chapter 1: everything was casual

Taylor's Point of View

I've often thought about how beautiful it would feel to be in love. It seems like everyone these days has someone else to hold. I want to have someone to send cards and flowers and candy to, to cuddle up with by a fire and kiss at the movies. I want to find my girl, my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. For any normal teenager that would not be a problem. My problem is that I'm not an average teenager. I could fall in love. I'm just not allowed to. It's not as easy as point and shoot. Not for me, anyway.

Love isn't supposed to be something I worry about. I'm blessed to be surrounded with so much of it, so everyone assumes that it's the kind of love I want. What I want is someone who actually cares about me.

There are only a couple other things, besides love, that I wish I had more of. Privacy is one of them. It seems that I am never alone. Not only do my parents and siblings go everywhere with me, but some fans actually go so far as to follow my band and I around. I never lose sight of my brothers, because they are with me every step of the way. Having a life-long career with your siblings is not what everyone thinks it is. They think it would be wonderful, one of the most rewarding things. The only rewarding things about it are the fans.

But, if they knew, the fans wouldn't accept me. Of course, the signs and posters do not agree. "I love you, Tay" is the most common one. But the word 'love' should be saved for someone they've actually met and know well. Someone they trust. If they knew my real personality, the ticket sales would drop drastically. I'm not saying I view myself as a bad person, but I know that I don't measure up to the standards that the fans have set in their minds. Meaning that when I'm near anyone who even vaguely knows who I am, I have to plaster on that fake smile and pretend I'm someone I'm not.

Which is why I'm here.

The tree house is the only place I know of where I can be alone. My dad built it for us when I was six. It's really big, with high walls but no roof. Now that I'm tall enough, I often stand and look out over the yard and street that we live on. That is, if I can do it unnoticed. My brothers never seem to understand exactly why I come out here, and I'm not even sure I do, but I do know it gives me a sense of freedom. I feel shut away from the real world that gives me such pain.

"Taylor, honey!" Mom called from our house. "Time for lunch!"

I sighed to the sky, lightly dusted with clouds, climbed down the tree, and went inside.

Our house is beautiful. It's made of logs, with no paint, just stain that makes the wood look nicer. It's pretty big when you get inside, although from the outside it looks small. My mom always keeps things nice and neat, and I don't know how she does it with my six siblings running or crawling around, as the case may be.

Zac was already at the table, stuffing his chubby face with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. A bowl of invisible soup was set beside him, as well as a napkin with various stains on it and a half-empty glass of orange juice.

I sat down next to Zac. He mumbled something that sounded like a greeting, so I said "Hi" to him. Mom set a bowl of soup down in front of me and handed me a spoon.

"You know I eat chicken noodle with a fork, Mom," I told her. She remembered and handed me a fork.

Spoons never work in chicken noodle soup, so I don't quite understand why anyone could think I'm strange for using a fork. I don't like the taste of the chicken broth, and the fork picks the noodles out perfectly. I stirred the soup with it, peering across the table at Isaac.

He was eating slowly and thoughtfully, his head bent down, his eyes focused on the bowl. I watched his pattern: soup, sandwich, and juice. He would take a few sips of broth, sometimes with noodles, take a fairly large bite of his sandwich, and drink a long gulp of orange juice. Mom tried to give me a sandwich, too, but I refused.

Zac quickly finished. He got up, put his silverware and bowl in the sink, and heaved himself up the stairs to our room.

Isaac was only about a third of the way done with all of his food when I finished. Mom stopped me in the middle of my stride to the counter.

"Is something wrong, Jordan?" she asked me, pushing strands of hair away and putting her hand on my forehead.

I know she's concerned by three telltale signs. First, she called me by my real name. Taylor is only my middle name, but it's also my stage name. Second, the look in her eyes, and third, the note of confusion in her voice.

I considered what to say. I knew I should tell her how I really feel, but right then I was too confused to explain.

"No…" I drifted off. I set my dishes in the sink quickly, looked at her for a moment, and turned around. I could feel her eyes on me as I walked to my room.

ooo

The top bunk will always be mine. Isaac sleeps on the bottom one and Zac sleeps on a cot on the other side of the room. How we made up this arrangement I do not remember, but I do remember that we all fought for my spot. I think we ended up flipping a coin. I picked tails, as always, and I got lucky, as usual.

Having the top bunk has its pros and cons, as everything does. Right then I could see over everything in the room, with the exception of Isaac's bunk. That can be a good thing at times but sometimes quite a distraction.

