Baltimore's finest pop-punk exports, All Time Low, are in their Everyone's Talking era. Weeks before the release of their 10th studio album, Alex Gaskarth and Jack Barakat came by the Setlist studios to talk memorable live music moments in their personal histories.
We talked about HFStival and the origin of Good Charlotte's "Festival Song," The Pop Disaster Tour with Blink and Green Day, and watching Foo Fighters at Reading in 2012. We also venture into Alex's side hustle with Mark Hoppus (Simple Creatures), how some of the collabs on the newest album came together and what they're most excited to be playing live. Watch the full conversation, some highlights below:
For old time's sake, we also talked about the first time I ever interviewed them, in 2007, for a website I worked for called Buzznet. Both Buzznet and All Time Low were in their humble beginnings at the time (this was pre-"Dear Maria"), but the very run-and-gun Q&A went a 2007-version of "viral." Much of Buzznet's content is lost forever if not ripped and re-posted by eager fans, but seeing as I was the music editor, I did salvage bits and pieces - including the time Buzznet took Alex and Jack to Disneyland. Take a little trip down memory lane with this vintage gallery:
The new Everyone's Talking era
Alex Gaskarth: It's rebirth, rediscovery of our love for this band. I think after doing the 20-year celebration last year, we felt really reinvigorated by that. We felt a lot of love from the fans and the audience gathering around a celebration of our legacy. And so we decided, I don't think we knew as we were writing it necessarily, but when we landed in a place where we had a body of work and it was becoming an album, it felt like we were writing a reflection on 20 years of being an All Time Low and the story arc of the highs and lows of that journey and going through the tumble dryer of doing this for so long.
Jack Barakat: And sonically speaking, it definitely ...
Alex: Speak to the sonics.
Jack: And I will speak to the sonics in the matter. You do get a sense that there is some old and new All Time Low on there and the future. It's got a little bit of everything.
Alex: For sure. That's a really good point actually, speaking to the sonics is that, I got asked this the other day. People are like, "Do you intentionally try to write to sound like older versions of yourselves?" And I was thinking on that a minute and it was like, "No, I think that's in the ethos of our band." I think through all the eras of All Time Low, whether we've done something that feels more return to form or something that's pushed us creatively forward in a big way, there's always a sprinkle of where we started and I think that's always going to be there. So it's interesting on this one that, I think to your point, it feels like the most rounded out version of that. I think we ran with it and we took it as far as we could go in terms of trying new things. But then I think it's also very, it feels very realized to me is grounded in where we came from for sure.
Bree Wilde: Yeah, you sort of have your DNA as All Time Low and you can take it different ways or add to it.
Jack: We were in eighth grade and HFStival was a massive radio station on the East coast and they would put on this huge festival, maybe something similar. I don't even know if they have stuff like this anymore. It was in a football stadium. So I mean it was bigger than a normal festival.
Alex: I mean, it was really, really big. I think at the time that station was probably the biggest rock station on the East coast. Maybe the one in New York was number one, but the DC Baltimore station was huge and the scene around it was massive. And this show was huge at RFK. It must've been like 30 to 50,000 people I think. When it was at its peak. And yeah, I mean just little old me, little old you being massive rock fans going. We both went separately. I went with a group of friends.
Jack: My brother took me.
Alex: We must've been literally, there must've been times where we were probably 25 feet away from each other and didn't know.
Jack: Yeah. I remember seeing you because you wore yellow parachute pants.
Alex: I sure did.
Jack: I remember I have that image of we walking by and I was like, "Oh, that's the new guy at school" But it was the first real concert I went to. And probably you as well, right?
Alex: It was the first big festival thing that I had ever attended. Yeah, it was overwhelming.
Jack: But I mean it was 2001. So all these bands who are now massive were kind of coming up. Coldplay played really early on the main stage. They just had Yellow out, really.
Alex: Linkin Park.
Jack: Linkin Park was in the middle of the line-up.
Alex: Fourth or fifth band on daytime slot.
Jack: Good Charlotte played second. And they're filming the music video for "Festival Song," which was a song that they wrote about this festival. Yeah, so Festival Song was written about HFStival.
Alex: Was it really?
Jack: It was, yeah. Because they grew up in DC in the area and they grew up going to it as well. That's why they filmed a music video for it. If you look at the "Festival Song" music video, we're in there somewhere in the crowd.
Alex: Yeah. We always used to say that. We would watch it back later and you'd be like, "That's me right there." "I don't know if that's you."
Jack: For sure. And it was just one of those things that makes you realize what live music really is. It was my first time smelling weed. I was with my brother, I was like, "What is that smell?" And he is like, "That's weed my dude." I was like, "All right. Smells kind of skunky." And it was my first time crowd-surfing. I made my brother put me up there and crowd-surf to ...
Alex: Somebody threw me.
Jack: Someone threw you?
Alex: Yeah. I remember maybe AFI was playing or something. And I remember there was just this massive dude next to me who was like, "You ever crowd-surf before, buddy?" And I was like, "What?" And he just picked me up and launched me in the crowd. My fault for being in the pit and being small.
