All Time Low’s collaboration with JoJo was a long time coming.
“I’m just like, ‘How did this align?’” the band’s singer Alex Gaskarth wondered to Us Weekly exclusively, teasing the upcoming song “Sugar” from All Time Low’s upcoming 10th studio album, Everyone’s Talking!, set to be released on Friday, October 17.
Gaskarth, 37, called JoJo an “incredibly talented female vocalist” before telling Us that All Time Low has crossed paths with her over the years but there wasn’t an opportunity to collaborate — until now. (Aside from Gaskarth the band is comprised of Jack Barakat, Rian Dawson and Zack Merrick.)
“We linked up years ago. I used to go and watch this band play at a jazz bar in L.A. and she would sometimes just pop up and do her thing,” Gaskarth recalled. “We got to chatting and loosely stayed in touch ever since. Years later, it came full circle.”
Jack Barakat and Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low Santiago Felipe/Getty Images
All Time Low teamed up with JoJo to announce the song via Instagram on Monday, September 29.
“I’m obsessed with the song, I cannot wait for you to hear it,” JoJo said in the clip shared on the band’s Instagram. “It’s a long time coming that we do something together, and I hope you love it as much as I do.”
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The social media post featured a quick snippet of the new track along with one line of lyrics that reads, “Quicksand city but you pulled me out.”
Gaskarth told Us that he was the one who reached out to JoJo with a message about a possible collaboration.
JoJo Lisa Lake/Getty Images for Wawa Welcome America
“I sent her the song, and was like, ‘Listen, I know we’ve never talked about doing anything before, but I hear you on this song, and I feel like you’d kill it.’ She heard the song was down,” he recalled. “It was just one of those meant to be moments. The timing, the song, the place, all of it just was right. The stars aligned, and I’m very excited for that one.”
All Time Low kicked off this phase of music in June when releasing the song “Suckerpunch.” The band has since released three subsequent singles — “The Weather,” “Oh No!” and “Butterflies” — but they knew that this track had to kick off the Everyone’s Talking! era.
“It was pretty self evident when we wrote ‘Suckerpunch,’ that in the room that day, we all kind of said, ‘This feels like it should be the first thing people hear next.’ It’s nice when that happens,” Gaskarth explained. “It’s really easy to get trapped within the creative process and you then start to spiral and overthink. … You, kind of, have to learn to trust your gut on those and not over complicate it and overthink it, because I think that’s when you start to lose some of the magic.”
Admittedly, Gaskarth is “still learning” how to trust his gut.
“We’re a little bit older, a little bit wiser now and I just think you learn to trust that voice,” he explained. “A lot of the time, that voice that speaks up first, because it’s so instinct based, it oftentimes is so intelligent and you should listen.”
All Time Low’s new album Everyone’s Talking! is out on Friday, October 17.