Over two decades, Taking Back Sunday have cultivated a massive, dedicated fanbase built around music that reverberates with sincerity, desire, and connection.
Having sprung from the infamous New York tri-state area emo scene of the late ‘90s/early ‘00s that birthed many of the genre's most beloved bands, the Long Island natives have grown to become an undeniable powerhouse.
Across seven studio albums, they’ve brought peerless songcraft and pop sensibilities to punk’s rigid conformity, expanding the genre’s contours and exploring the edge of their own limitations with each release.
In the process, they’ve written some of the most instantly recognisable hits in modern rock, including genre standards Cute Without The E (Cut From The Team), Make Damn Sure, Liar (It Takes One To Know One), and A Decade Under The Influence.
On their eighth studio album, 152 Taking Back Sunday are back to doing what they do best, channelling emotional intensity and artistry into ten perfectly crafted rock anthems. Named after the section of road in North Carolina between Highpoint, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh where the band and their friends would meet up as teenagers, 152 blends together elements both old and new, breathing new life into the lungs of these elder emo statesmen.
Set to arrive on Friday 27 October into a world where everything emo is new again,
152 is Taking Back Sunday channelled through the prism of eight years of life experienced between 2016’s Tidal Wave and now.
Ahead of the album’s release and the band’s return to Australia for the Good Things Festival and associated sideshows, we caught up with vocalist Adam Lazzara for a brief but enlightening discussion about nostalgia, renewal and why eclecticism at a music festival is a very Good Thing.
Talking 152 & Feeling Renewed With Adam Lazzara of Taking Back Sunday
Adam, Taking Back Sunday are about to drop your eighth studio album 152, at this stage of your career what motivates you to write a new full-length, and how do you know you’ve written the songs to be worthy of doing so?
“Good question. For us, across the board, we never want to be standing in still water. You know? The temptation to take the easy road, is always great, but we figure, why? If you're out of things to say, or you’re completely content with your sound, then whatever, you can just keep playing your old stuff, that’s valid, but none of us are content with doing that.”
“We're humans, we’re always growing, we’re always learning, and as we grow and as we learn, we become different people or at least a better version of the same people, and it just so happens that each version has had a lot to say. So I'm grateful. But I think that's kind of the main thing. Also, we don't know how to do anything else. We're not qualified. So there's that too!”
You’re all definitely qualified to be career musicians now though, which is probably a relieving thing. because it means you can continue living life much the same way as you did as a teenager.
“It’s like you’re chasing that feeling constantly. That Peter Pan syndrome constantly. I like to think over the years though, that I’ve gotten a little bit past the teenage years. Just a little though. Not quite as far as I would like, but everything is moving forward. So that’s good.”
Okay, so at this point in your life, you're a young adult, which is nice to know. So young adult, Adam, what inspired these songs that you've put together for this record? Is there something lyrically that was driving you or was it more a melodic direction you decided to take and lyrics slotted in afterwards?
“Most times, I’ll have something that I’ve written out or something that I originally intended to use for something else, and I’ll try and put it into anything that I can. But this time around, I wanted to not do that, I wanted to listen to whatever part of the idea that we were working on and respond to it and see where that would take me.”
“This might venture into real hippie-sounding territory, but oftentimes, there is a guide inside of you, but it is hard to hear, often, so in moments like that, that’s when I can really hear that voice. We might be working on a basic riff or a part, I’ll sit back and take it in and see how my body responds there, and a lot on this record was created that way. A really great example is the last song (on 152) The Stranger, that whole song is the demo vocals. We went back and tried to re-track them but I couldn’t get that same feeling. I liked not only what I was saying, but how the melody was moving and the performance, it felt like it was whole, already.”
“So basically, what I'm saying is that I wanted the reaction to be instinctual. And I wanted to let my subconscious drive because that's where the good shit is. And I feel like with like a pandemic, and just how busy life got out of nowhere, like this whole thing. There was a lot that needed to be suppressed just to function and take it all in. And so that part that was suppressed, that was my way I feel of getting back in touch with that guy that lives inside.”
Given that you have been kicking around in this band, for as long as you have, have you found the nostalgia wave that's come for your generation of bands to be at all surprising? Has it been fun, being able to be back in the spotlight again with all of your friends?
“I don’t know about back in the spotlight, because we never went anywhere, all this time, but I do think that the current nostalgia wave is good to a point. It’s been amazing to be able to play with and run into friends that we hadn’t seen for a long time because they had stopped touring or whatever. That part of it is amazing for us, being able to have more people just kind of being present with you is also amazing.”
