The Beginning

        Like their music, the story of the Hanson brothers often seems too good to be true: It begins in the Caribbean and South America, where the band's father-founder, Walker, moved from country to country as an international financier for an oil-drilling company. Their mother, Diana, schooled the boys at home.
        The only music the family had was a series of Time/Life compilation records that covered the years 1957 to 1969. Aha! Now we have an explanation of why, in a time of hard-edged rap, of rock and electronic dance-music, the Hanson's brand of light pop seems like an anomaly.
        One evening after dinner, the boys began singing(mainly '50s,'60s and Christian music) and realised they could harmonise. The boys cite their early influences as the likes of Chuck Berry, Bobby Darin, Beach Boys, Johnnie Taylor, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin.
        In 1992, the three blond lads performed for the first time at an arts festival in Tulsa, singing a capella and finger-snapping doo-wop songs. Their secret: Harmony, harmony and more harmony. They soon followed up with learning how to write original songs and with hired musicians, they recorded a rhythm-and-blues record Boomerang.
        The Hanson brothers decided it was time to each take up an instrument. Taylor borrowed keyboards from a friend, Isaac bought a guitar from a pawn shop while Zac found drums in the attic.
        Critics commented that Isaac's guitar lessons have paid off. He has the ability to turn out music with a steady, Motown chugga-chugga or make the arena rock with six-string scream on the CD bonus track, The Man Fom Milwaukee.
        Little drummer buy Zac is the real surprise in the band. For an 11-year-old kid to be able to handle the beat and keep his brothers in time is something special.
        Prouder of their second album, MMMBop, which had early versions of three of the songs on its new record, Hanson sent copies to the big record labels. "I got this tape and loved it, but I was convinced it was fake," remembered Steve Greenberg, who ended up signing the band to Mercury Records. "I was sure there was some adult pulling the strings or the vocals were manipulated and they weren't really playing their instruments. I wasn't going to do it. But then I saw them at a country fair in Kansas, and they played and sang just as well as they did on the record. There wasn't an adult in sight - except their dad, who was loading up the equipment, and their mom, who was selling T-shirts."
        The brothers are determined to make a name for themselves as legitimate musicians. They have done the usual teen fan magazine interviews but "we think the music speaks for itself," says Isaac.
        "We know some people will automaticallybe biased against our age, but we take our music very seriously, and hopefully we'll have a very broad audience."
 
The Album

        By now, Malaysians will be familiar with the MMMBop number which is getting a lot af airplay. For those who have seen the video and liked the song, the rest of the album, Middle Of Nowhere is equally good.
        MMMBOP and three other songs on Middle Of Nowhere are entirely self-penned
        The boys wrote and recorded Middle Of Nowhere in Los Angeles, over a period of five months. From the catchy Where's The Love, to the funky Look At You, to the gospel-tinged piano ballad With You In Your Dreams, which was inspired by their late grandmother, Hanson have proven themselves to be diverse and creative songwriters.
        For those who haven't heard the Tulsa trio play, scepticism is understandable, but it shouldn't stop one from checking out this lively, present-tense account of what it's like to be a teenager.