All Time Low
Photo: MTV News

All Time Low are hoping that with the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards back in New York on Sunday, the artists who are in town for it will be able to celebrate in a manner befitting the city that never sleeps. Actually, the boys from Baltimore think New York should change its motto to the familiar-sounding "What happens in NYC, stays in NYC."

"New York is just one of those places where you can do ridiculous things," frontman Alex Gaskarth told MTV News. "It's kind of a more legit version of Vegas where you can still act like a complete fool, but also get things done."

In addition to enjoying New York for all its fun perks, Gaskarth is also a fan of hometown girl Lady Gaga, who is up for nine Moonmen and will be performing at the show. "I love Lady Gaga," he said. "The whole spectacle is amazing. I think that girl really knows what she's doing. She's insanely talented. Her voice is so good, and I'm excited to see what she does. I'm sure it will be very extravagant, and I would expect that from a Gaga performance."

Guitarist Jack Barakat took some time to imagine what the eccentric Gaga might wear onstage. "I saw a picture of her recently; she was wearing a dress that was made of, like, metal," he said. "I'd love to see something like that. That'd be really cool."

And the guys even weighed in on the night's two big battles: Eminem vs. Kanye West and Lady Gaga vs. Beyoncé. The winners of the night in their book will be Eminem and Gaga. "I'd love to see Eminem win, dude. His new record's great," Barakat said. "Since Gaga's new this year, this is her year. I think she's going to take home a bunch of awards."

Watch the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards Preshow this Sunday, September 13, at 8 p.m. ET, followed by the big event, live at 9 p.m. Check out our interactive map of New York to see how the city is celebrating the VMAs all week long, and stay tuned for party coverage, concert reports, behind-the-scenes updates and more.

• Fabolous, Fefe Dobson, Twista And More At The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards Press Forum

• All Time Low

All Time Low's Jack Barakat at the Warped Tour in Cincinnati on Wednesday
Photo: Gil Kaufman/ MTV News

CINCINNATI — It takes more than a little Liberty-spike-melting rain — OK, an hour-plus torrential downpour with mega-flashes of lightning — to wash out the Vans Warped Tour '09. With a crowd undeterred by the weather, the 15th annual punk extravaganza rolled up on a steamy Wednesday afternoon to the Riverbend Amphitheatre with a typically eclectic mix of old-school and new-school punk, plenty of hardcore, tons of screamo, a dash of ska, a dusting of hip-hop and ... whatever crunkcore is.

As Warped — the longest-running summer festival tour in the U.S. — continues to evolve, one thing remains clear: No genre is safe. Where in years past screamo and metalcore bubbled up as the predominant sounds of the day, this summer it's hip-hop-inspired popcore's turn, with more than half a dozen bands at the Cincy stop mixing up beats, rock guitars, party-on rhymes and yes, even vocoders.

Among the most popular proponents of the day were Boulder, Colorado's 3OH!3, whose Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte bounced around the stage like 5-Hour Energy-fueled ping-pong balls, bashing out beat-heavy anthems like "Don't Trust Me" and "Holler Til You Pass Out."

Dallas' Forever the Sickest Kids took a slightly different tack, dropping in some rap breakdowns and glitchy keyboard bits into a set that would have made crunk-rock king Lil Jon proud. Mixing David Lee Roth-style campy rock with punk attitude and a plea for bras that garnered a barrage of polka-dotted tops, singer Jonathan Cook proudly preened around the stage with his blinged-out FTSK-emblazoned microphone stand during hyped songs like "Whoa Oh! (Me vs. Everyone)" and their signature tune, "She's a Lady."

Among the Warped veterans along for the ride again were ominous Tampa punk metalers Underoath, who drew a huge throng of onstage musical admirers as they pummeled the crowd in the main pavilion with fist-pumpers like "Drowning in My Sleep." Another old skull act — making their sixth tour of duty — was political thrashers Bad Religion, who busted out nuggets like the galloping "I Want to Conquer the World" to a weary late-afternoon crowd.

