AJR (band) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
AJR
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AJR performing on We The People in 2021. From left: Ryan, Jack, and Adam Met
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 2005–present |
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| Members |
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AJR is an American indie pop band based in Chelsea, Manhattan in New York City. The multi-instrumentalist trio is composed of three brothers: Adam, Jack, and Ryan Met.
Their most successful songs include "I'm Ready", "Sober Up", "Burn the House Down", "Way Less Sad", "100 Bad Days", "Weak", "World's Smallest Violin", and "Bang!". In 2019, their third album Neotheater debuted at number 8 on the Billboard 200, and hit number one on the Official Top Rock Albums chart. "Bang!", from their fourth album OK Orchestra, is their highest-charting song and only song to reach the top 10 in the United States, peaking at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 on January 20, 2021.
The band name "AJR" is an acronym of the three brothers' first names: Adam, Jack and Ryan Met.
Career
2005–2012: Street performing and early career
The Met brothers initially began writing, producing, and mixing their own material in the living room of their Chelsea apartment in Manhattan, New York, focusing on DIY indie pop music. They began performing around 2006, busking in Central Park and Washington Square Park. Initially, Jack played the harmonica, Ryan played the piano, and Adam played the bass. They later began playing various instruments. They began by performing covers, and put out two independent albums, Born and Bred and Venture, both in 2010. In addition, the group released a self-titled EP in 2012. None of these projects are currently available on streaming services and are considered lost media to many.
2012–2013: Breakthrough with "I'm Ready"
In November 2012, Ryan tweeted a link to a video of their debut single, "I'm Ready", to about 80 celebrities, including Australian singer Sia. Sia told her manager about the song, and he contacted Steve Greenberg, former president of Columbia Records and current CEO and founder of S-Curve Records. He acts as their manager. "I'm Ready", which features a sample of SpongeBob SquarePants repeatedly singing his catchphrase "I'm ready" from the eponymous animated series' premiere episode, was commercially released on August 22, 2013. The song was placed in regular rotation on Sirius XM Radio's Top 20 on 20 and Hits 1 stations, and they performed the song on Good Day New York and VH1's Big Morning Buzz. The official music video for "I'm Ready" premiered on VEVO on October 15, 2013.
AJR released their debut major-label EP, 6foot1, on December 20, 2013. They were named Clear Channel's "Artist on the Rise" for the month of October 2013. By 2014, the band was already named IHeartRadio's Artist of the Month for Top 40 in January, and a Myspace "One to Watch" in February, while "I'm Ready" officially impacted pop radio in April. As of June 2023, the music video for "I'm Ready" had reached 40 million views on YouTube. "I'm Ready" hit number one on Next Big Sound's chart in May 2014. The band performed the song on Today on July 29, 2014. "I'm Ready" had been certified Platinum in the U.S., Canada and Australia.
2014–2015: Infinity and Living Room
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The band's second EP, Infinity, was released on September 23, 2014. It contains 5 tracks, including the lead single "Infinity". They released a lyric video for the single. A majority of the work for the video was done by AJR, including directing and producing. The EP was released instead of their debut album, Living Room, which was pushed back to a release date of March 3, 2015. The band expressed the delay in their debut album was because they wanted to add some of their newer music to the project.
Around this time, the brothers began to take on distinctive appearances. Adam grew a full beard (later he would grow his hair long), Jack also grew a beard and would wear a bomber hat (which he admits is his mother's), and Ryan wore glasses, was clean shaven, and had a cowlick hairstyle.
On October 23, 2015, they released a bonus track from the album titled "Let the Games Begin".
2016–2018: The Click
The brothers released their third EP, titled What Everyone's Thinking, on September 16, 2016, which features the lead single "Weak". The lead single was written by the band within a few hours, without any idea of the future success the single would have. "Weak" had been certified Platinum in the U.S., Canada, Norway, Netherlands and Belgium, and Gold in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Australia. It has over 600 million streams on Spotify.
The band released its second studio album, The Click, on June 9, 2017, featuring the singles "Weak", "Drama" and "Sober Up", which features frontman Rivers Cuomo from Weezer, who co-wrote the track. This song reached number one on the Mediabase Alternative Singles chart in 2018. The album, on the AJR Productions label, was released by BMG in the US, Ultra Records in Canada, Liberator Records in Australia/New Zealand, and Black Butter Records in the rest of the world, as were AJR's next two albums. The band's 2018 tour in support of the album, The Click Tour, featured Hundred Handed, Grizfolk, Ocean Park Standoff, and MAX as openers.
In 2017, AJR released "It's On Us", a single written in collaboration with the It's On Us campaign, which was launched by Barack Obama in 2014.
