Vocalist and bassist Tyson Ritter joined forces with guitarist Nick Wheeler in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where the two first turned to music as an escape from the routines of small-town existence. Drawing on the sounds of AC/DC, Def Leppard, and Bon Jovi, the pair launched the emo-pop outfit All-American Rejects in 1999 while still attending high school. Persistent challenges in assembling a stable lineup led them to rely on drum loops and pre-recorded rhythm tracks for their earliest shows, an approach they carried over to their self-titled debut album. Issued on the Doghouse imprint in October 2002, the buoyant record later reached a wider audience through a Dreamworks reissue. The buoyant single “Swing, Swing” caught the ear of Interscope Records, securing the band a place on the label’s roster.
Their second full-length, Move Along—the first release under the Interscope banner—appeared in July 2005 and introduced the official lineup additions of guitarist Mike Kennerty and drummer Chris Gaylor, both of whom had come aboard in 2002 following completion of the debut. The album achieved platinum status, matching its predecessor, while its three singles—“Dirty Little Secret,” “Move Along,” and “It Ends Tonight”—found success on charts at home and overseas. Work on a third album began in mid-2007 and extended through the next year, prompting the cancellation of planned appearances on the Warped Tour as well as a series of dates supporting Simple Plan. When the World Comes Down finally surfaced in December 2008, led by the advance single “Gives You Hell.” Extensive touring followed, yet the band truncated its 2009 itinerary after Ritter underwent knee surgery and spent time in a wheelchair.
Songwriting resumed the subsequent year as the group teamed with producer Greg Wells for the fourth album, Kids in the Street, which emerged in 2012. The record climbed into the Billboard 200’s upper tier and marked the Rejects’ strongest commercial showing in the United Kingdom to that point. A remix EP and a solo single from Ritter appeared in 2013, after which the band returned to the studio in 2014. Though they contributed “There’s a Place” to the soundtrack of Miss You Already in 2015, new material did not surface until 2017 with the double-sided single “Sweat” b/w “Close Your Eyes.” Two more years elapsed before the three-song EP Send Her to Heaven arrived in 2019, featuring the Pixies-indebted title track alongside “Gen Why? (DGAF)” and “Demons.”
