Taking Back Sunday

PLEASE NOTE: The phone connection we had was not the best, and at times there was problems for one of us to hear the other, and we got disconnected twice. I have omitted everything just saying that we cant hear the other person, but I have mentioned the two times we became disconnected.

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Bobby: Ok, starting with the basics, can you please state your name and position in the band?

John: Ya, I’m John Nolan from Taking Back Sunday. I play the guitar and I sing.

Bobby: Ok, where did you get the name “Taking Back Sunday” from?

John: The name “Taking Back Sunday” was thought up by our singer, our original singer. And we kicked him out because he stank. But we kept the name.

Bobby: “Tell All Your Friends”, where did you get that from?

John: Umm, the name for the album?

Bobby: Ya.

John: That came from the name that we had for the five song demo. Uhhh, and we basically had that name because the only way anyone were getting to know who we were was by word of mouth. So its our clever little name for that. And we decided to stick with it for our title of our record.

Bobby: How did you guys all meet?

John: Well, we all basically met, the band was started by Eddy Reyes, our guitar player. Basically we all met through friends of his friends. And umm, there is a process of the first year or so of the band being together that a lot of different changes, a lot of people, a lot quit or got kicked out. People would just hear that we were looking for someone, and you know, we would ask friends and they’d ask their friends. So we all pretty much didn’t really know each other before the band came together. I mean, except for Shaun and Mark. Shaun was a friend of Mark’s. That’s how Mark got Shaun in the band to play drums. Besides that none of us really knew each other. Adam came from North California, none of us knew him. Like I didn’t know Eddy intill I joined the band. So its all pretty random the way it all came together.

Bobby: Alright, were you in any other bands before Taking Back Sunday?

John: Was I?

Bobby: Ya.

John: Anything I did before then was nothing. I never did anything that was, that really went anywhere. I’ve been in bands you know, since I was in high school, but they never… You know nothing that was ever known by more then like 50 people on Long Island. You know, small, small time stuff.

***Here it broke up really bad, and John had to walk outside to try and fix it***

Bobby: On your record it said you all got nicknames while recording, can you tell us who is who?

John: Nicknames you said?

Bobby: Ya.

John: Well, I still cant quite hear what your saying, but as far as the nicknames went, that was Sal Villanueva, our producer, and the engineer, Tim Gulles, they were just like really, really funny guys. They just have this habit of everyone who comes to their studio, they just to kind of get to know them a little bit, then stick them with a nickname for the whole time they are in there. So they had nicknames for everyone of us. And I don’t really know to tell you the truth why most of them were given out. I don’t know what their thought process was behind giving us a lot of the nicknames, but they were just funny. And well, you know, funny.

Bobby: So who’s who? Who was “Navy”, “Tweakle”, “Freakle”...

****Here we got disconnected and we resume once I got a hold of him once again****

Bobby: So we were talking about nicknames, and who was who.

John: Ummm, It was, umm. I don’t remember. I remember that Ed, Ed was “Meat”. That’s what we were calling him. They called me “Tweakle. I never quite figured out where that come from. Adam was “Freakle”, Marke was “Nerves” and Shaun was “Navy”, if I remember correctly.

Bobby: Alright, now onto some CD questions, what is your favorite song on the album?

John: Umm,, I would say… Its really hard to say, I would probably have to go with… I don’t know. I used to go with “Cute Without The “E” (Cut From The Team)”.

Bobby: Ya, that’s an awesome song.

John: Its a good solid song, you know I like it. But its hard to pick any over the others.

Bobby: As far as recording went, how long did it take you and how did it go?

John: It took a little over a month to record it. And, uhh, it was good. It was rough, you know the first time in a studio, like a professional studio, you know. Not like doing a self- made demo. So it was like a very starnge experience for the first time. So umm like… Then we had the problems going into the vocals, Adam was sick. So we started to record, then we had to start and record again. Like after he got better, we had to wait for him to get better. So like there was some tough things, but all in all it went really well. And we got hooked up with Sal, and like he was great with us. Like we had never worked before, and he didn’t know anything about us. It just worked out, really, really well.

