The All-American Rejects

Part 1

0:00Still water, Oklahoma still water the one of the greatest bands of all time as well still water from all famous So we're gonna start the interview with that question from that movie. What do you guys love about music? What do we love about music? There's That's his answer in the movie Yeah, I mean you can break it down to so many sections like playing is just amazing And you know we've been doing it for so long and yet it still remains like Pretty much the highlight of what we do like it's it's we get to go out there and see thousands of faces rocking It's pretty gratifying feeling. Yeah, but I think before that. There's the most gratifying feeling you get is when you

0:47sort of impress yourself With a song and it's like you you find a melody lost in this sort of you know A little I do like a little I just getting like a little trance, you know and I find some core progression that Stimulates my ear and then when you like you get that and you're like There's something really sort of magical about impressing yourself with something that you pulled out of the ear But truly I feel like the the most Magical moment where what where I feel about you know that question. What do I like about music? It's like I like When I feel alive with something I've created you know what I mean? It's really there's no better reward than sort of impressing yourself What songs impress you recently that you've written or that he's written or that you've written I

1:35Think it I don't know. I think there was a moment with another hard calls It's a song on our record when the world comes down that that is a duet We did with this group this girl's called the pierces and I feel like that was the one song where I sort of had the foresight and knew what I wanted immediately as far as just I wrote the song lyrically as a duet and sort of when we all sort of sat in the room and Jammed it out. It was just a magical moment because we we sort of all felt the anthemic power of this song It's very anthemic this record not the old ones aren't I guess move along still have that big course Yeah, but is that something you always want to do like really just get these banging courses with everyone singing along kind of thing I guess for the shows you're playing now with the arenas you kind of have No, I think a focus we've always had is you know writing catchy stuff that people want to sing along to and you know

2:28Get someone excited about listen to music hooks. Yeah hooks even with like Negative connotations like gives you help To sing that I don't know we don't always You knew or if it's just kind of it yeah I a lot of people don't like the fact that it's not about a chick so I don't see recently I don't think it does you but recently I've been actually changing my answer to see people's yeah Cuz I feel like people sort of want to hear that but honestly, it's it's about a dude I really hate and the only reason you have a gender to the the song is because I say if you find a man That's worth a damn But that's sort of just that that that was just a clever line that that fit there but it's it's it's a it's about it's about this sort of contempt I've had for this person and It I've never been sort of a point in the finger lyrically at somebody in any of our music

3:15But this song had to sort of happen it was so Bombastic and ridiculous and circusy that it was like yeah, I feel like we can say fuck you and you know what I mean Yeah, I say that here though. No, no, I know but but I feel like there's there's there'll be a weight to that sensor No So what's the deal what's the dynamic in the band? How's it changed a little bit? Did you bring some else on the road or yeah We brought out we brought out base player tech named Ethan who just shreds and I I just feel like the live show needed a more a different dynamic because I have all this You're playing at all or you just singing every show. I'm playing the old songs. Okay, so on the new record I don't play any of the new jams Let's play Oh, yes, it just gives the show a little more variety you know, you know there's scene changes I dare anybody to say that there's a band that has more energy on stage tonight like we are we are

4:07fighting words. I don't think it's fine words. I'm just saying it's like we bleed up there We bear our souls every night every night a show has a life And if it it was if it has a great birth and then a beautiful sort of middle-aged period And at the very end when they die when the show dies If everybody's it's coming as hard as they should be then it's this magical It's a magical thing and then you can die you can die a happy man Let's play it soon and we were talking about gives you hell So why don't I give people some hell cuz it's massive cool. Hey, I'm Tyson. I'm Mike and we're the all-American rejects Here's our song gives you Yeah, why because it's different you got the drum machines there you don't expect that kind of stuff to go analog

4:53We yeah, we don't have a lot of drum machines on this record every just the single rather every night that was all organic That was really yeah that our drummer Chris's dropping a stick on a speaker It drops and they mic the speaker every sound on this record's organic. We didn't use any sort of see I found it weird cuz I didn't expect you guys to do that. Yeah, well knowing now We actually feel a little bit or whatever that we had to prove to ourselves I think as that we are banned a lot of bands just can't do it a lot of bands they they track their guitars like you know Separately and they just fudge them through pro tools line them up Put the put the mayonnaise and generic, you know wipe across the vocals tune it Make it completely homogenized and take all the life out of it

5:40And we we definitely looked at ourselves and said all right can we play? are we players and We went and took six months with Eric Valentine to cut a record Which a lot of bands can do a record in about eight weeks? Because of the magic of pro tools and then we recorded 13 and 12 and it up on the record. So where's that other one? It's waiting it's it's back there ready to jump out. Go ahead blazing Yeah, we need to do something great with it I know The second Yeah, we need to put out a new one we need to put out a new one of this show for sure I think we're going to Yeah, and we've been recording a lot of we've been having to do a lot of live video stuff for various things

6:29It's kind of nice I mean it'd be kind of cool before we've done, you know a full two full show DVDs Be cool to do the compilation DVD I'd like to do a compilation DVD but also do it with the with like all every small show Like record those what like 200 people then yeah, like just the really tight ones I hate playing I'm I love playing arenas, but I hate playing arenas. Yeah, there's not the same You have to be completely more of a cartoon because you have to sort of look at the back row and go How do I get you off? It's hard. Feed the children with the record. That's pretty cool that proceeds of the record go to it. Yeah, we we got together Right before our record came out with Feed the Children and They they're Oklahoma based organization that sort of feeds

