Alex Gaskarth On Revisiting "Dear Maria Count Me In," 'The Forever Sessions Vol. 1' Album, 20 Years of All Time Low & More | Billboard News
All Time Low lead singer and guitarist, Alex Gaskarth talks about revisiting one of the band's biggest hits "Dear Maria, Count Me In" for their new album 'The Forever Sessions Vol. 1,' why they picked these songs and the process of re-recording some of their most classic All Time Low songs from 'Put Up Or Shut Up,''So Wrong It's Right' and 'Nothing Personal' for the project, reflecting on being a band for 20+ years, their latest collab "Fake As Hell" with Avril Lavigne, working some of the biggest idols like Mark Hoppus and longtime friends like Demi Lovato and more.
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00:00Okay, let's do it. Ready? On three? Yes, on three. Ready? Three, two, one.
00:07I had my dream come true. I love it.
00:09Hey, what's up guys? It's Alex from All Time Low and you're watching Billboard News.
00:16Hey everybody, I'm Rania Nipdos with Billboard News. I am so excited.
00:19We have one of my favorite singers from one of my favorite bands in the studio today.
00:23We have Alex Gascarth from All Time Low. Hi! Hi. Hi.
00:28Well, I mean, you have a really exciting time right now. A lot of full circle moments, I feel like, are coming back for you.
00:33I mean, you're having the Forever Sessions Volume 1 coming out where you're reimagining ten of your tracks.
00:39How did you go about choosing which tracks, I guess, captured All Time Low in your career so far?
00:45That was honestly probably one of the hardest parts was focusing in on which songs we felt encapsulated the early days of this band the most.
00:53You know, I think we knew that we wanted to start off with the early records, Put Up or Shut Up, our first EP that we ever put out.
01:00So Wrong, It's Right was the first full-length album we put out.
01:02And from there, an album of ours called Nothing Personal, which was our sophomore record.
01:07There's a lot of material on all of those albums and we wanted to key in on the ones that we felt like, to this day, have carried a major weight with our fans and our audience.
01:16They're still songs from those records that are in every set list we ever put together.
01:20So it's kind of wild to be playing music 20 years later, playing shows 20 years later into being in this band and these songs are still so important to the fans.
01:29So we wanted to make sure we hit those.
01:31Does it surprise you which songs, I guess, have still stuck with people after all this time?
01:37It is pretty wild.
01:38You know, I think I look back on songs like Six Feet Under the Stars and Weightless and especially Dear Maria, the resurgence that that song had recently.
01:51We were teenagers, literally, when we wrote that music.
01:54So to have it still mean so much to so many people and also to have it now connect with a whole new generation of fans that I think are just finding out about this genre of music.
02:04It's pretty wild, you know, to get our heads around it and just go, man, like this thing really has legs.
02:10We never expected it.
02:11I mean, how is your relationship with a lot of those songs evolved over time?
02:14Like, have you gone through processes with it?
02:16Does it still feel new in some ways?
02:18When you've been at it for as long as we have, they're always so fresh because we play them so often live.
02:23And feeling that connection with the audience makes the songs feel new again.
02:27But I always say, you know, Dear Maria haunts me when I'm out at a bar or whatever and someone at the bar happens to know who we are and pops a song on a jukebox or whatever.
02:40It's kind of like someone coming up to you with an old high school photo of you and being like, remember this? Remember?
02:46And you're just kind of like, oh, what was I doing?
02:49Not to say that this song isn't special from all the way back then, but it's just like I hear it now and it's like that's not how we do it now.
02:56Right, right.
02:57And that was kind of some of the inspiration behind doing these Forever sessions was taking these really important songs that haven't gone anywhere and bringing them into the wheelhouse of our new music.
03:06You know, we have newer records and that's how we believe we sound now as a band.
03:10So it's funny to hear sort of on record the difference between how we make music now and how we used to.
03:16So it's been cool to kind of take that journey and update that.
03:19Well, I think it's indicative because your music, especially the newer records, is still very all time low.
03:24Like it's not like you guys have gone so off the path completely, but it's a more mature version.
03:29And so it's fun to see the fans that were also teenagers when the original EP and album came out kind of grow with you and grow and finesse their music tastes as well.
03:39Genuinely, it's again, it's so wild to me because when we started this band, we had no idea, no aspirations of it lasting this long.
03:46It doesn't really hit you until it hits you.
