Bonkers Brothers??

Crikey! Isaac's 16, Taylor's 13 and Zac's 11, yet the brothers HANSON are already on their way to pop superstardom.But packing in school and travelling around the world is hardly a normal carry-on, so we had to ask- are they on the road to going bonker's?

So, how come your not in school then?

Isaac: Well we're touring Europe promoting our single and album.
Taylor: We started performing in local venues in our home town, Oklahoma, USA. Since then we've written hundreds of songs and now we have a record contract. So that's why we're not in school.
Zac: We never went to school in the first place anyway.

Sorry?

Zac: We were home-schooled. Our parents teach us and we have a tutor who teaches us when we're on the road.
Isaac: Loads of families do that where we're from - home schooling gives you the opportunity to go after your own interests, you're allowed to go with your own flow!

Do you, erm, have many mates then?

Taylor: Oh yeah, most families from round our way have at least five kids, we have home school co-ops where a group of us all get together to study.
Isaac: The disadvantage of school is that there is this age thing where they separate you because of your ages. People always ask me what I'm doing hanging round with Zac, but the truth is I never think of him as being younger.

We often hear rumours of pop stars losing the plot a bit when they find stardom at an early age, does this worry you?

Taylor: Ha,ha,ha! Our friends have already said to us, 'If you start going weird we're going to sort you out.'
Zac: Yeah, we're not going to start having nose jobs or anything. It's cool! I mean, how many 11-year-olds get to tour Europe?

But what if you make tons of money? Are you going to blow it all on fast cars and extravagance?

Taylor: A Porsche may be cool but what happens when your career's over and all you have to live in is your car?
Zac: Yeah, you'd be wishing you'd at least bought a bus!
Isaac: I think you have to try and be level-headed about it. If we did make loads of cash we'd probably build a studio to record in.

Do your friends treat you differently now?

Taylor: Well, to be honest we've never been kinda normal so our friends are used to it. I mean, we're weird in a way, it's not every kid who sings with his brothers for a living.
Isaac: My friends work in a pizza shop near our home, it has a TV in it and when our video was on MTV, they got into trouble for watching it instead of working. But they told their boss, 'They're the Hansons, they're our friends, man!' Our friends are cool about us.
Zac: When we get home, our friends will just say, 'Wow, it's cool you were on TV. Are you coming out?' What keeps your feet on the ground?
Isaac: Our family. There are six kids in our family and with our mum and dad we travel everywhere together.
Zac: It helps being from Oklahoma-it's not exactly LA or anything, people are quite down to earth.
Taylor: It's important to stick with your family and friends. Look at the Bee Gees. They haven't gone out and done anything crazy, have they?

What about in-Hanson fighting, surely you must have the odd scrap?

Taylor: Nothing serious, we just play tricks on each other. Like Isaac is a real romantic and I found this love letter he wrote to a girl once, it was horrid, I threw it in a fountain. When I was little I couldn't care less about girls, I just wanted to throw tomatoes and stuff at them.
Isaac: I never knew you threw it in a fountain!

You all must receive plenty of letters from girls now.

Zac: Girls! Girls are cute, they write letters telling us they love us.
Taylor: We know it has nothing to do with us though. If we weren't on stage singing I don't reckon we'd be getting too many!
Isaac: The attention hasn't gone to our heads just yet!

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