It’s an absolute pleasure to be releasing our brand new interview with Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low on PropertyOfZack! Alex and I discussed Dirty Work, how the band feels about a large divide between older and newer fans, Interscope Records, the Dirty Work tour, and future touring, among other things. Alex was great to chat with, and it’s a great interview to read, so enjoy!

We’re just days away from the release of Dirty Work and the hype and attention on the record is certainly at a new high for you guys from fans. The record has leaked though however, so how has the reaction from fans been that have obviously downloaded their copy?
So far it’s been amazing. It’s always an intense moment when you’re releasing it because you know what people’s expectations are and then you see what people feel when they actually hear the album. As per usual with our band, the reaction to the clips were pretty mixed. It was no different this time, but on a larger scale. Now that people have heard it, the reaction has been really positive. A lot of the people who were doubting were doubting for the wrong reasons and maybe they came around. Some people probably hate it, but the majority of people were into it.

All Time Low signed to Interscope Records for the release, so Dirty Work marks your first major label release. That being said, are there nerves now more than ever to see how well the album sells?
I guess, yeah. I don’t think we’re really nervous. There is an expectation for none of us to fail, but the times are changing. The industry is different and record sales aren’t really indicative of the level of a band’s career. You can’t measure the two things together. Our expectations are high; we’ve been growing this band for a long time very slowly, so I think at the end of the day, we have a really awesome core following that’s going to go out and buy the record and help secure us a good first week. The goal is to sell more records than we’ve ever sold, and I don’t think we’re necessarily feeling the pressure. We’re just going to see what happens.

Has there been much of a noticeable difference working with Interscope over Hopeless besides having a bigger team?
Interscope is a whole new machine. The resources there are vast and it’s a big international company. It’s not a small staff that we’re used to. There is a definite difference. One thing that is very true is that we had a very extended recording period with Interscope, so they really got to know the band before we started working together, which is a big part of what helped form the relationship with them that we have now. They get the band and they get our fans. They’re pushing it in a good direction with our guidance.

Was the band ultimately happy with the reception to Nothing Personal?
I think critically and in some of the more indie-realms that it wasn’t met as fondly as some of our previous releases, but that’s the pattern with most bands. Our fan base has continued to grow and our shows have gotten bigger on a global scale. We’ve been able to continue to do it, so as far as that goes, I think the record was a great stepping stone for us. We got out of one place and into another. It was a necessary step. It may not be the one that’s called the best, but you can definitely see the transition point in the band’s career, and I think that makes it just as important as the one that has the largest lasting impression on people.

If Dirty Work doesn’t make its mark over the airwaves, but is still a large success among fans, will you deem that a success or a failure?
It’s a two-sided coin. This band has done so much without being able to play that whole thing. To me, if the record is accepted with our fans and the band continues to grow naturally as it’s been doing, then yes, that is a complete success. As long as we can keep touring and stay out on the road and continue to play for people that want to hear us play, then we’re doing our jobs. At the same time, it’s worth a shot with us for working with Interscope and their radio department. It’s definitely our first legitimate shot of getting played on radio. Whether it works or not, I don’t know. We’ll be a little bummed if it doesn’t work, but it won’t be a failure. We’ll keep rolling.

A music video for “I Feel Like Dancin’” was released just last week and it’s certainly over the top in a way I imagine you guys wanted it to be. Was that a blast to shoot?
[Laughs] Yeah, absolutely. We did a similar video to “Poppin’ Champagne” and it had a similar vibe. I remember feeling at both videos that they were awesome and they’d be absolutely ridiculous, but when the “Poppin’” video came out, we were like, “Wow, this video sucks.” It just came out cheesy rather than the sarcasm we were going for. We kind of missed it on that one, but I think it ties in to us having a low budget and not as much to work with. This time around we were working with a director that we worked with twice before and he really gets the band. It was a similar thing where we had these silly ideas, but I think it was done more safely this time. It felt like we patched up the mistake we made in the other video.

There was originally a ton of confusion regarding the release date for the record with fans originally hoping for a January, then March, and now June release. Did you guys want to have it out sooner?
Looking back, June is a great release date for this record. Ultimately it is a summer album. We were very excited; we’d been working on the record for the better part of 2010 and we were just ready to get it out. We started to push for it to get released early. We even hinted at it publically, which got taken to literally translation. It was probably a combination of us not keeping our mouths shut and some over-eager journalists adding dates when we spoke in non-specifics. I’m not bummed at all. June is going to be a great fit.

