|
 When Oklahoma four-piece The All American rejects
picked up the MTV Video award last month for Best Group Video for Move Along,
there was much to celebrate. As guitarist Nick Wheeler gleefully recalls:
“We partied our f*cking balls off. That was a good night. I think I
blacked out,” he laughs.
Their current album,
Move along is the band’s second album following their self titled debut which
was first released in 2002. It seems that their brand of power pop rock has
never been more in demand. They were recently played sold out gigs
in the UK
and doing promotion for their latest single It Ends Tonight. Then they’ll be
in the US on an arena tour. However, they’ve had little time to reflect on any success
they’ve achieved.
“We’re oblivious to
everything that’s happening and it’s tough to tell what is going on, but we’re
having a blast. For us, we’ve grown up on the road. We got out of
high school and we went on the road. So I don’t know if any change that’s
occurred has been me growing into my mid twenties or if that’s been because
we’ve slowly become a successful rock band. It probably has to do with both.”
says Nick. “We don’t live in LA or NY, and we don’t surround ourselves
in the scene or anything like that, so we definitely keep our heads on us.
Especially going home to Oklahoma, or Florida where we live now, it’s quiet,
it’s laid back, you have time to let things sink in, you realise what you’ve
accomplished but you don’t let it get to your head”.
Nick was in High School
when he and vocalist/bassist Tyson Ritter started the band in the late '90. Both shared a
passion for music in their small home town of Stillwater. Mike Kennerty (guitarist)
and Chris Gaylor (drummer) would join a few years later in 2002.
“Every baby band wants
to be the biggest band in the world. We f*cking worked our asses off, we got in
the van and played as many little sh*t hole bars as we could, we played
birthday parties. We played wherever we could to get our name out there
and to play our songs and have fun with it, but at the same time we wanted to
make a career of it,” remembers Nick “There’s been some embarrassing
moments, but I wouldn’t trade any of them for the world. There’s been some bad
hair, there’s been some bad gigs, but those were a long time ago”. He
adds: “When our first record came out, we hated being called emo. We
didn’t want to be in that scene”.
Having released album
number one independently before being picked up by their current record
label, how was the working relationship for album number two?
“It was just a
process. There’s certainly no body telling us any direction or artistic kind of
thing, it’s more like everybody’s cool, laid back and lets us do our thing. If
the song’s good, the song’s good,” explains Nick. “We set out to write a
dozen songs and make a record. That’s what we did the first time around, why
wouldn’t it work again? Well, this time around there’s a lot more cooks in the
kitchen. It took us about a year to come up with the material to compile
into this album, but it’s the best dozen songs we wrote. And you know what? The
three singles so far off this album were the last three songs that were
written, so thank God for all those people who wouldn’t let us make the record
that early”.
The success of Move
Along has meant that the band have had little time to think about the future
and writing new material.
“I guess it’s a good
problem to have, this record keeping us busy for so long. We’re almost two
years in touring this record, so yeah man it’s been crazy,” says Nick. “On
the last record we didn’t really let anything settle in until we were done
touring and we were writing for this record. We had step back, get off the bus
and let it all sink in. I think we’ve still got another six months, so we’ll
surely be spending all of next year working on new material”.
So while life in rock band not always a smooth and easy ride, but it’s
certainly not boring, is it?
“It definitely is
not boring, ever. When we go home and get caught up in doing ‘normal’ stuff,
like going grocery store, or whatever normal is, It’s certainly a nice break
and it certainly mixes things up a bit,” he says. “We’re all weirdoes to
begin with! We’re so not normal. Yeah we’re freaks, man! We drink every
night and it’s OK, most people have to wait until the weekend,” he laughs.
And that’s just the start of it. It’s like we’re not normal but this lifestyle
makes it acceptable”.
It Ends Tonight is out on the 25th September.
For more info: www.allamercianrejects.com
Words: Helen Duong
 |
love you guys!!!!! 