Bobby: Ya, it did.

John: All in all it was very good.

Bobby: That’s good. How do you normally write all your material?

John: Normally what happens is comes in with a guitar part, really it could be any part. Either me or Ed, or it could be Mark, our drummer, you know, Adam, the singer or Shaun. Like everybody would just come up with musical parts from time to time. They usually come with that and then the band would try and work it into a song all together, and then what happens, like then once the musical part is taken care of, then me and Adam would take it, take it home, and we will try and get the lyrics and melody to it. Ya, and we’ll just kind of do it together, we just go through our notebooks full of any stuff that we write in it. And then we pick out things here and there and paste it together you know.

Bobby: I see. Also on songs like “Bike Scene” and “Ghost Man On Third”, your sister, Michelle sings.

John: Ya.

Bobby: Why did you ask her to sing in it?

John: Umm, she has a very good voice, and she was there in the studio when we were recording the demo. She was hanging around and when we did the demo, which was the first time we recorded “Bike Scene”, we had her sing on that, because she was there and we just figured it would sound good. And it worked out, so when we went to do the album, of course we wanted to do it again. And then we took her for “Ghost Man On Third” too, we had the idea. And ya, it sounded good.

Bobby: Ya, you guys are really well known for your lyrics, because they are powerful and stuff. Do all of them have a reference to something that happened in your life?

John: Ummm, well ya they do. They all have a reference something and it’s varies. Like in any given song there can be, you know, different references to different things. It’s not any one song, It’s not all like one specific thing. Especially since Adam and myself combine the words. You know, like he’ll have something thats in there that’s completely different you know, its about a different subject then whatever my line is. It just works and no one knows that so. But it’s all based on, it’s all taken from personal experience of course, you know, a lot of different personal experiences.

Bobby: So now I’m gonna list some lyrics which I find stick really out in my mind. Can you tell me like what it means to you, those certain bits of lyrics.?

John: I’m sorry to let you down, but I don’t like to talk about exactly what everything means you know. I can give you some kind of idea I guess.

*****Here I asked him about some lyrics from Cute Without The “E”, “And Will You Tell All Your Friends, You’ve Got Your Gun To My Head”, he said it was like being at someone’s mercy, but then everything broke up, and we got disconnected. I phone back and we started up again*****

John: Alright.

Bobby: Ok, what are some of your favorite lyrics from a song or two?

John: Umm, I don’t know, its very hard to pick anything, you know, pick anything out. I like everything you know. Everything thats written, we wouldn’t use if unless we really liked it. That’s something we tried, made a very specific point to do, not let anything slide and just kinda put it in there just because it fits and just to write half the song and have it done, you know?

Bobby: Ya.

John: I mean it’s very important that everything is something we definitely mean, I’m very proud to have written, you can’t, I couldn’t really take anything. I couldn’t dissect and take things and say I like no one better then the other.

Bobby: Your song titles, they’re pretty original too, how did you come up with them? Like “Cute Without The “E” (Cut From The Team)”?

John: There’s a mixture of two things, probably about half the songs are songs titles from watching late night TV, you have the TV guide channel.

Bobby: Like “Great Romances Of The 20th Century”?

John: Ya. They’ll just be different titles of shows and movies and stuff, and they just tend to be interesting sounding things and a lot of them were taking from that. The other song titles, a lot of them were just taken from things our friends said at different points, and we just kinda found them to be funny, and for lack of better ideas for song titles, just used them.

Bobby: There are a whole bunch of stills from the music video for “Cute Without The “E””, but the video hasn’t been released yet, so can you tell us a bit about the video?

John: Ya, we just finished shooting it right before we went on this tour, we finished shooting the video and it was directed by Chris Swinzer ***I am not sure I spelt his last name right, sorry if I did spell it wrong, and sorry if it causes any confusion***, the same guy who did the video for “Great Romances” It was done with a bit of a fight club scene, and hopefully by January of February…

Bobby: We’ll be able to see it?

John: Ya, hopefully. We are very very happy with the way it came out. We made it much better. Much more time and a much better budget, then the first video we did.

