- 4 hours ago
The All-American Rejects’ Tyson Ritter and Nick Wheeler discuss their new album, the surprising success of their House Party tour, longevity in modern rock music and how up-and-coming artists can find creative ways to amplify their voices.
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00:00hey everybody welcome to the billboard house south by southwest i am jason lipshots i am the
00:04co-chief content officer of billboard i am very happy to be here with tyson and nick of the all
00:11american rejects give it up for these guys today case oh thank you for giving it up wow i feel
00:16like
00:16my microphone is just making yeah we're way louder yeah this is fun this is oh here we go oh
00:22yeah
00:22you now we're now we're competing uh i'm a big fan of you guys i'm very happy to be here
00:29uh chatting
00:30with you guys you have a ton going on um this is your first time at south by southwest yeah
00:36uh how
00:37are you enjoying austin how you're enjoying the vise so far i love austin yeah yeah great food
00:42great coffee great people there is a lot of great coffee here i totally agree with that um you guys
00:48i want to start like big picture um you guys are here in part because you are a success story
00:56like
00:57this what you guys have accomplished over the course of your guys career is like a case study in in
01:03how
01:03to navigate the changing music industry and how to adapt and how to be a successful act like i'm
01:10within the whirlwind of everything you guys are doing in terms of new album which is coming out soon we'll
01:14talk about it the tour dates different types of tours um do you guys ever sit and reflect like do
01:21you guys have a beat to sit and be like wow we're this is still all happening for us to
01:27some degree
01:28yeah i think there was a moment when we walked out uh we we played the long beach work tour
01:33uh
01:33festival last year and kevin the guy who puts that on he you know notoriously would never put the
01:41lineup up until day of show and that was the case for that festival and we'd never headlined a warped
01:46tour show you know or played last you know that was like the way there was no headliner it was
01:51just
01:51if you played last and he picked us to play last that day and there was like 85 000 people
01:56there and
01:57this is the biggest show that the band had played as has played today in north america and i think
02:03there
02:03was like after we did our house party tours that was kind of this culminating moment where i remember we
02:09were all kind of backstage and we're like it was kind of an emotional like moment of wow guys like
02:14we we woke up the beast after uh kind of a decade of slumber uh it felt i felt really
02:22gratifying it
02:22felt humbling we were you know gratitude was like is the only thing that we've taken away from this
02:28sort of second bite of the apple i think it's funny we actually had the conversation the other day
02:32of like we need to build in more time to be able to i guess you know smell the roses
02:38for lack of a
02:38better word um because i mean that we did this for 10 years as a full-time job more than
02:44a 24 7 job
02:45and you know kind of burned ourselves out and then we took 10 years off and now here we are
02:50again
02:51having fun wanting to do this you know for you know and hopefully another 10 years we'll see but i
02:56think
02:56in order to do that you know like you said you have to you have to kind of look at
03:00it and be like ah
03:02we're also look at us because so too like i think if we ever sort of acknowledge anything that's
03:06like you know i'm super superstitious like i'm like you don't put plaques up in your house
03:11you don't only only in the bathroom just to be funny don't ever acknowledge that something good
03:18has happened because then you'll be you know on the golf course like alice cooper and then you know
03:25he's still doing it yeah you know what i've been yeah yeah yeah school's out well last year
03:31you played stadium shows you know opening for jonas brothers and playing in front of tens of
03:36thousand people's warp tour like you said you also played in backyards and in basements and in fields
03:44like was that kind of dissonance was that hard to navigate like in terms of like oh now i'm playing
03:51for this many people now i'm playing for that many people like what what was that like last year
03:55i i the jonas was absolute gentleman they run such a incredible like machine uh but that tour for me
04:04was just absolute misery because we had done these backyard parties um and we're at eye level with our
04:12with fans old and new and that connection that just the energy in the line the energy in those
04:20environments was like i i well we're in the belly of that beast man like when we were like a
04:27weekend
04:27and it was popping off on whatever it felt like you know we were holding the the tail of the
04:33dragon man
04:34it was those shows were the greatest things i've ever been a part of let alone been to let alone
04:39perform that um and to go from that to this gigantic stadium with you know so many people there
