Taking Back Sunday is an American4 rock band from Amityville, Long Island, New York, formed in 1999. The current members are vocalist Adam Lazzara, guitarist and back-up vocalist Matthew Fazzi, guitarist Eddie Reyes, drummer Mark O'Connell, and bassist/backing vocals Matt Rubano.
They have released four studio albums, with their most successful being 2006's Louder Now which has sold over 600,000 copies and peaked at #2 on the United States' Billboard 200, closely followed by Where You Want to Be which peaked at #3 in 2004.5 TBS has also had twelve singles, one extended play, one live album and a compilation album. "MakeDamnSure" is their highest charting single to date, peaking at #8 on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart in 2006.
The band released their newest album, New Again, on June 2, 2009.
History
Early years
Taking Back Sunday, originally formed in 1999 with Antonio Longo on lead vocals, Jesse Lacey (now lead singer/guitarist of Brand New) on bass and backing vocals, John Nolan (now lead singer/guitarist of Straylight Run) on guitar, Eddie Reyes on guitar, and Steven DeJoseph. on drums. Their first release was the Taking Back Sunday EP. However, in the middle of recording the EP, the band went through a lineup change. Lacey left the band to play for The Rookie Lot and went on to great success with Brand New. He was replaced by Adam Lazzara, and Mark O'Connell replaced Stevie D on drums. The five-song EP was finally released in February 2001; though distributed at shows, the EP never got noteworthy success.6
By the time their first album was released, Taking Back Sunday would again go through a major lineup change. After Longo was forced to leave the band, Reyes moved Adam Lazzara to lead vocals and then recruited Shaun Cooper to play bass. The resulting lineup would remain in place for the first album, Tell All Your Friends in Spring of 2001.
Independent success
The band released their first full album Tell All Your Friends, on Victory Records in 2002. Tell All Your Friends gave the band a small taste of success in the alternative rock spotlight.
The album cover is a picture of an off-ramp, with an overlay of the album title and the numbers "152", signifying the exit where they met their friends. The number has appeared on every LP cover to date.
In 2003, Taking Back Sunday almost broke up when guitarist and back-up vocalist John Nolan and bassist Shaun Cooper left the band to form Straylight Run. The loss of John and Shaun put the already unstable band into a state of heightened tension. After the departure of John and Shaun, Taking Back Sunday gained their new back up singer and guitarist - Fred Mascherino, and bassist Matt Rubano.
The year 2004 proved to be successful for Taking Back Sunday, with the band opening Blink-182 and appearing on the Vans Warped Tour. In addition, their second album, titled Where You Want To Be, was released on July 27, 2004, on Victory Records. Although sounding slightly different from Tell All Your Friends, the new album managed to do well commercially. Propelled by the single A Decade Under The Influence, Where You Want To Be went on to debut at the #3 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart, with around 163,000 copies soldcitation needed.
Taking Back Sunday received even more mainstream exposure by appearing (on the day of Where You Want to Be s release) on late night talk shows Jimmy Kimmel Live! where Lazzara had the job of hosting Loveline, as well as contributing the song This Photograph Is Proof (I Know You Know) to the soundtrack for Spider-Man 2. They also contributed the song Your Own Disaster to the Elektra soundtrack, and Error Operator to both the Fantastic 4 soundtrack and its video game tie-in, where it served as Mr. Fantastic's theme. An instrumental version is also used as background music in the game. In 2007, the band contributed the song What's It Feel Like to Be a Ghost? to the soundtrack for Transformers, although the song did not appear in the movie. Also, the band was featured in the Tony Hawk's American Wasteland soundtrack when they covered the Descendent songs "Suburban Home" and "I Like Food" together as a medley.