Jack: So you're like, "What?" Before you know it, you're being launched into the air.
Bree: You did not consent to that crowd-surf.
Alex: Yeah, I don't think I did, but hey, it might've been the thing that got me in. That might be why I'm here now.
Jack: I just remember crowd-surfing and being, "Again, again, again!" A little kid going down a slide for the first time.
Alex: It literally was, it's the equivalent of that. It's like the first time ...
Jack: Being so scared to do it and once you do it, you're like, "More, more, more, more!"
Bree: You were crowd-surfing there too?
Jack: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I made my brother put me up there and I was like, "What do I do?" And he's like, "Just lay back man and let the crowd take you." And I was like ...
Alex: Enjoy. Enjoy the ride.
Jack: "I'm scared. It smells like shitty weed."
Bree: That's amazing. I spent the entirety of the 2010 Bamboozle Roadshow tour trying to get Good Charlotte to play "Festival Song."
Alex: And they didn't?
Bree: No.
Jack: We probably did too because we love that song.
Bree: Love that song. Never knew the history of it til now.
Jack: Yeah, we were at the music video filming of it and everything.
Alex: You're going to learn some facts. Jack's going to drop some knowledge.
Pop Disaster Tour 2002
Jack: This was the first show I'd bought tickets for just a regular show to go to and it was Blink and Green Day. I was a massive Blink fan at the time. Green Day had been around in my life for many years of my brother being an older brother playing me good music. But Blink was on, I think it was Take Off Your Pants and Jacket had just come out maybe seven or eight months before. So they were taking over the world and had deeply affected my life, had taken over my life as well.
Alex: Was that your first obsession, you think?
Jack: Limp Bizkit was. Yeah, Limp Bizkit. But Blink was the first time I was like, "Oh, this is ..." Because Blink's whole thing was, I was obsessed with the music, but I was obsessed with the lifestyle and the clothes and everything that kind of came with the band.
Alex: Everything that came with Dickies shorts.
Jack: Yeah. Hell yeah. And Atticus and Hurley. And so my mom took me and my buddy John, and this was kind of a little dark story, but it was shortly after 9/11. And so you couldn't bring cell phones into shows anymore because they just were just being overly careful about everything. And so you had to check your cell phones when you got there. And this was at Hershey Park Stadium, which is big. It's maybe like 15,000-20,000 people. So we get into the show and we couldn't get field passes. They were sold out. So we were up in the stands and we get there and we're 11 or 12 and me and John go, "Mom, can we go down to the crowd?" She's like, "Hell no because no one has cell phones."
Bree: Right. I'll never find you.
Jack: "And I'll never find you." And I'm like, "Please, please, please, please?" And she said yes. And we ran down there, jumped the fence, went to the crowd.
Alex: This is adorable, by the way.
Jack: Yeah, it was super fun. Yeah. Went in the crowd, smelled weed for the second time. Slightly better weed I think. Maybe. Probably not though.
Alex: None of it was good then.
Jack: Another funny thing about ... The ticket stub said Saves the Day on it. And at the time I didn't know who the band Saves The Day was so thought I was so confused because when I got the ticket it said Pop Disaster Tour Green Day, Blink-182, Saves the Day. And so I was like, "Oh, a second name for the tour is Green Day and Blink Saves the Day?" And I was like, "That's kind of like interesting."
Alex: You just thought it was what they were doing?
Jack: I thought it was what they were calling Pop Disaster, Blink and Green Day Saves the Day. I'm like, "Okay, that's kind of a long-ass, weird title. But okay." And then so Saves The Day, started playing and I was like, "Oh, they're a band," which is cool. And then I ended up falling in love with Saves the Day as well. But Green Day played first, which I found kind of surprising at the time. Even being there for Blink, essentially I still was like, "It's Green Day." But yeah, Green Day went on. I ended up knowing almost every song. It was crazy. They put on the sickest show to this day still. And that was just fun as shit. A lot of crowd-surfing, all that, a lot of moshing.
Alex: They were on Warning, right? At that time?
Jack: They were on Warning. Yes. And then when Blink came on, they opened with "Anthem Part Two." So just the curtain opens and it's like, na, na. And I was just like, "That's what I want to do." I want to be on that stage. It was awesome.
Alex: Inspo moment.
Jack: Inspo moment. They did a funny sketch in the middle of the show where Tom was playing "What Went Wrong" I think, which is an acoustic song with just him. And while he's doing that, mark and Travis are having a picnic next to him and just drinking wine on stage. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
Alex: Adorable.
Jack: And then a kind of full-circle moment. We toured Blink in 2016 on the California tour. And it was us and A Day to Remember and Blink. And we played Hershey Park Stadium with them and I told Mark the whole story and it was super cool. I told him stage and I think Mark came out and punked us during the set.
Alex: Full-circle moment for sure.
Foo Fighters at Reading Festival 2012
Alex: Oh, this one was special. Obviously we were already an active band. We were already touring. This was something we were on tour and playing a bunch of shows across Europe that the Foo Fighters were headlining.
Jack: Basically just trying to get in with that camp.
