Grab your band tee and get ready to rock because the band that brought some of the 2000s’ most defining pop-rock anthems is back — but their return almost didn’t happen.
More than two decades after hits like “Swing, Swing” and “Dirty Little Secret” helped make The All-American Rejects one of the era’s biggest bands, founding members Tyson Ritter and Nick Wheeler exclusively spoke to Us about their latest chapter and why there was a time they thought the band might “Move Along” for good.
“I don’t think we ever had the conversation, but I think we alluded to it on multiple occasions,” Wheeler, 44, told Us. “We were all coming to terms with that … coming to terms with the fact that the timing just might never be right. But then it was.”
After spending their early years almost entirely consumed by the band, Wheeler said stepping away gave him, Ritter, Chris Gaylor and Mike Kennerty time to grow on their own — and figure out who they were outside of the group.
“We had to step a bit, and I think that’s when the real growing pains happened,” Wheeler explained. “We were all trying to figure ourselves out and figure out each other in a new light too.”
For Ritter, 42, that time away gave him a new perspective on the young musicians who first left their small town of Stillwater, Oklahoma, with no idea how big their world was about to become.
“I look at those younger versions of ourselves … like looking back at a high school friend that you don’t really see anymore and wishing them well and wondering how they are doing,” Ritter told Us. “I look back very fondly at that younger, dumb person and am grateful that he didn’t kill me.”
For four guys from Oklahoma, that ride meant going from chasing gigs in a cramped van to watching their songs climb the charts, only to then find themselves right back where they started when it came to taking their sophomore album, Move Along, on the road.
“We got to taste the bus life a little bit because of ‘Swing, Swing,’” Wheeler told Us. “But as soon as we were done recording Move Along, we got back in the van because it kind of felt like starting over in a lot of ways.”
While they didn’t know it then, the record they were driving around to promote would go on to be certified triple platinum. Getting there, however, wasn’t exactly an overnight success story.
“We didn’t know if it would catch on or really have traction,” Wheeler said. “I remember Howard Benson, the producer, talking about the week the record came out and it didn’t chart as high as everybody had hoped. And ‘Dirty Little Secret’ took months to take off on the radio. We had no idea what was going to happen.”
Soon, the Rejects were getting a crash course in Y2K rock stardom, and Ritter remembers one whirlwind trip to New York that still stands out as the moment their new reality really started to sink in. At the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, “Move Along” brought the band their first Moonman for Best Group Video, beating out fellow nominees including the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The Moonman didn’t exactly guarantee them the full rock-star treatment though. Following the big win, the band headed over to a bar in Chelsea, where the boys were denied entry. “We just won a VMA, top of the world, man, and we’re still the Rejects,” Ritter recalled. “It was a baptism of fire, and then, you know, back to the road.”
There wasn’t much time then to stop and take stock of just how far they had come, but the significance of that night still hasn’t been lost on Ritter.
“Nothing I think really encapsulated that one trip to New York, where it was kind of like, ‘Holy s***, we’re actually part of this cultural moment in music,'” he marveled. “I’m so grateful to have had that story and to be able to tell it and have a VMA in my bathroom.”
These days, the Rejects are still finding themselves in surreal situations — only now, they’re having a lot more fun.
“At this point in our career, we’re trying not to take ourselves too seriously, and we’re just having fun with things like that,” Wheeler told Us. “I personally, like, back in the day, probably took myself too seriously.”
That new attitude has spilled on stage too. In 2025, the Rejects popped up everywhere from college campuses and backyards to a bowling alley on their unconventional House Party Tour before returning to a familiar stomping ground: Warped Tour.
After playing the festival seven times throughout their career, the guys have found increasingly clever ways to make their latest appearances count. In July 2025, the band returned to the festival dressed as The Beatles, clad in Ed Sullivan-style attire. So when the festival brought them to Mexico City this summer for their first-ever performance in the country, they decided to take the bit one step further, dressed as rock legends Kiss.
“We showed up to Mexico City Warped Tour as Kiss,” Wheeler told Us. “We perform songs by The All-American Rejects, but we look like Kiss.”
Their manager somehow managed to get Gene Simmons to introduce the Rejects, an honor Wheeler described as “f***ing surreal.”
“Concerts have become so overpriced, and there’s such a — I don’t know — we’re such a working-class band,” Ritter told Us. “So to be able to do a production that felt like scale and big, and giving the fans of Mexico City who’ve never seen us before, like, an experience that will be one of a kind — yeah, that was the energy behind it.”
The relationship between the Rejects and the fans who grew up with them has evolved in other expected ways. “I’ve heard so many people talk about how [‘Dirty Little Secret’] gave them a sexual awakening and an identity and helped them come out and be proud of who they are,” Ritter said. “It was almost like a respite from having to suppress themselves in a way.”
Now, a new generation of fans has even more of Move Along to discover. On September 4, the Rejects released a special deluxe edition of their sophomore album via Universal Music Enterprises featuring three bonus tracks: “Kiss Yourself Goodbye,” “Bite Back” and “Eyelash Wishes.” The expanded album is available digitally, on CD and vinyl.
But even with one of their biggest records back in the spotlight, the Rejects’ latest chapter is about more than just nostalgia, with the four finding their way back to each other after years spent forging their own paths.
“We all had to feel excited again to come back to make new music,” Wheeler told Us. “The bond is as strong now as it was when we were making Move Along, kind of just getting in the trenches again, and seeing if we can make noise again.”
