All Time Low on a mission to celebrate diversity in their videos

Frontman Alex Gaskarth opens up about upcoming tour, the album and the importance of diversity 
Good times: All Time Low celebrate diversity in their videos
Pamela Littky
Safeeyah Kazi18 January 2018

All Time Low singer Alex Gaskarth says the band is celebrating diversity in their videos to show that “everybody belongs”.

The frontman said that it was really important to show people from different backgrounds, sexualities and faiths in the rock band’s video for Good Times, which features children who are bullied at school.

Gaskarth, 30, left, said: “[Diversity in] the Good Times video is absolutely more prevalent than ever because of the political climate.

"We were making that video at a time where there was a lot of uncertainty. Especially for young people, there’s just a lot of confusion out there with people feeling like their place in the world is being brought into question by others.

"We wanted to make a video that spoke to that and really pushed the idea that everybody belongs and everybody has a place and we’re there to fight with them.”

The video follows the band’s new album Last Young Renegade, released in June last year.

The Maryland band is set to headline London’s Alexandra Palace in March as part of their European tour.

Speaking about playing London, Gaskarth highlighted that band is “really excited” because of the venue’s “iconic” history and “festival” atmosphere.

Gaskarth did, however, admit that putting the set list together was the “most difficult” part of the process.

He said: “We’ve been a band for 14 years now so it’s cool to still be able to check new things off the list, playing Alexandra Palace. It’s almost a festival vibe so I think it will be a pretty epic night. And now playing the old record too it’s taking it back to Warped Tour mosh-pit days.”

“I think there’s always a little more excitement in the UK because we do play predominantly in the States. There’s a real passion and a real excitement for rock music. In the States rock music has been struggling for years, whereas in the UK there is a high-demand and a culture around rock.”

Anniversary: The band celebrated 10 years of studio album So Wrong it's Right
Getty Images

The group recently announced that they would be playing a combined set of two albums, the first being their 2007 release of So Wrong It’s Right, accompanied by a full All Time Low show as normal.

Speaking to the Standard Gaskarth said: “Well we sort of had a bit of a curve ball thrown at us as with the tour, obviously Pierce the Veil has been dealing with some things internally and for that reason they decided that they weren’t going to be able to join us on this tour so we were banking on that as a really strong show to put on.

“We had to go back to the drawing board a little bit to figure out what would make the tour really special. We had just finished wrapping up our three shows for So Wrong It’s Right because 2017 was the 10 year anniversary of that record so we thought what if this was part of it as an added bonus to keep the show exciting and to keep it special. So we announced it and the reaction was amazing.

“I think it’s going to be amazing, it’s going to be a challenge though because we’ve never had to do two sets in one show so this an arena-sized venue so we want to put on a headlining set to begin with so now having to playing another record, it’s going to be pretty interesting and a new challenge.”

All Time Low play Alexandra Palace Saturday 17 March.

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