The Goods & The Bads: All Time Low Ask 'Would You Be Happy With What You See In The Mirror?'

We compare our current interview locations — he's in his hotel lobby in the small English town of Bedford, rehearsing for their UK tour. "It's very quiet in this room. I'm in the lobby, I feel like I'm kind of causing a scene by talking here. I think everybody can hear me yelling over everything." Well, we're kind of in a windy spot. "Are you on the high seas?" Gaskarth giggles.

It's this relaxed, chirpy sort of humour that has seen the Baltimore pop punk quartet surf to the top of their game since their 2004 debut EP, The Three Words To Remember When Dealing With The End. From writing songs after school in year ten to selling out arenas around the globe as they near 30, it's this mature hindsight of their years in the limelight that has shaped their seventh offering, Last Young Renegade.

Gaskarth boldly self-reflects that the record is a chance for him to "confront some of [his] own personal stories".

"It's written about characters, but a lot of the stories kind of come from my own experiences and the experiences of the people closest to me," Gaskarth explains. With an over-arching "plot", it's the first time he, as the band's primary songwriter, has written an album this way.

"[Since So Wrong It's Right and Nothing Personal] we're all in different places!" he exclaims of their past penchant for writing uplifting, summery tracks. "We're not teens anymore and I think we've learned a lot about music and the way we write and the way we approach music — I think one of the big things at this point is to try and keep it fresh and finding ways to reinvent what the band does. So I think the way we approached this record was kinda a way to do that, it was a device to push us forward."

Aside from perhaps guitarist Jack Barakat's romantic relationship with Playboy bunny Holly Madison back in 2010, the band have always given controversy a wide berth, never giving critics or social media's pitchfork-wielding squad something to fire up about. It was surprising, then, to see Gaskarth publicly state that Last Young Renegade would address all "the different versions of me that other people might have met over the years, through the ups and the downs, in the public eye and behind closed doors". Does the band have indiscretions we don't know about?

"How do we replicate that sound but that feeling — that feeling of being pulled back into your childhood and your nostalgia."

"I don't necessarily think it's about drama, as far as being problematic or doing anything bad or wicked or evil, y'know? I don't think that's ever really been us," Gaskarth confesses. "But I definitely have moments I'm not proud of that are personal, and in my relationships, the way I've dealt with people one-on-one and things like that.

"There's always shades of grey to every person, you know, and no one is all good and all bad, so I think that's a lot of what this record is about — that if you could see yourself in a mirror and see all of your goods and bads, would you be happy with what you see?"

Despite the strong lyrical theme, the frontman is tentative to call the record a concept record, seemingly in respectful salute to all the bands that have done concept records "so much better than us", he says with a laugh.

"Yeah, y'know, that kinda keeps getting thrown out there, but I hesitate to say it's a concept record because it's not— like, I love concept records and I love bands that have done concept records. I think of, like, Pink Floyd and Coheed & Cambria and Green Day and My Chemical Romance and theirs are much more fully fleshed out than this one is, y'know?

"I think a lot of those have these stories that go along with them and ours I think is more— it has these overarching themes and sort of threads that connect these songs together. So in that sense, it has a story and a plot, but I hesitate to call it a concept record ... I don't wanna put that label on it and have people go, 'Well, I don't get it!'" he says with a goofy voice, "'Cause it's not quite that deep."

Alongside scores of musicians over the last year, Gaskarth and the band found themselves subconsciously inspired by the legacies of David Bowie, Prince and George Michael in the album, as well as Netflix hit Stranger Things and its soundtrack. As a result, their first single Dirty Laundry had a decidedly darker, synth-heavy line.

"Like, I remember always feeling [nostalgic] during that show, it reminded me of moments when I was like maybe 7 or 8 or 9 years old watching Ghostbusters for the first time and things like that, or like the original Tron," he says wistfully. "So it just took me back to a certain place. One of the big things was like, how do we replicate that sound but that feeling — that feeling of being pulled back into your childhood and your nostalgia."

The band's musical maturity has extended out to America's current socio-political unrest, too. Gaskarth in particular is outspoken about Trump and his recent executive orders, regularly replying back to fans on Twitter who try to defend them. Additionally, All Time Low created an ACLU benefit T-shirt with all proceeds headed to the civil liberties group — then they donated an extra $12,000 on top.

"I don't think people need to go out of their way to do anything they don't feel comfortable with, but for us, personally, doing the benefit for ACLU was really important to us," he says with a new air of solemnity. "It felt like a cause that felt like a really important human cause, regardless of political alignment. And so yeah, that's kind of where it came from for us. I hope that people use their platform to promote positive messages — I think that's one of the most important things you can do if you have a platform, to spread positivity, and I think we've always tried to do that."