Page 37 - Black Velvet Issue 94

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Mistaken Identity

ecently, Mike posted a photo of
Rthe band’s first ever full line-up,
taken back in 2002, next to the band’s
most recent band photo, taken this year.
Tyson Ritter and Nick Wheeler, from
Stillwater, OK, had originated The All-
American Rejects in 1999, with Mike
hopping on board in 2002. Mike tells
Black Velvet that the 15 years have gone
by so fast. “It’s such a crazy thing be-
cause I remember when we took that
first photo and my mindset at that time,
and I think all of us, was ‘This will prob-
ably be over by next year, so we’ll just
enjoy this,’ – at least the success part of
it, and to be able to still be doing this pro-
fessionally 15 years later is insane. It’s
been an amazing trip.”
Throughout the 15 years, Mike
thinks the band have avoided pigeonhol-
ing themselves into one particular iden-
tity.
“Probably our biggest Achilles heel
is the fact that we’ve never staked our-
selves an identity like a lot of bands do.
They get something that becomes very
identifiably them and I think it allows a lot
of people to latch on to them as people
and just the music they put out, but
we’ve always been guys who, we only
really give a shit about the music. So
we’ve never really established ourselves
with any sort of identity, we’ve just al-
ways evolved as people and kept what-
ever we are at the next moment is what
kind of a band it is. As we’ve grown up
we’ve just represented who we are as
people at that moment. It might be to our
detriment because we haven’t given our-
selves something identifiable for other
people to latch on to besides putting out
songs.”
That said, the band did identify with
a lot of pop punk and pop rock fans, as
their songs have been bouncy, catchy
and vibrant, especially in the early days
with songs like ‘Swing, Swing’, that really
DO make you want to swing around with
excitement. While the four members did-
n’t go by a particular image, at least mu-
sically, their songs were sparkly and
bright. In more recent years, the band’s
musical style has branched out, particu-

THE ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS