[Source: CNN Entertainment]

The All-American Rejects are giving us one hell of a summer.

The group, who has been playing together for more than twenty years, is on a so-called House Party Tour, popping up in backyards and other unsuspecting locations for impromptu concerts.

They may call themselves “rejects,” but the enthused crowds that have turned up at their shows prove they’re far from that.

The quartet’s classics – including “Swing Swing,” “Dirty Little Secret,” “Move Along” and, of course, “Gives You Hell” – were on the soundtrack of many a Millennial’s high school mixtape, but these tracks are now appealing to a new generation of young people. Their resurgence sparked the band’s current tour, based on their shared belief that music acts may not need all the frills of a stadium show to give concertgoers a good, and inexpensive, time.

You just need good music, youthful energy… and a big backyard, apparently.

“The live experience, the communal experience of watching something live on the floor is, I think it’s coming back in every aspect of art,” lead singer and bassist Tyson Ritter told CNN in a recent interview about the band’s upcoming performance at San Diego Comic-Con’s Fandom party this week. “What’s great is to be able to play shows and to be not too old to still pull them off.”

After forming in Oklahoma in 1999, the All-American Rejects – who include Ritter, guitarists Nick Wheeler and Mike Kennerty and drummer Chris Gaylor – became part of the DNA of the pop rock and emo music genre when they released their 2002 self-titled debut album, which included their first big hit “Swing Swing.”

They went on to release four studio albums including their most recent, 2012’s “Kids in the Street.” After nearly a decade of not touring, the Rejects reunited in 2023 for their Wet Hot All-American Summer Tour, and got back in the studio to record an upcoming fifth album, “Sandbox.”

The genesis of the House Party Tour started with the band’s eagerness to promote “Sandbox,” but what ensued is entirely organic, according to Ritter, who said that their intention was simply to “get back to the place that we knew we started.”

That wound up turning into a chaotic nine-day spree of surprise shows in people’s yards, following a pop-up show on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Fans started applying to have the Rejects come play in their neighborhoods, with video footage posted to social media showing hundreds of people lined up, rain or shine, to catch a show.

One gig in Columbia, Missouri even got shut down by police, but not before the authorities let the band play one more song.

The response has moved the band, two decades into their career, just as much as it appears to have moved their audience.

“This is the best experience that we’ve ever had playing music in this band and we are going to savor every bit of it,” Ritter said.

The band has captured footage of the House Party Tour up until this point, and told CNN that they are reviewing it now to potentially release something next year in conjunction with the release of the “Sandbox” album. A “movie,” as Ritter referred to it, “is already in pre-production,” he said.

“We didn’t realize what we did until we saw some of these little clips. There were really harrowing moments of danger… So we got out by the skin of our teeth,” Ritter added, going on to joke that “maybe that’s the name of the doc ‘by the skin of our teeth.’”

Wheeler added that the House Party Tour “turned into something bigger.”

“So these nine days and what we captured is something that is a once-in-a-lifetime thing for us and for those who were there,” he said. “I’m just stoked that somebody was there to capture it.”

Wheeler also hopes “Sandbox” will help recreate the magic of their seminal hits that have solicited such a response from their new generation of listeners.

“People attach themselves to those legacy songs because of where they were in their lives or nostalgia,” Wheeler said. “So I think the goal now, especially after coming off this house party thing, is creating new nostalgia.”

The All-American Rejects do have some big-ticket shows coming up.

They’ll headline the Fandom Comic-Con party in San Diego on Thursday, where, according to Ritter, concertgoers can “expect a Reject-goes-Comic-Con experience.”

They’ll also be joining the Jonas Brothers on tour in October, where they’ll be sure to bring that same backyard energy to the big stage.

“We’re trying to open up something a little bit bigger than just people’s eyes now. We’re trying to open up another possibility of getting to the artists that you love, and we’re so excited about what’s to come,” Ritter said. “You could call what we’re doing punk rock, but it’s not.”

“…It’s actually pure connection,” he added.

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