With his soulful, gritty voice and easy rocker vibes, there are few clues that the cigarette-smoking, long-haired crooner singing approximately the darkish sides of temptation in his new music video for “Hey Hey” is the 24-year-antique more youthful sibling of the brother trio that made up overdue-’90s pop-rock powerhouse, Hanson. He grew up in the shadow of his “MMMBop,” making a song siblings (37-yr-old Isaac, 35-12 months-vintage Taylor, and 32-12 months-old Zac) and initially shunned a profession in music — but 21 years seeing that his brothers first crowned the charts, Marc Hanson is ready to make his own mark in music with his band, Joshua & the Holy Rollers.
“Growing up, tune turned into something I relegated to my brothers — that was their issue, and I felt I needed to discover my personal identification,” the singer admits as he debuts the video completely on Billboard. “Looking again, I see how pride and ego can get inside the way of what you need to do or are supposed to do. I understand now that my hesitancy towards doing tune was in large part fear — worry of ways it might appear or be perceived.”
“I’d be mendacity if I stated part of that worry wasn’t additionally [accusations of] nepotism,” he adds. “Part of my complete conflict of identifying who I am and what to do with myself has been looking to carve out my own manner, and no longer be identified by way of [my brothers]. I love and respect them and their song; however, you have to create your own personhood.”
Spending his childhood the best manner he knew how — on the excursion with his circle of relatives, with a pal circle together with roadies — it was handiest herbal that song changed into engrained in Mac early on. He wrote his first tune at 14, inspired by unrequited love. While his brothers belted out their hits to venues around the arena, loud and boisterous Mac — perhaps trying to be heard over the piercing screams that trailed his brothers — was constantly informed about quieting down and “use his inner voice.”
Coupled with those fears of nepotism accusations, he averted the path nicely trodden via his circle of relatives and started university at simply 14 (aided via years of home education). He studied cinematography, video manufacturing, and English. Related to Los Angeles at 16, Mac determined paintings inside the film enterprise, editing, writing, directing, and dabbling in appearing. Although tune remained an ardor, it wasn’t till an enlightening camping ride to Joshua Tree National Park that he determined it became time to pursue the family enterprise.
“I become sitting on top of a rock looking the solar fall behind mountains, playing guitar and writing track, and just felt an upswell in my soul,” remembers the singer, whose full call is Joshua Mackenzie Hanson. “I stood on top of this rock, ripped off my blouse, and yelled into space, ‘I’m fucking loud. Deal with it!’ [I had] been told to use my inner voice my complete lifestyle. I’m big and loud, and there’s an identification there that I hadn’t come to terms with. Still, I finally diagnosed it was something I needed to be proud of and embrace. A part of embracing that loudness and my musical inclinations intended leaning into that ability set.”
Armed with the greatest lesson instilled in him from his brothers’ achievement and struggles — “to grab keep of the reigns your self and no longer look forward to someone else to make it manifest for you” — Mac set out to make a document. But at the same time, as some may have assumed his well-known surname could help, using the end of 2017, he discovered himself “up in opposition to a brick wall,” with none of his musical objectives coming together. Swallowing his delight, he grew to become to the circle of relatives he has been seeking to set himself aside from for so long.
“I reached out to my eldest brother [Isaac] and ultimately, absolving myself of my pleasure and fear, I requested if he’d help me record,” says Mac, who performs six instruments. “He right away stated, ‘Yes, of direction. We’re doing this!’ which changed into the sort of first-rate, complete-circle moment.” “We had mentioned it earlier than, because some years returned I brought a tune after I went domestic for Christmas and we recorded it, and I suppose it changed into the primary time he diagnosed how much lifestyles enjoy were happening among Christmases and our ongoing lives,” he adds. “It was a certainly symbiotic second, due to the fact we’re all more alike than we care to well known — and we acknowledge plenty of likenesses already!”
As a co-manufacturer, Isaac has become a crucial part of the recording procedure, with Mac including it became specifically helpful to have his input as a vocalist. “Isaac was the primary person ever to give me a vocal lesson, and thank God because in any other case who is aware of what could have passed off!” he says. “It’s difficult to fully encapsulate how tons he brought to the desk — the whole lot a manufacturer, a brother, and a 25-yr veteran of the enterprise may want to bring. The tune would not have been near as exact without Isaac.”
It turned into Isaac, who convinced Mac to launch “Hey Hey” as his first unmarried. The music is his most private yet, centering on temptations and their unpleasant consequences. Just like a female stimulated Mac’s first music at 14, a decade later, it becomes every other woman fueling his first unmarried as he grappled with deceit. “I became sitting in my tub calling this lady and simply shaking with rage, feeling so deceived and hurt,” he says. “I said, ‘Everything you have got of me — every present, every photograph — burn all of it! We cannot talk ever once more.’”
An EP, titled Tribulations, will observe before the 12 months’ quit. Echoing Mac’s journey to find and include his musical destiny, the song’s center is on finding one’s region within the world and ranges from rock ballads to calypso jazz numbers. It’s the antithesis to the sunny pop-rock his brothers (who’re nevertheless traveling and feature a double EP, String Theory, liberating on Nov. 9) are extensively remembered for. Still, Mac insists the contrasting style was accidental. After all, he was singing along to Paul Simon and rocking out to Aerosmith as a “chubby, curly-haired nine-year-antique kid.”
“My brothers and I have similar taste, but someplace along the road, I started listening to loads extra rock’n’roll — Aerosmith, Queen, Van Morrison, Black Crowes,” he says. “So, I assume my tune is just a reflection of how very distinct our lives have been and my herbal tendency [towards harder rock]. There become, in reality, never thought of being something one-of-a-kind. I just wrote the songs that have been sitting in my head, and it turns out they have been a specific kind of sound.”
