As the calendar turned to September, the sibling trio AJR found themselves not only getting back to touring, but doing it in a big way, mostly playing arenas and large outdoor amphitheaters and bringing a big show to match the venues. That’s a sure sign of a band that has hit the big time.
This weekend, the trio will return to one of Atlanta’s biggest stages, Music Midtown, where they played back in 2017.
There’s never been any doubt that this group, made up of brothers Adam, Jack and Ryan Metzger (they go by the last name Met), had grand ambitions. It’s apparent in the theatrical type of pop music on AJR’s four albums and the brothers’ determined pursuit of a music career. But they never expected a career as big as the one that’s unfolding before their eyes.
“It’s always been our goal to be a niche band,” Ryan Met explained in an early September phone interview. “I don’t think we ever thought about being the biggest band on planet Earth because just inherently, when that’s your goal, you’re going to try to appeal to everybody in the country and everybody in the world. You’re just going to lose a little bit of what’s unique about you and sacrifice that. So it’s always really been our goal to get our little niche audience that cares a lot and kind of solidify them and be able to play for them for decades to come.”
Credit: Melissa Ruggieri/AJC
Credit: Melissa Ruggieri/AJC
That outlook fits with the music the brothers have created so far. From the start, the trio wanted to stand out from the crowd. Their mix of classic pop (Simon & Garfunkel, the Beach Boys and Beatles are big influences), the bright, big melodies and orchestration of Broadway musicals, and the anthemic harmonies and danceable beats of modern pop is nothing if not unique. So are the lyrics, many of which have dealt with the struggles of living through high school and transitioning toward adulthood – all accented with specific autobiographical and pop culture references that bring an uncommon amount of individuality and authenticity to the songs.
Most music acts that achieve arena-level popularity do it by somehow fitting in. That AJR is thriving by being different and connecting with so many fans on what seems to be a deep level is both amazing and gratifying, Ryan Met said.
“It has been such a pleasant surprise that it (AJR’s audience) has grown with each tour and how that little group of people actually decided to tell friends and they recognized amongst each other ‘Oh wow, you want to celebrate your flaws in the same way and you want to sing these pretty like Broadway theatrical melodies and you don’t think that’s lame,’” he said.
Credit: Jim Metzger
Credit: Jim Metzger
It’s actually been a pretty long journey to reach this point. The brothers (Jack was only 8 at the time) started out by busking in New York City’s Central Park and Washington Square some 15 years ago, earning enough money to start buying instruments and other equipment. Their parents offered up their living room to be used as a recording studio, and before long Ryan Met, the trio’s primary songwriter, was writing and producing songs, with his brothers pitching in on the homemade music process. It took the trio awhile to find their own sound.
“I think in the beginning, like most bands, we really wore our influences on our sleeves,” Ryan Met said, looking back on his development as a songwriter. “Every song was ‘OK, this is clearly our version of a Simon & Garfunkel folk song’ or ‘This is clearly us doing (The Beatles’) ‘Rubber Soul.’ Once you get all of that out of your system and you’re like ‘OK, cool, I know what it’s like to sound like the Beatles,’ you move on and you figure out ‘OK, how can I combine all of these last 100 songs I wrote into something that’s new and fresh and never been done before.’ I think ‘I’m Ready’ was honestly the first song that I could look back and say ‘OK, that really sounded like a unique song.’”
“I’m Ready” became a pivotal song for AJR. Having worked at music for some eight years with little success, Ryan Met decided to send the song to You Tube, Twitter and other online accounts of dozens of celebrities the brothers admired, hoping someone would create a buzz for the tune. It seemed like a Hail Mary gambit, but it worked.
Alt-pop star Sia received the song and was so taken with it she met with the Met Brothers and told her manager, Jonathan Daniel, about the group. Daniel, in turn, contacted Steve Greenberg, head of S-Curve Records, who had helped build the careers of Hanson and the Jonas Brothers. Greenberg signed on as AJR’s co-manager, and was impressed enough with the group’s do-it-yourself approach to their career, that he didn’t sign the trio to S-Curve and instead helped the brothers start their own label.
Credit: Melissa Ruggieri/AJC
Credit: Melissa Ruggieri/AJC
“Since that has happened in the last, it’s been like eight years since that happened, you realize how really unusual that is,” Ryan Met said. I really have not heard that story from anybody else where a celebrity finds a song and then single-handedly introduces them to all of the management and label and all of the people that are going to give them success. It was a very crazy twist of fate. Yeah, it really changed our entire lives. We just thought let’s tweet this song out. After like eight years of working and having no success, we thought we like this song. Maybe one of our favorite celebrities will like it. We tried so many celebrities and then Sia just by luck ended up seeing it.”
Since then, things have taken off. “I’m Ready” went on to get regular airplay on Sirius satellite radio and set the stage for the 2013 release of AJR’s debut EP, “6foot1” (later re-titled “I’m Ready”), followed by the 2014 EP “Infinity” and another EP, “What Everyone’s Thinking,” in 2016. The latter release took AJR to a new level, as the song “Weak,” became a platinum hit single.
Next came a full-length debut, “Living Room,” in 2015, and AJR has released three more albums since then — 2017′s “The Click,” 2019′s “Neotheater” (the trio’s first top 10 album on the Billboard 200 chart) and this past March, “OK Orchestra.” It includes AJR’s highest charting single to date, the Broadway-meets-trap-inflected pop song “Bang!”
Credit: Melissa Ruggieri/AJC
Credit: Melissa Ruggieri/AJC
The “OK Orchestra” tour AJR has now launched features production that Ryan Met feels is as unique as the group’s music. It incorporates elements of Broadway, movies and a magic show with a concert with the goal of creating an experience fans can’t get anywhere else. Look for several different stage sets, and as Ryan Met hinted in the interview, his brother Jack teleporting across the stage, and many more treats for the eyes and ears.
“It’s slowly developed over the years of us touring, where we took our love of Broadway and our love of film and concerts and magic and kind of combined it all into this thing,” Ryan Met said of the live show. “It started off very low budget, like just a shoestring budget of stuff we could afford. And then as more and more fans started telling each other about it, we were able to afford cooler and cooler effects. Now we’re at the point where we’re playing in some of these arenas and huge amphitheaters and stuff, we get to do what we consider pretty mind-blowing stuff.”
MUSIC PREVIEW
AJR at Music Midtown
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 18. The weekend’s headliners include Maroon 5, Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers and Marshmello. Sept. 18-19. $135 and up. Piedmont Park, 1320 Monroe Drive, Atlanta. musicmidtown.com.
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