For the first time in seven years, Shaun Cooper and John Nolan shared the stage with the rest of the Tell All Your Friends-era Taking Back Sunday crew, and neither one of them looked out of place.
Taking Back Sunday’s Adam Lazzara credits a “crazy idea” from drummer Mark O’Connell with bringing about a reunion of the group’s original recording lineup for the first time in seven years.
Speculation is building that Taking Back Sunday may be returning to the lineup with which its 2002 debut Tell All Your Friends was recorded.
Taking Back Sunday gave its fourth LP a fitting title: New Again. For frontman Adam Lazarra, the addition of guitarist Matt Fazzi last spring has given the five-piece a wildly fresh perspective. Bassist Matt Rubano agrees that the band is embracing a new genre with its new release. “The idea that we’ve really embraced on this record is that it’s up to us to decide what Taking Back Sunday sounds like,” bassist Matt Rubano said. “We always want to be redefining what that means, and there’s stuff on this record I think in the past we would have stayed away… Read more »
Despite frequent lineup changes, there is one common thread between each Taking Back Sunday song. “If at the end we’re all red-faced and sweaty,” bassist Matt Rubino says, describing the band’s energetic live shows, “then you know it’s a Taking Back Sunday song.” The group’s aptly titled album New Again, due June 2 from Warner Bros, heralds a move toward a more grown-up modern-rock sound, with catchier choruses and beefier guitars. Guitarist Matthew Fazzi replaces Fred Mascherino. Producer David Kahne says his goal was to capture the “power and scope” of the band’s live show and to “make sure all… Read more »
For Taking Back Sunday, New Again is more than an album title, it’s a declaration. “We kicked around a bunch of different titles, but that one always remained the top of the list, and that’s because it really does feel like a new band,” vocalist Adam Lazzara said. Taking Back Sunday is not turning their collective back on what is already a storied past. The rejuvenated group is looking clearly to the here and now. “Leading up to this record we took the biggest break that we’ve taken since we started touring just to kind of learn how to be… Read more »
Taking Back Sunday drummer Mark O’Connell still isn’t exactly sure what went wrong. After a show in Phoenix in August, he simply stopped being able to walk.“I got off the bus and it just hit me and I fell to the ground,” O’Connell said. “The guys were like, ‘What are you doing? That’s not funny.’ And I was like, ‘I can’t move.’ They kept saying, ‘Get up, you’re fine’ and they got me into the hotel lobby and I sat on the couch. … I crawled on the floor through the lobby and onto the elevator to my room. I… Read more »
Reed Richards – a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic, frontman for the Marvel Comics supergroup the Fantastic Four – was the son of a wealthy physicist and grew up to become an aeronautical engineer, the captain of a starship and, um, elastic, thanks to cosmic rays. Things were a little different for Taking Back Sunday frontman Adam Lazzara. He grew up in North Carolina. But when Activision, the makers of the upcoming “Fantastic Four” video game (based on the surefire summer blockbuster of the same name), came calling with an offer to feature a new TBS song in the game, there was no… Read more »
In a team-up worthy of the Wonder Twins, two of emo-punk’s biggest acts – Jimmy Eat World and Taking Back Sunday – have announced plans to launch a North American tour on April 10 in Champaign, Illinois. “I remember in high school, the true measure of your ‘scene points’ was having Jimmy Eat World’s first album,” Taking Back Sunday frontman Adam Lazzara said. “A lot of the stuff we do, they wrote the script for. When I first heard “Goodbye Sky Harbor” [from 1999’s Clarity ], I was floored, and I’ve been trying to produce something like that ever since.… Read more »
SAYREVILLE, New Jersey – This small Jersey ‘burb is pretty far removed from Banda Aceh or Phuket (and even though it’s Jon Bon Jovi’s hometown, it’s pretty far removed from Manhattan, too). But on Wednesday night, Sayreville played host to the first in a series of benefit shows dubbed the Concerts for Tsunami Relief. It was a big show for an even bigger cause. The concert – co-sponsored by Linkin Park’s Music for Relief charity and New York radio giant K-Rock – was held at the Starland Ballroom, a very un-ballroom-like venue just off of Sayreville’s winding Jernee Mill Road,… Read more »
