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00:00everybody welcome to the billboard house south by southwest i am jason lipshots i am the co-chief
00:05content officer of billboard i am very happy to be here with tyson and nick of the all-american
00:11rejects give it up for these guys today case oh thank you for dipping it up wow i feel like
00:16my
00:17microphone is just making yeah we're way louder yeah this is fun this is oh here we go oh yeah
00:23now we're now we're competing uh i'm a big fan of you guys i'm very happy to be here uh
00:29chatting
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
00:49i 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
01:04to 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 new album which is coming out soon
01:14we'll talk about it the tour dates different types of tours um do you guys ever sit and reflect like
01:21do you guys have a a beat to sit and be like wow we're this is still all happening for
01:27us to some
01:27degree yeah i think there was a moment when we walked out uh we we played the long beach work
01:33tour
01:33uh festival 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 never headlined a warped
01:47tour show you know or played last you know that was like the way there was no headliner it was
01:51just
01:52if 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
02:08we were all kind of backstage and we're like it was kind of an emotional like moment of wow guys
02:14like
02:14we we woke up the beast after uh kind of a decade of slumber uh it felt i felt really
02:22gratifying it
02:23felt 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
03:07like 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
03:52for 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 like well we're in the belly of that beast man like when we were like a
04:27weekend and it was popping off on whatever it felt like you know we were holding the the tail of
04:33the
04:33dragon man it was those shows were the greatest things i've ever been a part of let alone been to
04:39let alone performed that um and to go from that to this gigantic stadium with you know so many people
04:47they're ready to see the jonas brothers it was it was like i i felt like i went to district
04:52one
04:52and i was waiting for staley tucci to come out and be like oh captain 17 was so detached man
04:59the crowds
05:00that go to the that are on the floor there you know they're all like oil barons and and and
05:05really
05:06twirling their mustache yeah yeah it's totally the mud billy guy and his and his and his harem and
05:13uh and it just felt like so lifeless in comparison like really devoid of any connection
05:19conservatively and it's not just the chonis brothers tour but during our you know hiatus i
05:23guess if you could call it we did a couple tours opening for bigger acts and arenas and shreds and
05:27stuff and those didn't really inspire us to you know fire up the engines again but going out doing
05:34these house parties like that sure did like we actually you know we finished a record this year and
05:38we haven't done that any since 2012 so i i'm sure a lot of people in this room or everyone
05:45in this
05:46room knows about the house parties or can you tell us how it started like where where did that idea
05:50come
05:50from to start doing this there's a lady up the stairs she's uh we met her as a 29 year
05:55old she's
05:56holding my purse day to day yeah there she is her name's megan and she loves this band she's the
06:05first
06:06manager we've had that actually likes our band i think you know we used to have the manager of who
06:11was like i manage green day and goo goo dolls and it's like you know he people used to get
06:16bit up
06:17because they were buzzing through some industry thing and like that's how we got picked up as a
06:21man it's like oh this band's breaking k-rock is playing them i'll take them on you know what i
06:27mean
06:27it wasn't i love your music or anything like that and you know 20 years later we we we meet
06:32this
06:32incredibly talented woman and um she said you know we should play house parties that's my
06:40impersonation of you man and 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 like
06:55let's call around see if anybody's gonna let us play in their backyard it was that innocent and
06:59with the only expectation that it was way better than paying for a creator buy on some you know
07:06purchased 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
07:26find some music cities that aren't spoiled like uh no fits austin
07:34music spoiled cities create a different environment um people are i can go see anybody tonight um but if
07:42i live in ames iowa and it's graduation night and there's a cornfield out of town that
07:47apparently this band's gonna set up and play at you know that that created something you know
07:53especially being from oklahoma it felt like you know the shows we started playing when we were kids
07:58i was i was gonna ask about that like how much of it reminded you of the the genesis of
08:03the band because
08:03to me like i remember to your point like when you guys took off with swing swing you get it
08:09was like
08:10a rocket show and this is just me as a fan like i remember you know from there like it
08:14was hit after
08:15hit but so were these house party shows like harking back right back to like the pre-hit days
08:22i mean kind of yeah because we're from stillwater oklahoma which is a very small town um and there's
08:28really not any concert venues so we had to put on our own shows whether it was you know parties
08:32and
08:33friends backyards or you know just a field uh so i mean yeah it kind of was exactly like that
08:38um
08:39you know on occasion we'd get to drive what is it 10 hours down here and play like the red
08:44-eyed fly
08:44or emos or something i can do a legit show but but i mean yeah we grew up doing this
08:50at what point did
08:52you realize the house parties were like it wasn't just like a fun reinvigorating thing but like oh
08:57people are actually paying attention to it people are writing stories and want to talk to us about how
