Behind the Band Name: All Time Low

All Time Low gets its name from one of its musical heroes.

The pop-punk band of frontman Alex Gaskarth, lead guitarist Jack Barakat, bassist Zack Merrick and drummer Rian Dawson has been a staple in the alternative scene over the past 20 years. The band joined forces in Maryland as freshmen in high school in 2003, and a year later, they signed their first record deal with Emerald Moon Records which led to their debut EP, The Three Words to Remember in Dealing with the End EP. They’ve since released nine studio albums, the most recent being Tell Me I’m Alive in 2023.

The Meaning Behind the Name

Among All Time Low’s earliest influences was fellow rock band New Found Glory, so much so they got their band name from the lyric, And it feels like I’m at an all-time low, in New Found Glory’s 2002 single “Head on Collision.” The track cracked the top 30 on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart. All Time Low experienced a full circle moment with New Found Glory when they were both on the lineup on the 2007 Warped Tour. “They were a pretty big influence on us at the time,” Gaskarth shared with Medium in 2011 about New Found Glory.

“But when we first started the band we were really all about the pop-punk scene and bands like New Found Glory, Green Day, Blink 182, they’re sort of like the stapled stands that encouraged us to start playing music as a group and they all just brought us together and all had an equal responsibility to making All Time Low,” he continues.

All Time Low released its debut album, The Party Scene, in 2005. They hit their stride with the sophomore endeavor So Wrong, It’s Right in 2007, which featured their signature hit, “Dear Maria, Count Me In.” They built on this success with Nothing Personal in 2009, which hit No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and topped the Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums, and Independent Albums charts.

[RELATED: Alex Gaskarth Recalls All Time Low Smash “Dear Maria, Count Me In”]

“So Wrong, It’s Right was a staple album for us, but I think Nothing Personal felt like the record where we went from being everybody’s back-pocket band to the band people were on to before people were on to us,” Gaskarth explains to Alternative Press. “Nothing Personal solidified our place in the genre and in the scene that we were developing in.”

In 2020, All Time Low had another hit on their hands with “Monsters,” which spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart. A collaborative version with Demi Lovato and Blackbear was released in December 2020.

Photo by Duffy-Marie Arnoult/WireImage