The All-American Rejects formed in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1999. The band consists of lead vocalist and bass guitarist Tyson Ritter, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Nick Wheeler, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Mike Kennerty, and drummer and percussionist Chris Gaylor. Since their formation they have released four full length albums; their self-titled debut album The All- American Rejects was released in late 2002 and was re-issued on Feb 4, 2004 (produced by Tim O'Hier), Move Along was released on July 12, 2005 (produced by Howard Benson), When the World Comes Down was released on December 16, 2008 (produced by Eric Valentine), and their newest album Kids in the Street was released on March 26, 2012 (produced by Greg Wells). They have also released two live dvds; the Live from Oklahoma... The Too Bad for Hell DVD! (2003), and Tournado that has content from the 2006 headlining tour of the same name (2007). Over the years they have performed on many tours and festivals including; selective dates on the Vans Warped Tours, their first headlining tour Too Bad For Hell Tour (Spring 2003), The Rise of the Fall Tour along with The Academy Is... and Rooney (late 2005), their Gives You Hell Tour and I Wanna Rock Tour (2008). They also joined up with Weezer, Fall Out Boy and Taking Back Sunday for the second half of the Blink-182 Reunion Tour in late 2009. In August of that year The All-American Rejects performed alongside Hoobastank, Raygun, Boys Like Girls, Pixie Lott and Kasabian as one of the live acts at Asia's very first MTV World Stage Live In Malaysia concert. They also performed at the 2010 Winter Olympics at the Whistler Medals Plaza. The All-American Rejects have been touring much of this year, in support of their newest album Kids In The Street. They did their Shaking Off The Rust tour (Jan 18- Feb 10), a six week North American tour with support from A Rocket To The Moon (March 31-Mar13), opened up for Blink 182 (in May as well as in mid-june), performed on Bamboozle, and also did a U.S. tour with Eve 6 (Aug 8-30). They are currently co-headlining a seven week long U.S. tour with Boys Like Girls, with support from The Ready Set and Parachute on select dates. Tour started Sept. 13, in Hampton Beach, NH, and goes until Oct. 31, in San Francisco, CA. How was tour with Blink 182 over the summer? It was amazing! It was the first time we ve gone to Europe and not played just small dingy clubs so it was quite a change and quite fun actually. What was your favorite experience over there? It was just getting to play those shows; every night was a packed arena. We had a surprisingly good response from the crowd. You never really know when you re opening for a big show like that a lot of times those people are there for the head lining band and you re kind of in the way until they get on, but Blink s crowd was really really nice and really responsive and we had a great time!
Your co-headline tour, with BOYS LIKE GIRLS, starts in 2 days! What are you most looking forward to with that tour? We ve been on the road pretty much all year, and I think we ve really homed in our show. So I m excited to just get out there and play and kind of show off the new tunes from Kids In The Street and how we ve grown as a band. We haven t done a tour, of this size, in a couple years so it ll just be really nice to just be doing it again because it s what we love to do. Do you have a favorite song from Kids In The Street that you like to play live right now? We ve really been enjoying playing Heartbeats Slowing Down which is kind of the big ballad on the record, which can be a weird thing to do live, but I think it s one that I think we pull off. To play it live is really challenging, musically, because the way we arranged it on the record it s not just the easiest thing to get up there with guitars and play. We really took our time to make sure that all the songs translate well, and we still really have a good time when we get out there and do it. It comes across to the crowd as a little more depth than normally 2 guitars, bass and drums. What does the album title Kids In The Street mean to you? When we were recording the record we were talking a lot about where we came from, as a band, and how when we were young and you kind of had no consequence; you could just be this rambunctious piece of shit that, you weren t trying to be an asswhole but you kind of were, just by virtue of being a kid and just doing whatever you wanted. There s definitely nostalgia for that, and we kind of felt that as we were making this record, so that theme kind of permeates throughout about what it means to grow up and kind of give that up. Kids In The Street has a different sound than your previous ones do. Can you talk about the writing process for this record compared to the others? We ve always taken our time between records, which I think helps us kind of grow as musicians. We re never in the same mindset as we were on the previous one; I think that with this one is no exception. With this record you can kind of hear an evolution, we ve always kind of changed and added new stuff and I think this one is another extension of that. We really just pushed ourselves, in the studio, to kind of embrace a mood opposed to just going in and trying to perfectly record every song. With that we kind of found a new sound with a lot of songs. Particular we recorded a few of the songs live and imperfections are bound on a record, but I think that adds to the overall vibe. Somehow we made our most varied record, stylistically, but I think it s also our most cohesive as an album. I think you can sit down and listen to it start to finish and it kind of tells a story in a way that none of our previous ones have.