7:20Is it the domestically it's the domestic hungry children? Yeah, it's all the children one and eight children. I guess are completely starving and So we took 40,000 records and we gave them the profits from the Dollar from every record, which is pretty much 20 cents over our share, you know so uh, yeah, we gave them gave them some cash because We're oklahomans and we'd sort of really like to help benefit anything that's a homegrown project Especially if it's charity especially this day and age two and one more people are going hungry every day Yeah Let's pick people up because that's kind of sad and play it too. And I'll let you choose move along or do a little secret How we do our new jam? Let's do yeah, let's do I want to play out later, but all right all right. Well fine No, no, he says I want you want some nostalgia. You want some nostalgia? He wants to sell

8:07No, I dig it. I didn't know you're doing a set. That's nice. Let's do some nostalgia now. Let's throw it back What what do you want? Um, let's do move along. Yeah, okay. I I think that's you know It's it's tough to say because it sounds egotistical But if if there's one of our songs, it's going to be a classic song for us I think move along is is up there in contention with that so yeah, I would say swing swing over move along really yeah, because I feel like there's like that sort of Purity and the the swing swing for where people didn't have any sort of locked opinions on us It was just it was a fan. It's true. It's true five questions one more answers. You guys can both answer rotor studio Depends

8:53I've heard that before but come on Riding on the road Studio on the road. I'm really starting to fudge both those worlds together and it's really kind of nice But I'll let you say for the for the sake of this amazing tour the road. There you go. Yeah, you agree? Yeah, it depends. Okay Leonard McCartney Lenin I'm a car at me Cool. Well, that's the way that's good band works for you guys most important thing in a song lyrics melody or cadence Melody Yeah Talk about that hook cool song you've written your most proud of Mona Lisa Sunko Mona Lisa or another heart calls. I came Or fall apart. Sorry those three those three are like

9:42It's very tough Another heart calls is up there for sure. Okay one word on American reader everlasting radness

Part 2

0:00It's Matt with MSN.C. We got to Nick and Tyson for the All-American Regics here, New Record, Kids in the Street, and it's awesome. So why don't we start? Yeah, you're welcome. So why don't we start there, talk about you guys right together in a little cabin somewhere, talk about coming up with that one. Yeah, Nick and I were in a cabin in Maine, totally secluded the wrong time of year. It was like, you know, well, not wrong, but it was actually perfect for the foliage. It was perfect for the leaves, but as far as just, you know, it wasn't like this hot spot, Lake Havasu kind of spring break thing. It was, you know, this bleak

0:45environment. And we've been there for about five days and hadn't written a single song and I was starting to go crazy. And Nick, calm as ever, was like, just, dude, just, just wait, man. And then I remember I was like downplaying on the piano and I sang this, I sang the hook for Heartbeats slowing down and I put my headphones down. I was like, shit. Because I kind of sometimes when I get confidence, I'm not single loud enough to see if he'll say something in the other room. No, and then all of a sudden I saw playing it and Nick was like, it sounded cool, dude. And then I shot upstairs and we mapped it out and like, I mean, it's not like it was super quick. I think we just really cared to make sure that it was perfect because we knew that the chorus was perfect. And we had fun with it that

1:31whole like, you know, that whole breakdown that just sits on E flat for like, so we were like, let's just stay here. It was a long time. It was just, yeah, it's a moment on the record where I felt like we were starting to find something like the meat of the record. And then soon after that, we wrote the title track Kids in the Street. And I think that was about when we started saying, okay, let's, let's get ready to make a record. We spent almost a year, actually over a year writing, we had 20 some songs and the last writing trip we took was up in some mountain in Colorado. And Mike and

2:16Chris flew in just so we could hang out, you know, get the band back together. And we showed them all these songs. And by this point, you know, it's been a year. So we've lost a complete perspective. We don't know if we should start over or what. And, you know, he calls him the judge, jury, and executioner for each and every song. And that's... Butcher now. Today I said butcher. Did you? Because after the fats cut away, there we have. Right. They trim the fat. We, so we listened to every single song that we'd written and decided that we had a cohesive record, something that made sense and something that we were really proud and excited to go record and that we did. And the songs with the words that we'd sing along. How have the songs changed live? Have they morphed at all?

3:03A little bit. I mean, we're having some fun with them. I mean, honestly, we're just starting to notice kids singing along with the new stuff, which is great. I mean, we've been living with some of these songs. Beekeeper's daughter is two years old now. So we've been... Exactly. In the world of, you know, publicly, it's only like a month and a half whole now. So it's like the only thing that revives, even songs we've been playing for 10 years, is looking out and seeing kids singing it. You know, we've always written records that have hits. You know, like that's always been... That's always been something easy for us, I guess. But the difficult thing, I feel like, has been sort of making a record resonate. And you know, I feel like we did that pretty well with Move Along. But since then I feel like this is the first record that we can stand on

3:50and say that it's a record that kids are going to come to show knowing the entire record as opposed to just... Oh, that's that song I hear on the radio, you know? Five good questions, one more answers. All right. Road or studio? See, you need like a sub-question to that. Right now, right now, Road. Sure, Road. Landon or McCartney? Harrison. Good answer. Landon. Cool. What hits you most when you hear a song? Lyric's Melody or Rhythm? Melody. I would say Melody, yeah. The song you've written you're most proud of. Heartbeat's falling down. Crazy. Ditto. Wow. And in one word, the All-American rejects. It's hard to say in one word that sound like a douche.

4:38We're awesome. I don't know. Just us. Us is good. I like that. I like that. It's all we know how to do. I like zombies. That'll work too.