John Nolan - Taking Back Sunday (15/05/2014)
Touring this August with co-headliner The Used, The 59th Sound chats with John Nolan of Taking Back Sunday!
Hey John, how’s it going? Where are you at the moment?
Right now, I’m actually at home in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Sounds like a nice break from touring.
Yes, it definitely is.
Just to start off with, the Taking Back Sunday and The Used tour just got announced for Australia, was it you guys or The Used who decided on the joint tour to Australia since they were just here for Warped?
I’m not sure if it was one band or the other that made the decision. But when we announced the tour in the US, which was months ago now since we just finished that tour, the reaction was just really overwhelming. So I think pretty immediately both bands knew that that was something that was exciting, and we should bring it to as many places as we can you know?
Well we were lucky to get that, because a lot of the time we don’t actually get the same tours as the US does. So there’s a lot of excitement buzzing about it.
Well yeah honestly, a lot of the time when we do a tour in the US with a band, we normally wouldn’t bring that same combination of shows to Australia or anywhere else. We usually would put together a whole new package. But this seemed like something special you know?
And Tonight Alive performed too?
They opened up for us and The Used in America for our tour; they were on that whole tour. They were great on the tour we did in the US. They’re awesome.
You didn’t do the ‘Tell All Your Friends 10 year anniversary tour’ in Australia, or anywhere besides America really, are you going to be playing a few more of those tracks to make up for it?
I don’t know, we always play songs from that album, and I don’t know that we’ll play anymore than we usually do. But we always make sure to touch on that album, and play tracks from it. We try to play things from every album, we don’t wanna favour any one album over the others you know?
So before each show you say “we’d better MakeDamnSure we play songs from it”?
*laughs* Something like that.
Sorry, I had to do it.
It’s alright man *laughs*.
Is there a Used song that you want to go into the crowd and scream along to after being on tour with them for so long?
I really like ‘A Box Full of Sharp Objects’; I know it’s one of the older ones of theirs. They’re probably really tired of playing that one, but I really like it, I’ve liked it since I heard it 10 or 11 years ago, I like that song a lot.
Talking about 10 or 11 years ago, Taking Back Sunday has been around for nearly a decade and a half; do you notice a mainly older crowd? Or do you have kids up the front screaming your lyrics still?
We have an interesting mix of people at our shows these days. You know, we have people that got into the first or second album, and come out to shows. They can be anywhere from their mid twenties to their mid thirties. Then I think there are people that got into the band a little later, and they’re a little younger. We also have people who are brought by, I think, their older brothers and sisters who were 10 or 11 when ‘Tell All Your Friends’ or ‘Where You Want to Be’ came out and are in their twenties or late teens now. Some of the older people too, bring their kids to shows, so it’s a really interesting mix that you see. It’s pretty cool.
Cool, on the early release, ‘Great Romances of the Twentieth Century’ was one of the first tracks the band ever wrote, do you still feel that same excitement writing songs as you did back then?
Yeah, you do. You know, the thing is, at this point you realize it’s not going to happen every time you write a song. It’s not like we thought that back during ‘Tell All Your Friends’, but you still get that thing; every once in a while, a song just comes together and clicks you know? You’re just like, this is good! You just know that you’re onto something. It is the same feeling that you got back then, it doesn’t always happen unfortunately. You get to know, as you go on, that’s a pretty special thing when that happens. So you really appreciate it, when you go “Oh my god, I know right now it’s happening, we’re doing it, we’re putting together one of those songs.” It’s just working and it’s exciting.
So you haven’t become ‘bitter’ or ‘jaded’ in the past 15 years or so?
Well, you know, to some extent *laughs*. I think back when we were putting together ‘Tell All Your Friends’ we would throw songs together a lot more than we do now, we would, honestly, put a lot less thought into them in the ‘Tell All Your Friends’ days. We would just be like “Yeah it’s awesome, it’s awesome!” and be so excited! But now, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily bitter or jaded, when you’re older you realize “maybe this song could be better” you know? Maybe our first idea isn’t the best idea, and maybe we can refine this and work on it a little more. You get a little more thoughtful about things I think.
Do you get a bit offended when people say ‘Tell All Your Friends’ is their favourite album, and you go “I put so much less effort into that than I did with the 6th album”?
