All-American Rejects

The All-American Rejects have been trying to play a show in Edmonton for quite a few years now, but whenever they’ve booked the show they’ve had to eventually cancel it because some ailment always seem to inflict front man Tyson Ritter’s vocal chords and he was unable to perform. This made it so that their first stop in Edmonton happened to be as the opening act for Blink-182‘s reunion tour and a few hours before he took the stage, I sat with Ritter under the bright sunlight on a grassy knoll outside of Rexall Place to talk about what the band has been up to lately.

---

Bobby: I guess the main question is that tonight is the third show on the Blink182 tour. How were the first two shows in Vancouver and Calgary and are you excited to see how it turns out?

Tyson: Yeah, the first two shows were incredible. I think what’s really cool is to be playing on a show where you feel like you definitely have an original edge compared to the other two bands. In the sense that I feel like we bring a show that is more something that you watch… When the Rejects get on stage, we have this vibe with each other and we connect with each other in a different way than a lot of other bands do. That’s sort of interesting and voyeuristic. You can stare at it, you don’t have to freak out as much. It’s sort of interesting. I think it’s cool to be showcasing our band to a crowd that I feel we’ve been needing to get in front of for a while.

Bobby: Yeah, because you have tried to get up here quite a bit but you’ve always…

Tyson: Always cancelled because of my throat.

Bobby: So it’s about time you finally came up here I guess.

Tyson: About time I could fucking sing I guess.

Bobby:  Blink182, for this tour, they could get basically any band they wanted to come out on tour with them. What was your reaction when you heard they wanted you guys? How did that get set up?

Tyson: It was great. It felt funny. I mean, I was throwing CDs at this guy’s feet when I was fifteen and now I’m touring with them ten years later. I don’t think you can really describe any sort of rock and roll dream to come true besides that right? When we got the call, we were taking back because we were, of course, really excited about it. It makes sense right? This tour makes probably more sense than a lot of tours we’ve been on in a long time. So I think because of that, it’s just a win-win situation.

Bobby: When you guys found out, you weren’t actually allowed to say you were on it. You hinted that you were on this tour in an interview in May with MTV but you weren’t allowed to flat out say it. Was that kind of annoying? Being so tongue-tied on such a big announcement?

Tyson: Nah, I mean, it’s just like making records too. When you get done with a record, you’re sitting on your record and you’re like “all I want to do it play it for somebody.” Like When The World Comes Down, when the new record came out, I was so bummed that I couldn’t leak it online. I just wanted to show everybody.

Bobby: I read that on June 9th when you guys were playing at the Roundhouse in London, you recorded the show for a live DVD. Is that true?

Tyson: Yes.

Bobby: What are you going to be doing with that? Are you going to be doing a live DVD or documentary? When do you think we’ll see it?

Tyson: I think we’re trying to do a documentary/live DVD thing because I feel we’re a band that’s always trying to give content to kids. We’ll always try to completely submerge them with what our band is. I feel like people get to know our band through our music but they get to know us also through our media, our website…

Bobby: Rejects TV.

Tyson: Yeah, Rejects TV and stuff like that. That’s sort of how we connect with kids in a way that our music can’t. And I’m sorry, what was the question again?

Bobby: The main thing was when do you think we’ll see the DVD and what will be on it?

Tyson: I think we’re gonna release it with iTunes. It’s gonna be an option for them to check out three free videos for anyone who’s bought our single, Gives You Hell. I think that’s what we’re gonna do, we’re going to send it to them for free. Which is like three million people, so hopefully they realize that we’re a rock band live too.

Bobby:  Why did you decide to do another live release? I mean, you already have four live DVDs. You have Live from Oklahoma, Live at Wiltern, Schooled and Tournado.

Tyson: Well if we don’t do these, I feel that nobody’s going to see our progression. You know what I mean? I feel like with every DVD we put out, the better it sounds, the more entertaining it is, the better it gets. I feel like this DVD will be the best yet in the sense that it will sound the best and look the best.

Bobby: Speaking about giving your fans a lot of media, I do want to talk a bit about Rejects TV. So far you have 462 videos on it, with the last one going up when you guys were in Vancouver the other day. What made you guys decide to do the Rejects TV?