04:47ready to see the jonas brothers it was it was like i felt like i went to district one and
04:53i was
04:53waiting for staley tucci to come out and be like oh captain 17 was so detached man the crowds that
05:00go to
05:00the that are on the floor there you know they're all like oil barons and and and really twirling their
05:06mustache yeah yeah it's totally the mud billy guy and his and his and his harem and uh and it
05:14just felt
05:15like so lifeless in comparison like really devoid of any connection comparatively and it's not just
05:20the jonas brothers tour but during our you know hiatus i guess if you could call it we did a
05:24couple
05:24tours opening for bigger acts and arenas and shreds and stuff and those didn't really inspire us to
05:30you know fire up the engines again but going out doing these house parties like that sure did like
05:35we actually you know we finished a record this year and we haven't done that any since 2012
05:42so i i'm sure a lot of people in this room or everyone in this room knows about the house
05:46parties who work can you tell us how it started like where where did that idea come from to start
05:51doing this there's a lady up the stairs she's uh we met her as a 29 year old she's holding
05:56my purse
05:56day to day yeah there she is her name's megan and she loves this band she's the first manager we've
06:06had that actually likes our band i think you know we used to have the manager of who was like
06:11i manage
06:12green day and goo goo dolls and it's like you know he people used to get bit up because they
06:18were
06:18buzzing through some industry thing and like that's how we got picked up as a man it's like oh this
06:22band's
06:22breaking k-rock is playing them i'll take them on you know what i mean it wasn't i love your
06:28music or
06:28anything like that and you know 20 years later we we we meet this incredibly talented woman and um
06:35she said you know we should play house parties that's my impersonation of you babe
06:42and and and we're like what and she's like yeah like those 90s movies
06:48like we just show a bit of backyard and it was that it was that you know that was it
06:55man it was
06:55like let's call around see if anybody's gonna let us play in their backyard it was that innocent
06:59simple with the only expectation that it was way better than paying for a creator buy on some you
07:06know purchased reality on tiktok where we're pissing in the wind against you know the the expenditure
07:13accounts of a sabrina carpenter you know as an independent artist to have 50 grand to throw at
07:19either digital advertising or put it in a bus a trailer a pa and just head to the midwest find
07:27some music cities that aren't spoiled like uh no fits austin music spoiled cities create a different
07:36environment um people are i can go see anybody tonight um but if i live in ames iowa and it's
07:43graduation night and there's a cornfield out of town that apparently this band's gonna set up and
07:49play at you know that that created something you know especially being from oklahoma it felt like you
07:56know the shows we started playing when we were kids i was i was gonna ask about that like how
08:00much
08:00of it reminded you of the the genesis of the band because to me like i remember to your point
08:06like
08:06when you guys took off with swing swing you get it was like a rocket show and this is just
08:11me as a
08:11fan like i remember you know from there like it was hit after hit but so were these house party
08:17shows
08:17like harking back right back to like the pre-hit days i mean kind of yeah because we're from stillwater
08:25oklahoma which is a very small town um and there's really not any concert venues so we had to put
08:30on our
08:30own shows whether it was you know parties and friends backyards or you know just a field uh so i
08:36mean
08:36yeah it kind of was exactly like that um you know on occasion we'd get to drive what is it
08:4210 hours
08:42down here and play like the red-eyed fly or emos or something i can do a legit show but
08:47but i mean
08:48yeah we grew up doing this at what point did you realize the house parties were like it wasn't just
08:54like a fun reinvigorating thing but like oh people are actually paying attention to it people are writing
08:59stories and want to talk to us about how we're doing it like what how quickly did that happen
09:05probably the second or third shows yeah wow that quickly yeah it was it was i remember because i
09:11walked off we played the quad at uh the university of madison or university of wisconsin green bay
09:17is that it i don't know oh geez it and to me i was like yeah this i remember walking
09:23off look at
09:24maybe like this is a waste of money this is like yeah i was like yeah we play for these
09:30kids that's
09:30great and then the next day she's like it's working
09:35and it was it was and i was like what do you talk about and she's like it's blowing up
09:40on on the the
09:41the internets yeah she had like 6 000 emails in a day or whatever and and this was great because
09:49i