Bobby: I’m looking forward to it. Why did you pick “Great Romances” to be your first single?

John: We picked “Great Romances” just because at that time, we only had 5 songs on the 5 song demo. That video was actually done before we signed to victory. At the time, the song was just one of our favorites on there. But once the album was recorded, it probably wouldn’t have been our first choice. But at the time it was, we just ended up with it, and we had a video so we figured we should use it.

Bobby: Alright, how do you like being on Victory records?

John: It’s been good, they’ve been good to us so far and umm, you know, at the very beginning they put a lot into loading up and you know. It didn’t stop at MTV2 and at advertising for all over the place. Just, umm, they’ve been very good to us. We went from being known in only the North East area of the United States and having basically no ability to tour.

Bobby: Now your known all around the world.

John: Ya, and they are responsible for a large part of that.

Bobby: How did you get signed to them?

John: We got signed off of that 5 song demo that we made. A friend of ours had it and was listening to it and she was friends with someone who worked at Victory Records and he just heard it and really liked it a lot. He brought it to the other people at Victory Records and they really liked it too, as soon as they heard it they contacted us, and wanted to sign us. We were obviously all pretty psyched to hear that. And that was that.

Bobby: Ya, I read in places that while Adam was injured, you guys had time to record five or six new songs, is that true?

John: umm, No. We started to work on some new stuff. We had time to start working, but not recording. But ya, we finally started to work on some new material.

Bobby: Well, how long do you think it will be before you release a new album?

John: Its gonna be a while, we, I couldn’t even say at this point, we’re not in any rush to release a new album. We just started to work on new material, so you know, we got a lot more time to to work on it, probably not intill fall or winter or who knows?

Bobby: Awesome, I’m looking forward to it. Recently, you’ve been touring a lot, Box Car Racer, H20, the Used, Midtown, how did those tours go?

John: The Box Car Racer tour was amazing, we only had 7 days on it, but it was really, really, good, it was amazing, they were really amazing to us. We got to talk with Tom, they were just very, you know, they got us on tour. It was just very cool of them. It was the biggest shows we’ve ever played before. It was pretty amazing. And then we’re still on tour right now with The Starting Line.

Bobby: Ya, Co-headlining.

John: Ya, its been very, very good.

Bobby: What is the one thing you like about touring the most?

John: Umm, maybe… I would have to say being able to play in all these different places where no one’s, we’ve never, hardy ever been before or never been. All these people that we’ve never met that knwo all the words to our songs and are psyched to us, that’s probably the best thing about it. Just realizing how many people all over the place that are supporting us and are into our band.

Bobby: Yep, what is the one thing that you hate the most?

John: Ummmm,. Just being away from home for so long its just, you know? The tours are just always together. Usually, its been like a month and a half, and that’s just a long time to be away from home, your friends and your girlfriend. That’s the worst part probably.

Bobby: Like you said, your co-headlining a tour with The Starting Line, like your playing in Houston tonight right?

John: Ya.

Bobby: Well how has this tour been?

John: It’s been good, it’s been amazing, the first time that we were, its the first real co-headlining tour that we’ve done and its just been, it’s been great. You know your at the point you know you’re doing well enough, sure what to expect headlining shows you know? We’ve been nothing but very pleasantly surprised.

Bobby: What do you usually do before a show to prepare yourself?

John: Not very much, we’re all pretty bad with preparing, we kind of just sit around and hang out. We’re pretty lazy like that. Unfortunately, it will probably have chance eventually, but we don’t really do very much to prepare for the shows unfortunately.

Bobby: Well, how do you keep yourself pumped while your playing the show?

John: While I’m playing?

Bobby: Ya.

John: For me personally, just seeing all the kids that are singing along. Making that like connection with them like you know, the eye contact you know. Seeing how psyched they are, kind’ve keeps the show going, keeps the energy going a lot of times for us.

Bobby: What do you usually do on the road between shows?

John: As far as what?

Bobby: Like between the different shows.