Tyson: When we were in the studio, my web guy goes “you don’t interact with the fans enough. You need to be blogging, you need to be doing your daily typey-blog shit.” I go, “I don’t type man, I don’t type. I just write with pen and paper. So if you want me to do something, make it so I can push a button and be on TV.” And they did it and I was “cool.”

Bobby: Do you think now that fan interaction is becoming an important thing with being in a band?

Tyson: It’s always been important. Just now everyone expects it. So if you don’t cater to it as much, people think you’re kind of a dick. I don’t like that. That’s the one thing… if anybody ever sort of has a judgement or opinion on our band, I have to rectify that immediately. I’m like “why are you upset?” So if kids are upset that I’m not blogging enough, I’ll get on there and blog. Everybody’s got to be happy.

Bobby: Now it’s become a necessity. You have to have that fan interaction. You have to have the twitter, the blogs, the video blogs.

Tyson: Yeah, it’s like now music is the heroin but the band is the syringe. They can’t have just one.

Bobby: At the same time, DVDs and documentaries used to be the culmination of a couple months of filming when you’d pick out the best parts that give the fans, the viewers, the best entertainment, the most information. Now, however, its get out as much as you, as quick as you can. Do you think people, at times, lose that quality of content where you’re just flooded with over information?

Tyson: I think people are looking more than they’re listening nowadays which I think is dangerous to the music in general. I think that a lot of contemporary bands, that you probably write about everyday, that are these really pop-punky fucking bands that are fucking awful and are ruining the essence of what I do. I feel like, with history, all that shit has always faded away. I mean fuck, we’re the band that came out with Good Charlotte and Simple Plan in 2002 and then we were the band that came out with Fall Out Boy and Panic At the Disco in 2005. Now we’re the band. Now we’re the band that’s still doing it and I’m proud of that.

Bobby: Do you feel that, in some ways, some of the bands are missing that DIY ethics? If you have a strong web presence, you can get signed before you’ve even played a single show.

Tyson: I doubt that. I think even if you are signed, you’re fucking hopeless if you don’t tour. If you just expect that your MySpace player is going to generate all your love and success, you are hopeless and you need to really sort of give your parents back their money for all that gear they gave you because you’re going to owe a lot more if you keep going like this.

Bobby: Even look at the different types of media, like Guitar Hero and Rock Band which you guys have a few songs on it. Now that’s become a major publicity point, that’s how people discover bands.

Tyson: That’s honestly been something that we make more money on than our records. You’d be surprised. That is the best thing about the new media, to counter act all the stealing. The fact that we have ring tones and Guitar Hero and Rock Band, at least that gives us a little bread and butter. It’s a common misconception that rock bands that are in the limelight are successful. They might have success, but it’s taken us eight years to be successful.

Bobby: Do you think that people would be better spending the time they spend perfecting the plastic instrument playing a real one?

Tyson: Now you’re talking about something that I completely think is fundamentally wrong with video games and that’s the fact that they took the guitar and they ruined it. They ruined the spirit. That’s not a guitar, it’s a piece of plastic with color coded buttons. I don’t know how people aren’t getting epileptic from this. It’s rubbing your head, tapping your belly and fucking jacking off at the same time. It’s too much for me. Just get a guitar.

Bobby: Then there’s also the MP3s, you guys have released several MP3 only EPs. You had 2005’s Bite Back EP, the Wind Blows and Gives You Hell remixes, you have two Walmart Soundcheck EPs and a Rhapsody live online EP; and now you also said you’re planning on doing this live DVD release through iTunes. Why did you decide to do all these MP3 releases as opposed to the physical, actual format?

Tyson:  Because I feel like the physical CD nobody really gives a shit as much about. If anything, we’ll be releasing vinyl a lot more. We get our vinyl rights back after this and Kennerty and I have a record company called Edmond Records and it’s through Doghouse. We signed a band called the Upwelling out of New York City. The record comes out on August 25th, it’s the first record that we’ve put together for a band. It’s really cool. It’s really cool to be able to take success from a band and spill it onto another band that could come out; but not whoring it out like other bands – you know what I’m talking about.

