MC: John Feldman worked with you on your upcoming album, Future Hearts, and also on a previous one, Dirty Work. How did the band decide to bring him back for the next album?
Gaskarth: It had a lot to do with the fact that we didn’t get to fully work on a project together. We worked on 5 Seconds of Summer, we had written some songs for All Time Low in the past. It came down to us looking for a producer, and he was available. It just felt right. John’s a great guy and we had done good work together already, so it felt like the right time to bring him onboard for a majority of the project.
MC: How does Future Hearts compare stylistically to your past albums?
Gaskarth: It definitely feels like growth—it’s an expansion. When we wrote and recorded Don’t Panic, it felt like a fresh start for us. So I equate that to being the new phase of All Time Low, and then [Future Hearts] feels like the next step in that new process. We tried some new things, we’ve got some new sounds, but it’s still the All Time Low that people expect and hopefully love.
MC: Most artists want to maintain their sound to cater to their fans, but can experimenting be beneficial as well?
Gaskarth: Absolutely. With every record, every session and every creative process you have to push yourself and go beyond what you did last time. I don’t think it’s ever good to write the same thing over and over and over again. At the same time, for All Time Low, we’ve never wanted to alienate our fan base or throw such a curveball that suddenly we’re not the same band anymore. Some of my favorite bands have done that in the past, and it’s always been disappointing to me personally. We try to avoid that as much as we can but still push things forward at the same time
MC: You released the new album’s first single, “Something’s Gotta Give,” along with a music video. Is the song representative of the sound for Future Hearts?
Gaskarth: Yeah, “Something’s Gotta Give” was the right first single because we felt that it bridges the gap between Don’t Panic and the new album. It’s not the most obscure or the weirdest song on the record, but it’s also one that we thought was acceptable, fun and catchy. We felt it was a great way to start things off and was definitely representative of what’s to come.
MC: The album is going to be released by indie label Hopeless Records, who you’ve returned to after a stint with a major label. Tell us about your relationship with them. Does Hopeless provide tour support, promotions…?
Gaskarth: As a band, from a business standpoint, we have never taken tour support. Tour support is one of those things that you’re really just putting yourself into more debt. Most label situations from the business side of things—when you take tour support contractually—you usually have to pay that back from your record sales. We’ve never done that. We’ve financed everything ourselves and been pretty self-contained. That’s how we do things.
But Hopeless has been an amazing partner to have––all the way through. They signed us in 2006 originally, and we were with them for several years. Then we had a brief partnership with Interscope Records for one record, which didn’t quite work out. We parted ways with Interscope and re-signed with Hopeless on a slightly different deal structure, and it’s been awesome.
MC: How different was it being with a major as opposed to an independent?
Gaskarth: It’s big business. You go from knowing everyone on the staff at Hopeless to having a team at Interscope, but there’s a lot of unfamiliar faces there and people that you don’t know at all times. For us, it wasn’t the right fit because we work better with a small team and with people we have a relationship with and can manage ourselves and our team cohesively and coherently. It was a little more difficult to do that with Interscope.
It’s a much different world once you go with a major label. You’re usually working with a bigger budget and more money, which is a nice thing. But at the same time it’s a lot less personable and a lot less finessed.