John: Usually, there’s not much to do, usually its either we’re driving, we have to drive between the shows, or we’re just tired. You know, relaxing in a hotel. That’s about it, usually there’s not much, there’s a lot of down time on tour, but a lot of it isn’t spent doing much of anything. Sitting around, watching TV at a hotel or you know, reading, sitting in the van.

Bobby: Ok, if you could pick any person or band, dead or alive to tour with, who would you pick and why?

John: I think that I would pick Radiohead because they are one of my favorite bands of all time, I think one of the best bands of all time as well, I would love to be able to be around them to be able to see them, you know, on tour, see how they do things. I think, I just look up to them a lot, I would be, it would be unbelievable to be on tour with them. I don’t know maybe, I really thought that I might pick someone farther in the past, but that’s the first thing that comes to mind. I think that they are amazing and I would love to be able to met them and be around them on tour.

Bobby: How has the success of being in a band changed your life?

John: In a lot of different ways. I mean, we all went from working regular jobs, and even working regular jobs and still going on tour and coming home and working regular jobs. Having this be our job, thats a pretty big change to make and I don’t know it’s just, changes a lot, changes the way you look at yourself, you know? It changes a lot of the way you you just perceive things, you know its very strange to have something you never thought it was possible to happen, I think it changes things in a lot of good ways and a lot of bad ways too. like it’s very unbelievable and its very confusing in a lot of ways, and its just like… It changes just about everything about your life, once your successful doing something that you love and something that you never thought you were gonna be successful at no matter how much you wanted.

Bobby: Why did you decide to become a musician?

John: I think that I decided once I realized that I actually had some amount of talent at it, that I had some amount of ability, that it was a possibility, no matter of how unsure the possibility was, it was actually a possibility and once I knew that no matter how unlikely it was, I could possibly have the talent to do it or the ability to make it happen, that was pretty much all I needed,. And also there was nothing else I felt that way about, and no other job I could see myself doing. And that was pretty much it.

Bobby: Do you have any tips for any young musicians starting out?

John: Ya, I would say that if you have any kind of talent or any kind of ability at what your doing, like no matter what it is, or how unlikely it seems, if your able to make that into your career, into your life, its is a possibility. And then a mass amount of work and a mass amount of patience and time, but if you know that that’s what you really love and what you really want and you know that you have some amount of talent, no matter how small. You should try to develop it and try to work with it.

Bobby: Who would you say influence you musically?

John: Musically, I’ve had so many influences and its changed as I’ve gotten older. You know, when I was younger, bands like Nirvana and bands like Pearl Jam, and then as I got a little older, bands like Mama’s Mouth and bands like those indie rock bands and then older then that ***here he named some bands, but I can not make them out, sorry***. And then there are those bands that have been constant throughout, like Radiohead and The Beatles, they’re classic. There’s always something, musically, there’s always something that’s very inspiriting to me and makes me want to keep trying to do better. Right now the Flaming Lips are one of those bands that I listen to successfully ***here someone made a sheep sound in the background which made it impossible to hear what John said***

Bobby: Now imagine, if you weren’t in a band, what would you be doing for a job?

John: I don’t know now, I’d be pretty much screwed. I’d probably be doing what I was doing before I was in the band, I’d probably still be doing. Which was repairing upholstery in cars and uhh, ya I was working in car dealerships repairing leather and nylon seats and things like that. I didn’t go to college I had no really other career prospect besides that.

Bobby: Now a days you can download songs all over the internet, Kazaa, Morpheus, how do you feel about that? Do you think its good or not?

John: I think that its pretty good, I think its not really a bad thing. I mean, I’m all for it a certain way. I mean, I know I download music myself so you know I couldn’t really say that people shouldn’t do it just because now I’m in the position where people download my music cause you know I do it all the time, and I think it could be a good thing for bands, especially bands that are just coming up. I think a lot of people wouldn’t even of heard our music if it wasn’t so easily accessible. They just go and download it and take a listen to it. In a certain way i think it could be a positive thing. You know a lot of the times when I download

***here unfortunately, my recording machine stopped recording, and soon after John had to leave. He finished his sentence by saying that a lot of the times when he downloads songs, he ends up buying the album after.***