Unlike last summer, when now-mega Katy Perry and ex-boyfriend Travis McCoy of the Gym Class Heroes brought some pop smarts to the tour, the head-bobbing was a bit harder to find this time around. There was the ska bop of Big D and the Kids Table, complete with two shimmying backup singers and a three-piece horn section, and the straight-ahead Abercrombie & Fitch pop-punk of All Time Low. The Maryland quartet drew the biggest crowd of the day in the main pavilion, which was packed 6,000-strong, as the floorboards up front literally bounced up and down during sugary, pogoing shout-alongs like "Lost in Stereo." Elsewhere, the White Tie Affair mixed in some vocoder effects on "Take It Home," the Dirty Heads paid tribute to the white-guy stoner reggae of Sublime, and Utah group Meg & Dia, one of the only female-fronted acts on the day's roster, mellowed things out with some sensitive pop.

There were a few musical palette cleansers among the 60-band onslaught of mostly aggro vocalists playing to the near sell-out crowd of 12,000-plus, including second-generation country outlaw Shooter Jennings. The son of Waylon started off by kicking it "Sweet Home Alabama"-style on straw-chawin' opener "Gone to Carolina." While his laid-back good ol' boy country/ metal mash-up didn't quite fit the mix on the Skullcandy stage — where legendary Fishbone frontman Angelo Moore served as the MC and lent a sax solo to "Radio Goes Dead" — it's hard to argue with a dude who has a revolver tattooed on his forearm and an accompanying bullet on the web of his hand.

Another guy who seemed wrong to mess with was Gallows lead singer Frank Carter, who played his English old-school hardcore band's entire set in the middle of a giant circle pit. As the skies cracked open and rain flooded the parking lot, Carter and guitarist Stephen Carter stood their ground despite microphone shorts and gigantic lightning flashes, screaming the lyrics along with drenched, body-slapping, slipping-down fans.

Oh, right, and there was the crunkcore. It's easy to poke fun at Albuquerque's brokeNCYDE and their punk-hop mash-ups, which is why so many people do. With strip-club-flossin' songs like "Freaxx," "Schizophrenia" and "Get Crunk!," their mix of suburban mall-rat rap and gangsta goofiness has led to questions about whether their four MCs and a click-track shtick even belongs on the tour. But here are two things: a) they drew a gigantic crowd to the smallest stage on the concourse, b) when I heard that throng shouting the refrain from the song "Sex Toyz," I knew it was time to go home.

• Warped Tour 2009 In Cincinnati

• All Time Low
• 3Oh!3
• Underoath
• Forever The Sickest Kids

All Time Low's Alex Gaskarth
Photo: Noel Vasquez/ Getty Images

The top 10 of Billboard's albums chart is littered with names you know by now — Eminem, the Black Eyed Peas, Taylor Swift, the Jonas Brothers — but there's also one the average record buyer might not. Lodged at #4 on the chart, having sold nearly 63,000 copies of their Nothing Personal album, is All Time Low.

Yes, the punky quartet from the suburbs of Baltimore shocked music fans by debuting at #4 on the chart, because while plenty of people were expecting big things from their new album, no one thought they'd go this big.

No one except the dudes in All Time Low, that is. See, even from Nothing Personal's earliest days, they knew they had a huge record on their hands — so huge they didn't even need the track they wrote and recorded with Blink-182's Mark Hoppus.

Or something like that.

"We started writing for this record quite a while ago. ... Basically, we had a bunch of producers in mind, and some of them said they'd want to work with us, and others didn't," ATL frontman Alex Gaskarth told MTV News. "And one of those dudes who said he wanted to do something with us was Mark Hoppus, which is insane. So we co-wrote a song with him, one that, when it all came down to it, didn't make the record."

That's right. All Time Low were so confident Nothing Personal was going to be a hit that they cut the Hoppus track, but the collaboration made for a memory that Gaskarth and his ATL mates won't ever forget.

"That was something else, regardless of how the song turned out and whether it fit the album or anything," Gaskarth continued. "That was one of those experiences that we were all taken aback by. We took a chance and threw an e-mail to his management, and sure enough, it came back, and he was like, 'Yeah, I'm down to work with them.' And it was one of those weird things. I think he'd heard the name, randomly, once. Because one of the dudes in our band, Ryan, had randomly gotten a Blink tattoo, a couple months prior, and Mark had stumbled upon that picture. ... It was insane, dude. The first day we were in the room, there were a lot of awkward silences, because I was so nervous."

Now, with a top-10 debut under their studded belts, will ATL get around to working with Hoppus again? It's definitely in the cards (he already makes a cameo in their video for "Weightless"). And that song they wrote with him? Well, it will see the light of day soon enough, because no matter how famous Gaskarth and company get, they'll never be too big for the dude from Blink-182.

