American Authors bringing 'Best Day' and new songs to Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH – Zac Barnett realizes countless Instagram stories, and many, many Facebook and TikTok reels have used American Authors' "Best Day of My Life" as background music.

"It's crazy," Barnett, lead singer and guitarist for American Authors, said. "There's a bunch of new ones going around, like the Kardashians have been using 'Best Day of My Life' a lot with their kids, which is cool to see. But then also there's this crazy one using a cover song version of 'Best Day of My Life,' and it shows a hippopotamus chasing a boat. That one has been going pretty viral."

American Authors fans can count on experiencing an epic "Best Day of My Life" rendition, plus hearing the gold-certified single "Believer" and new songs on Feb. 21 when the pop-rock band plays the Thunderbird Music Hall in Pittsburgh. Tickets cost $25 at etix.com

Having met at Berklee College of Music, then releasing their debut album in 2014, American Authors' previous western Pennsylvania appearances included August 2014 at Star Lake (opening for OneRepublic); November 2014, at Stage AE with Grouplove and Portugal. The Man; 2017 back at Star Lake as part of Warped Tour and most recently 2021 Light-Up Night in Pittsburgh.

"I think we're the only band to go from touring with One Republic and The Script, to playing Warped Tour, and then touring with O.A.R.," Barnett said.

That 60th anniversary Pittsburgh Light-Up Night show, held the Saturday before Thanksgiving, helped usher in large crowds and live entertainment back into the city's Cultural District, which had been sidelined by the COVID pandemic.

"That show was incredible," Barnett said. "It was huge. Super fun. There were fireworks and everyone was having a good time despite it being outdoors in November, but it wasn't too cold. Just a great day and beautiful time."

American Authors looks to bring more beautiful times to concertgoers on this month-long Best Night of My Life Tour launching Feb. 10 in Connecticut.

"We haven't done a proper tour in a while, so it's really going to be special playing a lot of songs from our new album that comes out Feb. 10," Barnett said. "We'll also play a lot of old songs and were taking requests and doing a lot of really cool stuff that maybe people haven't seen us do on a full tour before."

Parting ways in 2021 with lead guitarist/multi-instrumentalist James Adam Shelley, the now trio rounded out by Dave Rublin (bass) and Matt Sanchez (drums) won't load up its stage with visual effects.

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"It's actually a more scaled-back production since this is our first proper tour in a few years," Barnett said. "We wanted to keep it small and more intimate so we can actually have that fan interaction and take requests on stage, and just really be living in the moment. I think that is something that the American Authors didn't always have in the past. We've always had bigger productions whereas this upcoming tour is definitely more in the moment, and we will be able to fully hear the crowd so there will be a lot of interaction from stage to the audience and vice versa."

To bide time between the new album and 2019's "Seasons" the band released an EP last year composed entirely of six versions of "Blind for Love." There's the piano version, the acoustic version, the instrumental version, the Slowed & Verbed version ...

What was the strategy there?

"Just keeping up with the times. In the past, you would always release a song then the next month a remix and so on and so forth," Barnett said. "Kind of with the way people consume music these days, this time we just put it all out at once so when you put 'Blind for Love' on you've got a bunch of other options to follow it up."

Interviewed by phone on Jan. 20, exactly three hours after the band released the music video for “Best Night of My Life,” the title track from their forthcoming album, Barnett said the new songs aren't pandemic inspired.

"Obviously that was a time in everyone's life where we were all affected in various ways, but no, I think this album is just really trying to focus on the real daily issues that people have, whether that's relationship issues or losing someone. We all go through changes and this album is about being able to find that light at the end of the tunnel and find the good in the world," Barnett said. "Especially in the last few years, we've seen such negative things all over, not even just pandemic-related but with everything else, but we still want to try to maintain that light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel talk."

Do people crave optimism in music?

"Yeah, I think so. I know for us it's super important, because when you listen to an American Authors' record you know you can find that," the Boston-bred, New York-based Barnett said. "From just being like. 'Oh, here's a cheesy commercial their song is in, or movie trailers, but there's a depth and it's talking about real, everyday issues and there's that juxtaposition of the positivity when you hear the hook."

Maybe the new album will spawn another surprise hit like "Best Day of My Life."

"That was pretty surprising, because when we wrote 'Best Day of My Life' we were actually pushing 'Believer' as our radio single. We were playing 'Best Day of My Life' as like the fourth song in our setlist."

But people loved the song's cheery, effervescent sound, buying, clicking on and most recently posting it to the point 'Best Day of My Life' reached six-times platinum certification on Jan. 20.

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A milestone worth celebrating for a band that's Pittsburgh bound.

"Pittsburgh's great. I'm good friends with the Grusheckys, Pittsburgh legends," Barnett said. "I love how that city is surrounded by water and you have that special part of the city that's surrounded by hillscapes, or like mountains, on each side. I think Pittsburgh is underrated."

The tour's support act is Billy Raffoul, a featured artist on American Authors' 2018 single "Say Amen."

"It will be really fun to perform that song live together with him for the first time at a proper concert," Barnett said. "We've traveled to Alaska together just to hang out with him, and he's a great performer who has such a beautiful voice and is such a good storyteller. I couldn't think of a better artist to be doing this tour with, especially after being off for a few years."

Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and easy to reach at stady@timesonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: American Authors singer talks 'Best Day' and Pittsburgh-bound tour