{"id":333378,"date":"2026-03-17T04:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T04:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/333378\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T04:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T04:26:09","slug":"new-all-american-rejects-album-sandbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/333378\/","title":{"rendered":"New All-American Rejects Album \u2018Sandbox\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAll-American Rejects haven\u2019t put out an album since 2012\u2019s\u00a0Kids in the Street, and for a while, frontman Tyson Ritter<\/a> thought it might be their last. They spent time on the state-fair and casino circuit, and Ritter says he \u200agot to the point where he \u201creally didn\u2019t give a shit about my band.\u201d But at 2022\u2019s We Were Young festival, the crowd screamed along to the band\u2019s deepest cuts, convincing band members that their music still mattered. All-American Rejects refocused, started playing innovative house-party shows<\/a> (with more to come this year), and returned to the studio for Sandbox, out May 15, which Ritter calls the most honest work of the band\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tTyson sat down at the Rolling Stone Studio<\/a>, live at SXSW<\/a>, to discuss the new album, the soullessness of major-label co-writing sessions, and Playhouse, the platform he\u2019s built to let artists play shows in people\u2019s backyards and living rooms. He also cleared up an old Taylor Swift<\/a> rumor once and for all, reflected on the origins of \u201cIt Ends Tonight,\u201d and shared his memories of filming The House Bunny<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s so much music out there that I just don\u2019t believe is truth,\u201d he says. \u201cIs there truth left in this band? Do I have something honest to say?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRitter of All-American Rejects at the Rolling Stone Studio, live at SXSW<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPooneh Ghana for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n

\n\tTake me back to 2022, at the When We Were Young festival and the moment when you realized that there\u2019s really a lot of life left in this band.
That was a really cool festival for us to play. We hadn\u2019t done much in the decade before that, as far as any sort of relevant festival. I thought it was just this heritage kind of show about the scene, and it was a scene we always felt like bastards in. So it was a joke for us. But everybody out there, all the bands backstage, they were putting on the skinny pants and getting all their old uniforms on. I remember just being like, this juice ain\u2019t gonna be worth the squeeze. And we stepped out there on the side stage, and I think Paramore and Death Cab for Cutie were on. We\u2019re like, we\u2019re gonna get snowed. And the crowd was ours. They were singing deep cuts loud, singing these songs that we\u2019d been kicking around for 20 years to much smaller crowds. That was a really revelatory experience because I think I really didn\u2019t give a shit about my band. It was great \u2019cause it kept the lights on, but having a decade when you haven\u2019t contributed to something, especially something that you associate with a younger person \u2014 I always talk about the early years of this band as \u201cthat kid.\u201d \u201cMan, that kid did a lot of cool shit for me.\u201d And here I was standing in front of this crowd who was so welcoming. It was hard to turn your head away from \u201cMan, maybe there\u2019s still some gas in the tank here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new album feels almost like a new band. It feels like you were coming from a new place, and it has a lot of artistic juice in it.
They always say you have your whole life to write your first record. And I think this is the most honest thing that we\u2019ve done. When we got on a major label \u2014 I\u2019m a product of a broken household, and I was signed when I was 16. The first guy I met, the A&R, was my dad\u2019s age. So you get this dynamic of \u201cI wanna make Dad happy.\u201d And then finally when I grew up and Dad kicked me out of the house, I thought about my life. This record\u2019s got a lot of my personal shit in it. The thing that happens when you cross 30, life hits you in the face. Families change, relationships change. I had something to say. And\u00a0Sandbox\u00a0feels like \u2014 it\u2019s very random musically, but I think we\u2019ve always been that. We\u2019ve made a lot more strong choices as a band to just say \u201cWhat can we do where we\u2019re not chasing some sort of major-label expectation?\u201d And I think I\u2019m really happy with the way the record\u2019s turned out.<\/p>\n