Alex: Yeah, basically it felt like we were stalking them. But a lot of the time when they route these tours, and a lot of the time you do end up being on the same routing as bands that you're not on tour with. And so we just happened to, we kept showing up on bills with the Foo Fighters that summer and they were headlining Reading and Leeds, and I think this was right around the time that they had just put out the documentary, and I'm blanking on the name of the record now. Someone helped me. The record with Rope.
Jack: Wasting Light.
Alex: Yeah, so it was right around the time they were touring on an album Wasting Light, and the Foo Fighters were, it felt like they were back on top, back at their best. And I happened to know their tour manager Gus through Mark, and he was really kind to us and knew that I was a massive Foo Fighters fan, massive fan of everything Dave Grohl has done musically. And so it was like we were just kind of lurking side stage as the Foos were going to play. I was going to go out front and watch the show because usually the headliner shuts down the stage and it is what it is. And Gus was like, "Get up here."
Jack: "Yeah, you guys come over here." We just sat on the stage.
Alex: Put us right side stage. And I just remember sitting there bottle of wine in hand watching this moment happen. And it was like, for me, the Nirvana live record at Reading is one of my favorite live albums ever. I think it's an absolutely iconic rock show. And so there was a bit of that energy coming through and you could tell Dave was feeling that too that night, and it was something that was so special. And to be that front row for it was, yeah, I felt very lucky and it was inspiring and I think it probably fueled me for the next five years of touring to just be like, "That's what I'm chasing now. I need that."
Bree: You got to watch them as a fan. But you also saw people react to them.
Jack: Yeah. And there was something about European festivals in the middle of a hot summer night and 60,000 people singing "Everlong."
Alex: I was crying. I was goosebumps, I was tears. It was emotional.
Jack: And because we didn't want to be standing on the side of the stage and in the view of people, we were just sitting cross-legged style on the stage and just so I felt like a little kid was watching them and yeah ...
Bree: Story time.
Alex: Big time. But yeah, to your point, it was pretty amazing that we got to watch the show as fans, but then also gauge the crowd's response and being in that unique position of feeling both sides of the energy, it was pretty next level.
Jack: I was like, "Oh, this is what it's like to be in the Foo Fighters. Sounds fucking awesome."
Alex: Yeah, I want that.
Bree: Did you guys play Reading and Leeds that year?
Alex: We did, yeah. We were on the bill as well and had a great show. We had just started using backing tracks and for the intro of Weightless, which is an electronic drum beat, and it was the first time that we had a malfunction. So it was literally how the song starts with that beat at the beginning of "Weightless" and the laptop shit the bed on us.
Alex: So we were like, "This is the biggest crowd we've ever played for. What do we do?"
Jack: Yeah, yeah. We covered by Blink. But honestly ...
Alex: We started the song by ringing out and the way we did it at Reading that day went off so hard that we started playing it that way for years after. It kind of informed how we were going to do that song live for a long time.
Bree: Happy little accident.
Alex: It was. It truly was.
The new songs
Alex: A favorite of mine, I will say for vibe alone is there is a song called "Little Bit," and I think it's going to be one that absolutely pops live. In our creative processes recently we have so many songs, so many albums that I think we, it's like a thought experiment to be like, "What vibe don't we have for the show yet?" And "Little Bit" is one that there's an energy to it that I don't think we've ever really tapped. There's some songs that kind of have the vibe, but it's always, it's adjacent to, and I just think it's going to go off, which I'm really looking forward to.
Bree: So of the new batch, are there ones you're most excited to play? Little Bit."
Alex: "Little Bit" is up there for me.
Jack: "Butterflies" is a little bit of a harder song for us.
Alex: Oh, I love that song. Love it.
Jack: We got to play it live what? Once now or twice?
Alex: Twice.
Alex: It went off.
Jack: It went off. It was super fun. It's just one of those songs that is going to get the crowd moving. And those are super fun.
Alex: Anytime the energy translates onto the stage is I feel very satisfied.
Bree: Any tweaks that have to be made to your songs to be live?
Jack: Great question.
Alex: Yeah, I mean all over. It runs the gamut. Sometimes the key of the song feels really good in the studio, but then when I have to do it every day on stage, it's like maybe pushing my upper register a little too much. And just for sheer survival, we have key it down. The song, "Oh No!" from this new album is in a really comfortable range for me in the studio, but when we get out on the road and have to do it every day, I'm like, "Let's bring this down a half step."
Jack: Down a half-step.
Alex: So nerdy, nerdy shit like that where you just figure out what works better and serves the set. Sometimes we'll change keys for flow of show if there's a few songs back-to-back that feel really good together, but one's in an ugly out-of-key kind of mode, we'll change it and that'll help the show flow. I mean, what else? Sometimes it's just like we were talking about the energy's just not there. You get the song out in front of people and it's like, "This is not ..."
Jack: Like the bridge is kind of ethereal or vibey and you're like, "Okay, Rian, you need to hit the kick drum or something because I'm falling asleep over here."
Alex: Yeah, that's a good point.
All Time Low are out on the Everyone's Talking tour RIGHT NOW. The tour resumes tonight in Columbus and US dates run until 11/29. See all the details on their official site.
