Meet the Indie Pop Band that Clicks: An Interview with AJR
They say that blood is thicker than water, which means that bonds with your kin are stronger than any other. The brothers that make up the indie pop band AJR — Adam, Jack and Ryan — know about having a strong bond and that’s what makes their music so authentic. Their unilateral understanding shines through in their music. The New York-based trio recently released their second album, The Click, on June 9, 2017, and the thirteen tracks are a clear, personal perspective of the modern world and its goings-on.
I recently spoke to one of the brothers, Ryan, about the band’s latest release, upcoming tour and their musical journey.
Sonya Alexander: How did you first get interested in playing music?
Ryan Met: We started this band about eleven years ago. We actually started off of street performing in New York, so we went out to Washington Square Park, where we played covers. We were able to make enough money to then buy a ukulele, which we were then able to start using in street performing. Then we were able to make enough to buy Pro Tools and all this recording equipment and we brought all of it back to our living room. That’s where we’ve been writing and producing ever since.
SA: So, you were busking?
RM: We were busking…(laughs)
SA: What was the most interesting thing you saw while you were busking?
RM: The whole busking culture is very interesting. It’s all about politics and time slots…what is the most valuable time slot. We were three guys with a ukulele competing against these hip hop gymnastics dancers, puppet shows and balloon animals (laughs)…it really helped us hone our craft…and helped us to discover what intrigues people. I think that was the most valuable lesson we learned from street performing. Like, if we sing this kind of song, it makes people’s heads turn. So, maybe we should start exploring that sound a little more.
SA: You guys are starting to get some critical acclaim. How do you feel about that considering most of your songs are sort of anti-fame?
RM: I think the idea of fame is constantly shifting in our culture. I think that with every new social media platform that comes out, the word “fame” changes and becomes a little more diluted. And now, for instance, you can be Instagram famous or Vine famous or a Snapchat celebrity or a meme. In terms of that kind of celebrity, that has never really appealed to us. All we really want is to get the music and the message out there and that’s started to happen, so we’re pretty excited.
SA: How do you guys prepare for touring?
RM: It’s a lot of planning and not a lot of rehearsing. We have this weird system where…our whole goal with these tours is to put something on the stage that the audience has never seen before. And, so, we just finished two headlines tours and they both sold out completely. And, the whole goal behind it was let’s throw in a lot of weird things…weird remixes and bucket drumming and audience participation. A lot of strange things that people can go home and tell their friends that they saw on stage. In terms of that, it takes a lot of planning, going to see a lot of shows. Going to see “Stomp” and Blue Man Group. Going to see a lot of things. We find we rehearse once or twice…then leave a lot up to the spontaneity of just being on the stage. I think if you over-rehearse, you can lose some of the magic that starts to build on stage.
SA: Since you’ve been touring, who have been some of your favorites groups or singers that you’ve toured with?
RM: I think a defining moment for us was when we did a tour exactly a year ago with Ingrid Michaelson. We had never really toured with an artist who had that demographic. And, what I mean by that is her demographic is primarily college kids at the core…but, she also has sixty year old women and six year old girls…just every type of person likes her. If you like good, quality music, you’re going to see Ingrid Michaelson, no matter what age you are. So, I think that was a defining moment for use because we realized that we could possibly appeal to every type of age. We thought, ‘Maybe we don’t need to be a band with a “demographic,” maybe we can just be a band.’ That really set us on a certain path and, as we were crafting our album this year after that tour, we really kept that in mind. We decided, let’s just make music that’s really personal and honest to us and not think about what a certain age or gender wants to listen to. Just make exactly what we want to make and hopefully it will appeal to every age.
SA: Where’d you come up with the concept for the “Weak” video?
RM: I think it’s one of the first videos we didn’t direct and write. The song was really taking off on Spotify and it was really selling, so we were like ‘Let’s bring in someone who really knows what they’re doing to direct this video.’ We got Shane Drake…he’s done videos for Ariana Grande and people like that. He’s a real guy. We gave him a very basic idea of what we wanted. We didn’t want it to be too on the nose. We didn’t want to have alcohol and drugs in the video because that really narrows down the idea of weakness. We wanted it to be more metaphorical. He came up with this really great concept of Jack waking up in the subway, in this kind of surreal setting, and chasing this mystery light and getting beat up in the process. As soon as he came to us with the idea, we knew it would perfectly capture the vibe we were going for.