Well, I don’t get offended; I definitely feel that ‘Happiness Is’ is the best album that Taking Back Sunday have ever put out. I understand that a lot of fans of the band are going to be attached to ‘Tell All Your Friends’, you know, the albums and songs they heard when they were 14. Nothing is ever going to replicate that experience, so I understand that and we all appreciate that, we all love that people still feel so much from that first album and they’re so attached that. But for me, I think what we’re doing now, I think we put out a much better album that has much better songs, performed much better than ‘Tell All Your Friends’. But you know, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me either.
Well fair enough. ‘Happiness Is’ has an almost wistful tone to it in a way, was that a consequence of you being away from the band for so long?
I think that the one thing that happened when we got back together and did the self titled album, that we were sort of learning how to make a Taking Back Sunday record again. Then with ‘Happiness Is’ I think that we kind of realized that if the five of us are making music together, it’s going to be a Taking Back Sunday album; we don’t have to try to make it sound any particular way, we can just go with what we’re interested in and excited about. It’s going to be Taking Back Sunday because it’s the five of us, so I think that cuts through more than it did on the self titled. I’m not sure if that’s wistful or anything, but that is something that happened with the recording of the album.
Right, you released your album for free streaming before the release date; do you think that’s the future of releasing music in this day and age?
You know, I think that’s what’s happening now, almost everyone does that at this point. I think nobody knows the future of music right now; it’s all up in the air. It’s all pretty crazy; I think anyone that says they know where the music industry is heading is lying, or they’re deluded.
Alright, I’ll tell that to future people I interview that John Nolan thinks they’re deluded if they give me any other answer.
*laughs* Yeah, nobody knows what’s happening right now. It’s all up in the air.
In relation to the music industry, you recently posted a tweet about respecting Kanye West for rhyming sarcophagus with oesophagus…
Wow, you’ve done your research!
*laughs* thanks. Do you think egos like his are what’s keeping interest in the music industry nowadays?
I think that Kanye West obviously is infuriating as a personality; he’s a very difficult person to like. But I think that you need Kanye West in the music business, you need someone who 100% believes that they’re best, and actually has the talent and the skill to back it up too. You can’t just go out there and be full of shit believing you’re the best, the guy actually is amazing, and he’s obviously, I think, brilliant and a genius. He’s not ashamed to say he is, you need someone out there like that, you need people like that in the music industry. You need artists like that, you need that in art; you can’t have everyone walking around half-ashamed hoping there’s someone who’s going to like it, you need someone to say “I’m the best there is at what I do, and you’d better get on board with this or you’re stupid”.
Maybe we can start a ‘Defend Kanye West’ organization.
Yeah, I think we should. I mean, I think he’s his own ‘Defend Kanye West’ organization *laughs*.
For sure. Alright, back onto the live aspect, what would you say is yours, and the band’s favourite tracks to play live?
Well right now, it’s definitely the new songs from this album; really any songs from this one I think, it’s really exciting. ‘Stood a Chance’ has been really fun, ‘Flicker Fade’ was the first one we put out there and the reaction from fans has been amazing, like right from the start. That was really cool to see, even before it was released, we started playing ‘Flicker Fade’ and people got into it. You could see it in the crowd when we played it live, so that was great to be in that position where we’re excited, and the fans are excited. We played another song called ‘They Don’t Have Any Friends’ from ‘Happiness Is’, we haven’t played it a ton, but that one’s been really fun to play. When we have played it, it’s gotten a great response and it’s a pretty energetic and upbeat song, but pretty much anything from any album is pretty much our favourite.
That’s kind of a diplomatic answer there.
Well, I mean, it sounds like it but really it is. To tell you the truth, we would love to just go out there and play our new album and just do that, and then play another set of the hits and the songs that people want to hear from the past albums. You’ve gotta balance it out, but we would love to just do that. We love playing these new songs, we really do, it’s exciting.
Awesome. Just some final questions for you, if you could choose to be a part of any record in history, which would it be?
I think I would go with ‘The White Album’, by The Beatles. I don’t know if I needed to say that was by The Beatles *laughs*; you’re probably familiar with that album. I don’t know what the experience of recording it was like with The Beatles, it just seems like such an insane record; it’s just so good, but it seems like it’s so unhinged and insane, so I would’ve loved to be a part of that. Even just to be an engineer, or tuning guitars or anything, I would’ve loved to have been a part of that album; just to be a fly on the wall or something.
Maybe you can tell people you’re the fifth Beatle from that?
*laughs* I could tell people that, I don’t know if they’d believe me though…
Just finally, if you could be a part of any other band, which would you choose? You can’t say The Beatles.