Zac was playing with his Lego's in the corner, building a huge, colorful castle with many levels. All of Zac's castles are really intricate and different, but his attention span isn't long enough to comprehend that he shouldn't knock them down right after building them. He builds about three per day. That is, if he's home to do it.

I heard strumming. My older brother was working on a song. I poked my head down and let my hair hang.

Isaac smiled and asked me how the acoustic guitar sounded. He played a few chords.

"That's cool!" I said with authentic enthusiasm. Through my seas of depression, I can always find dry land with music.

"Will you sing something for me?" Isaac asked me.

"Okay," I agreed. "What?"

He told me to sing some words in any tune that sounded good with the guitar, and then he started playing. Zac snapped his fingers from across the room.

My mind raced with lyric ideas. All I could think of were sad, gloomy words, so I sang. "Run, run, runaway run. Maybe someday I can find someone too. Run, run, runaway. Maybe someday, I'll run away…" I was pleased with myself. Those words expressed exactly how I felt.

"That's awesome, Tay! Write it down!" Isaac exclaimed excitedly. He kept playing those same chords as I grabbed my journal from under my pillow, where it always stays when I'm not writing in it.

My journal is a red notebook with my favorite poem written on the front of it, by Robert Frost.

The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I think I know why I like that poem so much. My brothers and I took the road less traveled by, with our voices, our hair, and even our style of music. We brought bubble gum pop back again, and it made all the difference. We were suddenly known as completely different people, which we never ever would have dreamt of or planned on.

It seems like forever, but at the same time like it was just yesterday that our parents taught us to sing "Amen" at the table before meals. Our parents used to have lessons in singing, but never got very far with it. They passed it down to us, though, and I've got to say that once it was introduced to me, I knew music would be my life.

My father Walker's career of oil drilling drifted us away from our hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and to big oil regions such as Ecuador, Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobago. My mom, Diana, decided that the only way for our family to stay together and for us have a good education was to home- school us. Even now I look at public schools and wish for once that I could go there and make some friends, but there is no turning back.

We listened to all the music we could get our hands on, which was only small clips and tapes of old 50's and 60's Rock 'n' Roll. We learned to sing some of the songs. It was then that I realized I had a passion for music.

By 1989, when we moved and settled back into Tulsa, we had a new baby sister. Named Jessica Grace, our first girl sibling meant a lot to us, and soon the dreams of ever getting to be normal again faded away.

By 1991 the second baby girl in our family was born and donned Avery Laurel.

In the beginning, we were just the voices. One of our first gigs came in 1992, when we were invited to sing a cappella, without music accompaniment, at one of Tulsa's fairs, Mayfest. All together we sang fifteen songs, six of which my brother Isaac and I wrote. Our act became appreciated and we sang there every year until 1996.

It was still 1992 when we appeared at the Big Splash Water Park in our hometown. We were invited back to Big Splash several times.

The sixth Hanson at the time, Joshua Mackenzie, was born on April 18th of 1994 and was immediately called Mackie for short.

It was in 1995 when we scraped up enough money to actually create our own independent record. With high hopes we recorded and produced Boomerang. Boomerang featured mostly our songs on it, but some older re-makes too. We did not play instruments on that album. We never even thought of it. All we did was sing.

At all our shows, our mom set up a little booth where she would sell tapes, autographed pictures, and other items featuring us. She even at one point put together a mailing list of fans in the area and would send out newsletters to them.

With Boomerang, we had something to send to record labels. Wanting to get signed, we tried to sing at any place we could. At that time, I didn't think about what being "signed" meant. Isaac seemed to know, so I figured if he would like it, so would I. I also didn't think that I was a good enough singer to get anywhere, despite the fact that everyone claimed I had a "gift." That's the main reason I kept singing. I remember one day in particular when we sang for Chris Sabec at a South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas. Very pleased, he kept in contact with us and later was the one to help get us signed.

By 1995, we still weren't signed. Twelve record labels had turned us down. We were about to give up hope when we realized that the music world wouldn't accept us if we couldn't do more than just sing.

So, Isaac found a guitar at a pawnshop. Zac spied some old drum set in his friend's attic, and, being the only one left, I was stuck with my friend's old keyboard. Not that I don't like the keyboard, I just felt really pushed into it. I'd taken piano lessons as a kid, but so had my brothers. As usual, the choice wasn't really mine.

We learned tentative bits and pieces of music and soon put together some original stuff. When we thought we were ready, we contacted Lewis Drapp, of Drapp Studios in Tulsa, and asked if we could record another independent album in his studio. Lewis played bass, and the album, MMMBop, came together fairly quickly.

