The All-American Rejects Frontman Tyson Ritter Talks New CandyJar Series ‘Superfan’: ‘We Refuse to Go Quietly Into Any Sunset’ (Exclusive)
Find out more about The All-American Rejects CandyJar stint and how the unique idea came to Ritter
Key Takeaways
- Tyson Ritter and The All-American Rejects star in new CandyJar series, 'Superfan'.
- Tyson Ritter detailed what to expect and what it was like to film in this exclusive interview.
- Tyson Ritter loves performing all of his hit songs and will 'never get tired of' playing them.
Long before Spotify playlists and TikTok trends, The All-American Rejects were dominating the charts with songs like “Dirty Little Secret,” “Move Along” and “Gives You Hell.” Led by Tyson Ritter, the band became one of the defining pop-rock acts of the 2000s and remains a fixture on nostalgia playlists today.
Their latest project, however, takes them in an unexpected direction. The band is entering the vertical drama space with CandyJar’s Superfan, a series about an obsessed fan who kidnaps the group and refuses to let them go until they release new music, including tracks from their upcoming album, Sandbox.
Woman’s World sat down with Tyson Ritter to discuss Superfan, what it was like to be in the vertical drama space and their new album. Interestingly, the concept of Superfan sounds like it takes a bit of influence from Stephen King’s similarly-themed Misery (though admittedly in a much lighter way).
Woman’s World: Can you share a bit about your new CandyJar series, Superfan and what audiences can expect from the series?
Tyson Ritter: Superfan is a wild story about, if it took 10 years for this band to get a record out, what did it take for it to happen? A character named Danica kidnaps our band, throws us in her basement, ties us up, and tortures us until we submit to the muse that she hopes she is, and it works. We’re leaning into everything that the micro drama format creates, which is a lot of suspended disbelief in every aspect.
Woman’s World: How did this idea come to be?
Tyson Ritter: My wife saw the micro dramas getting suggested on TikTok, and I was, like, ‘What the hell is this?’ And we saw it, and she goes, ‘You gotta do this.’ It was her suggestion that made me chase down a producer I worked with on this film I have coming out that Catherine Hardwicke directed, and I asked her if she’d be interested in the space. I found two writers who were incredible, and I just pitched the idea. I was, like, ‘How about we get kidnapped and it’s a wild ride to get a record out of this?’
We chopped up the script for a couple weeks and then Superfan was born. It’s been a race the entire time. As soon as the script was done, we were shooting. We shot it in five days and we laughed the whole time. I think we knew we were doing something good. You can always feel that energy of the goodwill of everybody wanting something to get done well.
WW: What is it about CandyJar and these microdramas that intrigued you?
Tyson Ritter: I just immediately got it. I think, escaping Vine culture into short format digestion, it’s hard not to watch one micro drama episode, and go, ‘Oh, I get it.’ Then I was, like, “What happens if we raise the bar? What if we got a little better production, what if we got a director with a vision to elevate the space?” I think it’s gonna happen regardless, and the result was something I couldn’t be happier with.
We’re so visual as a culture now. We’ve always gone above and beyond for our music videos, so it was such an easy transition for us to make a visual story to the birth of this album. Everything I do is visual, even when I write a song, I see it before I hear it.
WW: What is it like to be the first group of musicians in the microdrama space?
Tyson Ritter: That was the whole thing. It’s, like, we gotta be the first because it’s just gonna be a cascade of it, after it’s not. It’s already in the pipeline.
WW: Micro dramas have been everywhere. They pop up all the time now. It’s growing quickly.
Tyson Ritter: I bet when episodic television first came around, people were, like “This is going to ruin film.” But then it turned into TV, and so many people in Hollywood are so afraid of this space because they think it dilutes the film, but no, this is its own space, and I think a lot of films can be born through this medium. Make way for the future.
WW: What was it like behind the scenes of filming Superfan?
Tyson Ritter: Eric [Guilmette], the guy who plays Josh, he’s cut from a different cloth, but he is the funniest guy. Most people in the micro drama space just know him as the smoldering sex symbol, but he is hilarious and watching him cut up the script and make it better [was fun]. Anna Lore, our lead who plays Danica, she is an incredible talent, not only on the screen but off the screen. She saved our production in so many ways when we were in the fourth quarter, shooting 16 pages in a day. The fun translated to the screen, and I’m so excited for people to check out Superfan because you can feel it’s powerful. We were laughing the whole way through.
WW: The band is also starring in an upcoming romance series—what can you share about that?
Tyson Ritter: We signed on for two of these with CandyJar, and the second one that I pitched was a romance, so I have to get the light bulbs out of my utility closet and try to find that magical idea. But we’re really excited about this continued partnership with CandyJar, and to really lean into the romance of the micro drama space, because if you watch Superfan, the flavor that we bring, we’re going to bring that to the romance space. I really want to be a time traveler, like the show Outlander. Like, The All-American Rejects takes on Outlander, and puts it on the spin cycle.
WW: Superfan coincides with the release of your new album, Sandbox. Was that a coincidence or just good timing?
Tyson Ritter: Ever since we started our house parties [secret, mini concerts] last year, we disrupted giant corporate gatekeeping companies that are pushing fans away from their artists. We’re, like, ‘How else can we be disruptive in the space as an independent artist?’ We’re our own label and we’re pushing up against Warner Brothers and Interscope, and these people who literally have stake ownership in Spotify. We’re screaming into a vacuum, but we are a cat in a bag and we refuse to go quietly into any sunset. We will continue to find the spaces where we don’t belong, and shake our money makers.
WW: It’s been over 14 years since your last album —why did this feel like the right time to make new music and release another album?
Tyson Ritter: I’m sure you have this experience with writing, but sometimes when you leave the canvas, you can see what you need to paint. We took a hiatus to grow. We had been in this band for 15 years non stop, and there were a lot of questions. I was signed when I was 16 and on the radio when I was 17. How do you continue a story with a band and actually evolve and challenge your listeners to grow with you? And that’s what Sandbox has become. It’s a collision of a decade away from the canvas and of symbolic expression of pride. I’m super proud of the songs that we made. Sometimes you have to walk away to walk back.
Perspective is everything. You can’t just do one thing to death.That’s where that phrase comes from, ‘I worked it to death.’ That means it dies and that’s the last thing we wanted to do.
WW: You guys have released some huge songs over the years that are still playing everywhere today—“Dirty Little Secret,” “Gives You Hell” and “Move Along”—is there one song you’ll never get tired of performing?
Tyson Ritter: I’ll never get tired of playing any of those songs. I’ll never get tired of playing “Dirty Little Secret.” So many people have come up to me with a story that is so surprising of what that song meant to them. When I was on the House Party tour, playing at eye level with our fans, I was watching them sing it harder than me every night. It’s like that moment in Rock Star with Mark Wahlberg, whenever he’s singing, and the guy in the audience is giving it twice as hard as him. It’s a confrontation that makes you find your joy for it every time. It’s new every night for me and that’s because of our fans. We are a fans first band, and it’s really cool that people have hung around with us.
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