Pop punk band All Time Low gives Manila Hustlers their much awaited Party Scene
By Rose Angela Bautista
Taken from the lyrics of New Found Glory’s “Head On Collision”, the name All Time Low is now one of the top pop punk bands that take over the mainstream. The band from Baltimore was formed in 2003 consisting of the lead vocalist and guitarist Alexander Gaskarth, guitarist Jack Barakat, bassist Zack Merrick and drummer, Rian Dawson.
With their hit singles “Remembering Sunday”, “Dear Maria, Count Me In” and “Six Feet Under The Stars”, the band made their own place in the music industry. June of 2011 when their latest album “Dirty Work” was launched giving the fans a different side of their sound.
How is this (Dirty Work) different from all of your other albums?
- Alex: You know I think that the biggest difference is this time around, we were a little bit less focused on the idea of the “pop-punk” record. You know, we have done that a couple of times.
So how would you define your sound on this kind of record?
- Alex: You know I don’t know, I definitely still think that there are a lot of element s of pop punk and you know what we came up. I think a big part of it was we just wanted to focus on writing great songs.
What can we expect at tonight’s concert at Araneta Coliseum?
- Rian: I think a good mix of everything. We’re making sure that… because this is our first time in the country we’re making sure that we’re playing a lot of our material, our catalog. We really wanna make sure that you know, everybody walks away today with a feeling that they kinda tasted the songs that they wanted to see.
Are we gonna hear other songs as well from your previous albums?
- Rian: We really feel the crowd energy and as far as we’ve seen, so far, just being at signing… fans at the hotel. This is the most energetic fans we’ve ever seen.
- Jack: Its pretty funny because we haven’t been playing “Six Feet Under The Stars” for the past year and we landed and all the kids started singing.
Why do you always insist on getting naked on your videos?
- Alex: Well its just a natural thing to do I think.
- Jack: God gave us very beautiful naked bodies we have to show the world.
First thoughts when you found out that you were gonna come to the Philippines, did you even know that you had huge followers on Twitter?
- Alex: We did. Yeah, on Twitter and on Facebook, some of our biggest traffic online seems to come from the Philippines. So you know when we got the offer to finally come and play here we knew it’s gonna be insane.
You guys have been together since 2003, and you have released quite a few album, what keeps you guys going?
- Alex: You know I think, one of the biggest things is the bands that we grew up on and the bands that we saw break through the mainstream like Green Day. It was kind of that, that showed us that there is a mainstream place for this kind of music… As far as how many bands are doing it, as long as we have a shot, we keep fighting for that. So it’s kind of a dream for us to sort of bring what we do worldwide.
Now that Blink 182 has come back, what are your views about that?
- Rian: We’re super excited that they’re back together. Apart from the fact that we thought once they broke up, we were gonna have the chance to be the best band in the world, they came back and stomped on our dreams again. You know, it’s really bad, they are probably the biggest reason we are a band, so to have that band come back and do another record and continue to do what they did so well for 7 years, it’s very cool for us to see them come back with their re-entrance into this industry, we got to play shows and become kind of like “buddy buddy” with them which, as you can imagine, they are the reason we are a band and it’s overwhelming.
What do you think is the difference between All Time Low and those other bands? What makes you guys stand out?
- Rian: I think one thing that sets us apart… if not listening to our DVD and live show I think we really have tons of energy and just have a really really great time on stage. Even if you’re not an All Time Low fan, you can still have fun at an All Time Low show.
What do you love most about being member of your band?
- Alex: I think the best part of being in this band for me is a few different things but the traveling and getting our music to people around the world at the same time being able to do that with your best friends. We’ve managed to surround ourselves with the team of people we all really love and we get along with. - Rian: It’s pretty cool that we get to travel as much as we do and on top of that, we get to play music that we wrote on every road. Its really just the two best things, we get to go on to these beautiful countries and on top of that I get to play drums.
What’s the sweetest thing that a fan has ever done for you?
- Alex: Sweetest thing? To narrow it down, its cool when you get tattoos of our music. That’s like really awesome, yeah that is very cool you know it’s very permanent but make sure you think about it first. But don’t do it! Don’t just do it because we said it unless you really want it.
What do you think are some of your biggest accomplishment so far?
- Alex and Zack: This is the big one for us. Traveling the world, touring is like a very big thing for us. The fact that we can come to a country for the very first time… thousands and thousands of miles from where we started and you know, play to thousands of people is you know more than any of us has ever dreamed about. We have really hit like a lot of miles down for personal aspirations and things like that… there’s always something new, like a new goal to kind of reach.
You travel a lot together and they say that when you travel together, you learn a lot of interesting stuff about each other so what so far is the most interesting thing that you’ve learned about each other?
- Alex: Jack has two belly buttons.
- Jack: Yeah, one’s in my butt. I think we’ve kind of know each other inside and out like totally. Like there is nothing I really learn about them anymore.
- Rian: Literally, we’ve been friends for like ten years now so we know everything there is to know about each other. The biggest misconception is that we’re cool guys because when everything’s said and done we just play video game and football.
- Alex: Yeah, before I came down here to do this I was playing video game.
Do you have any dream bands or person that you would like to collaborate with in the near future? Or a woman artist?
- Alex: Yeah, I think we all have hundreds. I think the big one for us would be Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry would be very cool. Gaga would be cool. But she’s a guy now.
Do you have any stories to share about the people telling you how much you have changed or inspired them?
- Rian: Uhm, I mean there have been a lot of stories. We are really lucky to be on top couple of choices on bringing us some letters and stuff and explaining how we helped them and changed them. I think one of the big ones that I really noticed and I really focused on is when the story is about bringing people together.
by Angela Bautista