03:48You're not 15 years in going like, oh man, but think about 20.
03:52Like it's just dawned on us recently, which is why we decided to kind of make this year a whole celebration of the legacy of the band.
03:58We play shows now and I look out and I really do see all different ages of our fans, people who I recognize from coming to shows, you know, 15 years ago, 20 years ago.
04:07And they've stuck with us the whole way and they're bringing their kids.
04:10And it's just like, it's pretty mind blowing, you know, that it's kind of expanded that way.
04:15Speaking of Dear Maria, not to bring up that high school photo, but I mean, you had a bunch of your celebrity friends take part in that iconic cough.
04:26Obviously, that starts the track.
04:33How fun is it that you have this network of people that are also super successful in the music industry that also feel connected to your music and wanted to take part in such a project?
04:43I just cast a wide net, you know, I was like, and I always feel so bad asking people to do anything for us.
04:49So when I reached out and was like, hey, will you just like do the cough from the beginning of the song?
04:52I felt so like awkward reaching out to all my friends to ask that.
04:56But getting all of those videos back, it was like, oh man, we really like made a lot of friends over the years and it expanded.
05:03It was so such a wide range, you know, it's like on one beat.
05:06To have Mark Hoppus, who I've been lucky enough to like make music with and have known for years and is, you know, a major part of the reason we started a band was Blink-182.
05:15But then, you know, people like Sean White, pro snowboarder that I never thought our paths would cross.
05:21You know what I mean? But like all of these old friends coming out of the woodwork, it was really endearing.
05:25I feel like you're having so many full circle moments. You're playing at the Troubadour, which was the first venue you ever played, right?
05:31Crazy, right?
05:32We planned this year to sort of be a way for us to take stock and reflect and do that with our fans.
05:38That's exactly the theme we were going for with the year.
05:41And yeah, to your point, like Troubadour was the first venue we ever played in California.
05:44I can remember that show and, you know, us just going there and playing it recently was wild.
05:50Because again, I'm pretty sure there were some people at that show that were maybe at the first one.
05:54Wow.
05:55Like that blows my mind.
05:57I mean, being a band for decades, it's not a small feat.
06:00I mean, so many times people go through all these dramas and they break up and they never want to see each other again.
06:05But you guys still have such a cool connection.
06:07What is the key to keeping that friendship and creative relationship in balance?
06:13It kind of comes down to the way we started the band, which was we were friends first and we were enjoying ourselves.
06:20And the aspirations of the band never kind of went beyond what the ties of the friendship meant to us.
06:27And so I think all along we've prioritized making sure that everybody in the band felt heard, seen, represented,
06:34and felt good about the music we were putting out and what we were doing on stage, you know.
06:37And I think it's made for a pretty healthy space where we've all kind of been able to say like,
06:43yeah, I still love doing this and I still love doing this with the other three guys, you know.
06:46And is there a song that, I don't know, that surprised you that now playing it in this celebration year,
06:53you kind of have a different relationship with it or you love it again?
06:56Oh my god. I would have to say our re-recording of Poppin' Champagne has put that song in a completely different echelon for me.
07:03Back then we made an incredibly cringe music video for it and I think I look back on that moment and it's another one where I'm like, what?
07:12But now the song has taken on this new life and we've been playing it a lot live at these shows.
07:17And the energy from the crowd that we get back for that one is something really unique and special.
07:22And I don't think it ever went off the way it does now throughout our entire career.
07:26So that song's like found a new life.
07:29Also on the business side, I mean, you're doing such a great job, not only creatively, but you've started, you guys started your own label.
07:35We partnered with some friends of ours who have a label called Photo Finish Records and we started our imprint there.
07:41We're calling it affectionately Basement Noise Records.
07:43It's really exciting. You know, we've never had our own label before really.
07:48So this was kind of an opportunity for us to do all of this on our own terms.
07:52You know, I think the whole point of re-recording this music was to reinvent, reimagine, update our sound.
07:58It's given us the autonomy to do it exactly how we want to do it.
08:01And I think it's just made it that much more special knowing that the ownership falls on us.
08:05The autonomy falls on us and the responsibility to like deliver for the fans falls on us.
08:09Yeah, it's empowering in a lot of ways probably. I love that.
08:12Very refreshing.
08:13And of course, you also had a show at Winery in New York City, which is very fitting because you have your own wine brand.
08:19We do.
08:20Where did that come from?