Major label debut
On April 25, 2006, Taking Back Sunday released their third album, entitled Louder Now, on Warner Bros. Records. The band's comments on the album reflected the dramatic change the band had undergone in the two years since their last release. Lazzara stated that fans seemed to feel their live shows had more energy than their recordings, and that Louder Now brought more of that across. Louder Now draws its name from the opening track "Whats It Feel Like To Be A Ghost?". In fact, all of TBS's full length albums have been named after lyrics from songs featured on the album, but during a point where the titles hadn't been decided yet. Tell All Your Friends derived its name from "Cute Without The E (Cut From The Team)," And Where You Want To Be from "Set Phasers To Stun." New Again will be the first LP from Taking Back Sunday to feature a title track.
Taking Back Sunday received mainstream exposure by appearing on the late night talk shows The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien, as well as the teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation in an episode entitled What's It Feel Like To Be A Ghost?
In December 2006, the band released its first CD/DVD documentary, Louder Now: PartOne, featuring behind-the-scenes tour footage and four live concerts. Following months of touring to support Louder Now, Taking Back Sunday appeared in the American leg of Live Earth on July 7, 2007. During the summer of 2007, Taking Back Sunday was also a part of Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution tour, along with My Chemical Romance, HIM, and many other bands.
On October 30, 2007, the band's former record label, Victory Records, released Notes From The Past, which featured four songs from Tell All Your Friends, six songs from Where You Want To Be, and two B-sides: The Ballad of Sal Villanueva and Your Own Disaster ('04 mix). The band then released Louder Now: PartTwo on November 20, 2007, a DVD of unreleased live concert footage from their show at Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California, as well as special features such as the video for "Twenty-Twenty Surgery" that was made for Europe. The DVD was packaged with a companion CD featuring eight live tracks, two B-sides that were previously unreleased in America, and a special "Twelve Days of Christmas" track.
Departure of Fred Mascherino
In October 2007, the band announced that the next studio album would be missing the vocals of Fred Mascherino, who will now be focusing exclusively on his solo career. On their website, the band said:
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After four great years and two successful gold albums together, Fred has decided to leave Taking Back Sunday to pursue his solo career. We wish him well and we are working on the next Taking Back Sunday album as we speak.7
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"There were just problems between the five of us about writing, who was going to do it and how we were going to do it," Mascherino said. "We weren't being very productive because we were fighting too much about that stuff. The band was more about cooking food than making music."8
2008-present
In a blog on the band's official website, bassist Matt Rubano revealed that the band had 12 new songs written for their upcoming album. On September 10, 2008 it was announced that David Kahne will produce the album and the band is in the studio.
On May 5, 2008, Taking Back Sunday officially revealed that its new member was Matt Fazzi (who will replace Fred Mascherino on lead guitar and vocals), previously of Facing New York. The band played its first show with Matt that day at The Crazy Donkey in Farmingdale, NY. The show was a surprise event and was announced through a blog on the band's MySpace page. That show, in addition to a surprise opening spot for My Chemical Romance's show in Philadelphia the next night, gave them chances to reveal the new guitarist before playing with My Chemical Romance again at Madison Square Garden on May 9. Adam recently married his girlfriend Mischa Lazzara in June 2008.
“Matt has brought new life to Taking Back Sunday, a theme ever-present in the material we have been working on for the past few months,” says vocalist Adam Lazzara. “He continues to give us a new perspective on how we each write and listen to music, pushing both himself and us to cross new borders and venture into new territories with our music. He is the push we needed to break through some walls this time around.”9
The band's forthcoming album is set to make "breakthroughs in their sound," says bassist Matt Rubano. He goes on to say, "On this record, we challenged ourselves to write the best songs we possibly could while trying new things in an effort to push the envelope in terms of what it means to sound like Taking Back Sunday. I think this record has an honesty and an urgency that we haven't achieved before." 10
On November 6, 2008 the band announced via MySpace and Facebook that their upcoming album will be called New Again.
