Hanson stopped being kids some time ago. Still too young to drink, smoke or see an R-rated movie, the three long-haired brothers from Tulsa were selling an immodest hundred-thousand copies of their debut, Middle of Nowhere, each week for nearly three months in the summer of '97. Hanson were unavoidable on MTV, Top 40 radio and newsstands for nearly eighteen months, and a subsequent Christmas album, rough-mixes album and live album -- all released within a year -- contributed to the glut. Still, Hanson were distinct from much of their boy band competition: they weren't invented and they could play their own instruments.

More than two years have passed since Hanson burst onto the teen scene, and now the brothers are in the studio and ready to prove they're no flash in the pan. But so far it hasn't been easy. Just three weeks after producer Ric Ocasek (Weezer, Nada Surf) began working with Hanson, the former Cars frontman has been relieved of his duties by Jeff Fenster, A&R rep for the band's Mercury Records label. Fenster says it simply "didn't work out with Ric." Ocasek says Fenster didn't want Hanson to play instruments on the new album.

"'I don't think they should play on the record,'" Ocasek says Fenster told him more than once. "And I said, 'Why not? They're the band and they wrote the songs and they're playing on the record.' He said, 'If you like this [music], then you're probably not the guy.' I said, 'Well, I love it. I think it's phenomenal.'"

Fenster says Ocasek's recollection of this conversation is inaccurate. "Whether or not Hanson plays every note on this record is going to be something that happens as we're making the record," Fenster says. "It just didn't work out with Ric and Hanson. How he chooses to see that it didn't work out, I'll leave that to him." Fenster says the decision to fire Ocasek was a collective decision spearheaded by him. "It was a decision made by everybody in the Hanson camp," the A&R rep says, "but, in particular, I didn't feel like it was going where it needed to go." Ocasek, on the other hand, says Hanson manager Chris Sabec "was totally behind me doing it. I know that for a fact." Sabec had no comment on the situation.

Ocasek had been hired for the project by A&R rep Tom Zutaut. However, by the time the recording process had begun, Zutaut was out of the picture and Fenster, renowned for signing Britney Spears, was in. Ocasek believes Fenster wanted Hanson cut from the boy-band mold. "I don't wanna do a record where the hair and make-up credits are the biggest credits on the record," Ocasek says.

Fenster scoffs at that insinuation. "There's no desire to have them be a boy band," he says. "The songs are fine. I was not satisfied by the way they were being produced."

With Ocasek at the boards, Hanson had completed three songs ("Smile," "If Only" and "Runaway Run") for the new album and begun basic tracks for two more tunes when the hammer fell. Ocasek describes the new music's sound as much edgier than previous Hanson material. "As far as I was concerned, there were like eight singles on there," he says. "Every song was great."

According to a source close to the situation, only one of the three songs produced by Ocasek likely will remain intact. The source also says the band will play on the record, just not every note, as was the case on Middle of Nowhere. Currently, the band is slated to return to the studio by early August with Nowhere co-producer Stephen Lironi (and a yet-unnamed producer for one other song) to continue work on the album, which should be released early next year.

Regardless of his ordeal, Ocasek -- whose next project is producing a new Bran Van 3000 album -- is convinced that Hanson is the real deal. "The Hansons are gonna be around," he says. "They're too talented to go away. It's in their hearts. They know what's going on. They know about music. They're great writers and phenomenal singers. They're just getting going. They're gonna be around."

BLAIR R. FISCHER
(July 13, 1999)