Tyson Ritter and The All-American Rejects announce big moves

As The All-American Rejects move along to wrap up their first solo headlining tour in a decade with a grand finale concert in Oklahoma City, frontman Tyson Ritter has more big plans back in his home state.

"I've lived in Los Angeles myself for the last decade with my wife, and our family has since grown. And no (expletive), I just slept my last sleep in Los Angeles ... having put all my postage stamps on all my belongings for our new roots that we're putting in Tulsa, Oklahoma," Ritter said in a September phone interview from the road in Denver.

"So, when I finish at Zoo Amphitheatre in OK City, I'll be driving home to good ol' midtown Tulsa."

Before he starts unpacking moving boxes, though, the Stillwater native, 39, and his longtime bandmates are bidding farewell to their triumphant “Wet Hot All-American Summer Tour" with a "poetic and purposeful" Oct. 14 OKC concert featuring special guests New Found Glory, Motion City Soundtrack and The Get Up Kids.

Formed in Ritter's hometown in 1999, The All-American Rejects are winding down their biggest tour to date, and the singer-songwriter, actor and painter chatted with The Oklahoman about the resurgent interest in pop-punk, his home-state plans and the possibility of his band making new music:

Q: How's the tour been treating you?

Ritter: It's unbelievable, to use a very vague word, I guess. It's a very surreal experience, having done this for so many years and essentially taking off a chunk of time, to come back to it and be met with such a vital response. ... I see life in the crowd that I haven't seen since maybe the mid-2000s. And we're feeding off of that every night, and it's making us play differently.

Q: How do you prep when you're playing your first headlining tour in a decade?

Ritter: I don't think there was any way that I knew how to prepare for it, personally. I knew that I had to get my wind back. So, I jumped into some boot camp and knew that I had to be stage ready.

I knew that I also wasn't 28 anymore. So, I didn't kid myself, knowing that I was going to have to try twice as hard to get to be able to have some sort of stamina to put this show on.

Even in rehearsals, I don't think the scale of this thing really hit me. We rented out an arena to do the rehearsal for this production. Though I could see how it was very ambitious, I didn't see 'til we got into Tampa and set up in the pavilion (at MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre) and really saw the thing that this was the biggest tour we've ever done as far as production and scale.

So, I think we were just completely taken aback by the fact that not only the production that we prepared was so formidable, but just the crowd that would meet it would be equally so.

Q: You guys started this band when you were in high school, so you've been doing this your entire adult lives. But you've also taken long breaks to do other things. Did you plan it this way?

Ritter: No. We did this show last year called the When We Were Young Festival in Las Vegas. It was two days in a row, and it was just a sprinkle of a genre that we came up in and a little bit outside of it. There were really big, big bands headlining these big stages, and we were there on a secondary stage. ... We put no expectation on it. We were excited to be able to see each other. In the last decade, this occasion of us playing had been the only lifeline that we would have to one another because we're completely scattered across the U.S. as far as where we live. ...

All these cool bands were playing at the same time as us, yet, somehow, the majority of the crowd came over to see the Rejects. And I just I remember I was like, 'Wow, you guys came out for us.' I could not believe it, and that was this all-spark moment that honestly just spilled out like watercolor into the ether of synchronicity, I guess. All of the sudden, that fall, right after, Live Nation was like, 'Hey, we want to take a chance on you guys. We want to take a flyer on a tour. What do you think?' And we were like, 'Yeah, let's go for it.' ...

It feels like what we did was we've been sleeping in the ground like the great cicada, and here we are a plague upon the United States.

Q: What brought on your move back here?

Ritter: Los Angeles was never someplace that I always wanted to stay. It was just a place that I guess I thought, on my travel, was going to be the next chapter — and it was.

My 30s were some of the most incredibly self-effacing years of my life, and doing that in those Hollywood Hills felt like a 'Valley of the Dolls' reckoning. And now I'm coming home with maybe a little bit more salt in my shoes and ready to spend the time.

My brother said, because we both have children now, 'Whatever you want to think about our upbringing, remember the times that we all came together as cousins and uncles and aunts and grandparents? Remember those moments?' I was like, 'Yeah, man, there was nothing like it.' And he's like, 'So, let's do that for our kids.' And I was like, 'You know what? You're right.'

I think that just everything timed out the way it's supposed to, so yeah, I'm hanging my hat over there. I'm gonna haunt Church Studios for whatever might be next. I figure Leon Russell's pretty good company.

Q: So, what comes next for you guys after this tour?

Ritter: It's funny, I think painting has really guided me, because it's such a conversation with yourself. ... I found myself drawing this or painting these stories of my youth in Oklahoma ... and it's guided my hand in maybe finding another Rejects record.

Literally, if you would have told me two years or two months ago, 'Oh, you're gonna want to do this,' I would have laughed in your face and slapped you and probably told you, I don't know, eat at the worst restaurant I could think of. ... But now, it's singing a completely different song.

Nick (Wheeler, the Rejects' lead guitarist) and I, we got our own bus for this, because Nick and I are the principal writers for this band. Nick and I have been a bit estranged on our musical endeavors ... and this has actually started a conversation of 'well, maybe.'

It's funny, I never expected that this road would take me back to the possibility of thinking that there could be another chapter to The All-American Rejects. ... I guess time will tell, but it feels like, as far as the likelihood of it ever continuing, this is the closest I've been to humoring it — and I think even Nick may be, too.

Q: What can people expect from the OKC show?

Ritter: I'm not shying away from the fact that we're playing songs that are 20-some years old, some of them. When we were young, we got on a rocket ship, and that thing ripped our flesh back all the way to our ears on our faces. It was a jettison that I've survived, and very few survive those experiences.

And this is a celebration. ... I've never been more proud of a show that we've done, because it ebbs and flows, it has three acts and feels like a play. And the story is The All American Rejects are still here, and the takeaway for me every night is 'I can't believe I get to do this.'

Every punk kid wants to turn their back on maybe ... what it means to be successful — or just having a good run. Now, I'm embracing this in a way that I've never done, with the gratitude that maybe I've lacked over the years of just growing up in front of the record button.

I'm here, man, I'm grateful, and I am excited to show any Okie that wants to come out to the zoo just what this band from Oklahoma can really do.

THE ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS' 'WET HOT ALL-AMERICAN SUMMER TOUR'

• With: New Found Glory, Motion City Soundtrack and The Get Up Kids.

• When: 7 p.m. Oct. 14. Gates open at 6 p.m.

• Where: Zoo Amphitheatre, 2101 NE 50.

• Tickets: https://thezooamphitheatre.com.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: As All-American Rejects play OKC show, Tyson Ritter moves to Tulsa