In a video interview featured on RollingStone.com, Matt Fazzi and Adam Lazzara revealed that four of the new tracks would be called "Winter Passing","Lonely Lonely", "Catholic Knees", and "Carpathia". They stated that "Winter Passing" was "...a slowdance like the last song at your 8th grade dance [that] moves more like an R&B tune than a rock and roll song", and that "Carpathia" will include the first bass solos in any Taking Back Sunday song. They also comment that "Catholic Knees" is ..."one of the heavier songs we've ever written", and that "Lonely Lonely" is "relentless - two and a half minutes of punching you in the face". 11 The new song "Carpathia" was made available to download for those who ordered a TBS Holiday Card Pack on December 21 and can be found on YouTube.
On December 12, 2008 at Club Oasis in Louisville, KY, Taking Back Sunday covered the Tom Petty song "You Wreck Me" which was recorded at General Recording Studios in Douglaston, NY by Producer/Engineer George Fullan, for a Warner Brothers tribute album .
The band has been confirmed to be playing at The Bamboozle festival in May and The Bamboozle Left festival in April.
In 2009, the band accused the Brazilian emo band NX Zero of stealing the chorus from MakeDamnSure to their latest single, "Daqui pra Frente". They also said they were not angry about it, but flattered.
On March 10, 2009 the band hinted on their myspace page in a blog entry "So, uh, what are you guys doing on June 2?". "New Again"
The band will be doing a full North American headlining tour this spring with Anberlin and Envy on the Coast.12
The new album, New Again, is scheduled for release on June 2, 2009.13
According to a recent statement, the first single off New Again will be "Sink Into Me". It will start radio play on April 27th. 14
The song "New Again" has been released for download on takingbacksunday.com as well as Carpathia and live Catholic Knees 7" vinyl on April 18.
On May 16th, the band uploaded "Everything Must Go" to their MySpace page. Adam stated in a recorded intro that during the listening partied they've hosted, the fans received this song the best.15
On May 21st, 2009, three songs of TBS became available as downloadable content for the Rock Band video game. The songs "What's It Feel Like to Be a Ghost?", "MakeDamnSure", and "Liar (It Takes One to Know One)" became available for $2 each, or $5.50 for the "Taking Back Sunday Pack 01" which contains all three songs. The songs are available for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 video game systems.16
The band is currently playing live with a 3rd guitarist, Isaac Bolivar (Tragedy Andy, Weslester), to promote their new album.
In the summer of 2009 the band will be playing a leg of Blink-182's tour alongside Weezer and Chester French starting on August 23rd in Toronto, Ontario and going through to September 17th in Irvine, California. On June 2, 2009 the band released the album "New Again". 2 different versions are currently available , a regular version and a deluxe version with bonus materials on DVD.
The song 'Capital M-E' off of New Again will be featured on the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen soundtrack. Lazzara stated that the song Capital M-E was written about Fred Mascherino.
Other appearances
Adam Lazzara lends his vocals on New Found Glory's album 'From Your Screen to Your Stereo Part Two' in the cover song, 'Love Fool.' Adam and former member Fred Mascherino also appear on the song 'Surgically Removing the Tracking Device' on Say Anything's 2007 album, In Defense of the Genre. Adam has also appeared on Cindy Lauper's album, The Body Acoustic, in the acoustic remake of the song 'Money Changes Everything'. Bassist Matt Rubano has been seen hosting Fuse's No. 1 Countdown.
Members
- Eddie Reyes - Guitar (1999 - Present)
- Mark O'Connell - Drums (2001 - Present)
- Adam Lazzara - Vocals (2001 - Present)
- Matt Rubano - Bass, Vocals (2002 - Present)
- Matthew Fazzi - Guitar, Vocals (2008 - Present)
Past Members
- Steven DeJoseph - Drums (1999 - 2001) (Current Member of Pretty Polly and Playing Dead)
- Jesse Lacey - Bass, Vocals (1999 - 2001) (Current Member of Brand New)
- Antonio Longo - Lead Vocals (1999 - 2001) (Currently doing solo work)
- John Nolan - Guitar, Vocals, Piano (1999 - 2002) (Current Member of Straylight Run)
- Shaun Cooper - Bass (2001 - 2002) (Current Member of Straylight Run and Destry)
- Fred Mascherino - Guitar, Vocals (2002 - 2007) (Current Member of The Color Fred)
Discography
Studio albums
References
- ^ CHARLEY ROGULEWSKI Posted May 03, 2006 4:35 PM (Posted May 03, 2006 4:35 PM). "Godsmack Beat Taking Back Sunday: Taking Back Sunday : Rolling Stone Melodic Hardcore". Rollingstone.com. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/takingbacksunday/articles/story/10224603godsmack_beat_taking_back_sunday. Retrieved on 2008-10-26.