As we booked more and more concerts and shows, we sold more and more albums. Both Boomerang and MMMBop were sold at all of our shows and sent to people that we knew.

It wasn't much later when we met Steve Greenberg, the Vice President of Mercury Records, at a concert in Koffeeville, Kansas. Christopher Sabec had sent a copy of the MMMBop tape to him, and he had flown out to listen to us. Immediately following the concert, we were signed.

Isaac and Zac were delighted. On the outside, it probably seemed like I was too, but deep down, I was lost. I enjoy singing, but not when it has to be absolutely perfect. Singing for the pleasure of it is much different than singing for a career. Everything was casual, then nothing was.

We did one last concert, outside of the Blue Rose Café. We had been kicked out of the inside because we were underage, so instead we did our concert on the deck. The last note faded, and before I knew it, we were shipped off to Los Angeles like caged animals.

Our first actual album took about six months to record. By the end of January in 1997, we finished Middle of Nowhere. We worked with many different people, including Mark Hudson who co-wrote, The Dust Brothers, and Steve Lironi who worked on putting the album together. Being holed up in a studio for six months is not my idea of fun. Barely did we get to go outside and roller blade. It seemed like years since I'd been in the tree house. It was only later that I realized my life would never be regular again.

"MMMBop," one of the songs that originated from Boomerang, but also was recorded freshly on Middle of Nowhere, was voted best for a first single because it was so upbeat and catchy. First impressions are the most important things in the music world, as we were soon to find. "MMMBop" was released as a video and by the end of March, was a total hit. Radio play was often and we saw ourselves on TV frequently, much to our surprise. We were ecstatic.

That's when the hate letters started coming.

Regret came with the realization that my life would never be the same. I would never be able to go out without a bodyguard again, my life as I knew it was suddenly all about music, what I had devoted it to, and I would never again have time alone.

I noticed that there were, and still are, two main things in every hate letter, which the writer seemed to dislike about our band: our hair and our voices.

I had never questioned my hair until that day. None of us had. We thought about cutting it because of the letters, but at that time it wasn't that big of a problem. We couldn't change our voices. At that point, we sounded a little like girls, but it didn't bother me. I guess it bothered them, though.

My voice has changed now, and so have Ike and Zac's. We all sound completely different from before. Ike cut almost all of his hair off because of the haters. I cut mine some, but not a lot. Zac is stronger than both Isaac and me. He didn't cut his hair at all.

We have a third sister now, Zoë Genevieve, whom is the seventh Hanson and many very well be the last of the clan.

Yet, nobody realizes that we have changed. All the people that hated us before, still hate us now. Our first impression wasn't good, at least in their eyes, and they have already labeled us "the band that will never change." They haven't heard or seen us in a while. They don't know that we have. I want them to see that I am human too. Which is exactly why we went back into the studio with a completely different look and sound.

We're in the middle of writing and recording right now. I'm really pleased with the current results, even though I often wonder if I could ever just disappear from the music industry. But I seriously don't think that's possible. At times, I feel completely content with my position and my career, and the next minute, I want to evaporate into thin air and be forgotten.

I found a blank page in my journal and scribbled the words on it. The rest of the song just flowed out of me, and I titled it "Runaway Run." It told of two lovers. I was the satisfied one, whom was delighted to have this girl by my side. I had loved the girl with all my heart. Until she dumped me, and I was left heartbroken.

I handed the lyrics to Isaac. I had memorized them.

"Can you sing a little more for me?" he asked, and began to play.

"Just a picture and a feeling and a face. How could I forget your touch, your warm embrace? And the shoes you wore with long black satin lace, as you walked into my mind…" The lyrics were haunting yet very addictive. I sang the song over and over, perfecting the mistakes I made and smoothing out the corners.

"That was really awesome!" Isaac gave me a high five.

"Yeah, I like it too," Zac agreed, placing the last Lego on the top of his castle and standing up to admire it.

I smiled.

"Boys, it's time to go!" Mom yelled from downstairs.

I jumped down from the bunk, my journal in hand.

I walked down the hall and into my brother and sisters' room. Jessica and Avery, the two older girls, shared a room with Mackenzie. The baby, Zoë, slept in my parents' room. It was a very compact living arrangement, but with only three rooms, we had no choice.

I ran down the stairs and grabbed my coat. As I pulled it on, I pushed a bag of barbecue chips into my pocket. It's different not seeing a group of girls swarming outside of the house, but still greatly relieving. I got into the back of the car and watched the world spin by as we drove down the road to destiny once again.