SA: What was the inspiration for the song “Drama”?
RM: On this album, we wanted to write about topics that had never really been written about before. That was our goal. We wanted thirteen songs that were about very unique topics. “Drama” was one of them. We wanted to write about the world’s stupidest, smallest problems that we make such big deals over. There are real problems in the world that require our attention, yet all we can seem to focus on is the Katy Perry/Taylor Swift feud. And, we’re responsible for that, too. We pay attention to it, too. So, we wanted to write a song shedding a little light on that.
SA: What do you think would be the antidote to what you’re addressing in “Drama”?
RM: Oh, man! I don’t know! (laughs) I literally never thought about what the solution is. Maybe less clickbait? If the internet was more focused on productivity instead of a title that tries to capture your attention where you’re really not going to get anything substantial out of the video.
SA: How do you think the internet has affected the music industry?
RM: I think there’s been a really big shift. We’ve seen it even in the last five years that we’ve had these kind of hit songs out. There’s a really big shift between selling and streaming now. The shift between buying songs on iTunes as opposed to streaming on Spotify has actually affected the way songs have started sounding. It used to be when you bought a song, the point of purchase was the only thing that mattered. You could listen to the song once or a thousand times. Didn’t matter to the artist or the record label because it made the same amount of money. But, now the thing that matters is how many times someone listens to a song. So, we’re seeing less….”Who Let the Dogs Out.” Silly, fun song that you get sick of really quickly, but so what, you already bought it. I don’t think it would be an enormous Spotify hit because you’re going to listen to “Who Let the Dogs Out” once, maybe twice….not 300,000,000 times! (laughs) I think there’s a real shift in music towards writing songs with substance and writing songs that you want to listen to over and over again. So, I think it’s actually a pretty good shift.
SA: Was the writing process for “Sober Up” different from your other songs since it included Rivers Cuomo?
RM: Yeah. We had the skeleton of the song. We had everything but the bridge. We knew that song was going to be about wanting to feel like a little kid again and wanting to feel that innocence. While we were writing it we thought it felt kind of Weezery. Kind of fun and ironic. Just coincidentally, Rivers Cuomo followed up on Twitter and wrote to us saying how much he loved “Weak,” our song. We got very excited because we’ve looked up to Weezer for a long time. So, we sent him the song and he wrote this amazing bridge which elevated the song to a new level.
SA: How long did it take to put your current album together?
RM: From the first to the last song, two years.
SA: What’s your writing process?
RM: It depends on the song. With “Sober Up,” “Weak” and “Drama,” it all started with the lyrics. It started with here’s the concept of the song, the thesis of the song. I’m weak and what’s wrong with that? We built the rest of the verses all pointing to that. Once that was done, production was pretty easy because we knew the vibe that we wanted. But, for a song like “Three-Thirty,” we started with a track and wrote over it.
SA: What are you guys working on now?
RM: We wrote the theme song to “Super Size Me 2,” which is a documentary coming out next month. We also have a song coming out with a very big EDM guy, that we wrote and were featured on. Can’t tell you anything more than that. (laughs) We’re routing our next tour, which will be at the beginning of next year.
SA: What do you guys do outside of music?
RM: We each have our own interests. Jack and I are really into film. We’re working on a tv pilot about the music industry and the culture at a record label. Adam is in the process of getting his Ph.D. in Constitutional Religious Law.
SA: Any other artists who’ve influenced you besides Weezer?
RM: Our two favorite artists of all time are the Beach Boys and Kanye West. The Beach Boys in terms of their songwriting and nostalgia and beauty. And, Kanye West in terms of his forward-thinking production.
SA: What do you want people to feel when they hear your music?
RM: We want people to feel like little kids again. I think it’s really easy to fit into this box of being an adult. Get a job at a certain time. Get married at a certain time. Any success we’ve had in our lives has been doing the opposite of all that. Just being okay with exactly who we are.
