Do you think that it would be easier if the music business was as it used to be?
Well, I think there’s an incredible future ahead of us, but I think it requires a couple of things. It requires entrepreneurial bands. Bands who are willing to do the work and understand the responsibility to manage themselves and not be afraid to do the things that every band has to do starting off. But they have to be willing to continue to do that once they are succeeding in a broader way. I don’t think that’s all that dissimilar to how it’s been for a very long time. But the thing that has changed is the way that fans get music.
Fans have to understand that piracy is a big problem and it’s ultimately coming from upcoming bands who cannot make money because they can’t sell enough records to pay off the money they spent making it. A reason why it’s become a problem is because the record companies were ignoring the fact that the world was changing. Getting stuff for free is only the symptom, not the cause. The cause is that people need to discover music, they want to find it, they want to be excited about it.
Do you feel there’s a lack of music appreciate with outlets like MySpace, where there’s so many songs out there for fans to jump around to?
I think it’s part of our culture right now. Things like social networks have become a big part of people’s lives. I do think people take for granted the value of music in their lives. But I think there’s a growing appreciation of music and I think there’s a lot of great music out there. Our hope is in the future we can start helping people to find good music and ultimately that we can be a filter as well. We can be the people that can say ‘Hey, check this record out!’ and people believe you. And I think that’s part of the problem. People feel like MTV, radio stations and things like that are just talking heads. They don’t trust them, they don’t feel like their opinion matters.
I read that Bono is a fan of your music. Speaking of him, with all your charitable work, do you think we’ll be considering you guys the new Bono later on?
[laughs] You know, I can’t even answer that question. All I can do is live my life as best as I can today. I hope we have a long future ahead of us and we believe in the fact that we have fans that are responding to things that we feel passionate about and I hope that that continues and I hope that will grow. I hope that people will feel like they can trust who we are and that they can have a relationship with us as a band and that turns into, who knows what that will turn into.
Check Hanson out at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, NJ, on Oct. 30 and at the recently opened new venue, The Wellmont Theatre, in Montclair, NJ, on Nov. 1. For more info, visit hanson.net.
Photo Credit: Bryan Johnson
