Taking Back Sunday have had an interesting past.  Right after they found success with their debut album, there were some severe member changes.  Years have passed, and members have come and gone, but finally the lineup that brought us Tell All Your Friends is back. I got a chance to talk to John Nolan (guitar) and Mark O’Connell (drums), and I got to see what happens behind-the-scenes.  Check it out below:

 

Tanner Fisher: Tomorrow is the last stop on the tour, so how’s it been so far?

JN:  It’s been good. We have The Maine with us and we had Bad Rabbits on tour with us until yesterday, and we’ve had a lot of fun with both bands so far.  It’s been cool getting to know them.

MO:  The guys in The Maine are all really cool guys.

JN:  Yeah, they are a lot of fun to hang out with, and everybody’s been having a good time.

MO:  It makes a tour a lot better when you can vibe with the other bands and make new friends, and we definitely did that.

TF:  Tonight, you’re playing at Ferris State University, so I was curious what the main differences between college shows and regular venue shows are.

JN:  I think at college shows, the audience seems to be a little more subdued…I don’t know if it’s because of the lack of a bar at the shows or what.  It might be the lack of people under the age of 18; younger fans tend to go a little crazier.  So yeah, that’s the main difference.

MO:  But colleges keep their facilities very clean. 

JN:  And they always take care of you, giving you a rider, setting up a nice spot for your backstage area…they take care of everything for you. 

MO:  Well they have to because the students are getting graded on it.  This is mandatory for these kids, so it’s awesome that they have to treat us awesomely, because they are getting graded on it. 

JN:  We should be taking advantage of that more.  Every show should be a college show. 

TF:  So what’s the set list like tonight? Is it mostly new stuff, older stuff, or is it a good mix?

JN:  I would say it’s a good mix of everything, really.  I’d say it’s 1/3 of new stuff, 1/3 from Tell All Your Friends, and 1/3 of everything in between.  We tried to have as much of the catalogue in the set list as possible.  We’re not focused on any one thing in particular. 

MO:  It’s good to give the fans a little bit of it all.  We didn’t want to play only these songs or only those songs…as a fan, I don’t like it when bands do that, so we tried to create a good mix.

TF:  Switching gears here a little bit, but I was curious how the original lineup reformed…how did it come about?

MO:  I talked to Adam [Lazzara, vocals] and Eddie [Reyes, guitar] saying “I really don’t want to play with these other guys anymore, and I really want to play with John and Sean [Cooper, bass].  After some convincing, they agreed.  So then I called John and I told him what I thought.  I said “Hey man, this could be really fun. I think it would be successful, and I think we could make great music together.”  After about ten minutes of talking, I asked him what he wanted to do, and he said he would do it.  That made me really excited.

TF:  Do you have anything to add to that?

JN:  Yeah, that’s how it all started.  One of the big things was talking to Adam to make sure things were all good.  I hadn’t talked to Adam for a very long time, so that was the main thing for me.  Once we got on the phone it felt good, so I got serious about joining the band again. 

TF:  So let’s talk about the Self-titled new record…was it a seamless transition getting back together and writing the album?

JN:  Yeah, the first time we got together, we spent about a week writing in this studio in El Paso, and I think we wrote 12-15 songs while we were there. 

MO:  I think we had 12 that first week. 

JN:  I mean, it’s was just music at that point; there weren’t any lyrics or vocal melody, but it all came together very quickly, and it stayed like that for a good part of it.  Once it came to developing the songs, we cut some songs, deciding which ones we wanted to work on.  It got a little more complicated then, but overall, I think the process went very well. 

TF:  Did you guys feel any pressure to write Tell All Your Friends 2.0 because of the reformed lineup?

MO:  I never felt any pressure at all when we wrote.  We didn’t want to rewrite those songs, you know what I mean?  That would be pretty corny.  That doesn’t sound like fun trying to rewrite a song we wrote ten years ago.  I think that we were just so excited and having fun.  We knew that the songs we were writing were good, so I didn’t feel any pressure.

JN:  I don’t think any of us did, to be honest.  We just wanted to do what we do.  When we wrote that album, didn’t sit down and say “we want a song that sounds like this, and go in this direction.”  We would just get together and write songs.  We wanted to do that again and we did that. 

TF:  The new record is pretty diverse…what were your main influences going into the writing process?

JN:  Well I think that everyone in the band has a pretty diverse taste in music, and when those influences come together, it doesn’t really end up sounding particularly like any of the things that are influencing us individually.  It’s interesting. 

MO:  It’s so weird how it turns out.  When someone brings in an idea, it usually gets changed dramatically.  Once everyone puts their little thing on it, it’s insane how different it is from when it began.  That’s what makes us though.  

TF:  Your video for “Faith” is interesting to say the least.  Who came up with the idea, and I don’t want to say what were you thinking, but what were you thinking?

JN:  Well the idea came from the director, Chris Marrs Piliero.  It was all is concept and his vision that we were going with.  Mark responded to it immediately, and we all felt that it was a cool idea to do something where we aren’t taking ourselves too seriously.  I think it’s a smart concept, it’s funny, and it was cool to do something different.

MO:  The video has gotten a mixed response, but I think that that video is amazing.  I mean the cat forms a drug habit, starts doing porn…you know what I mean.  When I read that, I was like “this is incredible.  I love this.”  My mom doesn’t like it at all. 

TF:  This tour’s almost over, so what’s next for the band? 

MO:  We’re actually writing for a couple of days.  Our sound guys has a studio in Fenton, Michigan. We’re going to do some writing, and take some time off.  In December, we have a couple of radio shows and in January, we are going to South America for the first time. 

TF:  Sounds exciting.  Well that’s all that I have.  Good luck tonight, and thanks for sitting down with me.