Aly & AJ began touring together in 2005 — and 20 years later, they’re bringing the next generation out on the road with them.
“I’m excited to see how touring will be with a kid,” Aly Michalka — who welcomed her first child, son Jack, with her husband, Stephen Ringer, in April 2024 — reveals exclusively in the sister duo’s Backstage Pass feature in the latest issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now. “I think it’ll be really fun. It’ll be cool to do this and have a kid tagging along being raised by the rest of the band and the crew. I think that’s really magical.”
AJ Michalka, the other half of Aly & AJ, has considered Jack part of the band for a long time now.
“Aly found out she was pregnant with him the night we played the Greek [Theatre in L.A.],” AJ, 34, told Us of sister Aly, 36. “There’s this throughline that he’s been with our band for a while and being an aunt is truly the best. I always joke, it’s literally the best role I’ve ever booked. It’s so fun.”
She continued: “[He’s] brought us not only closer as sisters, but also brought us to a state of embracing this childlike wonder that maybe we lost a few years ago that we had when we first started making music.”
The duo got their start on the Disney Channel circuit in the early aughts, climbing the charts with hits featured in various TV shows and films on the network, including their own Disney Channel Original Movie, Cow Belles. Since their 2005 debut, Into the Rush, Aly & AJ have released six studio albums, including their latest, Silver Deliverer, which dropped on Friday, May, 2.
“We spent the last year and a half just really in this beautiful creative space,” Aly told Us. “This album for us is really about embracing our femininity and the changes that come with getting older, especially as female artists in this industry. We’ve been doing this now for 20 years, and during the making of this record, I was pregnant with my son and ended up actually giving birth the first week that we went into production.”
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Now that the album is out in the world, the sisters are itching to play it live.
“[We’re] excited to get these songs out on the road and play them live for people because I think they’re meant to be seen in a live space,” Aly said. “That’s really what we wrote this album for was knowing that there was going to be a tour and that these songs would be so heavily featured in the set.”
Keep scrolling to go backstage with Aly & AJ before they hit the road — with baby Jack in tow — later this year:
What’s on your rider?
AJ: We try to change our rider a little bit every tour. For the most part, it’s kind of always the same. I kind of feel like we actually do need a whole new makeover on it for 2025. But in general, what I go to preshow is tea. For me, it’s very important to drink Throat Coat. I’m not a huge fan of the taste, but that is one specific thing that really helps me in terms of coating my vocals and feeling comfortable about warming up and getting on stage.
Aly: Electrolytes, that’s a big one, just so that we’re keeping our energy and hydration up. You sweat everything out during the show. We now have some kid stuff that’s going to be on the rider, which is funny, like, peanut butter and apples and yogurt for the little dude.
AJ: Which is kind of stuff we already had on there.
Aly: It is. In a way, it’s not a huge shift. We always had peanut butter and apples.
What is your preshow ritual?
Aly: We do a lot of going out and eating outside of the venue before a show. We’re actually kind of known to cut it a little close to showtime where we will literally go out and have a fine dining steak experience and then we’ll come back and be needed on stage in, like, 15 minutes.
AJ: And we’re high and low about it. We’ve got our favorite restaurants on tour that we love to hit. Some are nice, some are just a hole in the wall and it’s places that we feel really comfortable with. We know the staff, I’m going to trust what I eat here, I’m going to enjoy my meal. And it keeps a normalcy to a schedule that’s already so bizarre by being, like, “I’m going to go out and hang out with people and order a nice meal and then hop on stage.” It is a fun thing Aly and I have now made part of our night routine.
What about right before the show?
Aly: We have a special sister handshake that we’ve been doing, I’m not even kidding, for 20 years and we have never played a show without doing it. It’s probably the one superstitious thing that we do. And then we always have a little band huddle and special handshake with them and then it’s showtime. Before that we’ve already done our vocal warmups for 15 minutes, we’ve done our soundcheck at that point — it’s very efficient, but it works for us.
AJ: [The handshake] used to be so incredibly long that over the years Aly and I have had to pare it down because we’re like, “This is not sustainable every night to just do this entire handshake for five minutes.” So now we have an abridged version of it. And then, for me, it’s really important just to have a moment before I hit the stage to pray over the audience and the venue that we have a really great show.
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Do you have a favorite song to play live?
Aly: From the past, my favorite song to play live is maybe “Don’t Need Nothing.” I just love that song so much, and it’s kind of a mantra for our fans and for us. I really enjoy playing that song. But I think from the new set, which includes the new album, I’m really loving playing “Places to Run.” That is one of my favorites. And some of the band members are also really enjoying playing that too. That song just goes off really well live.
AJ: There’s so many different chapters of our music that I could pull a song from every single era. For me, in terms of A Touch of the Beat [Gets You Up on Your Feet Gets You Out and Then Into the Sun], I would have to say “Pretty Places.” From With Love From, I would have to say “Blue Dress,” and then from the upcoming album, I would say the song “Lasso” is really fun to play live.
Is there a song that the crowd always freaks out over at your shows?
AJ: I would say that’s typically “Potential Breakup Song.” Over the years, we’ve started it in different ways, but the fans always catch on very quickly when they hear the chord progression. I love that Aly kind of starts it on her own. That’s usually the moment where no matter what, we’re going to get a reaction. I also feel like “Rush” usually pulls a reaction really fast. And now some of the newer stuff, like “Pretty Places” and “Don’t Need Nothing,” you see people in the crowd chanting these choruses and they obviously feel connected to the lyrics, and they’re not even songs that became massive singles.
What has been your craziest tour experience?
Aly: We’ve been late to shows where we almost missed our show because we were caught in a blizzard. And we’ve also almost missed a show because of active lightning that was coming down, which is crazy. We almost missed the Austin show this past year and then the year before, both because of crazy lightning storms.
AJ: Two years in a row and it was both Austin.
Aly: We got cleared for the show, but they had to strike all of our instruments that AJ and I were playing because they were going to get rained on. So the band behind us was covered and we just played the show, and it was actually one of my favorite shows we’ve played. It was such a fun experience. Everybody got soaked. I mean, people were drenched. I was shocked that people even stayed and they didn’t just say, “Peace out, I’m out of here.” They were like, “This happens in Austin. It doesn’t matter. We’re here.”
AJ: It was absolutely hilarious. We actually did love that night. Quite a few years ago, Aly and I played this corporate gig for Girl Scouts. It was their main headquarters and it was outside and it was all Girl Scout kids. All the girls were dressed up, they were all little and they were all with their moms. It was so cute. Aly and I were like, “I feel like we’re playing to the crowd we played to when we were children,” and now we’re adults and we’re playing to little Girl Scouts who have no idea what this music even is. Yet here we are with all these kids on this lawn. There was something so sweet and natural about it.
Aly: It was very wholesome.
AJ: We really enjoyed it. It was so wholesome and sweet. Anytime there was a swear word or whatever, we bleeped it out. We definitely took home cookies.
