The All-American Rejects sat down with Rolling Stone to talk about their new album:
They always say you have your whole life to write your first record. And I think this is the most honest thing that we’ve done. When we got on a major label — I’m a product of a broken household, and I was signed when I was 16. The first guy I met, the A&R, was my dad’s age. So you get this dynamic of “I wanna make Dad happy.” And then finally when I grew up and Dad kicked me out of the house, I thought about my life. This record’s got a lot of my personal shit in it. The thing that happens when you cross 30, life hits you in the face. Families change, relationships change. I had something to say. And Sandbox feels like — it’s very random musically, but I think we’ve always been that. We’ve made a lot more strong choices as a band to just say “What can we do where we’re not chasing some sort of major-label expectation?” And I think I’m really happy with the way the record’s turned out.
There’s also a video version.