“I really think that with the shows or oftentimes even if you're just sitting with a friend listening to a record, there's something that happens and it can become this transcendent experience if you're willing to let yourself get lost in it. so for people that maybe had stopped following us and have now come back into the fold, for them to be able to experience that again, that makes me happy because I think that's something that everyone could benefit from.”
“I don't like spending too much time in the past though. Because, you know, I’m not the same person that I was then. And I like this guy better. So I'll hang out with him more if that makes sense?”
You're headed out to Australia for the Good Things Festival with a bunch of very interestingly selected acts. Did you expect to be taking the stage at a festival with both Limp Biscuit and DEVO?
“No! But how sick is that! Sepultura is playing also! Sepultura, DEVO, Taking Back Sunday, sick!”
Have you started thinking about what acts you might like to see throughout the run? It is such an eclectic group of acts!
“It seems to be that‘s what a lot of people's music tastes have become. With streaming and the internet, if there is anything great that has come out of it, it’s that it has taken down a lot of the walls that were built around genres. People used to say ‘I only listen to punk rock’ or ‘I only listen to hip-hop’ and now it seems that people listening to a really eclectic batch of music, and that’s awesome because there is magic in all of it.”
“I think that's what makes the festival cool too, is that either there's something for everyone if you're still in the camp of like, lions and wolves. Or, there's just, there's something for you. Because you have this, this entire spectrum. It's much more fun than going to a festival where everything's kind of in the same orbit. Coz after a while. I mean, you know, let's say you're there for 10 hours, right? So after like three hours, you're gonna be like, ‘Oh, this shit again? But this festival isn’t like that, and I think that's pretty cool.”
It is cool. The world of streaming has definitely unlocked people's brains a little bit. And I think all that time we spent stuck inside did that as well. There was a lot of time to explore artist catalogues and take detours into unfamiliar sub-genres, and people were looking for any dopamine hit they could find and they often found it in unfamiliar sounds. I think that's an underrated element of being forced to stop for a bit, is that you had a chance to actually consider your reality. Did you experience that yourself?
“Hey, yes. Sign me up. Man! That was really well said. That very much happened to us. Both within the band and personally, because, you know, we wouldn't have taken a break like that on our own. No way. But turns out a little bit of a silver lining, like we really needed that, we needed it for both ourselves, personally and our relationships, so the band could evolve from what it had been. It was time for it to evolve, and that I think, was one of the good things out of that experience. I agree with you 100%”
Outside of music, what's something that you consider yourself to be a Maniac for what can't you get enough of?
“Art! Whether it is painting, drawing, street art, the whole culture. I love it.”
Taking Back Sunday are renowned in the scene for your triple vocal attack and your utilisation of vocal harmonies is really crucial to your sound. Who are your primary influences vocally?
“That’s a big question. One of the things that works for our band very well is that we all have very different tastes in music. It’s the combination of all those tastes that help make what our band is. So with that for me, without a fucking doubt, it’s Whitney Houston. She was the best, no one can hold a candle to that lady. So for me, Whitney Houston, Hot Water Music, At The Drive-In, Tom Petty, Lifetime and Nirvana have really informed my experience. If we’re speaking straight up vocally though, it’s Whitney Houston, easily.”
152 is out on Friday via Fantasy Records.
1. Amphetamine Smiles
2. S'old
3. The One
4. Keep Going
5. I Am the Only One Who Knows You
6. Quit Trying
7. Lightbringer
8. New Music Friday
9. Juice 2 Me
10. The Stranger
Fall Out Boy, Limp Bizkit and DEVO lead the lineup for the 2023 edition of the Good Things Festival. These three iconic acts will be joined by heavyweights I Prevail, Bullet For My Valentine and Corey Taylor on an eclectic bill that is packed with some of the best acts the world has to offer.
Included amongst them are punk legends Pennywise, UK progressives Enter Shikari, Polish black metal deities Behemoth, Brazilian metal royalty Sepultura, Long Island screamo icons Taking Back Sunday and alt-pop/rock sensation PVRIS. A healthy dose of Aussie superstars are also set to perform. Leading the local charge will be indie-rockers Slowly Slowly and '90s alt-rock gems Spiderbait. '90s triple j faves Jebediah, Frenzal Rhomb and Eskimo Joe will also have prominent places on a lineup that will pack quite the punch when the festival hits Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in early December.
Taking Back Sunday will play three headlining sideshows while in Australia for Good Things Festival. Tickets for all three shows are available via Destroy All Lines.
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