Taylor Hanson: businessman, rebel, rock 'n' roller. These are not words you would expect to read in accurate descriptions of the one-time lust object of millions of preteen girls, but that's exactly how Taylor—brother to Isaac and Zac, who together make up the pop-rock trio with their family name—sees himself. If all you remember about Hanson is "MMMBop" and the legions of screaming girls, you may wonder exactly how Taylor, the middle brother and generally the focus of most of the screaming, got to the point where he can be called a businessman, rebel and rock 'n' roller.
But all you have to do is listen to Hanson's latest album, Underneath, to hear how far the band has come as rock 'n' rollers. Even in their teen idol days, Hanson wasn't the prefab construct of groups like the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync. Growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the three brothers began playing music together when Zac, the youngest, was only 5 years old. Each plays several instruments, although Isaac usually ends up on guitar, Taylor on keyboards and Zac on drums (they tour with two additional musicians to fill in the gaps). Writing and recording their own material and releasing it independently, Hanson eventually attracted major-label attention, which led to their 1997 album, Middle of Nowhere, and then the whole "MMMBop" and screaming girls thing that you probably remember.
"We have amazing fans," Taylor says. "That's been a big part of the tour, to see the fans that have grown up and changed with you." How great the fans are, not only now in their grown-up phase but even back in the screaming-girl phase, is one of the big Hanson talking points Taylor pushes over the course of our carefully timed interview. Hanson are so focused these days—releasing Underneath on their own 3CG record label, handling all of their business affairs themselves, touring, writing new songs—that Taylor ends up sounding more like a candidate giving a speech than a musician giving an interview.
He uses phrases like "priming the fan base," "dynamic range," "lack of vision," "put a premium on it" and "risk-takers"; words you might expect to hear in a corporate seminar. It's hard to believe that Taylor is only 21 years old, and not just because of the way he talks. He's married with a nearly 2-year-old child, something he says has changed his life. "Obviously, getting married and having a child, those things are huge," he says. "It definitely has given me all kinds of new things to write about." And with the attention from female fans as strong as ever, Taylor insists his wife is understanding about it all. "She knows where my heart is," he says. "She married into this."
"This" is increasingly about emphasizing music over image and taking control of the band's financial destiny. Hanson may have risen to the top thanks to the fickle tastes of MTV and mainstream radio, but they also slid out of the spotlight the same way. Taylor sees the music industry machine these days as an enemy, not a friend. "I think that mostly there's a lot of great music that I really don't think is getting heard," he says, citing favorites like David Garza and Ben Kweller, not typical teeny-bopper fare. "I'm really frustrated by the lack of vision from the record companies and radio and MTV and all of it. I think they're taking themselves out of the equation."
So the Hansons are businessmen running their own label and career, rebels releasing records without support from the major-label system, and most of all, rock 'n' rollers. None of it would matter if the three brothers couldn't write impossibly catchy tunes with perfect harmonies, top-notch musicianship and an infectious sense of fun. Fans like singer-songwriter Michelle Branch and former Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan see the value in Hanson's music. Diplomacy and business savvy aside, what Taylor and his brothers most want to do is make music. "It's the vicious cycle of, while I'm on tour I want to make a record, while I'm making a record I can't wait to get on tour," he says. "In the end, you just stay tired for a lot of years."