"It was so far out of the recording process that it ultimately didn't fit the vibe of the rest of the record," Gaskarth said. "The song will come out someday, I promise. ... It's a great song; it was just different than the rest of the stuff on the record. And, seriously, we got to work with Mark Hoppus. It was amazing."

• All Time Low
• Blink 182

Maxwell's <i>BLACKsummers'night</i>
Photo: Columbia

It's a rough month to release a new album, because no matter how many units you move, the figure will likely pale in comparison to the massive posthumous numbers being put up by Michael Jackson. That's the case again next week, when the top four Jackson albums on the Top Pop Catalog chart will easily best the figures posted by the leaders on the Top 200 current album chart.

While Jackson and Jackson 5 albums hold the top 12 spots on the Catalog chart, the current albums chart is topped by soul smoothie Maxwell, who has broken an eight-year hiatus with the first of a planned trilogy of albums, BLACKsummers'night, which debuts at #1 on sales of 316,000, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan.

The #2 slot is filled by the chart debut of the Hannah Montana 3 soundtrack, which moved 137,000 copies, followed by last week's #1, the Now 31 pop compilation (101,000), and the #4 debut from pop punkers All Time Low, whose Nothing Personal rang up 63,000 in sales.

The rest of the top 10 features the usual suspects: Black Eyed Peas' E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies) (#5, 63,000), Brad Paisley's American Saturday Night (#6, 44,000), Rob Thomas' Cradlesong (#7, 41,000), Taylor Swift's Fearless (#8, 36,000), Eminem's Relapse (#9, 34,000) and the Jonas Brothers' Lines Vines & Trying Times (#10, 34,000).

After a solid #4 debut last week, indie darlings Wilco's Wilco (The Album) shed 66 percent of business to drop to #11 (34,000). R&B singer Jeremih suffered a similar swoon (51 percent), as his self-titled debut moves down nine spots to #15 in its second week on the charts.

Los Angeles good-time rap duo LMFAO hit #33 in the chart debut for their Party Rock (11,000) album of, well, party anthems, while longtime Americana act Son Volt shuffle into the #44 spot with their glum latest, American Central Dust (10,000).

And that's about all the chart action worth talking about until next week, when Daughtry return with their second album and Jack White's latest side project, the Dead Weather, hit the charts with their debut.

• Maxwell
• All Time Low
• Eminem
• Taylor Swift
• Rob Thomas

All Time Low's Alex Gaskarth, Zack Merrick, and Jack Barakat
Photo: Jamie Saban/Stringer

You might not have noticed, given that it happened on in the shadow of the Michael Jackson memorial service, but on Tuesday, All Time Low released their much-anticipated new album, Nothing Personal.

This is clearly a big moment — not just for the band, who are looking to chuck the whole "haircut band" yoke they've been burdened with — but for the "scene" too. Of course, if you ask ATL frontman Alex Gaskarth about either of those things, he'll give you the same response: The label that critics stick on his band and the very scene in which his band exists are mostly BS.

"We're one of the last bands who have had this much luck and success that have actually toured in vans. And I'm not trying to talk sh-- on anyone else, and however they get to where they are, that's awesome for them," he told MTV News. "But I think the days of the Paramores and the Fall Out Boys, I think it's sort of coming to an end. It will come back, for sure, but we definitely ground it out for a few years before we could even think about going up to a bus or playing in a room to more than 400 kids. ... I wish more bands could experience that."

And while he stops to point out that he and his bandmates are very much fans of both Paramore and Fall Out Boy, Gaskarth doesn't shy away from his notion that what made those bands successful — namely, touring their collective behinds off, building a fanbase and playing together night in and night out — has gone away for good. And both the music and the scene are suffering because of it. Case in point: the rise of squealing "crunk-core" acts like BrokeNCYDE.

"There used to be that whole mentality of ... it had to be 100 percent genuine, or no one would take it seriously. But that whole line has been blurred now," he said. "The same kids listening to Fall Out Boy — who came out of that cred scene, almost — [are the same kids] listening to the Jonas Brothers, and that's acceptable. So the whole line is being crossed. You have all these kids coming up on Disney pop who then discover bands like BrokeNCYDE, and they're like, 'Oh my God, they said f---!,' and they fall in love instantly, because it's their version of '80s punk."