- ^ http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/28324035/review/28565456/new_again
- ^ "Cornell News: Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday". News.cornell.edu. FOR RELEASE: March 29, 2005. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March05/Jimmy.eat.world.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-26.
- ^ [1]
- ^ "Artist Singles Chart History: Taking Back Sunday". Billboard.com. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.chartFormatGroupName=Albums&model.vnuArtistId=481346&model.vnuAlbumId=1090709. Retrieved on 2008-06-30.
- ^ Courtesy of Warner Bros. Records. "Taking Back Sunday | Music Artist | Videos, News, Photos & Ringtones | MTV". Mtv.com. http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/taking_back_sunday/artist.jhtml#bio. Retrieved on 2008-10-26.
- ^ MySpace Bulletin, October 4, 2007
- ^ Gamboa, Glenn (October 10, 2007). "Direction Made, Taking Back Sunday Guitarist Leave". Newsday.
- ^ "new news, old news, better than no news". SPIN Magazine. TBSUnion.com. 29 Oct 2008. http://www.tbsunion.com/index.php?subaction=showcomments&id=1225318620&archive=&start_from=&ucat=&. Retrieved on 4 December 2008.
- ^ "Taking Back Sunday Decide On What Not to Name New Album - News Article - AbsolutePunk.net". Absolutepunk.net. http://absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=525701. Retrieved on 2008-10-26.
- ^ http://www.rollingstone.com/videos/player/24160279
- ^ http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=2581650&blogId=475870155
- ^ www.takingbacksunday.com
- ^ http://absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=966482
- ^ http://www.myspace.com/takingbacksunday
- ^ http://www.rockband.com/music
External links
![Clip punk rock music video BlankTV Video](/viewVideo.html?title=Taking Back Sunday - "This Photograph Is Proof"&videoType=YouTube&summary=punk rock music video BlankTV&link=http://www.youtube.com/v/7KgoDQf0_4c&fs=1&hl=en&source=uds&autoplay=1&thumb=http://3.gvt0.com/vi/7KgoDQf0_4c/default.jpg&celebrity=Taking Back Sunday)
![Clip pop punk rock music video BlankTV Video](/viewVideo.html?title=Taking Back Sunday - "A Decade Under the Influence"&videoType=YouTube&summary=pop punk rock music video BlankTV&link=http://www.youtube.com/v/8_bfGMAGMx8&fs=1&hl=en&source=uds&autoplay=1&thumb=http://3.gvt0.com/vi/8_bfGMAGMx8/default.jpg&celebrity=Taking Back Sunday)
&videoType=YouTube&summary=cartoon video&link=http://www.youtube.com/v/jkNlMDMMmIY&fs=1&hl=en&source=uds&autoplay=1&thumb=http://2.gvt0.com/vi/jkNlMDMMmIY/default.jpg&celebrity=Taking Back Sunday)
&link=http://www.youtube.com/v/qi0R5tanrAk&fs=1&hl=en&source=uds&autoplay=1&thumb=http://1.gvt0.com/vi/qi0R5tanrAk/default.jpg&celebrity=Taking Back Sunday)
, at the 97X Next Big Thing, December 5, 2004, in ...&link=http://www.youtube.com/v/NSRw31c6Hpg&fs=1&hl=en&source=uds&autoplay=1&thumb=http://0.gvt0.com/vi/NSRw31c6Hpg/default.jpg&celebrity=Taking Back Sunday)
