Pop punk, rock favourites, All Time Low are returning to Australia for Good Things Festival this December and they're bringing songs from their new album 'Everyone's Talking!' with them.
Vocalist Alex Gaskarth chats after the official first show of the 'Everyone’s Talking!' world tour, which just started in North America.
Somehow, between beginning a world tour and releasing a new album, All Time Low had time to make a special appearance with the Jonas Brothers for a surprise performance of All Time Low's anthem, 'Dear Maria, Count Me In'. "That came up the day before. No joke," Alex laughs over Zoom.
"I had family in town and I had just taken them out to grab dinner and I was not expecting a phone call from management being like, 'hey, what are you doing tomorrow?' I was like, 'well, you know, kind of chilling. I've got family in town, you know, no plans really.' And they're like, 'can you get down to Virginia to do a song with the Jonas Brothers?'.
"So, it was genuinely really out of the blue. . . Me and Jack [Barakat, lead guitarist] and I live on the east coast [of America]. So it was like, it was doable. It was a fun needle to thread."
The new album 'Everyone’s Talking!' is All Time Low continuing to combine their pop-punk roots with anthemic modern rock songwriting. Over the years, they've evolved into more than just a pop-punk band and have released current and relevant music in line with their maturing audience.
Still, after all this time they can't always guess what is and isn't going to be a hit. "We've gotten better at identifying those moments and knowing when 'okay this song has something special. This song has the secret sauce.'
"It's funny that you mentioned [new song] 'Bubblegum' because that's one for me. When we first wrote it I was like I think it has the secret sauce and I'm very excited that that one's sort of been kept in the back pocket for the album to come out.
"But there's always the sneaky ones. There's always the songs that we go 'oh, that's a great All Time Low song and that'll be a great album cut', and then we put the record out and you watch the streaming numbers and suddenly something just starts putting its hand up and going, going, going.
"On our last record that was a song called 'The Sound Of Letting Go'. We didn't push it as a single, we didn't spend a lot of time focusing on it outside of, you know, we played it live.
"But that was one that we look at like the data now and it's one of the strongest streaming songs on that record. So it kind of informs like, 'oh we probably should put that in the set'."
The last time All Time Low were at Good Things Festival was for the festival's debut in 2018. On that tour, All Time Low ended up doing a sporadic covers show in Brisbane at the after party.
In 2019, while Alex was on tour with Simple Creatures at Good Things Festival he and Mark Hoppus [Simple Creatures, Blink-182] did some DJ nights between shows. Fans will have to keep their ears to the ground for these 'secret' shows, 'cause if anything extra does happen it might be last minute.
"I feel like with those, it did kind of come together pretty organically. I remember us getting up and playing covers; that was very last minute. I think it was kind of just an after party to celebrate. Just celebrating the fact that [Good Things Festival's debut] went over without a hitch.
"I think one of the nice things about a festival like Good Things Festival, is that it pulls a lot of bands together that at the time we hadn't seen for a while.
"So everybody was kind of there and we're all overseas and you're a long way from home, and it feels nice to kind of put on those events and last minute things together because it's like, 'look, let's all, let's hit this after party. Let's all catch up. Let's have a minute to celebrate each other.'
"Honestly I think the performance part of it came together literally at the last minute, I think we were there and someone said would you guys get up and play? And we were like, 'yeah, f... it'."
Alex and Mark's side project, Simple Creatures, hasn't performed together live since Good Things Festival at the end of 2019. Both Alex and Mark have been busy with their own bands – and a global pandemic probably didn't help – but Alex says the door hasn't closed on that project.
"I saw Mark the other day, we both played at Aftershock Festival. . . Right now because we've both been so busy, the focus has not been on like 'are we gonna do [Simple Creatures] again?' But we'll certainly like, every now and then we'll kind of shoot a text back and forth about it and just be like, 'oh, like at some point we should do this, we should think about doing this'.
"I think, you know, there's a world, like we both love the project so much and it's such a nice pressure valve for both of us creatively to go and do something that has zero expectations tied to it and creatively be able to go off and do something separate of what we do in our respective bands.
"So I definitely think there's a world, we need the bandwidth to do it. You know, Blink may be winding down but we're just firing up. So if there's a time where both projects are kind of on break, maybe there's a world where we have time to fire up some new music.
"But we do talk about it, that was such a fun moment and such a cool time for me, but I think I speak for both of us when I say it was a unique and sick project to work on."
In 2015, when Tom DeLonge left Blink-182 there were rumours circulating of who the new vocalist would be. Of course, it ended up being Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba but at the top of this rumour list was Alex Gaskarth.
Considering his close relationship with Mark – and being one of the best pop-punk vocalists in the industry – many suspected that he may have been considered. So was there ever a formal or even informal conversation about it with Mark?