So with all that in mind, Gaskarth and his ATL mates recorded Nothing Personal, an album that might not save the scene but goes a long way in proving that bands still can get pretty great if they're serious about putting in the work. And, really, that's about the only thing All Time Low are serious about.

"I'll be the first to admit that we're a band that has a very silly image, and we sort of act like jackasses all the time, but we can also write some great songs," Gaskarth said. "We know this record is anticipated by a lot of people, and we also knew that we wanted to take a step as a band. And hopefully the kids are into it. I was driving myself crazy with the notion that this record was going to flop, but we put our all into it. ... This is the best thing we've ever done, and the record we want to make."

• All Time Low
• Fall Out Boy
• Paramore

All Time Low
Photo: adamelmakias.com

Plenty of people write nasty stuff about All Time Low, whether it's dismissing their goofy videos with stuff like "the only way this clip could've been more offensive is if they would've performed it in blackface," or writing off their music as nothing more than generic pop-punk written by four dudes with swooping, fashionable haircuts.

Frontman Alex Gaskarth has read (and heard) it all, and he'll actually agree with most of it. But he's more than willing to try and change people's minds.

"We are a haircut band, for sure. We've been lumped into that category, but what a lot of people don't realize is that we've been doing this since we were freshmen [in high school]," Gaskarth told MTV News. "This is, like, our sixth year of this band now. We definitely notice it too, and it was definitely a conscious effort to kind of try and grow outside the box a little bit.

"That's always been the point of this band. This band is admittedly very image driven ... and that was never intentional, and that's what sets this band apart from all the other 'haircut bands,' " he continued. "Those kids get signed because they have the haircut, not the songs. This band got signed because we had the songs ... and so, I truly believe in everything we do we try to set out and prove all the naysayers wrong."

Which is exactly what ATL are attempting to do on Nothing Personal, their third full-length (due July 7). Produced by a grab-bag of big-name knob-twiddlers with even bigger résumés (Matt Squire, Butch Walker, David Bendeth, S.A.M. & Sluggo), it's jam-packed with the same razor-sharp hooks and lyrics that made their So Wrong, It's Right album a scene sensation (and nabbed ATL Band of the Year honors in Alternative Press), but it also showcases a newfound maturity and depth: "Too Much" is full of soft, double-tracked vocals that float on a shimmering blip-scape, and album closer "Therapy" is a waking-from-a-nightmare missive that builds to a power-chord enhanced crescendo.

It's the kind of balancing act that "haircut bands" have been trying to pull off for a while now — the line between silly and serious. But here's the thing: All Time Low actually pull it off.

"It's nice to get away from the pop-punk niche we came up in ... it's nice to try to broaden your horizons. To be honest, we wrote a lot of this album with that in mind," Gaskarth said. "It weighs on you when you see all these new bands start popping up and getting signed, because that's the nature of this terrible industry we're in. ... So, we definitely noticed that, and we definitely thought, 'What can we do this time around that isn't going to piss off our fans too much, but is going to set us apart from all these little kids that have deals and songs on MTV now?' "

And songs like "Too Much" and "Therapy" are a step in that direction, for sure. But that doesn't mean that ATL are giving up on their goofy side, either. Official first single "Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don't)" is a crunchy slab of power-pop, full of shouted backing vocals, cooing synths and mentions of "tequila shots." It's a party-starter, to be sure ... and proof that, even as they try to grow as a band, ATL still aren't adverse to getting downright stoopid if the situation demands it.

"We've always been a band whose image and stage banter has always been based on not taking anything too seriously, but I've never written to be funny. I don't consider our music to be a joke. We're not f---ing Bowling For Soup at all," Gaskarth said. "People pigeonhole us but, to be honest, we sort of pigeonhole ourselves. We try to disregard it and, for the most part, we can, because the criticism tends to get lost in the vast array of d--k jokes and bullsh-- this band is focused on."

• All Time Low

Miley Cyrus
Photo: MTV News

Those "Twilight" ladies may have just kept her out of the top spot on our Woman of the Year list (don't worry, she also made our Teen Queens Who Ruled 2008 list), but it will be all about Miley Cyrus come New Year's eve. The tween mogul will help MTV close the door on this eventful year when she headlines "FNMTV Presents: A Miley-Sized Surprise ... New Year's Eve 2009."