I feel like over the years, you\u2019ve changed the way you sing. On this record, I heard a few different approaches to the vocals, but none of them are the earliest thing you used to do.
The first record, I was listening to all the records that were popular in school. I come from a really lower-middle-class family. And CDs were like a luxury \u2014 they were like 17 bucks. So I was raised on the back-seat night drives of friends and their music. And I think that informed the way I started singing, but now that I\u2019ve just gotten a little bit more comfortable with my own voice, I\u2019m going for just whatever it wants to be.<\/p>\n

Was it Blink-182? Was that your inspiration?
Yeah, I feel like Blink and, like, Jimmy Eat World and that shit was like ringing like bells in our high school parking lots. And now that I\u2019m a little older, it\u2019s like maybe I\u2019ve had the time to find myself.<\/p>\n

Do you ever find yourself doing your old voice when you sing the old songs?
Oh, yeah. I make fun of it. What a dipshit. But it\u2019s fun to make fun of that guy.<\/p>\n

So these house-party shows you\u2019ve done have been another big part of the revival of the band. What do you like about that?
We were so disenchanted from playing state fairs and casinos to keep the lights on during those down years. The first thing we wanted was: I just wanna get eye level with an audience and connect. My favorite shows were like 150-, 200-seaters. \u2018Cause you could look at everybody and see if you were getting everybody off. It was this beautiful umbilical between you and the audience. And the house-party tour was this wild sort of resignation to \u201cOK, so we can either, as an independent artist putting out new music, enter the landscape of digital advertising and creator buys on TikTok to set up some false reality that this band is cool.\u201d Or we said, \u201cLet\u2019s just take the 50 grand Kroger grocers just gave us to play a corporate show and get a bus, a PA, a trailer. No video walls, no production bullshit. Let\u2019s just play in front of some people that wanna see a free show.\u201d<\/p>\n

And somebody told you it was the dumbest thing you could do?
The management we had at the time. So we left them and went with a genius, 29-year-old named Megan [Kraemer] who believed in this band so much. We never had anybody that managed us that actually believed in our band. They just believed in the money we could make. But she believes in this band, and we\u2019re like, \u201cMan, this kid gives a lot more of a shit than we do. Let\u2019s just follow her into this crazy drive.\u201d And it worked.<\/p>\n

And you set up a whole platform for it, Playhouse.
Yeah. We\u2019re gonna do this again. \u2018Cause when we put out the RSVPs, it was the largest data grab the company had in their history. We had 800,000 RSVPs in 48 hours. And then we also had another 25,000 venues that went from a 50-seat single-bedroom apartment to an 18,000-seat high school stadium that the teacher got permission from the campus to host shows. And the tool has become this idea called Playhouse, where you have all these big arenas, big stadiums, and now mom and pops have all been swallowed up by this undeclared monopoly. What about third spaces? I think about the independent artists out there that have an audience, but they can\u2019t afford to play a show. They can\u2019t afford to even get in the van. But what if they were able to reach out directly to their audience to say \u201cHey, is there anybody who wants to come see us? If so, where?\u201d And then: \u201cOh, wow, we have a lot of fans in Des Moines, Iowa, and somebody wants us to play there and we can route a small four-show run and make direct income off of a ticket to a house instead of a venue that has so much overhead that it\u2019s squeezing us out the door.\u201d How is it a standard that if you\u2019re in a band, you\u2019re fucked? It\u2019s a very one-perecent game to get into a major label\u2019s doors. So what if there\u2019s a different way? We did a 30-person acoustic show for an artist in Pasadena. He made more money at that show than he and his band did selling out the Bowery Ballroom in New York City.<\/p>\n

Geez.
Yeah. These are the times. So let\u2019s get punk rock with this shit.<\/p>\n

In your major-label experience, you saw both sides of it. There was a moment when Jimmy Iovine really liked you guys, was pushing your singles. And then you\u2019ve talked about 2012 when you played what turned out to be your previous album,\u00a0Kids in the Street, and you played it for the label and you really felt there was indifference. Was it Jimmy\u2019s \u201cRock is dead\u201d thing at the time?
Jimmy always gave me good face. But it wasn\u2019t even \u201cRock\u2019s dead.\u201d It was just \u201cThis is how we do records here.\u201d Songwriting by committee.<\/p>\n