09:49think you know our agency we just moved over to uta they were like this is stupid
09:57we're like we're like hey we need waters and stuff for the kids do you think there's any sponsorship
10:02that might you know hey look it's starting to happen on they're like nah all of a sudden like
10:07our dms were flooded with can we draw product for you and your fans can we get so we ended
10:11up basically
10:12not only booking this thing ourselves but like we were getting sponsorship arranged on instagram wow
10:18for for product drops i mean this was like the full diy roller coaster and man i as a as
10:26an
10:26independent artist just like to to be able to like navigate something that that everybody said was
10:32stuck and i think that just shows you where we're at as the in this in this whole bubble of
10:37the music
10:37industry that is you know shifting as drastically as the movie business now but it's happening with like
10:44with these safe havens of like people that are afraid to stick their neck out there and to roll a
10:51dice on somebody because they they're just kind of a part of the big ivory tower but if you want
10:56to make
10:56noise if you have an idea that your gut is telling you is right i think it's like this is
11:00a perfect
11:01example of wow man like people don't know um like especially the people that are in those ivory towers
11:08you're just like man you just you're you're you're a way out there on that in that ivory tower we're
11:14down here on the on the ground where we realize that disparity of of shows this being a luxury item
11:21now it used to be twenty dollars twenty five dollars could get you a cheap seat to a show that's
11:27gone
11:29and we're also in this post-covid of it all where these kids that came out to these shows had
11:36seen
11:36their parent had seen movies that their parents showed them of of what these parties might have
11:40been like but also shows where they were lifted above their peers heads and crowd surfing and stuff
11:45like that right and so many people you saw the the veil lifted these shows that they just wanted to
11:52be
11:52together and they wanted that fellowship and that was also like this crazy thing that was an
11:57an unforeseen outcome i mean that in turn makes us be much more present performing too i mean like
12:02if it's an arena and it's super dark and i can't see um that's fine i'll have fun playing playing
12:08music with my friends for 45 minutes or whatever but yeah at these house shows just watching kids
12:13just elated crowd surfing you know just being present in the moment like that makes us do exactly
12:20the same it feels like probably you know the first iteration of all american rejects you guys had this
12:28whirlwind of these huge smash hits on on a major label and i'm i'm assuming like that was incredibly
12:35gratifying to see them beat the songs connect like that and but this is gratifying in a totally
12:39different way having you know survived and thrived into this independent bottle at what point did you
12:45you know was it always just like if we're coming back it's going to be as an independent act
12:51nobody wanted to touch us uh if that was it was a so into necessity mother of invention right
12:57but yeah we nobody really wanted to roll the dice on us as far as new music was concerned
13:03including the management we had at the time we would send like dills and they'd be like yeah
13:07that's great we're trying to sell your publishing why don't you play why don't you do an album play
13:13are you i won't shoot me you know like oh let's go let's go play a 20th anniversary album tour
13:19god let's just why don't we just put us in all the casinos and and three dog night us
13:24yeah let's just let's just go off into the sunset of life and say we give up um that wasn't
13:30going to
13:30be anything for us so yeah independence was uh was what we had to do to be able to continue
13:36the
13:36the story of this band musically i've never heard three dog night used as a verb before i really
13:42enjoyed we played shows with those guys it was bleak about five years ago some state fair probably oh
13:48yeah yeah but they're from oakville do you do you see the new music i mean you're starting to roll
13:55out a new album uh do you see it resonating as well in terms of just like these the house
14:00pride like
14:01did you more than we ever thought yeah good yeah yeah like uh with the house parties like we this
14:07our
14:07new music wouldn't even had a chance to even come out of the vacuum uh but the the house party
14:13tours
14:13definitely gave all the new things that were offering like some sort of visibility which was
14:19awesome because i mean honestly we'd been turning our wheels for a decade and my fear for this band was
14:28just like can we grow together in musically or do we have to like uh the last thing we wanted
14:34to do
14:35was like reach into some bag and be like cool this this looks just like it used to it sounds
14:40like it
14:40used to let's go let's go make a transactional experience for our fans of a lackluster watered
14:46down concentrate of the juice they were drinking 20 years ago dark i mean i i just i just feel