An extended version of The Click was released on September 21, 2018. The Click (Deluxe Edition) included new tracks such as "Role Models", "Normal" and "Burn the House Down", the latter which the band released in March 2018 as a single and reached number two on the Mediabase Alternative Singles chart. Also included was "Pretender – Acoustic", an acoustic version of "Pretender", which was a collaboration between AJR, EDM artist Steve Aoki and American rapper Lil Yachty.
2019: Neotheater
On January 30, 2019, AJR released "100 Bad Days", the first single for their then-unannounced album: Neotheater. A music video was released on March 8. The song was included on Taylor Swift's Apple Music playlist, "Playlist by ME!" in May 2019. The lyrics, "maybe a hundred bad days made a hundred good stories, a hundred good stories make me interesting at parties," are used in Taylor's description of this playlist of songs she loves and appreciates. On March 5, the band teased the single, "Birthday Party". On March 10, the band announced their third studio album, Neotheater, which was to be released on April 26. On March 12, the promotional single "Birthday Party" was released and "100 Bad Days" was performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The second single, "Dear Winter", was teased on April 1, and released on April 5 alongside a music video. The album debuted on April 26 at number one on Billboard's Top Alternative Albums and Top Rock Albums charts, and number eight on Billboard's Top 200 Albums.
On October 25, the group released "Dear Winter 2.0", re-imagining the song by "changing the production and upping the emotion".
2020–2022: OK Orchestra
On February 12, 2020, the single "Bang!" was released, with a music video following the next day. The single at its release was intended to be part of the deluxe version of their album Neotheater, but was scrapped and made the lead single for OK Orchestra. A follow-up single was released on August 31, 2020, titled "Bummerland". On December 22, 2020, AJR released "My Play". AJR then took to their Twitter account and other social media accounts to announce OK Orchestra on December 20, 2020. On February 17, 2021, the band released "Way Less Sad" with a music video on the same day. OK Orchestra was then released on March 26, 2021. The album has 13 tracks, including "Ordinaryish People" with the Blue Man Group. On March 21, 2021, AJR released OKO World, an interactive game on AJR's website. The new merchandise for the album was released on March 23. Their success with the song "Bang!" led them to win a Billboard Music Award for "Top Rock Song" In 2021. On August 30, they released a remix of "The Record Player Song" entitled "Record Player" with its original performers Daisy the Great in which they added their own verses and production.
On November 24, 2021, the band released a music video for their song "The Good Part" from their 2017 album The Click after its sudden spike popularity due to being featured on TikTok and YouTube Shorts.
The band released a music video for "Ordinaryish People" on February 9, 2022.
2022–present: The Maybe Man and upcoming Broadway musical
On April 22, 2022, the band announced that a new song would be released before the OK Orchestra Tour resumed. AJR signed to Mercury Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, in May 2022, and officially released the song "I Won't" through the label on July 29 with an accompanying music video. On November 12, the band released a video teaser announcing their new album, abbreviated as TMM, and released the follow-up single "The DJ Is Crying for Help" on November 18.
On January 27, 2023, Quinn XCII released "Too Late", featuring AJR. The song appeared as track 7 on Quinn's fifth studio album, The People's Champ. The single came after the cancellation of 2020's Everything Everywhere Tour, which would have seen both artists performing alongside each other.
On April 21, 2023, the band released their upcoming album's third single, titled "The Dumb Song". The next day, a music video was released detailing the events of the one and a half year long process of creating the song. The band surprise released a lyric video for a new song titled "God Is Really Real" on July 3, detailing the brothers' relationship with their father, Gary, who was terminally ill at the time of its release. The band announced later that day that Gary had died. On August 28, AJR announced their new album's title, The Maybe Man, with a release date of November 3. The album's tracklist and artwork was revealed on September 12, and the band released the fifth and final single "Yes I'm a Mess" on September 29.
On October 11, 2023, AJR announced that The Maybe Man would be delayed by one week from its original release date. The album is now scheduled to be dropped on November 10.
Harold and the Purple Crayon
On March 11, 2022, the band announced that members Jack and Ryan Met will be working in collaboration with theatre producer Vivek J. Tiwary in a Broadway adaptation of the children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon. The show will be produced by Tiwary's TEG+, with original songs by the band. On September 23, 2022, it was announced that the book for the musical will be written by playwrights Robert Quillen Camp and Dan Rothenberg. This adaptation will feature Harold in a later stage of life compared to the books, with the band releasing a statement saying, "We adored Harold and the Purple Crayon growing up, and we thought: what if we saw Harold as a young adult, realizing that his problems are too profound to simply draw away". It seems the show will open in March 2024.