"I couldn't speak to that. I don't know. I'd love to pat myself on the back and think so, just to make myself feel better, but no, like I have no clue. I mean, I think Skiba was an obvious candidate for them, you know, they all came up alongside each other and I think that was one that just lined up so perfectly.
"To be completely honest, like that would be so daunting for me. It would have been an honour and a crazy moment for me as a Blink fan and someone that grew up on their music and kind of plays music because of Blink.
"It would be the most insane full-circle moment. Like I don't, I don't even know if I could, you know what I mean? Like, as a fan I'd be like, 'am I allowed to step into these shoes? Is that okay?' So yeah that's a crazy thought, but it would have been fun, I would have given it my best shot for sure."
To celebrate their 20 years together, All Time Low returned to the studio to re-record classic songs from their discography, titling the project 'The Forever Sessions, Vol.1'. It was an opportunity for the band to revisit the songs they had written as teenagers, now with 20 years of experience and songwriting behind them.
Alex looks back on those original recordings with nothing but fondness, even though the performance of these songs has evolved and changed as the band grew older. "I really tried not to be too overly critical [of the original recordings]; we worked with a great producer and when I think back on those records, they're great. It's not one of those things where I look back and cringe and go like, 'oh, 'why'd we do that?'.
"Those records for that moment in time, for who we were then and with Matt Squire [producer] at the helm, like we made awesome records that have stood the test of time and mean a lot to a lot of people, and that means a lot to us.
"So it was a tricky thing when we went in and sat down to do the re-records; the big thing for us was like, I would love for these to sound a bit more like we play them today. That was a big thing for us.
"The big takeaway we wanted people to get from them was 'oh okay if I go and see All Time Low and I hear them play 'Lost In Stereo' in 2025 this is what that's going to sound like'. It doesn't sound the way it did then, you know what I mean?
"That was kind of the goal for us, but it was also an important thing for us to stay true enough to those songs. We didn't want to make a one-to-one recreation, but we also didn't want to go so far left that it left people in the dust going 'well what the hell is this?' So it was a really fine needle to thread."
One of the highlights of these sessions was the reimagining of 'Remembering Sunday' featuring violinist Lindsey Stirling and surprisingly Alex's wife, Lisa, on vocals. "It was bonkers. I've known for forever that Lisa has a great voice and can sing her ass off, but it's not something, we'd never gone there. I think she'd always been like, 'no, why would I do that?'.
"She didn't have any desire to be involved with what I do in that way. When we sat down to do these sessions, I was like, 'you gotta do it. You gotta, like, you gotta be on this song.'
"It was pretty amazing, we actually recorded it with Paul Leavitt who was sort of co-production and engineering on 'So Wrong, It's Right'. Paul is out of Baltimore and I've known him for years and we went in with him to record her vocal.
"Getting to sit there with Paul who worked on the original and press record and produce her vocal together. It was special. I mean working with family is different and it was an incredibly cool moment for me to see her shine like that and proud moment. I'm being corny but it was awesome.
"Then the fact we got to perform it live and it was actually in Maryland. It was at our 'Forever' show at Merriweather, Post Pavilion in Maryland and that's the biggest headliner we've ever done in our home town.
"So for her to come out and do it live was also a pretty incredible thing to get to do because we really haven't shared a stage before. She's a great singer like I said, but she does not have a career in music. So it's rare that she gets out on a stage.
"Aside from sh.tting herself, to go out in front of all those people, she went out and crushed it. It was amazing and I look back and I watched that video and she just owns it and I'm like 'damn, what a pro', maybe she should have been the singer in a band, not me; I was standing there, just being all lovey-dovey being like, 'damn, you're awesome'."
All Time Low join the likes of Tool, Weezer, Garbage, Machine Head, The All-American Rejects, Knocked Loose and a stack more bands at Good Things Festival that plays Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbame early December. All Time Low have official side shows at The Tivoli (Brisbane) 9 December and Hindley Street Music Hall (Adelaide) 11 December.
Good Things Festival 2025 Dates
Fri 5 Dec - Flemington Racecourse (Melbourne)Sat 6 Dec - Sydney Showground
Sun 7 Dec - Brisbane Showgrounds
Good Things Festival 2025 Line-up
TOOLWeezer
Garbage
All Time Low
Machine Head
The All-American Rejects
Knocked Loose
Lorna Shore
Refused
New Found Glory
Make Them Suffer
Dayseeker
James Reyne
Kublai Khan TX
Cobra Starship
Goldfinger
Tonight Alive
Bad Nerves
Civic
Dead Poet Society
Fever 333
Gwar
High Vis
Inertia
Palaye Royale
Scene Queen
South Arcade
Wargasm
Windwaker
Yours Truly
Stage 666
