Taking Back Sunday

Taking Back Sunday is an American rock band from Long Island, New York. The band was formed by guitarist Eddie Reyes and bassist Jesse Lacey in 1999. The band's members currently are Adam Lazzara (lead vocals), John Nolan (lead guitar, keyboards, vocals), Shaun Cooper (bass guitar) and Mark O'Connell (drums), accompanied by Nathan Cogan (guitar) for their live performances. The band's former members include Lacey, Reyes, bass guitarist Matthew Rubano, and guitarist and vocalist Fred Mascherino.

Lacey quit Taking Back Sunday in 1999 and formed the critically acclaimed rock band Brand New in 2000, with whom Taking Back Sunday would become embroiled in a highly publicized feud. Lazzara replaced original vocalist Antonio Longo prior to the release of the band's 2002 debut album '' Tell All Your Friends.'' Nolan and Cooper left the band in 2003 to form Straylight Run before returning in 2010. The band's breakthrough album, 2006's ''Louder Now'', featured the popular lead single " MakeDamnSure", sold over 900,000 copies, and peaked at No. 2 on the United States ''Billboard'' 200, surpassing the band's previous Billboard 200 peak in 2004 at No. 3 with '' Where You Want to Be''.

They released their seventh album ''Tidal Wave'' in 2016, Reyes left the band in 2018.

History

Early years (1999–2002)

Guitarist Eddie Reyes, who had played in The Movielife, Mind Over Matter and Inside, and guitarist Jesse Lacey of the Rookie Lot founded Taking Back Sunday in Amityville, New York in November 1999. Lacey moved to bass with the addition of guitarist John Nolan. The group also included vocalist Antonio Longo of One True Thing and drummer Steven DeJoseph. At a party, Nolan reportedly romanced Lacey's girlfriend, after which Lacey left the band. Lacey formed Brand New a year later. Nolan contacted Adam Lazzara to fill in on bass, which resulted in Lazzara moving from North Carolina to New York. Lazzara had met the band when they played a show near his hometown in North Carolina.

DeJoseph was unable to tour extensively because of personal issues and was waiting until the band had another drummer before leaving the group.Manley 2011, p. 90 Mark O'Connell, a friend of Reyes, heard about the opening and joined the group. After recording Taking Back Sunday's self-titled EP, Longo left the band and eventually played with The Prizefighter and the Mirror. In December 2000, Lazzara switched from bass to lead vocals. He never thought he would become the group's singer: "I remember getting into eyes' Windstar with that Pand just driving around singing those songs, just to make myself actually do it." O'Connell suggested that the group needed a bassist, and brought in Shaun Cooper. Lazzara spoke of his initial thoughts on Cooper's talent in an interview with AP magazine, saying with Cooper it was "the best bass playing I’d ever seen in my life. I was like, "Oh my God, people can do that?'" In February 2001, Taking Back Sunday released a five-track demo before touring for a year.

While performing as an unsigned band, they received contract offers from labels that ultimately amounted to nothing. These included Triple Crown Records, who was apprehensive as they had just signed Brand New, and Drive-Thru Records' offer resulted from co-owner Richard Reines having mistaken Nolan for Lacey. Eventually, a friend of the band shared a demo with Victory Records sales and A&R representative Angel Juarbe. Jurabe then sent a copy to Victory founder Tony Brummel, who asked to see a live performance. Within two weeks of seeing them live, a contract was written up, and the band signed to Victory in December 2001.Manley 2011, p. 92

Victory Records era: ''Tell All Your Friends'' and ''Where You Want to Be'' (2002–2005)

Although other labels expressed interest in Taking Back Sunday, Victory Records encouraged them to make an album. The band's debut effort was recorded over a period of two weeks in December 2001 at Big Blue Meenie Recording Studio in New Jersey with producer Sal Villanueva. Lazzara fell ill around Christmas, and the sessions were delayed one to two weeks; recording concluded in early January 2002, and ended up costing $10,000. The debut album's name was revealed in February to be '' Tell All Your Friends''; prior to the release of their debut, a music video for "Great Romances of the 20th Century" was released on March 4, 2002. It was directed by Christian Winters, a friend of the band.Hart 2002, p. 36 Winters made the video before the group signed with Victory, and the record company enjoyed it. The song was distributed to radio stations on March 12, and the full album was released on March 25. A video for "Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)" followed on December 10, 2002, and "You're so Last Summer" on November 24, 2003, following a radio release the previous September. Both videos were also directed by Winters.Orshoski ed. 2003, p. 45

Lazzara was suffering from a drinking problem around this time and cheated on Nolan's sister, Michelle, who he had been dating for a while. After playing Skate & Surf Festival in late April 2003, Lazzara apologized to Nolan later that evening. However, Nolan later learned the apology had been insincere, and both Nolan and Cooper officially told the other three band members they were leaving the band two days later.Manley 2011, p. 94 Nolan publicly reasoned that his departure resulted from exhaustion from touring; Lazzara reiterated this reason, and revealed Cooper had left because he did not want to be in the band without Nolan. In truth, Nolan later revealed there was constant fighting within the group, with each member feeling they were not receiving enough credit for the group's success.

