To celebrate their upcoming tour, All Time Low's Alex Gaskarth caught up with touring mate Alex Garcia (Mayday Parade) to discuss the pair's favourite live songs.
All Time Low, Mayday Parade (Credit: Jimmy Fontaine, Supplied)
For my favourite All Time Low songs to play live currently, it's probably a toss-up of old and new. I absolutely love playing the first single from our newest record [Tell Me I’m Alive]; it's called Sleepwalking. It has an amazing energy that we've discovered happening when we play it in front of people; it's just taken on this new life. And it just feels like a special one in terms of the way it resonates with the audience.
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Another new one I love playing is New Religion, which I think is a slightly different sound from anything we've ever done before. It’s dancey, and it's got this cool feeling. And the crowds, again, have been reacting really well to it.
From there, I’d say that Weightless is a top-tier live song for us. No matter where we are in the world, that one always grabs everyone, and it just goes off!
There’s a song from an album of ours, Last Young Renegade, called Life Of The Party. It’s kind of a darker sound for us, but again, it transcended from what it was on the record to when we started playing it live. And I always find that I really love when we land on a song where when we take it to the stage - it kind of evolves and becomes this other thing. And that song really transformed when we started playing it live. I think that one has a really cool, unique thing that happens when we take it to the stage.
And then I feel like I’ve got to go throwback for the last one; I’ve gotta give it to Dear Maria; we've always closed our shows with that song. And it might be a bit on the nose to say, but there's a reason why that song always closes out our show, and it's just because it feels like a classic staple All Time Low song, the same way that Blink always closes with Dammit and Fall Out Boy always closes with Saturday - it’s become that moment for us.
It’s kind of like if it's an amazing show; it's the kind of song where we get to have that one final push with the crowd. And even if it's a show where it's been a tougher show, or I'm super exhausted from being on tour for months or whatever - that song is always the reminder live of like: one more, let's go, let's rip it! It's definitely a good one.
I'd definitely say Oh Well, Oh Well, I've always loved that song. Derek [Sanders] wrote that one, and whenever he showed the band, and we started working on it as a band, I’ve always been a huge fan of that song. And playing it live always feels very authentic and very heartfelt.
Jamie All Over is great to play because our fans love that song, and it's easy and fun to play. It's just so fun; it’s definitely the most fun Mayday Parade song to play!
I love our song from Sunnyland called It’s Hard To Be Religious When Certain People Are Never Incinerated By Bolts Of Lightning. That one is super energetic and, to me, is one of my favourite Mayday Parade songs, period. So, I love playing that song.
Piece Of Your Heart is also fun to play from that same album because it's not energetic, so I can kind of just chill on stage but still play and have fun. It’s like my break, my breather.
And I’ve also gotta say More Like A Crash from our newer stuff; that one is great to play. It’s nice to see people singing along to that one. It really seems like fans enjoy that song, which is refreshing and nice. You always want people to enjoy your new songs, and that's been great to see!
WEDNESDAY 1 NOVEMBER - METRO CITY, PERTH
FRIDAY 3 NOVEMBER - AEC THEATRE, ADELAIDE
SATURDAY 4 NOVEMBER - MARGARET COURT ARENA, MELBOURNE
WEDNESDAY 8 NOVEMBER - HORDERN PAVILION, SYDNEY
THURSDAY 9 NOVEMBER - FORTITUDE MUSIC HALL, BRISBANE - LOW TICKET WARNING
You can find tickets via the Destroy All Lines website.