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The All-American Rejects have found industry staying power by embracing the 'digital single.' |
BY RYAN BROSMER
FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR
The All-American Rejects released their third studio album almost a year ago. They got their first No. 1 hit with the single "Gives You Hell." They spent a good chunk of the summer touring with a reunited Blink-182. Now they're going to take a break. Or not.
The band is on the road again, co-headlining with friends and fellow Blink-182 tourmates Taking Back Sunday. The tour comes to the Patriot Center on Monday.
"It seems like it's a rare thing these days to find a band that's just on the same wavelength as us," AAR guitarist Mike Kennerty said of the relationship between the two headlining bands.
"We're kind of old men in this realm because we've watched a new generation come up, a new generation that we don't really relate to. So it's really cool to find a band that somehow we've never befriended before that feels the same vibe."
AAR broke big with its 2002 self-titled album and its first single "Swing, Swing." That album and the 2005 follow-up, "Move Along," have both gone platinum.
"Gives you Hell," the first single off of 2008's "When the World Comes Down," took the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Top 40, and Kennerty thinks that might have something to do with the band's expanding fan base.
"We've kind of always had that teen-girl demographic covered," he said. "But now we find ourselves everywhere from younger than that to middle-age couples at our shows. It's just this very huge variant, and it's really cool to see."
The success that has carried AAR to where they are now took the band by surprise. They started off on the independent Doghouse Records, but were quickly noticed by the major labels and eventually signed on to Dreamworks, which re-released the band's debut. For the last two albums, they've called Interscope Records home.
"We never expected to last a year doing this as our job," Kennerty said.
"Somehow we made it last eight now. Any stress or negativity that goes along with it now is just a part of it, and we take it with a grain of salt. We couldn't be luckier, and we couldn't be happier getting to do what we do."
In the constantly changing music industry the band has managed to weather the storms so far and has had success with digital releases.
"Even with all the sales declining, we've still been able to sell a decent amount of records," Kennerty said.
"Still, less with each time, but we've also been embraced with the whole 'digital single' world. We've sold so many digital singles, it's crazy."
Kennerty said the band has definitely started to consider where things are going and what the band needs to do to keep up. And in the meantime, the band is also plotting out a new record.
"We're just kind of starting to plant the seeds of tunes," Kennerty said.
"Come start of the year, I think we're gonna start actually buckling down and starting on some new jams."
Ryan Brosmer is a freelance writer and student at Virginia Commonwealth University. Reach him at
Email: brosmerra@vcu.edu.
| What: The All-American Rejects and Taking Back Sunday co-headline Where: George Mason University's Patriot Center, 4500 Patriot Circle, Fairfax When: Monday, 8 p.m. Cost: $35 Info: 703/993-3000 Web: Patriotcenter.com |
