The All-American Rejects had been the scene’s most prolific radio darlings all through the early to late 2000s, scoring numerous chart-topping singles and eclipsing the Warped Tour circuit. And whereas it would not be unusual to listen to the band in any taste of the month coming-of-age teen comedy or rom-com throughout their preliminary peak, they all the time needed to make it recognized that they weren’t aspiring to develop into the most important band on the planet — it was all the time for the love of the music they created and a shared dedication to inventive integrity.
Following the discharge of their fourth and final studio album, Youngsters within the Avenue, in 2012, the All-American Rejects have but to ship a correct follow-up album within the 11 years which have since handed. It’s a testomony to the band’s pledge to maintain their legacy as sacred as potential and resist to the urge for a fast money seize or a shallow enterprise into the murky waters of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a little bit of a double-edged sword for the band, who, on the one hand, can not keep away from that the music they launched and the scene they had been initially part of is having a big resurgence. On the opposite, they’ve a novel alternative now to show that they’re greater than the sum of their greatest radio singles.
Learn extra: 10 most criminally underrated the All-American Rejects songs
In 2023, the All-American Rejects at the moment are in a novel place the place their music is being launched to youthful audiences who won’t have even been alive upon the discharge of their debut studio album in 2002. So how does a band with 4 timeless information, a bunch of hit singles, and a die-hard fan base of each scene veterans and keen newcomers strategy the subsequent chapter of their careers? For starters, they tour, however on this case, they put collectively one of many summer time’s most stacked lineup with the aptly titled Moist Sizzling All-American Summer season Tour.
Becoming a member of the All-American Rejects is none apart from their closest musical friends who both got here up alongside them throughout their preliminary rise or impressed their very journey from the start with help from the Get Up Youngsters, the Beginning Line, Movement Metropolis Soundtrack, and New Discovered Glory. The Moist Sizzling All-American Summer season Tour shouldn’t be merely a tour for nostalgia’s sake; it’s a celebration of the laborious work and impactful songs that enable a band to enter legacy standing. The Moist Sizzling All-American Summer season Tour is proof that whereas the years have handed and the world has modified significantly, the All-American Rejects and their friends nonetheless have a lot left to say.
In an unique interview, we spoke with the All-American Rejects’ frontman and bassist Tyson Ritter and guitarist Nick Wheeler to debate the Moist Sizzling All-American Summer season Tour, nostalgia, and the prospect of recent music.
Why does now really feel like the fitting time for the All-American Rejects to embark on their first main headlining tour in practically a decade?
NICK WHEELER: I believe it is the right storm. It has been a very long time since we have now completed a headlining tour, and whereas we launched a couple of tunes and did a few help excursions 5 or 6 years in the past, it is largely been one-offs. Whether or not it was festivals or company exhibits, we weren’t essentially enjoying for our personal followers, so we began doing a couple of membership exhibits earlier than COVID. When that went away, we simply sat at dwelling for a few years earlier than we lastly bought again on the market in 2022. The When We Had been Younger competition, specifically, not solely confirmed us that individuals are nonetheless enthusiastic about this kind of music once more, however we had been simply as blissful, excited, and stoked to play for our followers once more.
AAR at When We Had been Younger 2022. Jawn Rocha
TYSON RITTER: It simply felt appropriate for us to do that tour. There was no motive to pander to a crowd by releasing one thing new that wasn’t heartfelt or would open up a beast that solely needed to feed on the recollections of why this band solidified itself within the first place. If it’s the proper time for one thing, it is to see if individuals can lastly acknowledge that it is a band, not simply songs. We had been a band from Oklahoma with rock shirts and blue denims, and we have now all the time been a band the place id was not as essential because the music we made, whereas our contemporaries had been much more calculated about what it seemed like and what it smelled like. We simply needed to do our personal factor. This tour is for us to keep in mind that we have now a physique of labor that may arise in entrance of the gang and never solely transport you again to a spot but additionally be one thing greater than only a fast repair or an enormous MTV hit.
