The All-American Rejects come home for the holidays

“We're not the fun fest, I guess, that we used to be,” the Rejects' lead singer, lyricist and bass guitarist said during a tour stop last month in Mobile, Ala. “We're scouting out a lot of sweet gear just in pawnshops around the country. We've just sorta been scouting out a bunch of fun gear to record with as we come across these small towns and some of these shows. They have these gems just sittin' in the windows.”

The once wild young power-pop-rocker from Stillwater now gets his kicks browsing secondhand stores with his bandmates, and he enthuses about rhythm guitarist Mike Kennerty's recent purchase of a '70s model Cruwmar synthesizer, and his own discovery of a vintage Magnatone amp, through which he recorded the bass parts of “Gives You Hell,” the big hit from the band's 2008 “When the World Comes Down.”

“We were just sorta walkin' by, or skatin' down, like, Main Street, America, and I find this Magnatone for nearly next to nothin', you know. And I was like, ‘Man, this is great,'” Ritter said. “So I think we've just become our own little version of American Musical Pickers.”

Quite a different tune from the sad one Ritter was singing at the end of '09, when he faded into what he describes as his “lost weekend.” He'd been going full-tilt since he was 17, achieving a worldwide success other guys only dream about, but at 25, rock 'n' roll was about to roll over him.

Plus, a long-term relationship — also going strong since he was 17 — had run out of steam as well.

As Ritter put it in an interview with The Oklahoman last April, he fell into “this wild little abyss of Los Angeles and, you know, found a bottle and found another one.”

During that nine-month “weekend,” Ritter would spend a lot of time lying on the floor talking to himself, not knowing what time of day it was and not caring. He simply didn't know how to function as a human being outside of the Rejects, and he didn't want to deal with that problem.

But finally, Nick Wheeler, his best friend and bandmate since Stillwater high school days, stepped in and took a hand.

“You know, Nick definitely has always been the levelheaded cat of the two of us,” Ritter said. “I'm sort of the fire, he's the water. And he said, ‘Ty, you know, it's time to start writin' this record.' And I sort of found my bit of savior and solace in New York City. And that was sort of the overview journey of, I guess, the locations of where this record was sort of found.”