14:54like
14:54i i don't believe a lot of out there in the world and and if if i don't believe the
15:00truth in the music
15:01that a lot of bands are putting out they're not i i i'm very visceral about it i'm like this
15:06sucks you know this is isn't like i don't believe this um that's right so yeah so i i'm happy
15:14that
15:14we believe in what we're doing still because i would have been the first above the whistle well
15:19that's the only reason we're doing it like we would have been happy to just write off on the
15:23soul set man i like the three dog night shows yeah that's easy it's a little it can be soul
15:28sucking at times but i mean yeah we always said we wouldn't even attempt this again unless we
15:32really wanted to and we're excited about it and just ready to challenge ourselves again do you guys
15:39hear from other veteran acts in the same predicament of like hey guys we also don't want to play 20th
15:47anniversary tours 25th anniversary tours like i haven't had those conversations a lot of the
15:52conversations that i've had at least are other bands who may have been around as long as we are just
15:58trying to like come up with a clever tour package yeah and like we're like we'd rather just not play
16:05tours uh than to be like yeah we're supposed to tour with this band this band so it makes a
16:10good crowd
16:12it's like no man i want to play with like some new fun band that wants to like with us
16:17uh i don't want
16:18to go dip into that legacy man it's like that you know you see like those tours where it's like
16:23the temptations playing with like all the 50s will like one hitters like you know that's that's
16:29that's awesome they're still doing it i'm just like i'm not i'm i'm i'm not ready to do that
16:35yeah that's that sunset well yeah i mean the other thing is also like you guys were pretty young when
16:41you came up so it's not like you guys are like old men now and are like why why are
16:45we relegated to
16:46like the mothball set of that's i do i love that pot boss dude totally totally yeah do you guys
16:53hear
16:54from independent artists too uh in terms of just offering advice and and you know showing their
16:59appreciation i mean a lot of people ask for advice i mean i think we got lucky and we came
17:04up in a time
17:05that was a lot different but also you know it was very similar i mean when we were making move
17:10along
17:11youtube was invented yeah but i think those things are still those are still the the avenues that you
17:19use to promote your music they just look different yeah yeah i mean it it in some ways to your
17:25point
17:25like cutting through the noise was back then you know you try to get a hit single on radio and
17:32you guys
17:33got a bunch of them and now it's kind of clear the noise now in a very different way now
17:36it's cutting
17:37through the money man yes cut it's good there's the noise i feel like there's an even playing field
17:41when it was just radio um now it's just money brand big brand is before music we're in a time
17:50where
17:50people look before they listen and if they know that person and it sounds like them and it walks like
17:56a
17:56duck and it talks like a duck you know then everybody's like well it's not the greatest song but i
18:01just you know i'm that's that's my artist it's calm and that's cool it's just different yeah uh because
18:08music has become secondary especially popular music i think it's become like more of an afterthought
18:13more of the more of oh it's got to be that good doesn't have to blow the roof off um
18:19and i'm and i
18:20missed i missed that about the way that it was because the cream was there to rise now the cream
18:26might be
18:27there but i don't know if you don't have enough followers and you don't get to you get stepped on
18:31and and and and suits out there and these major labels won't even give you the time of day because
18:36they're not even listening to just looking at engagement um and i think that's one thing we
18:41found out with these house parties was okay cool you know you're a band in los angeles you want to
18:48play the whiskey you got to sell 100 paper tickets yourself just to be able to get that show
18:53to play that show and then if you don't sell all 100 you got to pay the difference to pay
18:59to play
18:59the whiskey right that's like the model now for these small mom and pops could be they have
19:04overhead they have bartenders they have so if you're a no-name band that can't draw tickets
19:08you basically have to pay to play but what we found out with these you know when we opened up
19:15the rsbp for uh the house party tour we got venues as well we got like 25 000 venues ranging
19:21from a single
19:21the bedroom apartment that that we're willing to accommodate 30 guests to an 18 000 seat the high
19:28school stadium that the a teacher got permission from the faculty to be able to offer as a venue
19:34so you you have something here i think it's these third spaces it's these it's these houses
19:40and and we've actually you know i we had to make a tool to navigate all of it to be
