After a brief stint on Interscope Records, Maryland’s favourite punks, All Time Low, returned back home to indie label Hopeless and the band couldn’t be happier.

“I can’t speak for how every major label operates, but I think what we benefit from is having a team that totally understands this band and understands what we’re trying to achieve,” singer/guitarist Alex Gaskarth says.

“In the end I think the problem was basically being a small fish in a big pond.”

The band, also comprised of Jack Barakat on guitar, Zack Merrick on bass and Rian Dawson on drums, formed in 2003 when the guys were still in high school, snatching its name from a line in a New Found Glory song and playing lots of Blink 182 covers.

The quartet released its debut in 2005 before signing to Hopeless for its next two records and touring with the likes of Fall Out Boy.

Near the end of 2009,  All Time Low made the transition to Interscope and released Dirty Work in 2011.

That record received a lukewarm response from some fans, but Gaskarth is mostly pleased in retrospect.

“I love what we did on that album, I just don’t think it was handled the right way with our label situation,” he says.

Last year, the band announced its reunion with Hopeless and that it would be releasing its fifth full-length record in October 2012.

“A big part of us returning was the familiarity,” Gaskarth says. “There wasn’t a courting period, there wasn’t a time period where they had to learn us and we had to learn them. It was just business as usual.”

The end result was Don’t Panic, a 12-track pop-rock record with more than just the usual catchy material.

“This record is more focused to tell a story, which I think is important in this day and age when everything is so driven by singles. We wanted to tell the story of the transition from major label to indie label and everything else that was going on in our lives during that time period.”

The album title was inspired by Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“Despite everything going on, the ability for us to sit back, not worry and get on with the next record was important,” he says. “The best thing you can do is not panic and just roll with it.”

All Time Low kicks off a series of Canadian shows this month and will be at the Burton Cummings Theatre on Monday, Jan. 21 for a co-headlining set with Hopeless labelmates Yellowcard.

This will also be the group’s third Winnipeg show in less than two years.

“There will definitely be an emphasis on the new album because we’re so passionate about it,” Gaskarth says. “But we have a lot of records and songs people love so we’re still going to try and play as much other stuff as possible too.”

Published in Volume 67, Number 16 of The Uniter (January 16, 2013)