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Alternative rock band All American Rejects performs Saturday night at Musikfest.

(Courtesy Photo )

Nick Wheeler is enjoying his downtime.

The All-American Rejects guitarist says it has been a nice change of pace, with the band members spending the past year and a half catching their collective breath and cherry-picking where and when the band will perform.

Saturday night that list of select stops takes them to Musikfest in Bethlehem. "I've never been to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, but I'm excited to see what happens," Wheeler says during a Wednesday phone interview. "We're seeing some of the places we've never seen before. Honestly, these are the most fun. ... Touring is great but we're all in our 30s now and feel like we're in our 50s."

He laughs. "We're kind of tired of sleeping on the bus."

Wheeler says their current set list is more evenly representative of their studio efforts, their most recent and fourth overall being 2012's "Kids in the Street." "'Kids in the Street' has been out for a while, so we're kind of starting to make it a little more of an even mixture of old stuff from five years ago and newer stuff," Wheeler says. "We'll play everything they wanna hear."

Wheeler says the band plans on entering the studio in the fall to record the followup to "Kids in the Street." However, he says the quintet will likely take a different, more "in-the-moment" approach to writing and recording the next album.

"(Singer-bassist) Tyson (Ritter) and I have been talking about it," Wheeler says. "We're excited to do this record differently. Be more spontaneous and have more fun."

Wheeler says he doesn't listen to contemporary music to inform what the new album could sound like. Wheeler says he would like the songs to be fresh and not made up of songs that were re-recorded or re-worked from months earlier. "I'm excited about having a fresh idea and going into the studio that week and turning it into something. Make it a process of days instead of months."

He adds, "You hear all these romantic stories about jam sessions (in the studio) that turned into something, capture the moment. ... I think we're excited to take one of those moments, if we can, and be in the moment."

The All-American Rejects released their self-titled debut album in 2002 (which was rereleased commercially in 2003). Their followup, "Move Along," went double-platinum on the strength of the singles "Dirty Little Secret," "It Ends Tonight" and the title track.

The band released their third studio album, "When the World Comes Down," in 2008.

"We've been really blessed the last couple of years," Wheeler says. "We've gotten to do a lot of fun shows, things we normally wouldn't get to do because we were such road dogs.

"There are still places I would love to see."

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ON STAGE

Who: All-American Rejects

When: 7 p.m. Saturday

Where: Sands Steel Stage, Musikfest, Bethlehem

Tickets: $39, $29

Info.: 610-332-3378, musikfest.org