19:45able to pick
19:45houses so my friend brian he's an engineer and he he built this map where you could see all
19:51everything that had been submitted like in dots right and then he like put like a google street view so
19:56we could we could actually see what the venue was like that we were going to pick and uh and
20:02and of
20:02course learning through the baptism of fire about oh wow security per capita this many people port
20:09to port these holy shit like getting port-a-potties for for uh the right amount of people how many
20:15can
20:15500 people need for two hours okay um so we put together this thing that we're we're kind of
20:22announcing today at the panel called playhouse uh dot band which is basically it's a platform where
20:27artists and fans can have a direct link for show creation so if if you own that if you have
20:36if you
20:36own a yoga studio that shuts down at 6 p.m and you want to open it up as a
20:41third space to be able to
20:42have concerts especially in this economy you can arrange with an artist to get their 50 tickets that
20:48they want to sell directly no no no middleman you know sort of ticket broker it's just selling a 40
20:56dollar ticket for 40 people so that you and in a van can go to play sheboygan for for your
21:04fans
21:05and not have to go into debt the entire route of your tour um and you you don't have to
21:13have a
21:13promoter you don't have to have a boogie agent you know hard it is for it uh even if you
21:18have three
21:18i mean we we did a case study with the paradox we had them uh put on a show in
21:22atlanta and they're
21:23from atlanta and even they you know three million followers on all like they're a big big internet
21:31band but even they uh you know they got 200 people out for their show which was which was
21:36they were happy with it but again you'd think a hometown show for this huge band and the problem is
21:41is
21:41you have these bands that are blowing up on on on social media and they're like people kind of only
21:46associate them with oh that's that band i like on social media yeah because they don't have an
21:51opportunity to play out because they have to pay to get on an opening tour to be one of three
21:57uh to
21:58a band they probably don't even pair with uh to play for the people that are walking in or again
22:05go into
22:05debt unless their daddy owns the smoke shop in town to fund the tour you know these people are
22:12go but you see all these artists i'm sure you guys have seen that where it's like she's like
22:15i have never there's this one artist she's like i go in i i lose a hundred thousand dollars every
22:19time i toured the united states it was like a british artist it's like that's what this has become
22:24touring's become this deficit promotional tool that's up like how how is how are we ever expecting
22:30bands especially to ever happen again if their gatekeepers are now like a 300 seat venue and in
22:38austin texas i can't even play emos where the am i gonna play how's my band gonna be heard well
22:45maybe
22:45you could play somebody's house down the street and you can you can make something happen for yourself
22:50i don't know yeah it's kind of a catch-22 because i feel like a band who would be most
22:54known on tiktok
22:56or the internet has to focus on that yeah and they are they are you know they don't have the
23:02opportunity to actually go out hone their craft and make fans you know face to face my uh my we
23:08got
23:08to wrap but my last question is just about legacy like when you think about what all american reject
23:14stands for you have the albums you have the hits you have the new album may 15th sandbox we didn't
23:19really get to it it's really great check it out um are you guys thinking about legacy in terms of
23:25like you guys are innovating today and innovating in the coming months um is this something that like
23:32you actively think about rewriting and and repositioning yourselves no i i don't think
23:39there's the attention is just to have fun but also to be disruptive because we're not
23:46chained to the big gorilla of of major of of a label system where 30 people where you know
23:52committee is now making decisions for you we're making every decision as a band ourselves
23:57and that has is really empowering and our legacy man i you i i think we always were the songs
24:05that
24:05had that band like i we that was like our curse and i felt like with this with what we've
24:11done with
24:11just recognizing our blue collar existence of where we started going back to our midwestern roots of just
24:18like seeing the the people that that that want to come to shows i feel like yeah man well uh
24:24i feel
24:24like the rejects has become like this blue collar uh hero and i'm really proud to be a part of
24:30it man
24:31it's been very transformative to see uh that yeah give him a round of replies please uh tyson nick
24:39thank you guys so much for your time this has been awesome uh sandbox new album out may 15th
24:48you
24:48you
24:48you
24:48you
24:48you
24:48you
24:48are
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