09:02we're doing it like what how quickly did that happen probably the second or third shows yeah wow that
09:08quickly yeah it was it was i remember because i walked off we played the quad at uh the university
09:14of madison or university of wisconsin green bay is that it i don't know oh geez it and to me
09:22i was
09:22like yeah this i remember walking off look at me like this is a waste of money this is like
09:28yeah i was
09:29like yeah we play for these kids that's great and then the next day she's like it's working
09:35and it was it was and i was like what are you talking about and she's like it's blowing up
09:40on
09:40on the the the internets yeah she had like 6 000 emails in a day or whatever and and this
09:48was great
09:49because i think 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 drop 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
10:18wow for for product drops i mean this was like the full diy roller coaster and man i as a
10:25as an
10:26independent artist just like to to be able to like navigate something that that everybody said was stuck
10:32and i think that just shows you where we're at as the in this in this whole bubble of the
10:37music
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
10:51a dice on somebody because they they're just kind of a part of the big ivory tower but if you
10:56want to
10:56make noise if you have an idea that your gut is telling you is right i think it's like this
11:00is a
11:01perfect example of wow man like people don't know um like especially the people that are in those ivory
11:08towers you're just like man you just you're you're you're a way out there on that in that ivory tower
11:13we're down here on the on the ground where we realize that disparity of of shows this being a
11:20luxury item now it used to be twenty dollars twenty five dollars could get you a cheap seat to a
11:26show
11:26that's gone and we're also in this post-covid of it all where these kids that came out to these
11:35shows
11:36had seen their parent had seen movies that their parents showed them of of what these parties might
11:40have been like but also shows where they were lifted above their peers heads and crowd surfing
11:45and stuff like that right and so many people you saw the the veil lifted these shows that
11:50they just wanted to be together and they wanted that fellowship and that was also like this crazy
11:55thing that was an uh an unforeseen outcome i mean that in turn makes us be much more present
12:01performing too i mean like if it's an arena and it's super dark and i can't see um that's fine
12:07i'll have
12:08fun playing playing music with my friends for 45 minutes or whatever but yeah these house shows
12:12just watching kids just elated crowd surfing you know just being present in the moment like
12:18that makes us do exactly the same it feels like probably you know the first iteration of all
12:26american rejects you guys had this whirlwind of these huge smash hits on on a major label and i'm i'm
12:33assuming like that was incredibly gratifying to see them beat the songs connect like that and but
12:38this is gratifying in a totally different way having you know survived and thrived into this
12:43independent bottle at what point did you you know was it always just like if we're coming back it's
12:48going to be as an independent act nobody wanted to touch us uh if that was it was a so
12:55internecessity
12:56mother of invention right but yeah we nobody really wanted to roll the dice on us as far as new
13:02music was concerned including the management we had at the time we would send like dojos and they'd
13:06be like yeah that's great we're trying to sell your publishing why don't you play why don't you do an
13:12album play are you i won't shoot me you know like oh let's go let's go play a 20th anniversary
13:18album
13:18tour god let's just why don't we just put us in all the casinos and and three dog night us
13:24yeah let's
13:25just let's just go off into the sunset of life and say we give up um that wasn't going to
13:30be anything
13:31for us so yeah independence was uh was what we had to do to be able to continue the the
13:37story of
13:37this band musically i've never heard three dog night used as a verb before i really enjoyed we
13:43played shows with those guys it was bleak about five years ago some state fair probably oh yeah yeah
13:49but they're from oakville do you do you see the new music i mean you're starting to roll out a
13:55new
13:55album uh do you see it resonating as well in terms of just like these the house bright like did
14:01you
14:01more than we ever thought yeah yeah yeah like uh with the house parties like we this our new music
14:08wouldn't even had a chance to even come out of the vacuum uh but the the house party tours definitely
14:14gave all the new things that were offering like some sort of visibility which was awesome because
14:20i mean honestly we'd been turning our wheels for a decade and my fear for this band was just like
14:28can we grow together in musically or do we have to like uh i the last thing we wanted to
14:35do was like
14:35reach into some bag and be like cool this this looks just like it used to it sounds like it
14:40used
14:40to let's go let's go make a transactional experience for our fans of a lackluster watered down
14:47concentrate of the juice they were drinking 20 years ago dark man i i just i just feel like i
14:55i don't
14:55believe a lot of out there in the world and and if if i don't believe the truth in the
15:01music
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 this isn't like i don't believe this um that's right so yeah so i i'm
15:14happy
15:14that we 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 it'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
15:33really 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
15:58just trying to like come up with a clever tour package yeah and like we're like we rather just not
16:05play tours uh to be like yeah we're supposed to tour with this band this band so it makes a
16:11good
16:11crowd it's like no man i want to play with like some new fun band that wants to like with
16:16us uh i