The show will air live from 8 p.m. till 9:30 p.m. ET with live performances from Cyrus, Metro Station, All Time Low, The Academy Is ... and Kevin Rudolf.

There will, of course, also be a live countdown from Times Square during a rebroadcast of the show at 10:30 p.m., but the real action will be broadcast from the house of one lucky fan, where host Cyrus will give a special performance in his/her bedroom. The "Hannah Montana" star will surprise the fan earlier in the day and spend the afternoon hanging out with them, visiting their friends and helping their favorite charity. Miley will also dropping some serious gifts and treats on the unsuspecting fan all through the evening, during which Metro Station will also set up in their bedroom, while the other artists will perform from MTV's Times Square studio.

The show will be hosted from New York by twin Australian singers Lisa and Jessica Origliasso, a.k.a. the Veronicas. All during the night, MTV and Pepsi will encourage viewers to type into a live text-to-screen dialogue about how they plan to refresh themselves and the world in 2009. People in Times Square can text NYE to 66333 to submit messages that may appear on MTV 44 1/2 (MTV's high-definition Times Square screen), and TV viewers can text CHANGE to 66333 for the chance to see their comments appear on a crawl at the bottom of the television programming throughout MTV's New Year's Eve shows.

MTV will also upload select clips from NYE programming as mobile video to all carrier partners as well as photo galleries, MTV News coverage and Remote Control blog coverage on the MTV mobile Internet site at m.mtv.com. MTV.com will feature photos, clips, and performances, including two performances from the night that won't be seen anywhere else.

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Katy Perry at the MTVu VMA Tour near Baltimore Tuesday
Photo: MTV News

LARGO, Maryland — On Tuesday, the mtvU Video Music Awards Tour descended on Six Flags America near Baltimore. It was one of the hottest days yet this summer, but that didn't stop thousands of fans from cheering on All Time Low, Metro Station, Boys Like Girls and VMA nominee Katy Perry.

The show was free, but fans had to get admission bracelets near the main entrance, and those were gone soon after the park opened. Judging by the line to get in, which snaked through the park, the show was easily the biggest attraction there. As the temperature pushed 100 and the venue reached capacity, several fans had to be taken away in stretchers after collapsing from heat exhaustion. Even the artists started feeling the heat. "I almost passed out from heat exhaustion. Every five minutes I'd look at my drummer and say, 'I'm going to die from heat exhaustion,' " Perry said.

Still, spirits remained high throughout the day. "Not only do I love playing shows, but I also love riding roller coasters, so this is the best of both worlds," All Time Low frontman Alex Gaskarth said. The band made one of the concert's most memorable moments when they played an energetic cover of Rihanna's "Umbrella."

With the VMAs only weeks away and most of the nominees announced, talk of potential winners and losers was rampant backstage. While All Time Low, Boys Like Girls and Metro Station all had a good number of fans nominate them for Best New Artist, they didn't get enough votes to put them in the top five with Katy Perry.

"I feel like I just kind of showed up on the scene, and I'm nominated with more established artists. They're on their third single, and I'm still kissing girls," Perry said of her nomination. And what if she wins? "I'd love to have a Moonman. Everyone wants a Moonman, but I think this is just the beginning, and if I get lucky enough to win, I'm going to create a necklace out of it," she laughed.

Her tourmates say they'll be supporting her when it comes time for the big show. "Her single is enormous. Everyone has it stuck in their head right now; it's like a song of the summer," Boys Like Girls guitarist Paul DiGiovanni said. At the end of her set, during "I Kissed a Girl," the singer came down off the stage and sang the last verse with the cheering crowd.

As for other nominees, Lil Wayne was a big favorite among both All Time Low and Boys Like Girls. "I think Lil Wayne will probably take Best Male Video because he dominated this year," BLG bassist Bryan Donahue said. And for Best Rock Video, Gaskarth said he would "put $400 on Paramore."

This year's VMAs, hosted by British comic and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" co-star Russell Brand, will feature live performances from the Jonas Brothers, Lil Wayne and Kid Rock. See how Perry and the other nominees fare when the big show is broadcast live at 9 p.m. on September 7 from the legendary Paramount Pictures Studios in Hollywood.

It's a wrap! Now that the 2008 VMAs have come and gone, check out all the winners, the most surprising moments, the best red-carpet fashions and more at VMA.MTV.com.

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