All-American Rejects
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All-American Rejects: Americana's Emo Pop Fixture
By: James Buell
Singer/songwriter/bassist Tyson Ritter spent the bulk of his youth in the heartland of America. Like many kids in that situation, he grew up dreaming of rock stardom. Unlike many of those same kids, he's living his dream.
Behind the success of their debut, self-title album, the All-American Rejects went from unknown kids from the Midwest to the IT band of 2003. Now touring in support of their second album, Move Along, the band makes a stop at Hard Rock Live in Orlando on November 6th.
Ritter spent some time from the road to talk with Hard Rock about their whirlwind success, writing the new album and - shockingly enough - The Golden Girls. It's an interview you really don't want to miss. Especially if you're a fan of Tony Danza.
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Hard Rock: When you recorded the first album, you were on Doghouse (Records, an independent label) with relatively no pressure. One platinum selling album later, what type of pressure did you feel?
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Tyson Ritter: You know what's funny... when we did the Doghouse record, Nick and I got signed and we only had about six songs done. We sent everything we had to them. I remember I was outside of the club we played at and Emily Hemsath (label owners wife) said, "You guys are golden!"
And I remember it because that's the moment every kid dreams about and we never thought it would happen so easily. They told us they needed us to record in December, which was five months away. So we had five months to write six more songs for the record. Technically, we were under the gun for the first record, so I guess it wasn't so unfamiliar to us the second time around.
But... BUT... we also never had an A&R guy before. We also never had management before. There's definitely added pressure this time around as opposed to the first time. Which luckily, we're one of those bands that turns into an animal when we feel that there's pressure. We hunker down and suck the marrow out of our bones for inspiration. And we never really view it as this, but we're artists. We're not a band that's been put together. We write songs for a passion and for a living. So it wasn't that hard. We just had to push ourselves for greatness in our own minds.
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HR: To touch on the first album, you were just a young kid growing up in Oklahoma... which to much of the world seems like the middle of nowhere. And literally months later, you're all over MTV. You're all over teenie bopper magazines. What was that like?
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TR: You know what's funny? I think the one thing that's misconstrued with any sort of success in a band is that we have this window in our bus that shows everything that's happening in the world with us. But that's not the case. If anything, the bus is really sort of a cave that shelters us from every aspect of our success. I think that's actually a blessing. A lot of people get jaded. There's new bands that are coming out that I can see are becoming jaded and cut up. Bands that I would see three months ago that didn't have 12 people around and bodyguards.
We eat humble pie everyday we wake up. We're in this because we know we're lucky. First and foremost. We know there's 80,000 bands out there that deserve this just as much as we do, but knowing... that going from Oklahoma and like you said, being on MTV and teenie bopper magazines... it's easy to digest when the whole goal was to be as big as possible. You're never satisfied with that. We're not happy with where we're at. We want more. You always want more. I think if you ever felt like you peak and plateau, that's when you're washed up, right?
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HR: (laughs) Yeah, I'd say so. That actually leads into my next question. You were gone a year a half before the release of Move Along. Was there a fear - and I might be dating myself here - but was there a fear you'd become the next Jimmie's Chicken Shack?
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TR: (laughs) Jimmie's Chicken Shack! That's awesome. (laughs)
You know, there was a fear that we wouldn't get another chance. That was the only thing I was scared of. I was scared I was going to have to go to Blockbuster or work at Guitar Center and be that dude that was in that band and now he's working at Guitar Center. I think that was the biggest fear. Not only were we scared that it wasn't going to happen again. We just were scared we were going to get a shelved record.
If your fans are there, your record can come out with the sound of a whisper and as long as your fans are still there, they're going to hear that whisper. We thought we owed it to everyone who loved our first record, or even liked it, that we can do this again and we have more to say. I don't think it was necessarily the fear we were going to be some one hit wonder. We were just more scared that we weren't going to be able to put a record out.
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HR: Speaking of Jimmie's Chicken Shack...
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TR: (laughs) Oh man...