I remember they made Weezer work with a bunch of co-writers around that time.
I don\u2019t know if they made them \u2014 it\u2019s a choice. They make it strongly. You as an artist make that choice to say \u201cCool, I\u2019m gonna do what Dad tells me.\u201d And I think there\u2019s a sacrifice of your own integrity that happens when you do that. And of course it\u2019s experimentation. I\u2019m not saying that way is bad. I\u2019m saying for me, it felt like, \u201cNo, man, that\u2019s not my wave.\u201d<\/p>\n

So you never took any of those co-writing meetings?
I tried. It felt like I imagine what porn is like. You meet somebody on the day that apparently you\u2019re gonna fuck \u2019em and they\u2019re gonna get inside every bit of you. And you\u2019re expected to show up with that ease of saying, \u201cCool, take me.\u201d I remember I sat with a popular songwriter guy, and he\u2019s like, \u201cCool, what\u2019s going on with you, man?\u201d Immediately trying to get in my head. And I said something about a hamburger. He\u2019s like, \u201cAh, that\u2019s it. Let\u2019s write about hamburgers.\u201d I was like, \u201cFuck me, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did you walk out?
No. I think I was too nervous. I left and I was like, \u201cI\u2019m never doing this again. This is awful. This is soulless.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have some ancient gossip from that era. You can feel free to not comment, but supposedly you went on a few dates with Taylor Swift and maybe she wrote a song about you. Clear it up please.
No, we met because we were gonna honor her at some CMT thing, and I played her my record. That\u2019s how rumors get awesome.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s just zero truth to that, not even one date?
Absolutely. But I love the lore.<\/p>\n

You just squashed the lore.
Yeah, no lore. I\u2019m not that cool.<\/p>\n

And now you\u2019ve missed your chance.
Yeah. In 2012, I was also outta my mind, man. You would\u2019ve sat with me and been like, \u201cDude, how many mushrooms did this guy have last summer?\u201d<\/p>\n

Was it shrooms, or what was going on there?
Oh, yeah. No, I just had my last weekend, man. It was fun. That\u2019s what late twenties are for.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re also a good actor. That could have been your full-time career, but it seems like something you dip in and out of. Was that ever a thought that you might just do that?
I like it a lot. I tried to do it. For me, it was like, \u201cI gotta get out of this band. I gotta make my own mark.\u201d I\u2019ve been working on a musical for the last eight years.<\/p>\n

Oh really?
Yeah. We\u2019re putting that production together. I\u2019m excited to star in that thing. That\u2019s gonna be where I really get my chops together.<\/p>\n

Can you say what the story is?
It\u2019s just about self-love, about finding yourself and not being dependent on someone else to define that for you.<\/p>\n

And do you imagine Broadway?
No, I wanna make it a movie. I want it to be \u2026 kind of\u00a0Rocky Horror.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s fun.
It\u2019s called\u00a0Shit Show.<\/p>\n

Any particular memories of acting in The House Bunny?
Yeah. I remember Emma Stone<\/a> was smoking like a pack a day, man, and she had this raspy, raspy voice.<\/p>\n

She smoked?
Yeah. It was great. She was like a dame. Even then, you could just tell \u2014 she was beaming on set. Even against Anna Faris, who was living that character. It was a really great experience. It was me and Colin Hanks were the only guy principals in it, so I was basically running errands to [craft services], getting girls snacks. It was fun.<\/p>\n

What do you remember about writing \u201cIt Ends Tonight\u201d?
I remember being in the bowels of some Atlanta hotel for $48 a night that I ended up getting bedbugs from. And we had this really masochistic approach to punishing ourselves to get a record out at that time. We were running outta money. So our last sort of Hail Mary was to stay in Atlanta for eight weeks and just practice the songs we had written. And my roommate was our guitar tech, and he was a dark spirit. And I remember wanting to kill him. Not really, but I remember the song is about wanting to kill your friend. Not really a love song. Somehow it became that, through the romance of the musical dressing. But it was inspired out of just seething hatred.<\/p>\n

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