Rob caught up with All Time Low before their headline show at the Academy in Birmingham on the Kerrang Tour to talk about the success of the band, their current album and MTV Unplugged session and much more.

Hello and thank you for taking time out to do this interview?

First of all can you give us a bit of history about the band such as how you got together and came up with the name All Time Low?
Yeah, I’ll give you my version, at the end of 8th grade, I got a phone call from a friend saying, hey do you wanna play bass in this band?, I got jacks name, he was nagging me to come to band practice, the first person I see is jack, with blue hair, as soon as we started practicing, this is it, this is the band, I watched this video and I was in the band, we played local shows, then in about 10 grade we started branching out, then we did our own tour, with home town anthem, which was played to pretty much no one in the crowd and its built from there till today.

How would you describe the music scene in your hometown of Baltimore, Maryland?
I hang out in place call the wrecker a lot, we used to play there a lot, I’m pretty friendly with everyone there, so I can walk in an check shows out, the last show I watched, was a band with a drummer who has one arm, like the guy in Def Leppard, he has no arm up to his elbow and can shove a stick in there and play, he was better than a lot of local drummers, Ashes remains is a good band from our area.

How do you go about writing your songs? Is left down to a signal band member or is it a massive group effort?
Its more someone comes up with an idea, and then we run with it, and then everyone else comes in and we tweak it. I see it as a big painting, where everyone has 4 pieces to do on this painting, only it’s all done with erasable markers, you go in and draw something cool then someone else goes that’s great and that sucks, so you have to redraw it!

You released your latest album ‘Nothing Personal’ back in the summer of 2009 how would you say the album compares to your previous albums?
It defiantly doesn’t suck as bad as the other albums, it’s my favourite one so far, it seems that were getting better and better, that’s what we hope tot when in a band, it’s got a little bit of everything in it, it’s got old school way of writing songs but then breaching out into therapy, walls, and even our b-side, is real heavy but we didn’t have it on the record, then AP magazine named it best b-side of the year.

‘Nothing Personal’ has been a very successful album so far; it hit the top five of the American chart, has sold thousands of copies and has helped boost your profile, did you expect the album to do so well and bring you so many amazing opportunities?
Oh of course, hopefully this next record, everyone has topped the last record in the first week, we did 66, hopefully the next one can break that. Were pretty accessible, fans can reach us, that helps.

What would you say your favourite song from ‘Nothing Personal’ is and why?
I give you two, my favourite to play live is, weightless, and then my favourite right now is, Sick little games and we’ll probably never play it!

How excited are you to be asked to headline such a long running yearly tour like the Kerrang tour?
it feels great, it’s funny from the first time we came here, we played Wales a few years ago, then the bar fly, a hole in the wall room, then we played a 2000 cap venue, we’ve been over here 4 or 5 times now, and every time it slowly increases, so its caught up with the size of the crowd in the states, it’s good to come over here and people know who you are.

You are currently half way through your headline stint on the Kerrang tour, how have the shows been so far?
Yeah were about half way through now, yeah this is awesome, this is the biggest part of the tour, where the venues are the biggest, we played two nights in Ireland, every show has been awesome, I wasn’t here half the time, on the last tour, so I’m seeing stuff for the first time in years.

The Blackout, Young Guns and My Passion are supporting you on the tour, how have they been to tour with and have you become fans of their music?
There great, I love watching them, I work out a lot so I don’t get a lot of time to watch people. the blackout are great, the crowd love them, we hang out a lot outside of the show, everyone here is so much nicer than bands in the states, the kids love it, every other band is heavier than we are so we hope the fans stay to watch us.

Can we expect you to return to the UK back in the summer to tour the festival circuit?
Right now it’s too early to tell based on this new record, we did reading and Leeds two years ago, we did give it a name before, I’d like to do it again now that were bigger than before, and be on a bigger stage at reading and Leeds, this my ideal situation, to play reading and Leeds, and the one day its sunny and nice, then the next it’s raining and there’s mud being thrown at the stage, I would love to do something like that.

Whilst you are on tour what do you do in-between shows?
We get up to a lot of shenanigans, someone bought scrabble, so we play a lot of that, the other guys have I phones and play on them I don’t have one, we drink, everyone likes to go to malls, over here there’s a mall then more shops outside, unlike in the states, where it’s a mall and then nothing else except car park. We watch a lot of YouTube and porn!

You are set to release your ‘MTV Unplugged CD/DVD’ on the 1st February, what was it like to play such a stripped down intimate show to a select number of fans? And would you like to take it out on the road?
Yeah I would love to do that but it’s a lot of hard work, I gotta sit down with jack, when we play acoustic, I play the guitar instead of bass, he plays lead so the parts are different, Alex lets me run with the songs, I had to teach him how I would play it, it’s about 2 days of hard work to teach him that stuff, it finally came together at the last minute, but I would like to do it, just not having the practise crammed into 2 days!

Green Day or Blink 182?
Blink 182

Where would you like to see All Time Low this time next year?
I wanna see us doing, arenas in the states and headlining Reading and Leeds!

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a Zebra and a Giraffe which one would you be and why?
Ah damn, I’ll go with giraffe because they have a bigger dick!

Thanks for your time; do you have a message for your fans reading this?
I don’t hate the UK, just the weather! I love the fans here!

Interview By Robert Lawrence