In the year 2010, the world of post-hardcore/pop-punk was treated with the most heart-warming of news, at long last seminal outfit Taking Back Sunday witnessed the return of lead guitarist John Nolan, confirming the band’s original dream lineup of 1999 once more.
The prodigal sons return ensured a bag of cracking fresh tunes that feature the game of back and forth that is vocalist Adam Lazzara and Nolan’s seamless partnership, their energy intertwined to form the best Taking Back Sunday.
The year 2011 saw the quintet produce their self-titled fifth record and embark on a global tour, topping festival bills and performing sold out shows every step along the way. With balance finally restored, things could not get any better for these five pals…or could they?
Exceeding greatness was waiting for Taking Back Sunday in 2014, as the original cast dropped their sixth studio LP Happiness Is, which was met with universal acclaim.
Championed by chanting stadium rock anthems such as ‘Flicker, Fade’ the band’s release is unquestionably their strongest, most consistent and entirely Taking Back Sunday-est record since the glory days of Tell All Your Friends (released in 2002, you feel old, now right?)
In support of this mature, ass-kicking release, the five-piece decided to tour their record a little differently, this time they would take to the road with a bunch of pals called The Used.
The coming together of the two iconic mainstays of the emo/alt rock world has seen electrified reviews in their native US but what does this matter to us? Well, Taking Back Sunday and The Used are Australia bound this July, promising to pack some heat to otherwise dreary winter.
In light of all this excitement, we had a chat to the forever humble and all-round nice dude that is the mic-swingin’ frontman, Adam Lazzara.
Once a renowned party boy of punk, Lazzara now is married man and a father of two, home is most certainly where his heart is. Taking a rest from their current tour, the softly spoken 32-year old appears fresh and appreciative to kick back in his digs of North Carolina, “I’m just trying to soak up as much of this as I can before we gotta go again.”
But that’s not to say that the national co-tour with The Used is getting the vocalist down, “the tour is going great! We’ve known them for years and we’ve crossed paths so many times but we’ve never really done a full, proper tour with one another.”
He further commented, “we did one run that was about two-weeks long in the north-west together and that’s it. We were coming up around the same time you would think we would have done more.”
“Back then we toured with Saves The Day, Jimmy Eat World and we’ve done a bunch of tours with Anberlin too!” his head clearly now deep in the past. “Since then, I feel like it has all kind of been a crazy whirlwind tornado like in The Wizard of Oz or something, you know?”
Nostalgia theming the moment, the pop-punker shared one of his fondest early touring memories, “Greenday made this documentary called ‘Bullet In A Bible’ which was filmed a show in Milton Keynes in the UK. It was two days and it was 65,000 people, sold-out” taking a deep breath, reliving this moment, he then exhaled in disbelief “yeah!”
“We opened the show and I can remember walking on stage and looking out at the crowd and it didn’t even look real, it didn’t look like it was people! It looked like someone had hung this giant backdrop that was just painted…it was the most surreal thing. That really sticks out in my mind.” This may have been the first time the band played to such a sea of fans, but it certainly would not be the last.
A shining example of the band’s universal adoration is through their back-to-back booking of Riot Festival of North America, which if you’re fan of rock, 2014’s lineup will break your heart.
“We weren’t really sure what the lineup was going to be we just said yes because they’re just really great people to work with, they really have it together and they’re funny. When they asked we just said yes and when the lineup came out we got even more excited, they are going to be great shows.” Said Lazzara.
Interestingly, Riot Fest is not the only road show the lead vocalist is stoked on, “there is this other festival we’re doing in Arizona and The Replacements are on that bill…I’m very excited for that!” This is of course Arizona’s ‘Summer Ends Music Festival’, which will feature Taking Back Sunday open for these legendary pioneers of alternative rock.
Speaking of his former self, the now starry-eyed Lazzara praised The Replacements, “I of course was a teenager when I was first introduced to them. I felt at that time Paul Westerberg really got me” he continued, unabashedly laughing, “I was like ‘man if we met, we’d be friends’ you know? Entirely thrilled, he cemented “I’m just really excited to see him play!”
Following the notion of long-standing influences, the conversation was thrown back to the hilarious film clip of the smash-hit single ‘Timberwolves At New Jersey’ to which lead guitarist John Nolan rocks a Smiths t-shirt. “John is a HUGE Smiths fan and I LOVE the way that Morrissey writes.”
“It’s actually funny because earlier on we’d be doing interviews and people would ask ‘oh, where did you get the name for the band?’ and our answer would be that it’s a Smiths B-side which isn’t true” laughing uncontrollably for a moment, he then straightened “we thought it was funny because then people would scramble looking for Smiths song called Taking Back Sunday which was maybe a little mean…but we thought it was hilarious.”
From what we had gathered so far, there are two bold influence that have saturated Taking Back Sunday’s career, but can you guess a third, more current one?
“That new Kanye West record had come out when we started recording Happiness Is, so John and I were listening to that ALL THE TIME which doesn’t really show on the record. It had just came out it was nice to have a break just totally different kind of music in our ear.” Bet you didn’t think that Yeezus would be the top spinning wax for the Happiness Is production process, did you?
Despite Lazzara’s statement that West’s presence “doesn’t really show on the record”, one may beg the differ, as Happiness Is sees the leading man pen his most straight-laced, honest lyrics of his career and maybe the arrogance of Yeezy got him there. “My thing for years was that I thought everything needed to be really cryptic so that people could draw their own conclusions from the lyrics, but then I started to realise you can still accomplish that by being very direct because everybody walks their own path.”
“I feel the more direct I am, the more specific or vulnerable I feel, the more naked I feel. It is a little more difficult to do that for me because I’m literally putting myself out there more, but I also I think that through that it could help somebody along the way.”
We may have Kanye to thank for this outward step of confidence from Lazzara, but another potential factor for the band’s change of direction may stem from the fact that Happiness Is is the band’s first record since their debut Tell All Your Friends that has not been under the watchful eyes of a major label.
“When we stated writing pretty much right up until the end of the recording process we didn’t have a label at all” shocked, right? But hey, this may have proved paramount to the record’s sound, “I think that’s something that makes this record really unique especially for us, there is just no outside influence. There’s no one looking over our shoulder, which was really a freeing thing because it was basically like ‘well, we can do whatever want so let’s DO whatever we want!’
“I think that really makes for the best Taking Back Sunday songs because at the heart of it, it’s just the five of us, there’s nobody else, and I think that’s why these songs came out the way did.”
Regardless of what one may tout as the major success of Happiness Is, Taking Back Sunday have grown from five goofball punks hailing from New York State into one of alternative rock’s modern day heroes. During their career now spanning over 15-years, neither the collective’s creative output nor relevance has waned and their live show is as raw as it is developed and professional.
Whether you still dig the band or you’re a closet fan that long chopped off that emo fringe and tossed your black make-up in the bin, this co-headlining tour with The Used is simply not to be missed. Heed the wise words of Adam Lazzara himself, “I think everybody can expect a really awesome show. Every night there has been this energy in the room that I don’t really have the words to describe.”
Itching to get back down under, he closed “I know that last time I was down there both my legs were broken so they can at least expect an actual Taking Back Sunday show.”
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