MMMbop Reloaded

Taylor, Zac, Isaac, and me.
I don't know which brother is which.

There are some things you will experience in life that you wouldn't believe if someone told you years before it happened. For example, I never in a million years thought I would be hired to sound mix an interview for the boy band Hanson. But that's exactly what happened last month.

PlayNetwork hired me to help with an interview that will be playing through Chuck-E-Cheese. The gig was at the Gibson Showroom in Beverly Hills.

The first problem I had was finding the place. MapQuest straight up gave me bad directions; telling me to turn right on a street that didn't exist. The good news was that the whole crew had the same problem, so I was spared from a situation were I could have easily been fired. I was really irked with myself when I found out the joint was only a few blocks away from Maverick Films, where I had interned some years ago. Oh well, I guess I really wanted to forget that place.

Zebra Piano

Even with my tardiness, I was still set up well before picture, so I checked out the showroom. Gibson is a legendary company, having made highly regarded musical instruments for over a century. Their flagship product are guitars, especially the Les Paul model.

Needless to say, I was in heaven. Some of the equipment was very old and very rare. There was a whole wall of vintage amps, guitars, pianos, you name it. That kept me plenty busy until the band arrived.

The Mackie Onyx Mixer.
We have a similar model at Columbia.

Now, I'm not really a fan of Hanson... at all. When their breakthrough single, "MMMbop" came out, it was in 1997. I looked up music from that year, and concluded that I was much more likely to be listening to "A.D.I.D.A.S." by Korn or "Ænema" by Tool. Regardless, that single blew both of them away in terms of popularity; hitting #1 in 27 countries.

Anyhoo, the three of them filed in and introduced themselves. The last time I had seen them they were kids, and I could not tell which one was which. They did make my job a little more interesting, though. As musicians, they were intimately familiar with all of the problems that our location was causing sound, and voiced said concerns. I got a look from the director like, "why didn't YOU bring that up before?"

Luckily, I had scoped the whole building, and we were in the quietest part. However, it didn't help that the Gibson showroom had booked a rehearsal right next door, and they weren't happy that they had to stop for over 3o minutes for the interview. But they played along, thank God.

The interview went briskly. They genuinely surprised me with their taste in music, citing Led Zeppelin and numerous Blues musicians as influences. It made me wonder why I didn't hear more of that type of sound in their music; I might have actually listened to them. After the discussion, they played in the showroom, and I had to record the music (and make it sound good) with only one microphone. We'll see how that turned out.

Can I say that I'm going to rush out and get Hanson tickets now? No. That will probably never happen. But they couldn't have been more polite, and I wish them all the luck in the future.

Liberace's Piano.
I'm not kidding, that's the REAL one.