Adam, Jack, and Ryan Met of AJR joined us last week in the 96.5 TDY studios in Philadelphia for a special performance and chat, where they shared their dream music festival, stories from their NYC busking days, preshow rituals, and more while behind-the-scenes of their Audacy LIVE appearance.
Watch the full video above, listen to AJR Radio on the free Audacy app, and check out their full Audacy LIVE performance below
Before hitting the biggest stages across the world over their 17 years playing together, AJR (which could have easily been called JRA, JAR, AJaR, or a multitude of other plays on their initials) cut their teeth busking all around town, and have some ahem... fond memories of their very early days in New York City. "I was about 8 years old, or maybe even younger, maybe like 7 at the time, and often people would come up and think it's a good idea to take the mic from me -- and us -- to showcase their own project," says Jack Met. "Often they would go, 'Just give me the mic for a sec,' and I, at age 8, had to be like, 'Sure, here you go.' They would just start going into a rap or their own song." That's not the only awesome experience though: "People would throw rocks, and put rocks in our little hat for money... But then the people who were nice were like, super-supportive and nice. So, it was quite an interesting day."
Given a chance to put together their own curated music festival, Ryan Met right off the bat is bringing back Jack Antonoff's fun. "Mozart is gonna come for the direct support," says Jack. "Oh, fun.'s headlining," asks Ryan with a smirk. "Mozart hasn't done enough radio promo to really earn that headlining spot," Jack explains. Next up, The Beatles get their shot. "They're on the other stage," says Adam Met. Lastly, the main headliner they chose: "This is actually a serious one," Jack admits. "Let's go Fountains Of Wayne, because Adam Schlesinger sadly died during COVID. They're our favorite band of all time, so if we could have all of them headlining, that's like the dream festival."
Related
Looking back at the past year, Ryan is most proud of their OK Orchestra single, "World's Smallest Violin," getting the attention that it did. "I feel like if we could find any song on our most recent album that we would think would be least likely to blow up, it would be 'World's Smallest Violin,'" he admits. "We really made that for our weirdest fans, and kind of for us as just, 'here's a weird one for the album.' It was a really cool lesson for us in, 'work really hard on every song on the album,' because you never know what could suddenly be a single."
With an eye on the new year, "we are working on an album now," Ryan admits. "That's probably gonna come out in 2023 and I think it's some of our favorite songs that we've ever written."
Watch the full behind-the-scenes chat above and don't miss our full Audacy LIVE performance and interview with AJR right HERE -- plus, stay tuned for even more conversations with your favorite artists at Audacy.com/Live.
Related
Listen to more of your favorite music on Audacy's all-new Alt Now, Rockternative, Drivin' Alt, Collabornation, Alterna 00s, and ALT Roots stations -- plus check out our talent-hosted Kevan Kenney's Music Discovery, Megan Holiday's My So Called '90s Playlist, and more.
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow Audacy
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram