Do You Remember When The All-American Rejects Were Saved by Bionicles?

I was one of those boys. I remember sitting on the carpet watching Ed, Edd n Eddy on Cartoon Network, ignorant of the injustice inflicted upon the Matorans, when I saw the news alert flash across my screen. “The All-American Rejects appear to be lost at sea!” said a teen broadcaster with a tie and a Justin Bieber haircut. “A heroic group, the [Toa] Inika, have begun a furious battle to free the band. You can join the battle at FreeTheBand.com!” The All-American Rejects needed saving, and the boy on the screen said it was up to me and my friends to help the Toa rescue them. 

It was deceptively easy. All we had to do was go to FreeTheBand.com and scour it for clues about the missing band. The clues were hidden in text blocks as hyperlinks, or waiting at the end of BIONICLE-themed mini games. When we collected all the clues, we had to submit them to the website and pray. Oh, and buy LEGO BIONICLE products. If we really wanted to save The All-American Rejects, we had to buy Toa Inika sets, and with the codes they provided, we could enter a sweepstakes to win an autographed skateboard, a special edition BIONICLE electric guitar and even meet the band (if/when they were rescued). 

I needed reinforcements. I told my mom, “DROP EVERYTHING, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY.” My ever-attentive mother reacted with alarm: “What’s going on??” 

“The Piraka have abducted The All-American Rejects!” 

“Who?”

“No time to explain, we need to get to Toys R’ Us right now and get the new BIONICLEs to save them!” Unfortunately, the Piraka had already cast their evil spell over her, and she had lost all power of reason. 

“Is that a toy? No, wait for your birthday or something.”

At that moment, it seemed as if all hope was lost for the Toa Inika and The All-American Rejects. But like the mighty Toa and the brave Matorans of Voya Nui, I recognized the power of teamwork and called upon my friends for help. With the almighty landline home phone, I rang my friend Jacob: “HEY JACOB YOUR BIRTHDAY IS THE SOONEST YOU NEED TO THROW A PARTY AND GIVE US BIONICLES AS GOODY BAGS AND WE CAN BUY YOU BIONICLES FOR GIFTS AND THEN WE CAN SAVE THE ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS!” He replied, “ABSOLUTELY LET ME TELL MY MOM AND SHE CAN CALL EVERYONE ELSE!”

At school the next day, the boys and I met on the big red playground (we had just been upgraded from the small blue playground) to plan how we would save the band. If I got Jacob the white BIONICLE, Tim, Nolan, Robbie, and Michael, could get the red, blue, green and black ones, creating a complete set. Our plan was flawless, and until then, we could play BIONICLE on the red playground, each of us pretending to be a Toa, fighting the dastardly Piraka. With the help of our imaginations, we summited the great peak of Mount Valmai, crossed the mighty oceans of protodermis and fired Zamor Spheres at our wicked foes. 

For three weeks, I left every recess with resolve and conviction that we could save the band. I mean, the Toa said, “It’s up to YOU.” It was up to us. When Jacob’s birthday rolled around, the gang and I convened at Ultrazone Laser Tag, but when I saw the size of the packaged presents, I knew we were in trouble. BIONICLEs came in recognizable, 32oz plastic cylinders, but the gift that Tim brought was a big, broad rectangle. After laser-tagging, pizza and cake, we opened the presents, and I knew The All-American Rejects were doomed. 

The big rectangular box was a Star Wars-themed Monopoly set. Nolan brought a Chia pet. Robbie brought a “Kidz Krazy Chemistry Set,” and Michael almost hit the mark, but instead of buying Toa, he bought the bad guys, The Piraka. “I didn’t know the difference, I don’t actually play with BIONICLEs,” he told me (in hindsight, he always did look a little lost during our games at recess). My mom had misunderstood the assignment and instead bought a copy of Move Along, The All-American Rejects’ album. We were cooked.

When the boys and I reconvened at that Monday’s recess I confronted them: “What the heck guys, I thought we had a plan???” But my despair was only met with apathy. “BIONICLEs are for babies bro, we have Pokemon for the Nintendo DS now,” they told me. Fortunately, Jacob, my one true homie, took pity on me. He burnt me a copy of Move Along, and nine months later when my birthday rolled around, he got me a Piraka BIONICLE set. “Sorry I didn’t get you the Toa,” he said. “They didn’t look as cool.”

Eventually, the ad campaign ended. News alerts reported that the band had been saved and the Piraka evicted from the island. A new set of BIONICLE heroes came and went, but that All-American Rejects CD stuck around. I listened to it for hours on my boombox, imagining the band in a locked cell with only their instruments to pass the time, begging me to come save them. That feeling stuck until 2008 when The All-American Rejects released the single “Gives You Hell” to promote their upcoming album. 

While “Gives You Hell” had significant radio airplay and remains one of the band’s biggest hits to date, I couldn’t stand it. Move Along was loaded with alt-rock anthems and angsty, emo ballads, but the newest single felt like a generic, commercial pop song. I mean, the band was literally just kidnapped by the Piraka, you would think that would leave an impression on their music, right? Well, unfortunately the headcanon fostered by this ad campaign had no basis in the real world, so my distaste for the single was a “me” problem. 

Move Along began with the band’s biggest hit, “Dirty Little Secret.” The pop-punk anthem is the prototype for the band’s songwriting formula. The over-dubbed, ripping electric guitars are the stars of the show alongside singer Tyson Ritter’s wide vocal range. Singing primarily in his upper register, Ritter’s vocal timbre captivated my ten-year-old self because he sounded like a teenager—like a cool older brother in a band, singing about heartbreak, girls, driving cars and being a suburban teenage badass. In hindsight, a lot of the sound felt fabricated and corporate in order to pander to 10-year-olds, but holy Mata Nui, they nailed it. 

Track two, “Stab My Back,” introduced another prevalent feature of the album: the rolling drums and the driving rhythms. Chris Gaylor’s drumming is heavy on the toms and light on the cymbals, which is instinctually what I imagine any inexperienced kid would want to hit as soon as they sat down at a drum kit. The momentum with which the song barrels along can only be compared to the sugar-rush of downing an entire two-liter of Sierra Mist before a game of laser-tag. 

“Move Along,” the album’s title track and the soundtrack to the ad campaign, was the closest thing we had to a BIONICLE national anthem. It concisely packaged every element of the album into one incredible song. It opens with robust, galloping tom drums and thick bass plucking, interrupted by piercing feedback and a razor-sharp guitar riff. The vocals build up to this sprawling, heroic chorus that started a 20-year-long high I’ve never come down from: “When all you got to keep is strong / move along, move along, like I know you do / And even when your hope is gone move along, move along, just to make it through, move along!” 

The Pulitzer Prize Board may not be knocking on The All-American Rejects’ door, but oh boy did it make me want to beat down the door to the Piraka fortress. In the final refrain, Ritter screams the lyrics accompanied by a children’s choir, and never have I wanted to sing more than when I heard that. The inclusion of the kids’ voices made me feel like the band wasn’t afraid or too cool to hang with kids, and by banding together we could do something awesome (like buy BIONICLE products!).    

The rest of the album flip-flops between emo ballads and teen rock anthems. Between the high production quality and youthful songwriting, it sounds like a mix between Bon Jovi and Blink-182. While the album might not stand the test of time, it is burnt forever into my brain, alongside the epic Toa Inika commercial. The ad campaign was a huge success for LEGO, reportedly lifting BIONICLE sales by 30% compared to the previous year, and leading to 86,000 downloads of the album through the FreetheBand website. While nobody knows who won the sweepstakes to meet the band, one of the BIONICLE-exclusive electric guitars popped back up when it went up for sale on bzpower.com in 2023.

Unfortunately, the Toa Inika set and this ad campaign was the beginning of the end for BIONICLE. After declining sales in following years, LEGO discontinued the franchise in 2010. They attempted to reboot the toy line in 2015, but after mixed reactions from toy critics (those exist), fans and consumers, it was canceled. Nevertheless, the BIONICLE legacy lives on thanks to the extensive books, movies, comics and collectibles. In the words of the wise Toa Vakama, “New legends awake, but old lessons must be remembered. This is the way of the BIONICLE.” Or, as The All-American Rejects taught us, “And even when your hope is gone / Move along, move along just to make it through, move along.”

Tony Le Calvez is a music journalist for The Needle Drop and Amplified SD. You can find him skating around Ocean Beach looking for snacks or DM him on Twitter.