Artistry
The band wrote, produced, and mixed their music in the living room of their apartment in Chelsea before moving into their own studio. Their musical style combines elements of pop, electronic, and dubstep.
Discography
Studio albums
- Living Room (2015)
- The Click (2017)
- Neotheater (2019)
- OK Orchestra (2021)
- The Maybe Man (2023)
Tours and concerts
Headlining
- I'm Ready Tour (2014)
- The Infinity Tour (2014)
- Living Room Tour (2015)
- What Everyone's Thinking Tour (2017)
- What Everyone's Thinking Tour Part 2 (2017)
- The Click Tour (2018)
- The Click Tour Part 2 (2018)
- Neotheater World Tour (2019)
- Neotheater World Tour Part II (2020) (Cancelled due to COVID-19)
- Everything Everywhere Tour (2020) (Cancelled due to COVID-19)
- A Night in Your Car with AJR (2020)
- One Spectacular Night (2020)
- OK Orchestra Tour (2021–2022)
- One More Spectacular Night (2021) (replaying of "One Spectacular Night")
Supporting
AJR has opened for Fifth Harmony, Lindsey Stirling, Hoodie Allen, Train, Fitz and the Tantrums, Andy Grammer, We the Kings, Demi Lovato, Ingrid Michaelson, Sammy Adams, American Authors, and Melanie Martinez. AJR most recently opened for Imagine Dragons on their Mercury World Tour in August and September 2023.
COVID-19 alternate concerts
On May 14, 2020, the band announced the cancellation of their upcoming tours due to the COVID-19 pandemic, stating via Twitter that "it’s more important to us that [our fans] are safe".
On July 21, 2020, AJR announced their drive-in show, A night in your car with AJR, which took place on August 19, 2020, in Philadelphia. Two days later after the first show had sold out entirely, they announced a second show for Philadelphia which took place on August 20. The first show saw the debut of "Bummerland".
On November 19, 2020, AJR announced their first virtual concert, AJR's One Spectacular Night, which took place on December 26, 2020. The livestream was interactive, allowing viewers to clap after songs and change the camera to both simulate a live concert and experiment with livestreaming.
Personal lives
The brothers are Jewish. Their parents are Gary Metzger (1952-2023), an architect, and Laurie Marvald, who began her career as an architect, attending Cornell University, then moving on to entrepreneurship. The 3 members of AJR grew up in Bayside, Queens until moving to Chelsea, Manhattan in 2001. There, Jack attended the Professional Children's School in Manhattan. Jack was a child actor, appearing in The Pink Panther 2 as well as an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
Adam received a BA from Columbia University, majoring in business and philosophy, an MA from New York University, and PhD in International Human Rights Law from the University of Birmingham, while Ryan and Jack studied film at Columbia University.
Ryan has synesthesia and has said it helps him with his music production process, stating in a YouTube video: "I see visuals when I'm hearing the music, and that very much helps when I'm building … and choosing the right drums".
Ryan and Jack live in the same house and have a Bouvier dog named Shay. Ryan also has a dog named Olly.
During the band's OK Orchestra Tour, Jack announced that he had been diagnosed with OCD in 2017.
On July 1, 2023, AJR cancelled their July performances and revealed on social media that their father’s health was declining. Two days later, on July 3, they released their fourth single, titled "God Is Really Real", from their upcoming fifth studio album. The song is about their father’s illness; they had intended to release it along with the rest of the album, but decided to release it early after the band saw the "outpouring of love for [their] dad". Later that day, the band announced that their father had died.
On July 22, 2023, Ryan announced his engagement to Catharina Capps.
On August 1, the band announced a foundation in honor of their late father Gary.
On August 24, 2023, Adam announced he would become a professor at Columbia University, teaching a new course entitled Climate Campaigning Reimagined alongside Mila Rosenthal.
Band members
Core members
- Adam Met – vocals, bass guitar, programming, samples, percussion
- Jack Met – lead vocals, guitar, melodica, ukulele, drums, percussion, keyboards, banjo, synthesizers, samples, programming, cowbell
- Ryan Met – vocals, programming, keyboards, ukulele, producing, samples
Auxiliary members
The following instrumentalists have toured and recorded with AJR:
Current
- Chris Berry – drums, percussion
- Arnetta Johnson – trumpet, keyboards
- Emelia Suljic – violin
- Ruthie Kornblatt-Stier – cello
Former
- JJ Kirkpatrick – trumpet, keyboards, percussion
See also
In Spanish: AJR (banda) para niños