Bobby: You said you were getting your vinyl rights back. I know a couple months ago, Doghouse re-released your self-titled on vinyl.

Tyson: Yeah, we have all our records on vinyl. Multi-colors. We’re crazy for vinyl, we love it.

Bobby:  Which is now a massive trend. I think last year Nelson Soundscan said vinyl sales went up like 83%.

Tyson: And it’s just going to keep going up.

Bobby: Why do you think that is?

Tyson: Because binyl sounds good. Vinyl sits you down, makes you sit in front of your record player and experience a record. For those people who are old school and believe in music like they should and reading, pulling out the sleeve. You’ve got fucking artwork like this *makes a big outline of twelve inch vinyl booklet*. I feel like people who love music will buy vinyl and people who want to experience music will buy vinyl. So if you come to a concert with a Rejects vinyl, I will sit down and I will give you extra special attention because I know that you understand what this is about.

Bobby: Like you just said, with vinyl, you have to go, sit down and enjoy the record. I remember there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal last year which had a whole bunch of bands complaining about iTunes, saying that it’s destroying the idea of a complete album by letting them pick and choose the songs that they want. Whereas with vinyl and CDs, you sit down and get the entire thing as opposed to just the singles. Do you agree with that?

Tyson: Oh yeah, I mean I think we live in a singles driven world.  Go run into that pink car right there and grab the iPod, it’s only songs – not records. People don’t buy records anymore.

Bobby: Which is unfortunate.

Tyson: It will all come around.

Bobby: I want to go back a bit in time to January when you guys released a rather interesting cover song on Yahoo music.

Tyson: That thing lit a fire didn’t it?

Bobby: It was Britney Spears’ Womanizer. You said you did it because you could do it better than Britney, was that your only reason?

Tyson: We had to do a cover in order to be on the front page of Yahoo, so we picked the crappiest song in the Top 40 and we told ourselves “fuck it, we’ll do it really ugly and we’ll see if we can do it.” We did it and everyone loved it.

Bobby: Do you ever pull out the accordion and the beer bottles and crack that tune out live?

Tyson: We do it when its right. When the crowd really deserves it.

Bobby: I also have to ask, how did you get involved with House Bunny and what was it like in the film lot instead of the recording studio?

Tyson: I was working on my ex-girlfriend’s house. I had paint all over me. I got a call, said “hey, do you want to do an audition?” I said “fuck it, why not?” I went there, dressed as I was and there in front of me sat Adam Sandler and Allen Covert. I was just shitting razor blades. I read some lines, they were like “great.” They passed it over to me and I said “I got a song called I Wanna, do you want to put it on your soundtrack?” “Heck yes!” I’m like okay.

Bobby: What was it like being…

Tyson: Being on a set with eight women for two weeks? It wasn’t that bad… it wasn’t that bad at all. Anna Farris is beautiful, kind, sweet. Emma Stone, the girl who was my love interest, that red head. She’s gorgeous. I got to kiss her *pretends to make out with her* That was awesome.

Bobby: You guys have always had a three year break in-between all your records. Do you think you’ll have a three year break between When The World Comes Down and your next one?

Tyson: No, this one is going to be quick. This is going to be real quick.

Bobby: Have you started working on anything yet?

Tyson: Yep.

Bobby: When do you think we’ll be able to see it?

Tyson: The summer after next.

Bobby: Have you seen the fan-made video for Gives You Hell? The Robot Chicken style video for High School Musical. What was your reaction when you guys saw that?

Tyson: I love it. My favourite part is the fact that everyone’s has taken that song and been so creative and inventive with it. There’s some really crazy ass videos for it on YouTube. We did a contest for fans to make a YouTube video for Gives You Hell and we got so many ridiculous ones. There’s some gems in there and that’s a great one. It’s clever.

Bobby: I guess that’s about it, thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to add?

Tyson: Nah. I mean, check me out on Twitter. TysonRitterAAR. That’s about all I think we left out. Oh, and our new single is called I Wanna. I don’t know if we talked about it, but it’s about sort of being locked away from someone you love for two years on the road and all you want to do is put your hands on them. It’s kind of ironic when this crazy business turns into a prison.