08:21It's funny, like we're talking about the legacy in the 20 years and I think it's like when you do something for long enough,
08:26you find all these different avenues to branch out into and wine just happened to be one of them.
08:31It's so random. I think wine is this interesting thing that kind of connects people to places.
08:36You know, wherever you go in the world, there's a wine to be had with a meal that you're having with friends.
08:42And it always serves to me as like an anchor point to those moments.
08:46So yeah, just in our travels, in our journey, in our touring,
08:49I've always sort of sought out wines that anchor me to those places and those memories.
08:54Similar to the way a song might.
08:56Our fans give us such a wide lane to operate in.
08:58I feel very lucky that like they've been down for that journey too.
09:02Because a lot of people would hear it and be like, why? What?
09:04What are you doing?
09:05No, people have been all in on the why of what we're doing.
09:09Why do we make wine?
09:11Because why not?
09:13Separately, I feel like it was probably just fun doing all the tasting.
09:16Oh my God, yeah. It's the best.
09:18We work with a winemaker out in Oregon.
09:21Going out there and making the blends and actually being hands-on with it
09:25was something I'd never done before and we had to learn, but we had really good guidance.
09:29And I think we landed on some stuff that's really good.
09:31And I want to circle back to kind of your musical friends that you've made along the way.
09:36You recently had a collab with Avril Lavigne, who, an icon, obviously.
09:40The absolute best.
09:46Who else is another artist that you feel like has really been there for you along the way
09:51and that you hope to work with maybe or have worked with in the past?
09:54You mentioned Avril. She's an icon and a legend.
09:57And it was crazy to get to go into the studio and work on that song with her.
10:00And we mentioned earlier Mark Hoppus.
10:03We've done a song together and then we ended up, him and I, starting a project together,
10:06which I just couldn't have imagined and was part of this journey that got us here now.
10:10Teddy Swims. A great friend.
10:12So cool. I love him.
10:13One of the most iconic voices in music right now.
10:16And I think just doing the damn thing so well and such a lovely human.
10:19We were lucky to get him on a song on our newest record called New Religion.
10:22Working with Demi on a new version of Monsters.
10:26To that extent, also Black Bear.
10:31Two people who I don't think I expected to work with in that capacity.
10:35Bear did such an amazing job of bringing that song a new life.
10:39And then when Demi came on board.
10:41Demi's someone I've known for years.
10:43We were friends a long time ago, but never worked on music together.
10:46Surprising, actually, I feel like.
10:48Right? And I look at Demi as one of, I think she has one of the best voices in music.
10:52She is incredible.
10:54And years later, circle back and get her on a song that was one of our newer songs.
10:58And hear her do her thing on something that we had made was very special.
11:02Realizing how cool your life has been thus far.
11:05What would you go back and tell younger Alex if you could?
11:09You know, I think that's what this year's been about really.
11:12It's gratitude and it's like gratitude in action, I think.
11:15It has been a really important thing for us.
11:17When we hit this 20 year mark, it said let's zoom out.
11:20Let's take a beat.
11:21And let's intentionally be so thankful for everything that got us to this point.
11:26So yeah, I think I'd probably tell my younger self that things are going to work out.
11:30Like stop and smell the roses.
11:32Because I think my younger self was always very ambitious and just driven and like eye on the next thing.
11:37And I think I would just give myself a little reassurance that it's going to go.
11:41Before we wrap up, at the risk of putting you on the spot and being so annoying.
11:45Can you do the cough with me before we wrap up?
11:47Yes.
11:48I mean, I have to.
11:49So no joke, no joke.
11:50When we did this for the re-record, it was probably like the most daunting part of getting any of these songs right.
11:56Because it had to be, I wanted it to feel new.
11:58And the first one, the first one in the original, it was like, it was not intentional.
12:02It was just like something that our producer Matt at the time just put in.
12:06Like I was literally clearing my throat and he was like, this is a funny way to start a song.
12:09You know, we had no idea back then that it would sort of become like a thing.
12:12That's amazing.
12:13So yeah, trying to get the new one was tricky.
12:15Okay, let's do it. Ready?
12:16On three?
12:17Yes, on three. Ready?
12:18Three, two, one.
12:22I had my dream come true. I love it.
12:24Love it.
12:25Well, thank you so much, Alex.
12:27Congratulations on 20 plus years of success and 20 more.
12:30I'm so happy that I got to chat with you today.
12:32Thank you so much for having me.