I won’t say The Beatles. That would’ve been what I would’ve said if I hadn’t used The White Album beforehand. I’d love to be a part of Radiohead, they’re easily one of my favourite bands; I think that they’re all actual geniuses, so I wouldn’t really fit in well. But I would love it if, in some way, I could be a part of Radiohead. That would make me very happy.
Jonty Simmons
TAKING BACK SUNDAY / THE USED
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Hey John, how’s it going? Where are you at the moment?
Right now, I’m actually at home in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Sounds like a nice break from touring.
Yes, it definitely is.
Just to start off with, the Taking Back Sunday and The Used tour just got announced for Australia, was it you guys or The Used who decided on the joint tour to Australia since they were just here for Warped?
I’m not sure if it was one band or the other that made the decision. But when we announced the tour in the US, which was months ago now since we just finished that tour, the reaction was just really overwhelming. So I think pretty immediately both bands knew that that was something that was exciting, and we should bring it to as many places as we can you know?
Well we were lucky to get that, because a lot of the time we don’t actually get the same tours as the US does. So there’s a lot of excitement buzzing about it.
Well yeah honestly, a lot of the time when we do a tour in the US with a band, we normally wouldn’t bring that same combination of shows to Australia or anywhere else. We usually would put together a whole new package. But this seemed like something special you know?
And Tonight Alive performed too?
They opened up for us and The Used in America for our tour; they were on that whole tour. They were great on the tour we did in the US. They’re awesome.
You didn’t do the ‘Tell All Your Friends 10 year anniversary tour’ in Australia, or anywhere besides America really, are you going to be playing a few more of those tracks to make up for it?
I don’t know, we always play songs from that album, and I don’t know that we’ll play anymore than we usually do. But we always make sure to touch on that album, and play tracks from it. We try to play things from every album, we don’t wanna favour any one album over the others you know?
So before each show you say “we’d better MakeDamnSure we play songs from it”?
*laughs* Something like that.
Sorry, I had to do it.
It’s alright man *laughs*.
Is there a Used song that you want to go into the crowd and scream along to after being on tour with them for so long?
I really like ‘A Box Full of Sharp Objects’; I know it’s one of the older ones of theirs. They’re probably really tired of playing that one, but I really like it, I’ve liked it since I heard it 10 or 11 years ago, I like that song a lot.
Talking about 10 or 11 years ago, Taking Back Sunday has been around for nearly a decade and a half; do you notice a mainly older crowd? Or do you have kids up the front screaming your lyrics still?
We have an interesting mix of people at our shows these days. You know, we have people that got into the first or second album, and come out to shows. They can be anywhere from their mid twenties to their mid thirties. Then I think there are people that got into the band a little later, and they’re a little younger. We also have people who are brought by, I think, their older brothers and sisters who were 10 or 11 when ‘Tell All Your Friends’ or ‘Where You Want to Be’ came out and are in their twenties or late teens now. Some of the older people too, bring their kids to shows, so it’s a really interesting mix that you see. It’s pretty cool.
Cool, on the early release, ‘Great Romances of the Twentieth Century’ was one of the first tracks the band ever wrote, do you still feel that same excitement writing songs as you did back then?
Yeah, you do. You know, the thing is, at this point you realize it’s not going to happen every time you write a song. It’s not like we thought that back during ‘Tell All Your Friends’, but you still get that thing; every once in a while, a song just comes together and clicks you know? You’re just like, this is good! You just know that you’re onto something. It is the same feeling that you got back then, it doesn’t always happen unfortunately. You get to know, as you go on, that’s a pretty special thing when that happens. So you really appreciate it, when you go “Oh my god, I know right now it’s happening, we’re doing it, we’re putting together one of those songs.” It’s just working and it’s exciting.
So you haven’t become ‘bitter’ or ‘jaded’ in the past 15 years or so?
Well, you know, to some extent *laughs*. I think back when we were putting together ‘Tell All Your Friends’ we would throw songs together a lot more than we do now, we would, honestly, put a lot less thought into them in the ‘Tell All Your Friends’ days. We would just be like “Yeah it’s awesome, it’s awesome!” and be so excited! But now, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily bitter or jaded, when you’re older you realize “maybe this song could be better” you know? Maybe our first idea isn’t the best idea, and maybe we can refine this and work on it a little more. You get a little more thoughtful about things I think.
Do you get a bit offended when people say ‘Tell All Your Friends’ is their favourite album, and you go “I put so much less effort into that than I did with the 6th album”?
