All Time Low’s Tell Me I’m Alive arrives feeling slightly elevated — familiar, but sharper around the edges, like the band turned the lights up just enough to expose new details. Alex Gaskarth sees it less as a pivot than a continuation. “It’s a continuation from where the last record left off,” he says, “with some interesting and different little nuances thrown into the mix.”
Those nuances were shaped as much by circumstance as intention. The band’s previous album landed at the height of lockdown, and the absence of touring left a strange aftertaste. “That record for us felt like sort of a weird asterisk version of an album,” Gaskarth explains. “We’re such a touring-centric band, and we didn’t get to go out and do that as much as we usually would.” Instead of hitting the road, All Time Low stayed put and kept writing. “A big part of what came on its heels was us staying in the studio,” he says. “We decided to continue working on music.”
Some of those songs date back nearly two years, written in the immediate aftermath of that stalled moment. When the band finally regrouped to properly shape the album, those early tracks became guideposts. “They really informed the direction of where this one went,” Gaskarth says. One unexpected anchor was the piano. With Dan Swank now playing live with the band, a new palette opened up. “We realized that we sort of had never really leaned that hard into piano in our music,” he says. “So that became sort of a central piece of the songwriting.”
That choice nudged the band toward earlier territory — particularly the synth-forward textures of Last Young Renegade — while still pushing ahead. “I kind of see this record as like our last two records smashed into one,” Gaskarth says, “and continuing the journey.” The piano-driven approach also synced with his listening habits at the time. “I was kind of going back and listening to a lot of what I grew up listening to,” he says. “There was a lot of Beatles, a lot of Elton John, and Queen. I think a good amount of that trickled into this record.”
That lineage is especially audible in the guitar work, where solos feel sculpted rather than flashy. Gaskarth lights up when discussing those details. “The guitar silhouette and how it’s mixed — that’s the chef’s kiss right there,” he says of “The Sound of Letting Go.”
Lyrically, the album opens in a restless place. The title track and “Modern Love” introduce a narrator who feels unmoored, desperate to feel something. Gaskarth doesn’t dodge the implications. “There’s a lot of exploratory lyrics diving into the struggle with addiction, substance abuse, coping,” he says. While he resists labeling it a pandemic record, the emotional residue of that period is unmistakable. “There is a theme of the conversation about isolation and what that can do to a person,” he explains, “and struggling to cope and desperately wanting to find connection.”
The album’s opening stretch captures that spiral. “When this record opens up, this character is very much spiraling and grasping for anything just to feel something,” Gaskarth says. “It kind of tumbles on from there.” “Modern Love,” in particular, wrestles with romantic expectation. “It’s this wanting for almost like a silver-screen romance,” he says, “and then the realization that that’s just not real life. That’s not how things work.”
Rather than writing strictly from autobiography, Gaskarth increasingly leans on fictionalized perspectives. “It’s a bit of both,” he says. “A lot of it is informed by personal experience or by the experience of those around me, but embodying them through the eyes of a character allows for a bit more expanse in the storytelling.” That approach helps avoid boxing listeners into hyper-specific scenarios. “It doesn’t have to be so specific that no one out there is going to relate,” he explains. “But it also doesn’t become so vague that you don’t believe it.”
Finding that balance is crucial. “If it feels like a mountain going in, the song ends up being crap,” Gaskarth admits with a laugh. “I try not to overthink it. If it feels good and it’s creating a moment in the room, then we’re on the right path.” From there, it’s about layering detail. “You find that central core message and decide whether it feels universal enough,” he says, “then pepper in your own experience to give it some teeth.”
That philosophy carries through specific tracks. “English Blood // American Heartache” nods playfully to Morrissey in title only, but otherwise stands as one of the album’s more autobiographical moments, even referencing the previous record to keep the narrative thread intact. “Sleepwalking,” meanwhile, serves as connective tissue, linking standalone singles to the album’s emotional arc. “It’s the last link in the chain that connects those to this record,” Gaskarth says.
One of the album’s standout collaborations comes on “New Religion,” featuring Teddy Swims. The partnership grew organically after a festival run-in. “He just kind of poked his head in and went, ‘Hey, I grew up listening to your music,’” Gaskarth recalls. When the song came together, Swims felt like the obvious fit. “I heard him do his part and I was like, ‘Can we just take me off the song and let him do it?’”
With Tell Me I’m Alive, All Time Low sound comfortable embracing discomfort — sitting inside uncertainty without rushing to resolve it. The album doesn’t offer easy answers, but it does insist on honesty, connection, and momentum. For a band two decades in, that forward motion feels less like survival and more like instinct.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
