If you’re a long-time fan of the MHB, or just someone who is very observant, you may have noticed there are some very major, and very subtle differences between the songs on Twilight Hour and Endless Day.  There are the obvious changes, such as the addition of all that sweet instrumentation, but there are other more subtle changes, too.

Over my many years of music listening I’ve grown rather fond of hard rock music.  I’d even go as far as to say that it is my favorite genre of music.  In the 90s bands like Alice in Chains, Collective Soul, The Offspring, and Helmet (to name only a few) influenced my musical style and tastes very heavily.  As a guitar player who feverishly listened to all of these bands and tried to figure their songs out, I picked up on a common thread among many of them.  I couldn’t quite find the low chords that they played in their songs!

It became clear after a while that many of the groups tuned their guitars down to alternate tunings to play their songs.  This practice is almost standard procedure for hard rock bands now.  Pretty much every modern hard rock band uses this practice to some degree.  Some tune down one string for some extra “fatness.” (Fall out Boy)  Others tune down all the strings just a little bit to get the needed girth.  (Our Lady Peace)  But more common nowadays is the combination of both, or an extra fat, super-low tuning that in some cases requires special guitars and really thick strings.  (Nickelback, Staind, Chevelle, Korn, etc.) (Read more…)

Some of my all-time favorite comments about our songs go something like this:

“Your songs are cool, because they are about Twilight, but they could also be about other stuff, too.”

Now that is a complete paraphrase, but from time to time we do get comments along those lines and I can’t help but smile, and here’s why: We did that on purpose! I take great care in writing our lyrics for that very reason.  There are obviously a few exceptions to this, like Jacob Black, but for the most part we try to include the feelings and situations from Twilight as inspiration, but nothing else.  The rhyme scheme in Jacob Black was just too fun to ignore, so I indulged in some serious Twi-fan lyrical shout-outs in that song.  If you’ve never seen the lyrics written out you may not have noticed that the second line says, “La Push has come to shove,” and not just plain-old “push.”  Fun times!

We go to great lengths to try and make the songs stand on their own musically first and foremost.  Then, we make sure that the lyrics speak to Twilight fans, but not so much that a regular music afficionado who isn’t familiar with the series would be turned off by them.

Hence our completely generic-sounding band name, too.  I named it that when I was the only one in the band, and I did so while taking all of 3 seconds to think it over.  Pretty soon it was too late to change it, so here we are: The Mitch Hansen Band.  In retrospect I would have taken a bit longer than 3 seconds to pick a name, but I started this whole thing as a fun weekend project, never expecting anything to come of it!  At least I have a name that’s easy to pronounce, right? (Read more…)

I’ve been informed that the record company has officially switched fulfillment centers for CD orders.  No longer do you have to worry about the lengnthy wait for CD orders.  We sincerely apologize to those people who’s CD took so long to arrive.

If you still have not received your CD and it has been longer than the time a package normally takes to get to you, please email the record company and they will assist you with your problem.  Harper Music is dedicated to its customers and will make it right.  The problems with the shipping did not come from The Mitch Hansen Band or Harper Music.  It was an order fulfillment center that droped the ball and that will no longer be happening, so please forgive us don’t hold it against us!

We love all of our fans and hope that you will continue to be fans even if you may have had an unpleasant ordering expereince.  Here is the address for customer service questions:

info@harpermusiccompany.com

Have a great week!

Mitch