August 1,1997 issue

When Zac Hanson gets in your face and screams: "We're just regular kids!" you gotta wonder. Not just because Zac and his older brothers Taylor and Isaac make up Hanson, the hottest band at the moment-and one of the youngest, ever! And not just because their new album, Middle of Nowhere, zoomed up the charts. But because at this moment, 11-year-old Zac is bouncing off the walls of his Hollywood hotel suite, pretending to choke on an M&M. "As you can see, Zac gets a little carried away," laughs 16-year-old Isaac (friends call him Ike). Taylor, 14, smiles and rolls his eyes, "Yeah, Zac was dropped on his head when he was a baby..." And it wasn't long after that these bros. from Tulsa, Oklahoma, started singing. They've made music together for five years, since Zac was just 6! Taylor plays keyboards, Ike strums the guitar, and zany Zac releases some energy by pounding on the drums. "The whole band thing was a natural process," Ike explains. "We always enjoyed music, and our parents thought it was cool."

At first they were just a singing group. Then Hanson got their talented hands on some instruments and a week later had their first gig as a bona fide band. Until recently, they've been Tulsa's best-kept secret--playing tons of local shows, putting out two indie albums on their own, wowing listeners with their happy, peppy pop tunes. When word got out to the bigwigs in the music biz, one Mercury Records executive couldn't believe they could be that young and that good without any grown-up help. But after watching them perform at a Kansas county fair, he signed them up. The next thing Hanson new, the were winging out to Los Angeles to record a new disc.

That CD was Middle of Nowhere with their first single, "MMMBop." Their second single, "Where's the Love," followed. Their songs zero in on subjects like friends, family and girls.

"We write about everyday life," says Zac. "If you got a monkey that day, you'd write about a monkey."

"I don't know about that," says Taylor. "If we got a monkey, I'd be too busy playing with it to write a song about it!"

When Hanson isn't filming a video or hanging out with Jenny McCarthy (they did a guest spot on her new MTV show), they're doing other normal stuff: "We're home schooled, we did that even before we started singing," says Taylor. "We all like to draw--our garage was remodeled into a music room, and we're working on a mural for the wall--and we rollerblade, play street hockey and soccer."