Band of the Month Meet cool bands and listen to their music — free — here.
Artist of the Month: Taking Back Sunday
Whoever said rock stars have massive egos never met Taking Back Sunday frontman Adam Lazzara. Watch TSB's new single: "Decade Under".
In the past, a lot of your songs have been about girls who broke your heart. What was the worst breakup experience you've ever had?
The worst breakup I've ever been through was my fault. When one person starts neglecting themselves for the other person things can just turn sour. In this case, she was neglecting herself. That's all I'll say about that.
What about your craziest groupie experience?
We don't really have groupies. If we notice people hanging around all the time, we try to help them understand that there's no reason for us to be glorified or followed around or celebrated. So we try to discourage that kind of thing.
That's rare. Most rock groups love to have hangers-on.
Yeah, there's no such thing as a rock star. I mean in rock bands there are a lot of egos involved. And we all have that. But there are so many bands and so many people that you can't let it affect you.
Speaking of egos, all five band members are credited with writing the songs on Where You Want to Be. What was the creative process like putting the album together? Did one band member end up doing more work than the others?
We did everything equally. We always have the mentality that we're just one-fifth of the band. Sometimes working that way can be frustrating but it's worth it. Usually someone will come into practice with a part of a drumline or chorus or something and we all just kind of work from there. We just fill the song out. We like having that level of democracy. Not many bands work like that.
What types of music do you listen to other than punk?
I listen to a lot of country music and a lot of hip-hop. Right now I'm listening to Jay-Z's Black Album. I'd like to collaborate with hip-hop artists and bring rap and rock 'n' roll audiences together. The Run DMC–Aerosmith collaboration was so cool because it kind of introduced hip-hop to a whole lot of people. It would be cool if we could introduce our audience to hip-hop.
Whose idea was it to use Flavor Flav in your last video, "You're So Last Summer"?
It was our drummer Mark's idea. We had a few ideas but nothing really fit with the song. Mark was like, "We should get a rapper to do it." And then we thought we should get someone from Long Island since the band is from Long Island — except for me, I'm from North Carolina. And so we put in a call to Flavor Flav and he was able to do it.
If you could put together the ultimate tour lineup to be a part of, which bands would you pick?
Hmm, well, if I were to do a Raising the Dead tour, I would use Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Nirvana, and of course, the Beatles. If it were a tour with living artists, I'd have to pick U2 and Coldplay. I'd love to see those two bands on the same stage.
