The All-American Rejects’ Nick Wheeler Talks How When We Were Young Festival Revitalized Band’s Career: Listen

The All-American Rejects took off like a rocket in the 2000s, reaching No. 25 with its 2003, self-titled debut album and No. 6 with 2005’s Move Along, which sent the pop-punk singalong “Dirty Little Secret” to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Then came the 2010s. As is typical with bands that find success in a particular musical era, The All-American Rejects’ popularity faded.

“I think any band that sticks together for this long kind of goes through one of those periods,” Nick Wheeler tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “I grew up on Def Leppard and Bon Jovi, and I remember bands like that had a hard time in the 1990s. Our version of that was the 2010s. We put out a few songs in that in that era. We did a couple tours in that era. But nobody gave a s–t. And that’s fine. We were very lucky to go on that decade-long ride.”

The When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas in 2022 was a turning point for the band. After years spent playing state fairs and theme parks — “It wasn’t fulfilling,” says Wheeler — When We Were Young, which capitalized on nostalgia for emo and punk bands from the ’00s, let The All-American Rejects know there was still immense interest in the band. “On stage, we had so much fun with each other,” he says. “The crowd actually gave a s—t. I wasn’t just a bunch of people eating hot dogs.”

That led the band to take a leap of faith and set up, as Wheeler describes it, “an actual tour in real venues where people have to pay to show up.” The quartet wasn’t sure anybody would come. “It might be a complete disaster,” he says.

But the band was energized from their experience at When We Were Young and was looking forward to touring with acts they had befriended earlier in their career. “We’re just gonna have fun, and we’re gonna play some real shows for maybe five people,” Wheeler jokes.

Dubbed the Wet Hot All-American Summer Tour, the first All-American Rejects tour in a decade covered the continental U.S. and featured rotating support from The Get Up Kids, New Found Glory, Motion City Soundtrack and The Starting Line. “It ended up being the most successful tour of our entire career,” says Wheeler. “Never would have guessed. Certainly did not expect it.”

The following year, The All-American Rejects toured heavily in the U.S. and made their first trip to South America to perform on the I Wanna Be tour with such bands as Simple Plan and A Day to Remember. At the end of 2024, the band recorded a cover of the 1997 Harvey Danger song “Flagpole Sitta” and released it through Spin Records. The band is now “inspired and creating new music,” says Wheeler. “It’s kind of been this little baby-step snowball that was set in motion two and a half years [ago].”

Listen to the entire interview with The All-American Rejects’ Nick Wheeler in the embedded Spotify player below, or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, Podbean or Everand.

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