16:18don't want to go dip into that legacy yeah man it's like that you know you see like those tours
16:22where it's
16:23like the 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 the other thing is also like you guys were pretty young
16:41when you came up so it's not like you guys are like old men now and are like why why
16:45are we
16:45relegated to like the mothball set of that's i do i love that pop dude totally totally yeah do you
16:53guys
16:54hear from 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
17:05up 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 it just looked different yeah yeah i mean it it in some ways to your
17:25point
17:26like cutting through the noise was back then you know you try to get a hit single on radio and
17:32you
17:32guys got a bunch of them and now it's cutting through the noise now in a very different way
17:36now it's cutting through the money man yes it's got there's the noise i feel like there's an even
17:41playing field when it was just radio lights um now it's just money brand big brand is before music
17:49we're in a time where people look before they listen and if they know that person and it sounds
17:55like them and it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck you know then everybody's like well
18:00it's not the greatest song but i just you know i'm that's that's my artist it's calm and that's cool
18:06it's just different yeah uh because music has become secondary especially popular music i think it's
18:11become like more of an afterthought more of the more of oh it's got to be that good doesn't have
18:17to blow the roof off um and i'm and i missed i missed that about the way that it was
18:23because the
18:23cream was there to rise now the cream might be there but i don't know if you don't have enough
18:28followers and you don't get to you get stepped on and and and and suits out there in these major
18:34labels won't even give you the time of day because they're not even listening to just looking
18:37at engagement um and i think that's one thing we found out with these house parties was okay cool
18:45you know you're a band in los angeles you want to play the whiskey you got to sell a hundred
18:51paper
18:51tickets yourself just to be able to get that show to play that show and then if you don't sell
18:56all
18:56hundred you got to pay the difference to pay to play the whiskey right that's like the model now for
19:02these small mom and pops could be they have overhead they have bartenders they have so if you're a
19:07no-name band they can't draw tickets you basically have to pay to play but what we found out with
19:13these you know when we opened up the rsbp for uh the house party tour we got venues as well
19:19we got
19:19like 25 000 venues ranging from a single the bedroom apartment that had that we're willing to
19:24accommodate 30 guests to an 18 000 seat the high school state stadium that the a teacher got permission
19:32from the faculty to be able to offer as a venue so you you have something here i think it's
19:37these
19:37third spaces it's these it's these houses and and we've actually you know i we had to make a tool
19:44to
19:44navigate all of it to be able to pick houses so my friend brian he's an engineer and he he
19:49built this
19:49map where you could see all everything that had been submitted like in dots right and then he like put
19:55like a google street view so we could we could actually see what the venue was like that we were
19:59going to pick and uh and and of course learning through the baptism of fire about oh wow security
20:06per capita this many people port-a-potties like getting port-a-potties for for uh the right amount
20:14of people how many can 500 people need for two hours okay um so we put together this thing that
20:21we're
20:21we're kind of announcing today at the panel called playhouse uh dot band which is basically it's a platform
20:27where artists and fans can have a direct link for show creation so if if you own that if you
20:36have if
20:36you own a yoga studio that shuts down at 6 p.m and you want to open it up as
20:41a third space to be able
20:42to have 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 no middleman you know sort of ticket broker it's just selling
20:55a 40 ticket for 40 people so that you and in a van can go to play sheboygan for for
21:04your fans
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
21:14promoter you don't have to have a boogie agent you know how hard it is for it uh even if
21:18you have
21:18three i mean we we did a case study with the paradox we had them uh put on a show
21:22in atlanta
21:23and they're from atlanta and even they you know three million followers on all like they're a big
21:30big internet band but even they uh you know they got 200 people out for their show which was which
21:36was
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
22:05into debt unless their daddy owns the smoke shop in town to fund the tour you know these people are
22:12going 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
22:20time 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
22:55known 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 home their craft and make fans you know face to face my uh my we
23:08got
23:09to 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 turn it is it's really great check it out um are you guys thinking about legacy in
23:25terms of like you guys are innovating today and innovating in the coming months um is this
23:32something that like you actively think about rewriting and and repositioning yourselves
23:38no i i don't think there's the attention is just to have fun but also to be disruptive because we're
23:45not
23:46chained to the big gorilla of of major of of a label system where 30 people where you know
23:53committee 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
24:12just 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
24:24feel like the rejects has become like this blue collar uh hero and i'm really proud to be a part
24:30of it 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
24:48so
24:48now
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