AJR talks new music, DIY flair ahead of concert at Freedom Mortgage Pavilion

Ahead of the release of their latest EP, ‘What No One’s Thinking,’ delightfully quirky American indie pop band AJR is taking the stage just over the bridge at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion as part of their Somewhere in the Sky Tour.

Before setting off on their tour, which began on July 18 and continues through Oct. 4, band members Jack and Ryan Met sat down with Metro to discuss the upcoming EP, the already released single ‘Betty,’ and much more as they prepare to return to the Philadelphia area.

In their early days, Adam, Jack, and Ryan Met — hence the name AJR — began as street performers, playing local parks in their home of New York City. They soon began uploading cover songs on YouTube before releasing their self-released first EP, ‘6foot1,’ which was later re-released as ‘I’m Ready,’ sharing a title with the hit lead song. Flash forward to 2025, and the group is now debuting their singles live on late-night television.

“[It was a] great experience,” Jack said of their performance on Kimmel. “We had never really played the song live. I think we had played it once before when we were in China, almost to test it out, but it’s really fun to play live. I think you don’t even know when you’re writing a song. We like it at the end of the day, but you don’t know how it’s going to translate live, honestly. And the first time we played it for a big audience, it was extremely energetic. I started getting really excited, and that doesn’t happen with every song, so I’m glad that ‘Betty’ kind of has that in it.”

(From left) Ryan, Jack, and Adam Met, three brothers known together as AJR, perform their latest single ‘Betty’ on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ ABC-Randy Holmes

The band’s single became an instant hit, but, according to the brothers, the process behind the scenes was not so quick.

“Ryan and I had been writing this song for a very long time,” Jack said. “We had the melody and the chords and even some of the track, and we just could not get it right for a really long time. We arrived on concepts, but the lyrics didn’t really make us feel anything. The words were right, but it didn’t really make us feel, and we were kind of depressed about it, because we knew this track was so good.

“And then one day, it was just like one of those weird movie moments where we were just talking about stuff going on in our life, which is usually what you should do when you’re stuck, and we stumbled upon this idea that we both really feel, which is this fear of commitment, fear of committing to forever with anything. In this case, it was relationships, but it could be a career or a friend, you know, and just like that, it was like, okay, that’s what the song is about, for sure. So we wrote it in like a day.”

“It was this eureka moment of, ‘We’re both talking about this in therapy constantly, how have we not written a song about this already? Ryan added. “From then on, like Jack said, literally a day, it just flowed out and we had a demo done, and the demo is pretty much what you hear today.”

The most hardcore AJR fans likely know, but for those less familiar, the band, namely Ryan Met, notably produces all of their own music—it has since its first release over a decade ago. Ryan’s work as the band’s producer adds to his impressively versatile contributions, which also include work as both a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist with the band.

“Ryan does all the production,” said Jack. “He sort of taught himself at a really young age, and it’s really all we knew. We didn’t really have any money to take lessons or go into a studio to get another producer to do it, so we were kind of forced to learn everything ourselves, including Ryan learning production. And then, it got to the point where he just fell in love with it, and he got so good at it that it was like, ‘How do we do it any other way?’”

Alongside the single’s release, the band also released a self-produced, self-directed music video for ‘Betty.’ The band ultimately decided to film the video in their own attic, adding to their signature “D0-It-Yourself” (DIY) feeling, which they showcased in various ways during the video.

“We knew we wanted to do something with stop motion,” Ryan said. “We’re such big fans of that, it just feels very DIY. It feels very us. It feels like you’re almost a cartoon character in a world, and the song really feels like you’re sort of on your own, ruminating, ‘Hey, could you call me back?’ It’s kind of one big voicemail, ‘I’m just thinking out loud here.’ So it really feels like the kind of song and the kind of story where you sort of set up socks and it’s like, now I’m in here, and now I’m here and I’m just spiraling. So we thought, let’s just set it up like that.”

The band’s reliance on self and sibling — once necessary, now preferred — is part of their essence as musicians, as people even. It’s an aspect of their nature, who they are, and something they look to connect with their fans, they look to not only share that part of them, but give a look behind the scenes.

AJR’s Ryan (from left), Jack and Adam Met pose for a garden photo. Kyle Berger

“We’re really big fans, in our show, kind of in everything we do, of showing you how we do the thing, while we’re doing the thing,” Ryan said. “We have these, ‘making of on tour,’ that are kind of along those same lines. But this whole music video, we wanted you to understand as an audience member, ‘Oh, I see that there are socks, and I see that the socks are supposed to represent snow right now.’

“We wanted the audience to imagine that they could have probably done this if they just sat there and took 4,000 pictures in their attic. And so the idea was, let’s start the music video with here’s the space, here’s the blank canvas that we’re working with. Everything is made here.”

There is plenty of excitement following the release of ‘Betty’, but the single is just one part of the band’s soon-to-be-released EP, which is set to be released on Aug. 29.

“Medium,” Ryan joked with a grin about their excitement level around the release.

“We’re excited. We have a little more tweaking to do on a couple more of the songs, but we’re really proud of a lot of this,” he continued. “It’s all very emotional, feeling-based, kind of like ‘Betty’. Some even more than ‘Betty’. Some of the grammar is even wrong in some of these songs, and some of it’s a little more messy or raw than we’ve ever done before, but our checklist was, ‘Are we feeling the emotion that we’re supposed to be feeling right now?’ [A] very new technique for us in terms of writing.”

When asked if fans could expect to hear any of the new EP when the band comes to town, Jack and Ryan looked at each other with a grin, seemingly holding back excitement, and agreed to table that subject until the day of the show.

“Philly has been one of the best crowds, the best cities to us,” Jack said. “We’re just really excited to come back. Whenever there’s a crowd that we know is going to be great, it’s like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t wait to get to that date so we can play for them.’ And touring is our favorite thing to do in the world, and so we’re so excited to do it again. We weren’t planning on touring, but we had to do it again and just come back and say hi to everyone.”

AJR takes the stage at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden, New Jersey, on Wednesday, Aug. 6. Doors open at 6:20 p.m. For tickets and information, visit freedommortgagepavilion.com

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