Pollstar recently interviewed Alex to talk about the past of the band, touring and their future projects. You can read a few questions below, and the
full interview can be found
on this link.
All Time Low is touring with Sleeping With Sirens and come February the band goes to the United Kingdom with special guest Good Charlotte. What makes for a great All Time Low touring package?
What makes it really fun, good and special is a lot of the time we tour with our friends. We’re touring with our peers and people who we’ve had previous longstanding relationships with. I think that comes across. … We sort of look for bands that we know put on a great live show and are going to absolutely kill it every night. But I think the other side of that is, behind the scenes, everyone is having a great time. Everyone is in good spirits. There isn’t a lot of drama on an All Time Low tour. At least, we try to minimize it. The biggest thing for us is just taking out bands we love and we know are going to put on great shows. Bands that carry themselves and handle themselves the right way so that everything is smooth and easy.
Does that go back to your experiences with Warped Tour in that the band was surrounded by like-minded people?
There was so much camaraderie on the Warped Tour. It was a great way to learn how to tour. That tour handles itself in a unique way. There’s no priorities, no special treatment for bigger bands, smaller bands or anything like that. You’re in it, you’re there, you gotta work hard and put your head down and get things done. I think we definitely learned a lot from those years.
What surprised you the most about touring during those early years?
How much down time there is. One of the things you don’t realize from the outside looking in is isn’t as glamorous as a lot of people may think. It’s a lot of hurry up and wait. There’s a lot of crappy dressing rooms, gross truck stops and things like that. … There’s definitely two sides to this world. There are the moments that you’re on stage and killing it and it’s everything you’ve dreamed about. Then there’s 12-hour flights to Tokyo and things like that, which definitely take a toll. You’ve got to balance it all and take it all in stride.
What would surprise a visitor riding on the All Time Low tour bus for the very first time?
I think people are often surprised about how clean our bus is. They come on and sort of go, “Wow. You guys run a tight ship here.” I think people expect us to be kind of messy but our bus is very clean, always smells good, always has a candle burning. We try to keep it feeling homey. I think one of the big things is that is literally your home for the next few months. I’ve been on buses of other bands that are just disgusting. I couldn’t live like that. It would be demoralizing.
If you could take Future Hearts and somehow send it back to the Alex making his first album with All Time Low, what would he think of the new album?
I think the young me would definitely be a fan. It’s the kind of music I aspired to write at that time. I probably would have some kind of snide comment about it being too commercial or too polished … not being punk rock enough. But at the same time I think, secretly, I would be a fan.
Do you see a lot of returning fans when you look out into the audience?
Yeah. It’s been pretty incredible. We have this amazing mix of people who have grown with us and have come to shows for years. We’re also seeing a new wave of fans come in, which is also pretty cool. After 11-12 years of being a band it doesn’t always happen where you’re gaining new fans. It’s pretty incredible to see, even on these headline shows that we’ve been doing now … half of the crowd has seen us before, half hasn’t.
What’s more satisfying for you: Being in the moment when you and the band is creating something special, or walking off the stage at the end of the show knowing you nailed it?
Being in the moment. When we have a great show, we always come off and want to go back out there. While it’s great to come off and reflect and know you had a good show, nothing beats being in it. It’s the best feeling.
How involved are you with the business of All Time Low?
Very. We’ve always been pretty hands-on with handling the business side of things or at least knowing what’s going on and controlling arrangements we get into.
Does everyone in the band vote on everything?
Yep. We’ve always treated everything as an equal split four ways. It’s very dependent on what everybody is feeling, what everybody is thinking. Fortunately, we’re all pretty collaborative and cohesive in the way we think and work. It’s very rare that we get into a stalemate. It’s pretty easy to hash things out.
And that’s everything from business contracts to artwork for the next album cover?
If you’re talking about album art and things like that, that’s a bit more of an argument, always. (laughs) Then everybody has their opinion. But it always gets worked out. We’re very lucky that the four of us can put our heads together and figure things out fairly quickly and without too much incendiary conversation.
When you bring a song to the band, does the finished recording sound like what you imagined it would?
It depends. Sometimes I’ll bring a song to the table, the guys will like it … and we’ll cut it. Obviously there are changes here and there. I’m not a drummer the way Rian is a drummer and I’m not a bass player the way Zack is a bass player. There are plenty of times when the song won’t change that much but the fills are different or the bass line is a little bit different. Ultimately, the song doesn’t change shape very much.
Then there are songs where I’ll bring a demo in … and through the course of recording it we realize that something isn’t working. Things happen when songs grow up. In those cases sometimes it’s back to the drawing board. The nice thing about this is the three other guys in the band are very complimentary of one another. … Sometimes it takes putting us in a live room and letting us hash it out and suddenly it’s like, “OK. That wasn’t the chorus. This is the chorus” and the song takes on a new shape.
What came first for you, singing or playing guitar?
Singing. I was able to sort of carry a tune my whole life. I think that comes with having an ear for music. I was singing for a long time in choirs and in choruses, things like that. I think it was in middle school when I wanted to pick up a guitar and start playing. I got into it for a little while but got bored with the lessons so I dropped if for a year, two years, getting back into it. My second guitar teacher kept me interested because rather than make me play scales over and over, he actually taught me songs. Then I felt I was learning something. Once I could play Metallica and things like that, I was like, “This is awesome. Now I get it. This is why I wanted to learn to play guitar.” I was probably getting into my teenage years by then.
What’s the next big goal for All Time Low?
It’s hard to say because we always take it in strides. I think the big thing now, for us, would be to move up to the next level of rooms. We’re starting to play sheds and arenas in the U.S. We have yet to do a fully sold-out tour in that format. I think the next step is to continue to grow to the point where we can sell those babies out and consider ourselves an arena rock band, which is what we’ve always wanted to be.