If you could go anywhere in the world, where's one place you would like to either play a show at again, or play it for the first time? Well we ve never been to South America, and I d really love to do that. We apparently have a lot of fans in Brazil, but somehow it s never worked out that we ve gone down there, so I d really love to do that. As far as going back to places I always love going to Japan, so any chance we get to go there I m all about it. There is so much truth and passion in your lyrics. Out of all the songs, what song holds the most meaning to you? There s a song called Gonzo on this record that s actually about us as a band, and our journey of when we were kids just getting in a van and driving away from Oklahoma. More than any other song I guess I have to relate to, because it s literally about us and what we ve done as a band. It s really nice to listen to that one and think about the times we ve had. You were all raised, and got started in the music scene, in Oklahoma. How would you describe the music scene over there? You know Oklahoma, there s not a whole lot going on so I think it gives a lot of people time to really concentrate on music and play music. It s not the biggest scene in the world but it s enough. I think it makes people work hard to get out and tour and get out of Oklahoma and see what else is out there. Which I think helps everything; helps bring attention to the fact that there is a lot of bands in Oklahoma. I m always very proud of any band that comes out of where we came from. What s it like being a rock band in the age of pop dominance? It s weird! It s really weird. It happened so fast too which is the weird thing. A few years ago we had a song Gives You Hell and that was a really big song for us, and it s been, I think, four years now and all of a sudden there s no guitars to be found on radio anywhere. We re just keeping on trucking and doing what we do. I ve always felt like good songs will stick around and so as long as we concentrate on making good songs that s true to who we are and not just trying to buy into what s popular will keep us around in one form or another.
Do you have a favorite pop song of this year? I don t know. It s funny my girlfriend, the other day, was reading me the charts of what the biggest songs of this year were, so far, and I knew some of them but there was a lot I didn t know. It was funny reading the rock charts, and I didn t know any of it, and then when we listened to it I was like this is like modern folk music. Rock music has now become a thing where if you play an acoustic instrument that makes it rock, which is really silly to me. Which I m not saying is bad music, by any means, it s just really funny that that s the definition of rock now, as far as charts go. I don t even know it s a weird weird time in music. Do you look at music differently now since you ve been in a band? Yeah! When you have experience, especially in the music industry side like we have, it makes you look at things differently. The one thing that sucks, maybe this is part of the internet too, is the demystification of bands. Like when I was a kid, my favorite band was the Misfits and a lot of it was just the mystique of it; so much of their stuff was out of print or hard to find, there was barely any interviews or pictures, there was just something that made them like other worldly because of that. Now it s like everyone with all the social interaction, and internet stuff, it s like everyone knows everything about everyone. It s like an overflow of information; it kind of takes away that mystique of rock bands that was really cool when I was growing up. Now, having done it, on the other side of it. It is especially demystifying because I know who I am, and I m just some nobody and somehow I m in this big band so that makes every other band seem like oh they re just dudes. What song or songs would you say represent this band the most? That s a tough one! The song called Heartbeat s Slowing Down, on the new record, is all of our collective favorites on the new record and probably one of our favorite songs we ve ever done. Stylistically, it s kind of; I wouldn t say necessary represents the band because it s kind of a song on its own amongst all our others but I feel like it really captures like a really shining moment for as band; as far as quality of the song, and just meaning behind the song I think we re all really proud of that. So if there s one right now I think that if we re just going to play one song for somebody, that s probably the one we d all pick.
The music videos off of Kids In The Street are all very diverse. Did you all help with the concepts of them? What was your favorite one to do? (Someday s Gone/ Walk Over Me/ Kids In The Street/ Beekeeper s Daughter) Yeah, that was a lesson we learned very early on, is that if we re not in control of stuff other people will fuck it up. Whatever director we decide to work with we ll definitely be very close with them on getting the concept and the execution down. With this album, with the exception of the Beekeeper s Daughter video, we ve done it all with this guy named John Danovich who is a friend of ours who happened to be a visual video guy, he s done music videos and a bunch of other stuff. We just worked really close with him and really like bonded with him and made those three videos and he s also done any of our touring behind the scenes videos, it s really been a great relationship and we ve been really happy with everything he s done so far. He s such a creative guy, I feel like the Someday s Gone video and the Walk Over Me video are just so totally different than anything we ve ever done before, we re really proud of them. Lastly, if the world was to really end in December, what would you be most proud of as a musician? I would be proud to just have gotten to do this, for a living, because that s just an amazing thing that I never dreamed of growing up when I was just in a van playing shows. Artistically, I have so much pride in everything we ve done, as a band, that just the fact that we have these four records, I m proud of that. I m proud that we put out records that I can be proud of and not look back on and shake my head at any point.