The Daily Collegian sits down with Hanson

On a hot Friday afternoon, Hanson led over 50 barefooted fans through the streets and neighborhoods of Northampton. The brothers, whose hit single “MmmBop” left them as ’90s pop icons, were proving to the people of Western Massachusetts that walking barefoot hurts and children in Africa do it on a daily basis. They were walking with TOMS Shoes, a company that gives a child in Africa a pair of shoes for every pair sold. The walk was Hanson’s 60th since they began touring last fall.
Before the band played to a nearly sold-out crowd in the Calvin Theater, Taylor and Zac Hanson were kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions about the walks, bullet scares and midget ninja pastry chefs.
Daily Collegian: Do you have any stand out memories from the tour so far?
Taylor Hanson: There have been a couple really intense things that have happened. We had a scare when we were in Royal Oak, outside of Detroit, where we thought we had somebody with a gun. There was a bullet that was discovered in the front row.
Zac Hanson: We had to find them and shoot them. [Laughing]
TH: That was pretty intense. Unfortunately, it’s really sad to say; but on the last tour, the Walk Tour, in the fall and many other times we’ve had people call us with death threats and like when we were in Chicago last year we had somebody say “If you do the walk today you won’t…”
ZH: “You won’t survive.”
TH: Yea, “you won’t leave this town alive.”
DC: You got phone calls or e-mails?
ZH: A little bit of everything.
TH: So we had to take that seriously in Detroit. But, that’s not very positive. But when we found a .40 bullet in the front row, and somebody felt it drop on their foot, they immediately started searching to see if somebody had a gun. We had to rally and call extra police and also make it safe. We were worried about everybody, not just whether we’re going to get shot. So, that was a little bit of scare, and everybody was cooperative, and we had cops there. It turned out that an off-duty cop’s girlfriend was carrying bullets in her purse, and they had fallen out of her purse.
ZH: Did she explain?
TH: Don’t ask. [Laughing] But then, like an idiot, some guy rushed the stage before we found out who had dropped the bullet, and he tried to get onstage.
DC: While you were performing?
TH: Right after we had walked offstage.
ZH: In between sets.
TH: These guys [the cops] were ready to stomp somebody, and so he got his butt tazed. He was thrown around, and he was taken to jail. Five cops just right on his ass.
ZH: Tackled, dragged outside, three knees in his back. [Cops yelling] “Stop resisting!” But that’s what you get for rushing the stage after they announce that there is a security concern at the venue tonight, and there’s two cops standing at the top of each side of the stage. There’s double the security there was 12 minutes ago, and “I’m going to rush the stage because I’m drunk.”
TH: Just really, really stupid. But actually, what I was going to say was that with all of that going on, it was a really great show.
ZH: Yeah, you got to leave your legacy if you’re going out. “We’re going out tonight guys, this is it. Best show of my life!”
TH: It turned out to be a great show; and also I’ve been really blown away by all the walks we’ve been doing and how many people have come out to support us. We’ve had some of the best walks we’ve had on the whole tour since last year. It’s been really interesting. Some walks have been small, some walks have been huge, but it’s great. You get to see each tour stop very differently based on doing the walks and doing the shows, and it adds a whole new dimension to your memory of each place. You get a sense of the crowd in each city.
DC: What’s the most surprising item on your tour rider?
ZH: Um, ninja midget pastry chef. That’s the most shocking one.
DC: What is that?
ZH: A ninja, midget, pastry chef.
TH: We’ve been trying to get one on the rider.
ZH: No, that’s on the rider.
TH: It’s just really rare to get those delivered to every town. For instance, there are a lot of small people but not necessarily ones who are also ninjas and pastry chefs as well.
ZH: That is actually on our rider, and it has yet to be fulfilled.
TH: You need somebody who has both the power to kill and has a sensitive side and can also provide a service for the tour. But of course, you’d never see him, because he’s very small and all of a sudden you just see a pastry coming.
ZH: You don’t want to eat any of the pastries because he might have poisoned one or two of them, just for fun. That’s what ninjas do.
DC: You’re biggest guilty pleasure song?
ZH: Don’t have them. The songs I like, I like.
DC: Really, none?
ZH: I like a song and will tell you it, or I don’t like it. I’m not a pansy.
DC: There’s part B to this question.
TH: In other words, if we like a song we’re proud to say we like the song. For instance, I’m not a Celine Dion fan particularly, but she has an incredible voice and has sung a lot of great songs.
ZH: Although, I wouldn’t say she has the best voice out of anyone in the world though, like she has claimed.
DC: Did she say that?
ZH: She said it in some interview at some point, “I am the greatest singer in the world.”
TH: I think that’s probably true for all of us; although Ike probably has guilty pleasures.
ZH: But he’s not here right now.
TH: What’s part B?
DC: Part B is, can you crank that Soulja Boy?
TH: Can we what?
ZH: Negative.
DC: Have you ever heard that song, “Crank That” by Soulja Boy?
ZH: I know exactly what you’re talking about and no, that is not one of my guilty pleasures. Now, I might have missed something about it, because every time I hear it, it’s like, “Oh, it’s that song, click.” So, I’ve never put any effort into trying to crank that. Someday maybe. We’ll cover it. We’ll make it different.
DC: You guys have been doing a lot with the walk, trying to help, is there anything besides the walk that fans can do?
TH: That’s a really good question. One of the things we’re trying to do is one, find a way for you guys to link to each other to help make events more successful and so people can organize better if they do want to set up a walk event. One of the things we encourage people to do is to look at – if you’re not comfortable with direct connection with an organization based in Africa then you can start by looking at local organizations and say 'why don’t we start by raising funds for this particular AIDS research here in town or a clinic.' The other thing is that we’re about to set up a very simple page with a few other ideas, a few other things people can do. There’s a group called Blood Water Mission, which raises money to drill clean water wells. They have a couple really simple ways to donate, all the way down to a simple dollar donation. That was one of the things we were going to recommend people could do. There are also a couple of other simple examples like that.
ZH: When you look at AIDS, there are so many things that sort of coincide with it, like shoes. For instance, a mother, she has a baby, but she can’t feed her baby breast milk because breast milk contains the virus so she’s using formula which needs clean water.
TH: You have to hit from both sides. To be honest, we’re so overwhelmed by all that we’ve been trying to do, we haven’t gotten to where we wish we were but there are a couple of things that we’re going to be launching and integrating the walk into, which would really be helpful for that. One of them is going to start with a really simple page that will give a few more ideas of simple things we can do, starting with donating just a dollar and then moving to ‘now that you’ve donated a dollar, this is an awesome organization and if you’re one of those people who wants more, wants to help them raise more money or do more stuff and all the way up to trying to give fans and other people wanting to be involved more tools to set up their own events if they want to try and organize and we’re trying to support that with banners and use our own street team to try and make events bigger, connecting with other bands. I think it goes back, to like we said, if you’re stuck and you really want to do more, it’s ok to start local. It’s ok to start looking at these issues in our town because it is also going to teach you something about what you’re learning yourself about the cause and the issues with AIDS, with pediatric AIDS, kids that are born with the disease. It will help you become more involved with something like the hospitals in Africa. Also, HIVSA, the organization we’ve raised money for with “Great Divide," you can never go wrong if you just want to say, ‘ok, I’m going to come up with a sell tin cans idea and raise money for a check for HIVSA.' They are just rock solid. They are a fantastic group and they are leading the charge in making a difference and finding a cure if there is ever going to be one, to create a vaccine and preventing children from getting this disease.

By Teresa Reilly & Skye McIntyre, Collegian Staff