In the face of tragedy, a band of three brothers chose to keep creating, writing, and performing. It's all thanks to the fans, says AJR. The trio made a commitment to them years ago as the band and their fans grew up together. Our Will Gans got a chance to sit down with the brothers to talk about their latest album, The Maybe Man, which dropped earlier this month.

Guys, thank you so much for being here. Congratulations. Talk to me about, first of all, the title, Who is The Maybe Man?

Yeah, so it's basically the character we created for this album. And the idea behind the album was... I think we came to this realization that I didn't know exactly who I was. And I'm realizing, Okay, wait, hold on. I don't know, at the end of the day, what my real personality is if I'm a different person with everyone. And it was such a scary, big thought. And we said, Wait, this is the perfect concept for an album.

I mean, it's a very adult concept, right? I think, fittingly, your fans have watched you guys grow up. This is your fifth album. How did you approach this album differently knowing that there is a lot of adult themes here in ways that maybe your fans haven't seen yet?

Yeah, I think when you're in your teens or early 20s, you feel like, The world is this big. I could be this many things. Now I'm about to be 30. And it's like, Oh, this is probably what I am now. And your horizon's closed. It's a little sad, but it's also a little beautiful and gratifying. Like, Oh, those things don't matter anymore. These are the things that matter. And I think this is one of the first albums where I feel like, Oh, this is our sound. This is our direction, lyrically and musically. This is what we're meant to be.

What would you say the thesis statement is of this album, Adam, if you had to describe it in a sentence or two.

What does it really mean to be human? And what does it mean to live in this world amongst a lot of other people who are trying to figure out the same thing.

Yeah, well said.

Just to add on to that, I think thesis is an interesting word to use because we start the album saying, Who am I? Who am I? And then by the end of the album, I'm the person that's basically going to be everyone so you can be yourself. The line is like, You can be you and I'll be the rest. Yeah, maybe that's who I am.

I want to talk to you guys about God is Really Real. I mean, that is a song that must not have been easy to write. And then the day that the song comes out, your father passes away. Why lean into the vulnerability? Why share it instead of doing what a lot of us might do, which would be to hide in order to heal?

It's the sad but amazing part, but job of being a songwriter. It's just what... We've committed to this job and we love it so much and it's actually what we were meant to do. But in the process, it's an impossible situation. God is really real. Of course, our father got really sick and the song was written only a couple of days later before we even knew what he was sick with. But we knew something was really wrong and that was the hardest thing we've ever had to do. And that it wasn't fun, but at the end of the day, it's probably our favorite thing we've ever written and we're going to have that forever and be able to remember him through it.

Yeah. And the amazing thing is that your fans seem to want to honor his legacy alongside you all. They've said he's the unofficial fourth member of the band. What does that support mean to you?

It means everything. He was actually our biggest fan, but in just such a cooler way than other dads I know, he told us when songs were good and when they weren't good.

After the show, people would line up to do a meet and greet with him. There were 200 people along, so he'd take photos with everyone and talk to each person for 10 minutes. And it was just like, There's really only a handful of people that special, I think, that I've never known. And he was just a really great guy. And that's really sweet that the fans recognize that.

Yeah. As we look forward to Tooth and all of that, what is the next chapter look like for you?

So going on tour for us is always the end-all, be-all. They're writing the music, but especially with this album, they're writing it with an eye towards what is it going to look like on stage? And we start out street performing in the parks in New York, and we went from there to playing for two people in tiny clubs to 10 to 50 to a few hundred to a few thousand. And now finally we're embarking on our first arena tour. And that feels like such an accomplishment and a win.

For us. Can we talk about Broadway? Sure. Let's talk about Broadway. This is a different venture that is also coming down the pipeline for you. What can you tell us?

Sure, yes. So the story was a big Broadway producer approached us and he said, Your guys' music is really theatrical and musical. Have you ever thought about doing Broadway? Always been a big dream of ours. So we said, Oh, my God. And then he said, Do you have any ideas? And we said, We were a big fan of the Harold and the Purple crayon books when we were young, and we had this idea where we reimagined him into an adult that's going through real-life problems. And he said, That sounds awesome. Sounds very you guys. And now we're in the process of writing it and writing the music, and.

That's that. The Maybe Man, when folks listen to this album, what do you hope they take away from The Maybe Man?

I think we just keep getting more and more personal with our albums, and that happens to just be really addictive. I hope that if one of our fans goes through what we went through with our dad, they can listen to God is really well and go, Oh, wow.

I'm not alone. I think a big thing in our music is to make people, I guess, going off okay with saying these problems out loud as well. I think we focus on mental health a lot, and that's been the most gratifying thing ever in terms of making music is to get people to get better and heal and feel better about the stuff that's going on in.

Their lives. I think the battle often when folks are addressing their own mental health is that we don't have the language for how we're feeling. And then you hear it in a song and you can say, That's what I've been feeling and I never had the words for it or I've never verbalized it before.

And that's one of the things that people connect over. We've had fans that have met online and connected through our music years ago, and now they're married. So the fact that they can find things in the music that makes them feel a certain way and create the sense of community that you wouldn't get otherwise, that's such a gratifying feeling for us that we can just contribute one tiny little ingredient to that recipe.

Amazing. And it's good to know that maybe in order to stop being so single, I should just start hopping into the AJR fan groups.

It's very welcoming. All right, perfect.

Congratulations and thank you so much, you guys, for opening up in the ways that you have. And I think on top of it being new music and that being exciting and fun, there's also a lot of help that people are going to find when they hear your music.

We hope so. Thank you. Thanks.

Will Gantz, always exciting, fun, and helpful. Our thanks to Will for that.

Hi, everyone. George Stephanopoulos here. Thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel. If you'd like to get more videos, show highlights and watch live event coverage, click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel. And don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts. Thanks for watching.