AJR

New York City's AJR dropped their brand-new single "I Won't" on July 29th via Mercury/Republic. It's from the Met brothers upcoming fifth album and first through Republic. 

About the new single, Ryan said, “We’re trying to dial in on exactly how we felt about the world. We were fed up with authority, so we wrote our own version of a punk ‘F-you’ song. We found an interesting way to frame it. You’re at a party, and this DJ is telling you how to live, but you’ve had enough. In our political climate and within the landscape of social media, everything is marketing and branding yourself to fit into a political or TikTok trend. It gets exhausting. You lose yourself in fitting into a subsection of culture. In our show and our music, we’re about figuring out what makes you unique. The message is, ‘Be yourself.’ However, we know it’s much easier said than done. We wanted to make a song that inspired others, but also ourselves to be who we are. 

As brothers and as a band, AJR—Adam, Jack, and Ryan Met—complement one another in perfect harmony on and off-stage. This harmony courses through their inimitable, irresistible, and imaginative alternative pop uplifted by expansive vision, epic instrumentation, and the kind of hooks you can’t shake. It’s why the group has generated billions of streams across triple-platinum smashes “Bang!” and “Weak” as well as the double-platinum “Burn The House Down” and platinum singles “100 Bad Days,” “Sober Up,” and “I’m Ready.” 

The brothers cooked up an inimitable sound by jamming, writing, and recording out of their shared apartment. They’ve continued to hone this style over the years, while sticking to the same process. 2022 saw the band embark on the biggest tour of their career as they headlined amphitheaters and sheds coast-to-coast on the OK Orchestra Tour where they performed to over 350,000 people. In between, they crafted music for their next chapter from Ryan’s apartment.

“Even though, we now have our own apartments, we’re still going to make music in my apartment,” Ryan goes on. “We’re definitely not going to a real studio. We’ve developed this really great workflow of being comfortable in our own space and not having to think about what we put on in the morning. It wouldn’t translate well to a professional studio”

AJR released their debut EP, 6foot1 (later renamed I'm Ready after the band signed to Warner Music Group in 2013). The band's second EP, Infinity, was released in 2014. The EP was released instead of their debut album, Living Room, which was pushed back to a release date in 2015. The brothers released their third EP, titled What Everyone's Thinking, in 2016. AJR released their second studio album, The Click, in 2017, featuring the singles "Weak", "Drama" and "Sober Up", which features Rivers Cuomo from Weezer, who co-wrote the track. This song reached number one on the Mediabase Alternative chart in 2018. In 2019, AJR had another hit with"100 Bad Days", the first single off their Neotheater 2019 release. In 2021 the band released OK Orchestra. In May 2022, AJR signed to Mercury Records and teased their upcoming and current fifth album on Twitter, with the caption "Think we just wrote our next album opener," referring to "I Won't." 

The band premiered the new single "I Won't" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Watch the performance here.  

(Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez)

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