Naar aanleiding van de recente opspraak rondom bandleden als bijvoorbeeld Neck Deep’s Lloyd Roberts en Austin Kerr van Set It Off, die beiden beschuldigd werden van ongepast contact met minderjarigen, heeft All Time Low-frontman Alex Gaskarth zijn mening over de situatie uitgesproken.

Onlangs trad de band op tijdens Reading Festival, waar zij ook geïnterviewd werden door Team Rock. Toen hem gevraagd werd hoe bands hun fans volgens hem zouden moeten behandelen, antwoordde hij als volgt: “Start prioritizing and remember what you’re here for,” zei hij. “You’re not here to fuck around with girls. There is a lot of attention put on people who are on stage and it’s very easy to get wrapped up in the wrong things [and] be there for the wrong reasons. It’s like a disconnected, but super intimate world that we live in now, where people have access to everything instantaneously, but it also doesn’t feel real, because you’re not face-to-face with someone.”

Daar voegde hij aan toe: “So sending pictures, asking for pictures, sending texts, whatever you may be doing—that’s not what this was ever about. It’s about forming relationships through your music, not the things that come along with music. It’s a difficult thing to deal with, especially for some of these younger bands who are personally not sure what they’re going through yet, as well. Speaking from personal experience, we were dorks in high school; we were not always the popular kids. So when our band started getting a little popular, [we] started getting attention from all kinds of people, but also the people that [we] are attracted to. It’s too easy to fall into that hole of ‘let me take advantage here.’ You have to be careful. You have to realize in doing those things that sometimes feel easy and like a rapid reward—you’re hurting people. There’s a lasting effect that these little, casual encounters have. It’s impertinent to respect that and to treat people like human beings, not just people who are popping up on Tinder, or Facebook, or whatever the hell it [may be].”

Beluister het volledige interview hieronder.