For the tour, you place collectively an unimaginable bundle of iconic bands to help you that appears like a present to your devoted followers with how curated it’s. How essential was it to spotlight your musical friends who got here up alongside you and likewise supply followers a one-of-a-kind expertise?
WHEELER: It was like that meme of Charlie Day from It is At all times Sunny In Philadelphia, the place we brainstormed for a number of months. [Laughs.] That is actually our dream bundle.
RITTER: Whereas we had been doing demos for our first report, we took the tackle off the again of the Get Up Youngsters report 4 Minute Mile for Doghouse Data and despatched an unsolicited demo to them that they pulled out of the trash and signed us. That is why the Get Up Youngsters are on this tour for me, and they’re a seminal a part of our existence in additional than only a musical ambiance. Movement Metropolis Soundtrack was the primary band we toured with within the Midwest, and we got here up on the similar time for these seminal moments in our band’s profession. With the Beginning Line, we did one in every of our first huge excursions with them, which was an enormous benchmark second for us. [Not to mention], with New Discovered Glory, I used to be 14 overlaying their music, so it is a full-circle second to get to tour with them now. This [tour] is a walkthrough of our fucking diary of life, and it is deeply private for us.
One other essential facet of this tour is that it’s going to enable new and youthful followers to expertise your music stay for the primary time. Do you discover yourselves contemplating the affect your music has had on the subsequent technology, the place children wish to bands like All-American Rejects or My Chemical Romance because the Nirvana of their age?
WHEELER: There’s one thing particular about this scene and the music, even when we by no means felt like we belonged to it. I believe our songs helped us transcend and allowed us to do the radio and MTV factor, however actually it is simply the cycle of nostalgia now. After I began touring in 2002, I used to be solely listening to ’80s music, and now right here we’re 20 years later, and individuals are listening to 2000s music once more.
RITTER: The brand new technology will get to purely soak up [our band] in a random flicker of an algorithmic introduction that is pure with none predisposed concepts that this band is “too cool” or “too standard.” We had extra songs on the radio than any of the bands [in our scene] and threw our tunes in each 2000s rom-com film, which turned many individuals off, however I believe now individuals get to see that we made an actual fucking providing. To have the ability to spotlight that to a brand new technology is cooler than [simply] attempting to remain related.
2023 additionally marks the fifteenth anniversary of the discharge of your third album, When The World Comes Down. Are there any plans to do something particular to rejoice this milestone or spotlight a few of these songs within the upcoming setlist?
WHEELER: We’re not the kind of band to play a report entrance to again, however we have now all the time had enjoyable with vinyl repressings and particular releases.
Ritter: “Provides You Hell” [the lead single from When The World Comes Down] was a tune that grew to become greater than the band, whereas the remainder of that report bought ignored. With that album, we had been looking for a depth with the rock inside us. I actually do not know what songs we’d pull from the report for the upcoming exhibits apart from “Provides You Hell.”
“Mona Lisa” can be cool.
RITTER: There you go! “Mona Lisa” is certainly going to return out through the set. That is a very particular tune to me.
Will this upcoming tour reinvigorate the band’s creativity and probably open the door to writing the long-awaited fifth All-American Rejects album?
WHEELER: We’ve but to search out that magic method for making a real, new Rejects report, however perhaps we’ll over the summer time. This would be the first time we’ll all stay collectively for the primary time in six years — it is going to be a visit, man. There aren’t any plans, however you may by no means say by no means. If it feels proper and works out, then nice, however we’ll by no means do something to capitalize on a second. One of many causes there hasn’t been a fifth Rejects report is that we refuse to compromise our style and pleasure a couple of mission as a result of it all the time must be higher than the final one.
RITTER: I’ve to need to do a Rejects report greater than something on the planet for me to even strategy it. To enter the Rejects’ land once more, it will possibly’t be the identical this time.
