AJR (band)

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.[7] 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,[8] and put out two music CDs, "Born and Bred" and "Venture", both in 2010. In addition, the group released a self-titled EP in 2012.

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.[8] 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.[5] He acts as their manager.[8] "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.[9] The song was placed in regular rotation on Sirius XM Radio's Top 20 on 20 and Hits 1 stations,[5] and they performed the song on Good Day New York and VH1's Big Morning Buzz.[10] The official music video for "I'm Ready" premiered on VEVO on October 15, 2013.[8][11]

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,[12] and a Myspace "One to Watch" in February,[13] while "I'm Ready" officially impacted pop radio in April. As of October 2023, the music video for "I'm Ready" has over 40 million views on YouTube. "I'm Ready" hit number one on Next Big Sound's chart in May 2014.[14], and the band later performed the song on Today on July 29, 2014. "I'm Ready" had been certified Platinum in the U.S. and Australia.[15][16]

AJR performing on Voice of America in 2015

The band's second EP, Infinity, was released on September 23, 2014. It contains 5 tracks, including the lead single "Infinity". A lyric video directed and produced primarily by AJR was released for the single.[17] 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.[18] On October 23, 2015, they released the bonus track "Let the Games Begin".[19]

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),[20] and Ryan wore glasses, was clean shaven, and had a cowlick hairstyle.

AJR performing for It's On Us at the White House in 2017

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.[21] "Weak" has been certified Platinum in the U.S., Canada, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and Germany, and Gold in Italy, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, United Kingdom, and Switzerland. It amassed over 200 million streams on Spotify within its first 9 months of release.[22]

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.[23] The song reached number one on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart in 2018.[24] 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.[25]

On March 31, 2017, AJR released "It's On Us", a single written in collaboration with the It's On Us campaign, launched by Barack Obama in 2014 to combat sexual assault on college campuses across the United States.[26]

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 Billboard Alternative Airplay chart.[24] 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.[27]

AJR performing in Amsterdam in 2019

On January 30, 2019, AJR released the song "100 Bad Days", which would later become the lead single for Neotheater.[28] 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".[29] On March 10, the band announced their third studio album, Neotheater, which was to be released on April 26.[30] On March 12, the promotional single "Birthday Party" was released and "100 Bad Days" was performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.[31] The second single, "Dear Winter", was teased on April 1,[32] and released on April 5 alongside a music video.[33] 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".[34]

On February 12, 2020, the single "Bang!" was released, with a music video following the next day.[35] 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.[36] A follow-up single was released on August 31, 2020, titled "Bummerland".[37] On December 22, 2020, AJR released "My Play".[38] 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.[39] 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.[40]

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.[41]

The band released a music video for "Ordinaryish People" on February 9, 2022.[42]

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,[43] and officially released the song "I Won't" through the label on July 29 with an accompanying music video.[44] On November 12, the band released a video teaser announcing their new album, abbreviated as TMM,[45] and released the follow-up single "The DJ Is Crying for Help" on November 18.[46]

On January 27, 2023, Quinn XCII released "Too Late", featuring AJR.[47] The song appeared as track 7 on Quinn's fifth studio album, The People's Champ.[48][49] The single came after the cancellation of 2020's Everything Everywhere Tour, which would have seen both artists performing alongside each other.[50]

On April 21, 2023, the band released the album's third single, "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.[51] 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.[52] The band announced later that day that Gary had died.[53] On August 28, AJR announced the 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 with a music video on October 25.[45][54] On October 11, 2023, AJR announced that the release date of The Maybe Man had been delayed by one week to November 10.

On March 11, 2022, the band announced that members Jack and Ryan Met would be working in collaboration with theatre producer Vivek J. Tiwary in a Broadway adaptation of the children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon.[55] 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.[56] 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".[57][58] The show will open in March 2024.[59]