Features

Taking Back Sunday launched their latest studio album, Louder Now, onto store shelves with a “sales stamina” that has become painfully irregular regarding mainstream rock artists. Their aggressive touring schedule has earned them an increasingly large group of Converse clad soldiers in the emo/punk/pop army, and its starting to look like Taking Back Sunday is on its way to becoming a household name. As anyone with a pair of ears and even a slightly hazed set of eyes can testify, notoriety and commercial success doesn’t imply quality. So while Taking Back Sunday’s stakes gradually rise, so do their standards amongst a mainstream audience that expects everything to please everyone. Glide’s Andrew Bruss caught up with Taking Back Sunday’s Matt Rubano (bass) to toss around thoughts regarding artistic integrity, the age of the internet, and Spiderman.

Louder Now got leaked online prior to it being released in stores. How do you feel that affected the sales and promotion of the album early on? Do you feel it helped or hindered it?

Only a few songs actually got leaked. About four or five songs leaked, and one of them was the single which was out already. We put out another one of them ourselves intentionally. I’m not quite sure how the others came out. But I think that if you put out a good record and a couple songs get leaked, if people like it, then its not that big of a deal. Whereas if you put out a record that gets leaked ahead of time and the word on the street is that people aren’t really “feeling it,” then it hurts. We were amazed and blown away when our record debuted at Number 2. It sold over 150,000 copies the first week. I think even if people did acquire the songs ahead of time, it seems like a whole bunch of them went out and got the album anyway.

So do you think that the word of mouth helped move the album?

I wouldn’t go as far as to say it helped... Yeah, maybe it did. I think that’s an accepted way of how things happen at this point. If something gets online, the whole world has it overnight. People have come to expect that a record will get leaked unless you keep it under lock and key. As soon as it goes out to the press, that’s usually when it starts popping up.

Fred (Mascherino, lead guitar, vocals) was quoted in saying that the band wanted Louder Now to be more experimentation. How do you feel the band tried to bring that out in the studio?

I think what Fred probably meant is that we wanted to “push forward” with the sound of our band and try to accomplish new things. We wanted this to be a “big, over the top” sounding rock record. Even the title of the record is meant to evoke us taking all of the elements and aspects of the band, and amplifying them to the fullest extent. We’d spent nearly year writing the material before we went to the studio to record it. We had all of the material ready and it was really about which songs made the best collection of recordings, and the most complete album.

What have you been listening to that you weren’t listening to on previous albums that might prove to have been an influence on the newer material?

Our influences are interesting because the five of us all have an area of common musical interest, and we also have a “specialty area.” We were all listening to bands like Queens of the Stone Age, which (Songs for the Deaf) was produced by Eric Valentine. That was one of the records that motivated us to get him to produce Louder Now for us. But it’s interesting, because I find myself listening to less, and less music, the deeper into the recording process I get because I find myself so focused on writing, and refining, and working on the message that’s being conveyed. I find myself using all the influence, and inspiration from the music I listen to, but once I'm in the studio, and making an album, it’s hard to get my mind off the album, and listen to anything else. When we were in L.A. working on the record, Adam (Lazzara-Vocals) and I lived together, and we were listening to everything from Bob Dylan to We Are Scientists, from The Cure to Fugazi. Our influences prior to making the album were really “all over the map” for us.

People often describe Taking Back Sunday’s lyrics as dialog offered through a “point/counter-point” context. Does the group incorporate this “point/counter-point” style of songwriting as a means of conveying a message towards an audience, or is it just how the group naturally writes the music?

I don’t really write any of the lyrics, but I know that for Fred and Adam it’s something they do organically, and they’ve come to do naturally together. They’ve developed this style from working together, but I don’t think it’s something they consciously work for.

So it’s not premeditated?

No, I think that the only thing that’s really premeditated is to do the best writing that you can, and to put the best thing out there that people will really “feel.”

Taking Back Sunday has been very fortunate in reaching mainstream success. The group had a Top Ten album, and some pretty sweet time slots during the Vans Warped Tour. In these situations things have a tendency of getting bigger and bigger. Is it necessary for a band in Taking Back Sunday’s position to compromise values, or artistic integrity, for the sake of better catering towards a mainstream audience?

I don’t think so. I think one of the nicer things for us has been that as we’ve gone from playing basement shows, to small cubs, to these arena shows, we haven’t had to sell off any part of our being. When we were making Louder Now or Where You Want To Be, we never had anyone coming into the studio saying “come on boys, let make it a little snappier, the kids aren’t going to feel it.” We’re lucky that we’re not in that type of situation. People always let us do what we want to do. We’ve also been very self-sufficient regarding touring, and I think that comes from us having built an underground following. If you’re relationship with your listener is direct, as a result of having gone on tour and playing for people over and over again, you develop a relationship with the listener, and you don’t need to entirely depend on the radio, or television, or the internet, or however people find out about new music. We’re lucky enough to have a combination of an amazing grass roots following, and the media coverage which we’ve been getting more of over the last few years. The reason we feel that we’re so lucky is because we’re doing what we do, and people enjoy it.

Taking Back Sunday’s been involved with a lot of product endorsement. The group’s music has been in Spider Man 2 and the Fantastic 4 movies and videogame, just to name a few. Has the group had complete control over all of these ventures? Or was it more something that was signed onto just to get the music out there and heard?

It’s a combination of both. We’re all big superhero fans, so an opportunity for a song of ours to be in something like a "Spiderman" movie, is something that’s exciting for us as fans. Anywhere we’d put our music, we will decide whether or not we want to do it, and those decisions are often based on us going “WHAT? SPIDERMAN? COOL!” It’s exciting for us to do because if some people find out about a band from having heard them in a movie, our song is second to what’s going on when they’re seeing the movie. It’s not just some big commercial either. If they hear the song on the soundtrack and they want to go find out whose it is, that’s a very cool way for someone to find out about us.

Should you’re established fans take the fact that you’re music has been incorporated as a direct endorsement of the film?

That’s kind of sticky. We don’t direct the movie, and we usually don’t see it until everyone else sees it. We have faith that what we’re doing is right, and that it won’t offend anyone. We won’t have our music in a Disney movie, and we won’t have our music in a Jennifer Anniston film anytime soon. We’re trying to keep our music in things that we feel people who would like our band would be checking out anyway.

For the readers who might not be familiar with Taking Back Sunday, what's the one thing they should know about the group’s music?

There are two very important elements to answer that question. I’d say it would be important to listen through the entirety of Louder Now, I think people should listen to it as a story and an album, from beginning to end. I’m pretty sure there’s something for everyone on it. I’ve always said people should come see the band live, because we make it our business to give the best possible live performance every single night that we can. Those two elements really make up the essence of Taking Back Sunday. Rock’s sort of been a sleeping giant over the last ten years or so. With this record, we’re trying to help bring rock back, with all the other great bands that are doing that right now.

photos by Derrick Santini