You can sort of train your fans to expect the random and the interesting. HANSON: Oh, yeah … you always want it to be fun and you want it to be interesting and different, but as you amass more and more albums you start to go, “Gosh, I don’t want to just play like the greatest hits kind of show where you’re always playing certain songs from each record that are the most notable.” You want to have a style and approach that’s really based on the feeling and the flow more than it is just in doing song, song, song, song. Q: That must be hard - with 15 years of recording under your belt - to come up with a set list for a tour. On any given night we’ll pick one of our five albums and use that as the core of that show and bookend it with material from the other records. This time we’re trying to make it more of a career-spanning tour. I mean, we try to make every tour have a unique story to it. HANSON: Yeah, it is definitely kind of a retrospective event. Q: Now, this tour you are on now - this “Musical Ride Tour,” I believe it is? We reluctantly use tracked hours - in a box - because there’s a place for them, because there are a few songs that are so identifiable that we’ll add the section with a sequencer, but we really don’t like doing that. We basically bring out the section in the major markets when we can. Q: When you’re out on the road do you have a horn section with you? You just try to make records you’re proud of. There’s less bouncing around and it feels a little bit closer to being one statement. We jokingly - especially going into this record - kind of crossed a self-awareness milestone, I think, in saying, “You know in truth probably the closest thing to us is a 70s rock band, because we grew up listening to 50s and 60s music, a lot of soul music, a lot of pop music, and then we’re guys from the mid-west with the harmonies.” It was like, “Wow, we’re kind of a 70s rock band!” So when we were making this record we definitely were taking a look back a little bit - with the horn arrangement especially - and we wanted to make it more consciously one solid body of work than other records have been. HANSON: It’s a good place to cut your teeth. One of the first things about music that I fell in love with was close vocal harmonies. Q: Well, let me begin by saying how much I’m enjoying “Shout It Out” - from the rhythmic intricacies of “Voice in the Chorus” to your trademark, three-part vocal harmonies, it was a sheer delight. HANSON: Life is good! We’re on the road trying to pay the bills just like everybody else. Q: So how is it going with you and your brothers? 11, at Portland’s State Theatre, and to that end Taylor Hanson called from Salt Lake City to talk about that show and the music it highlights. Their Maine show is set for Tuesday, Oct. That Mercury Records’ debut - “Middle of Nowhere” - was the first of five albums the siblings have released in their musical history, the latest of which is the 2010 self-released “Shout It Out.” They are currently touring in support of not only that CD, but the previous four as well, with a road trip they’ve dubbed the “Musical Ride Tour,” where they perform one of their albums in its entirety along with songs picked by the fans at each venue via the Internet. For nearly 20 years now the three brothers - Isaac, Taylor and Zachary Hanson - have been making music together, but it was in 1997, when they burst on the pop music scene with “MMMBop” (for which Zac became the youngest Grammy-nominated songwriter in history).
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