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HR: (laughs) ...when they hit the big time, what type of false hope did that give every guy in a bad, Van Halen cover band?
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TR: (laughs) Let me ask Mike.
Turns to guitarist Mike Kennerty and starts to ask him the question.
Here, you ask him.
MK: What's up man?
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HR: (laughs) What's up Mike? Okay, here's the question. When Jimmie's Chicken Shack hit the big time, what type of false hope did that give every guy in a bad, Van Halen cover band?
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MK: (laughs) Umm... not as much as when 3 Doors Down hit.
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HR: (laughs) That was classic! (laughs) Okay Tyson, just a few more questions. You and Nick (Wheeler) left Stillwater, OK and moved to the Florida Panhandle to write this album. Was that for the seclusion factor or what?
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TR: Oh yeah. We wanted to be as far away from New York and LA as possible. We didn't want anybody to be able to call us, let alone be able to fly down and find us.
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HR: I live in Central Florida, but I've been up to the Panhandle and it's almost like a different country. Do you kind of see it like that?
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TR: I love how slow it is up there. I love the fact that nobody gives a (crap). It still feels like Oklahoma, but there's a beach. That's what it feels like to us... And a lot of old people! But we love old people.
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HR: (laughs) Same last name. Really bad joke. Do you remember where you were when you heard John Ritter had passed?
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TR: (laughs) Asks the other people in the bus, "Hey, where were we when John Ritter passed? Because I remember we were all there."
(long pause)
I think we were in the van riding around because we were on tour.
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HR: Did it hit you hard?
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TR: You know what's funny is that it hit me a lot harder than I thought it would.
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HR: (laughs) Really?
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TR: I kind of grew up with John Ritter.
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HR: (laughs) A surrogate father, almost?
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TR: (laughs) He was a surrogate father. He raised me and taught me not to be a problem child, because he couldn't handle it if I was.
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HR: (laughs) I'm glad you brought that up. Do you think that the people who wrote and directed Problem Child 2 should be arrested?
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TR: I think Gilbert Gottfried should be pardoned. But whoever had a hand in part 2... that's probably what gave John Ritter angina.
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HR: (laughs) Reading over the script was like reading his last will and testament...
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TR: (laughs) Oh, I'm positive of that.
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HR: Alright, let's start a rumor. "Dirty Little Secret" is about Ashlee Simpson, isn't it?
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TR: (laughs) No, but you know what... it should have been.
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HR: Is it Bea Arthur?
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TR: (laughs) YES! It's Bea Arthur naked! That's what it is. It's about all three of the Golden Girls. Menage a trois.
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HR: (laughs) And this will get your fans...
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TR: Wait! Wait! Let me retract that. It's about Blanche Devereaux. It's about Blanche.
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HR: Blanche? What's her name in real life? There's Betty White, Estelle Getty...
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TR: It's only Blanche. It's based on her fictional character.
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HR: (laughs) Okay, this will get your fans to do a little research. Who has the better hair... you or the guys in Feable Weiner?
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TR: I'm going to have to say... Atom's (Andersen, guitarist Feable Weiner) got such great hair doesn't he? It's like perfect. It's like a Pantene commercial.
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HR: He really does. He's like a high-pitched Luke Wilson.
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TR: Yeah... definitely Feable Weiner. Feable Weiner has better hair. We pay attention to it. With them, it's effortless.
So they have better natural hair. We have better kept hair.
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HR: So in photos, you look better. Right out of bed, they look better.
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TR: Touche.
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HR: (laughs) Final question. Cooler famous guy named Tony and why? Tony Danza or Tony the Tiger?
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TR: Ohhhh that's a tough one.
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HR: Keep in mind that Tony Danza did star in The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia Phenomenon.
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TR: (laughs) I'm going to have to say Tony Danza just for that one year that he hosted the whatever awards and did that Latin rap. That was a touchdown for me. I'm going to write about that. I put a video of that in my hope chest.
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Links
All-American Rejects Streaming Audio
All-American Rejects Official Website |
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