The album features co-writers from Matt Squire, Butch Walker, and John Feldmann, among others. How was it working with all of these writers and producers this go-around?
It was great. Matt Squire has really come a long way in his development as a producer. He’s in a much different place now and it was cool to work with him in his new realm of thinking. Feldmann was someone I had always wanted to work with because he’s a great writer and producer. It was really fun working on that track. Butch is phenomenal as well. He and I work really well together. To be honest, I have to say Mike Green is the star of the show on this record. He did production on most of the songs and he absolutely killed it. He hit it out of the park and delivered us a record that sounds phenomenal. He kind of brought the best out of us. I’ve never sang like I have on this record.

The band has said this album is sort of like All Time Low’s past material on steroids. Was that a conscious choice to try to be more mainstream friendly, or is that just how the writing process took place?
I don’t know how conscious of a choice that was. I think a big part of it is that our taste in music has changed. I was saying this the other day: There are some people that have really come to expect us to just turn out the same pop-punk record, but our main influences in the beginning were blink, and Green Day, and New Found Glory, but after we got older it cycled back into the band’s we were listening to before that like Third Eye Blind and Eve 6. Those bands molded us without us knowing they molded us, and I discovered that later on. The possibility that the sound has gotten more mainstream might be attributed to the fact that our influences and inspirations are coming from a slightly different place now.

There will obviously always be a divide among old fans of the band and newer fans, but realistically Dirty Work is going to set that divide even further. Is that a weird feeling as you guys to deal with as you progress as a band?
It is definitely weird. I’m pretty good at searching the Internet and reading what people have to say. The general consensus is that this one is a little more acceptable even for old fans than our last record was, which is awesome. I’m glad that we can capture something that brought hem back. There always is that divide though as a fan base continues to grow. That’s the way it is, but fortunately the back-catalogue isn’t going there. I hope to maintain the fact that we are one of those bands that plays the full catalogue. We’re writing for ourselves and music that we love to play and I don’t want to write the same record five times. We hope to do our best to bring everyone along for the ride, but you can’t always do that.

All Time Low just recently finished up the Dirty Work Tour with Yellowcard, Hey Monday, and The Summer Set. Nearly every night on the tour was sold out and the venues were among some of the bigger US venues you guys have played. Was that a great feeling?
It really was a great tour. Yellowcard are really great guys and I’m really happy that they got back together and are playing shows again. The tour lasted about thirteen weeks from Europe to the US and it was a really good amount of time to get to know those guys and to share a stage with them. It was an amazing tour. Everyone was really growing and grabbing a new audience on stage. One of the cool things about it is that we had a lot of older Yellowcard fans coming out, but they’d stay through our set. There were a few nights where people would come up to me and be like, “I’d never gone to your show before because I thought it was all little girls, but I had a good time.” It’s cool to think that we might have won some people over.

Prior to that tour the band was down in Brazil and played to a sold out crowd of 6,000 fans. How has it been adjusting to playing to such larger crowds?
It’s definitely weird, especially because the tour before that was the Small Package Tour in the States, which were rooms that were in the 100’s. The adjustment is a pretty big one, but it’s cool. At the same time, we’ve never taken our live show that seriously and we go out there and focus on having a great time. The more people the merrier. It was a really cool show.

Do you guys see yourselves doing any smaller tours like the intimate fall tour last year just to get the chance to be more personal with fans?
We’d always love to do it. The major thing is finding the time since it’s more of a doing it for the fan thing. Obviously we’re supporting the new album so we want to play to as many people as we can. I could definitely see us doing it if not this year, next year. It’s always in the books.

Following that tour the band’s heading out on a pretty major US summer tour with The Starting Line, Mayday Parade, The Cab, Cartel, and We Are The In Crowd. How nuts will it be to have The Starting Line out with you?
It’s going to be rad. We played with The Starting Line a couple times in Australia for Soundwave. They’re great dudes. We grew up big fans of the band. It’s a similar situation to the tour with Yellowcard. It’s going to be fun to hear their music every night.

Will you be rotating some new tracks off of Dirty Work in for the upcoming tours?
Yeah, absolutely. I think we’ll be putting a few of the new ones in there.

What should we expect in terms of touring after the summer and Australian runs?
I think we’re going to stay on that side of the world for a little bit with Mainland Asia, and I don’t know. I’d imagine that we’d come back here.

To finish things up, there have also been rumors for another live DVD. Is that in the works?
We have been brining out a guy who is basically just filming as much footage as we can get. There aren’t really plans to do anything with it yet, but the theory is that we’ll have more footage to choose from when that time comes around. There’s certainly a loose plan to do one at some point in the future. We have nothing official for sure.