you, my daughter loves you, my son loves you, I love you..
thank you!


All:  (laughter) thanks!


This is Bob Orkez (spelling?), we've been live with Hanson from
 Fayetteville, Arkansas at the Bud Walton Arena.  It's been a blast,
and we thank you for being with us, have a good night!