Taking Back Sunday Come Full Circle in Grand Rapids
Taking Back Sunday have gone through a lot of changes over the years. Members have come and gone, albums have become more ambitious and the remaining roster have matured as time went on. That maturity has not been more evident than in the return of guitarist John Nolan and bassist Shaun Cooper, part of the beloved Tell All Your Friends lineup. Nolan and lead vocalist Adam Lazzara sat down with me before their show at the Orbit Room Thursday night to talk about the evolution of Taking Back Sunday and how going back brought them forward.
Nolan and Cooper departed from Taking Back Sunday in 2003 due to tensions within the band, a year after the release of Tell All Your Friends. They were replaced by guitarist and co-vocalist Fred Mascherino and bassist Matt Rubano, who saw continued success over the years. However, things were turning sour again and drummer Mark O'Connell decided that it was a time for a reunion with his old bandmates.
Said Lazzara: "Things weren't going too well within the band and.....everybody was pulling in different directions, so Mark figured, 'Man, let's have fun again,' and so John and I started talking on the phone and the rest is history; here we are."
Many people look into the past and think how they could have done things differently. Nolan believes that the course Taking Back Sunday took only benefited the group.
"There's a lot of things that I think everybody would have liked to have done differently, but unless things happened exactly the way that they did, we wouldn't all be together right now doing what we're doing," said Nolan. "This was the only way for things to work out the way they did and we're all very happy with how it worked out."
Watch the interview in its entirety below. Nolan even discusses the future of Straylight Run, the former band that he and Cooper formed after leaving TBS the first time, and compared it to a scene in the movie Inception.
If you missed last night's show, you did yourself a disservice. I found out last night that I still love Taking Back as much as I did when I was 19. Hell, the band even covered Straylight Run's "Existentialism On Prom Night"
Taking Back Sunday released their self-titled album last month via Warner Bros. It was produced by Eric Valentine, who worked with TBS on their 2007 album Louder Now.