John and Michelle Nolan formed Straylight Run with Cooper and Breaking Pangaea drummer Will Noon in the wake of the split from Taking Back Sunday. Taking Back Sunday underwent a short period where they were unsure what to do next, and even briefly considered breaking up. The band was due to tour the United Kingdom with Brand New in May and June 2003; however, all the shows were cancelled because of rumors of the band breaking up. Eventually, it was decided the band would continue; The two departed Taking Back Sunday members were replaced by Breaking Pangaea frontman Fred Mascherino on guitar and vocals as well as O'Connell's longtime friend Matt Rubano on bass.

After their co-headlining tour with Saves the Day concluded in November 2003, Taking Back Sunday immediately commenced work on a second album. Recording for the second album began on March 1, with Lou Giordano at the helm as producer. Taking Back Sunday self-financed the recording sessions, two weeks of which took place at Mission Sound in Brooklyn, New York. The remainder of the album was completed at Water Music in Hoboken, New Jersey, and recording was officially finished by April. At the suggestion of Giordano, the band experimented with instruments aside from the group's usual instrumentation.

The record, titled '' Where You Want To Be'', was released on July 27, 2004, on Victory Records. Despite sounding slightly different from ''Tell All Your Friends'' as a result of Giordano's guidance, the new album managed to do well commercially; preceded by the single " A Decade Under the Influence" on June 22, ''Where You Want To Be'' was propelled to the No. 3 spot on the ''Billboard'' 200 albums chart at its debut, with around 163,000 copies sold. It became one of the best-selling independent rock albums within a year, selling 634,000 copies by June 2005. ''Rolling Stone'' listed ''Where You Want To Be'' as one of the top fifty records of 2004. Instead of spending marketing money towards trying to get radio play, Victory Records deployed a street team handing out sampler CDs and fliers to promote the album.

Tom Delonge of Blink-182 directed the music video for "This Photograph is Proof (I Know You Know)"; Blink-182 had invited the band to open for them during their North American tour in 2004. Taking Back Sunday toured frequently for eight months in support of ''Where You Want to Be''.

Major label debut: ''Louder Now'' (2005–2007)

On June 10, 2005, it was announced that the band had signed with major label Warner Bros. Records and would begin recording their third album later in 2005. That month, the group contributed "Error: Operator" to the video-game adaption of ''Fantastic Four'', and it was later added to the film's soundtrack as well.

On September 21, 2005, it was announced that Taking Back Sunday had begun recording their third album with Eric Valentine. The group chose Valentine because he had produced Queens of the Stone Age's '' Songs for the Deaf'' (2002) and Third Eye Blind's self-titled album (1997). On April 25, 2006, Taking Back Sunday released their third album, entitled ''Louder Now'', on Warner Bros. Records. The members' comments on the album reflected the dramatic change the band had undergone in the two years since their last release. Matt Rubano noted that the move to a major label was not something the band took lightly, but it was a move that made sense given the band's tumultuous past. 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.

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 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 several other bands.

On October 30, 2006, 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: Part Two'' on November 20, 2007, a DVD of unreleased live concert footage from their show at Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California, which included special features such as the video for "Twenty-Twenty Surgery", made to be released in 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. In 2007, the band contributed the song " What's It Feel Like to Be a Ghost?" to the soundtrack for the science fiction action film ''Transformers'', although the song did not appear in the film.

Departure of Fred Mascherino and ''New Again'' (2007–2010)

In October 2007 the band announced that Taking Back Sunday and guitarist Fred Mascherino would be parting ways, which came after he decided to focus on his then upcoming solo album with The Color Fred. He was later replaced by Matthew Fazzi, who would provide guitar and backing vocals. Mascherino went on to reveal in later interviews: "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, 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." This statement inspired the band to write the track "Capital M-E", which features lyrical references to Mascherino's departure and the comments he made afterward. In 2010, Fred Mascherino posted a picture of himself and Adam Lazzara with the caption, "Today was a good day" indicating that he and Lazzara have since made up and are on good terms again.

On November 6, 2008, Taking Back Sunday revealed in ''Rolling Stone'' that their fourth studio album was to be titled '' New Again'' and would feature the tracks "Winter Passing", "Lonely Lonely", "Catholic Knees", and "Carpathia". They stated that "Winter Passing" was "... a slow dance like the last song at your 8th grade dance hatmoves 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 commented 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". In the build-up to the release of '' New Again'', the band released a number of tracks—the first of which was "Carpathia"—on December 21, 2008, as free digital downloads to those who purchased the band's ''Christmas holiday set'', with a physical limited vinyl release of the track as well as a live version of "Catholic Knees" released on April 18, 2009, secondly title track "New Again" as a free single download from the band's website on April 16, 2009, followed by the first full single "Sink into Me", released on April 20, 2009, premiering on BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe show, and being made available digitally short after. On May 16, 2009, "Everything Must Go" was released to stream on the band's MySpace. Every Monday, the band released a new song on their MySpace from ''New Again'' labeling it "New Music Monday".

During their tour supporting '' New Again'', the band played in Dublin, Ireland where guitarist Matt Fazzi fractured his foot. Despite this, the show in Belfast, Northern Ireland went on and the rest of the tour was completed, which included stops in the UK at Sonisphere Festival and the Kerrang! awards show. On August 18, 2009, the band released a digital live album entitled ''Live from Bamboozle '09''. The album consists of 13 live tracks recorded at The Bamboozle, where they played in May of the same year. In September 2009, the band announced they will be co-headlining with The All-American Rejects

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