Well, I don’t get offended; I definitely feel that ‘Happiness Is’ is the best album that Taking Back Sunday have ever put out. I understand that a lot of fans of the band are going to be attached to ‘Tell All Your Friends’, you know, the albums and songs they heard when they were 14. Nothing is ever going to replicate that experience, so I understand that and we all appreciate that, we all love that people still feel so much from that first album and they’re so attached that. But for me, I think what we’re doing now, I think we put out a much better album that has much better songs, performed much better than ‘Tell All Your Friends’. But you know, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me either.
Well fair enough. ‘Happiness Is’ has an almost wistful tone to it in a way, was that a consequence of you being away from the band for so long?
I think that the one thing that happened when we got back together and did the self titled album, that we were sort of learning how to make a Taking Back Sunday record again. Then with ‘Happiness Is’ I think that we kind of realized that if the five of us are making music together, it’s going to be a Taking Back Sunday album; we don’t have to try to make it sound any particular way, we can just go with what we’re interested in and excited about. It’s going to be Taking Back Sunday because it’s the five of us, so I think that cuts through more than it did on the self titled. I’m not sure if that’s wistful or anything, but that is something that happened with the recording of the album.
Right, you released your album for free streaming before the release date; do you think that’s the future of releasing music in this day and age?
You know, I think that’s what’s happening now, almost everyone does that at this point. I think nobody knows the future of music right now; it’s all up in the air. It’s all pretty crazy; I think anyone that says they know where the music industry is heading is lying, or they’re deluded.
Alright, I’ll tell that to future people I interview that John Nolan thinks they’re deluded if they give me any other answer.
*laughs* Yeah, nobody knows what’s happening right now. It’s all up in the air.
In relation to the music industry, you recently posted a tweet about respecting Kanye West for rhyming sarcophagus with oesophagus…
Wow, you’ve done your research!
*laughs* thanks. Do you think egos like his are what’s keeping interest in the music industry nowadays?
I think that Kanye West obviously is infuriating as a personality; he’s a very difficult person to like. But I think that you need Kanye West in the music business, you need someone who 100% believes that they’re best, and actually has the talent and the skill to back it up too. You can’t just go out there and be full of shit believing you’re the best, the guy actually is amazing, and he’s obviously, I think, brilliant and a genius. He’s not ashamed to say he is, you need someone out there like that, you need people like that in the music industry. You need artists like that, you need that in art; you can’t have everyone walking around half-ashamed hoping there’s someone who’s going to like it, you need someone to say “I’m the best there is at what I do, and you’d better get on board with this or you’re stupid”.
Maybe we can start a ‘Defend Kanye West’ organization.
Yeah, I think we should. I mean, I think he’s his own ‘Defend Kanye West’ organization *laughs*.
For sure. Alright, back onto the live aspect, what would you say is yours, and the band’s favourite tracks to play live?
Well right now, it’s definitely the new songs from this album; really any songs from this one I think, it’s really exciting. ‘Stood a Chance’ has been really fun, ‘Flicker Fade’ was the first one we put out there and the reaction from fans has been amazing, like right from the start. That was really cool to see, even before it was released, we started playing ‘Flicker Fade’ and people got into it. You could see it in the crowd when we played it live, so that was great to be in that position where we’re excited, and the fans are excited. We played another song called ‘They Don’t Have Any Friends’ from ‘Happiness Is’, we haven’t played it a ton, but that one’s been really fun to play. When we have played it, it’s gotten a great response and it’s a pretty energetic and upbeat song, but pretty much anything from any album is pretty much our favourite.
That’s kind of a diplomatic answer there.
Well, I mean, it sounds like it but really it is. To tell you the truth, we would love to just go out there and play our new album and just do that, and then play another set of the hits and the songs that people want to hear from the past albums. You’ve gotta balance it out, but we would love to just do that. We love playing these new songs, we really do, it’s exciting.
Awesome. Just some final questions for you, if you could choose to be a part of any record in history, which would it be?
I think I would go with ‘The White Album’, by The Beatles. I don’t know if I needed to say that was by The Beatles *laughs*; you’re probably familiar with that album. I don’t know what the experience of recording it was like with The Beatles, it just seems like such an insane record; it’s just so good, but it seems like it’s so unhinged and insane, so I would’ve loved to be a part of that. Even just to be an engineer, or tuning guitars or anything, I would’ve loved to have been a part of that album; just to be a fly on the wall or something.
Maybe you can tell people you’re the fifth Beatle from that?
*laughs* I could tell people that, I don’t know if they’d believe me though…
Just finally, if you could be a part of any other band, which would you choose? You can’t say The Beatles.
I won’t say The Beatles. That would’ve been what I would’ve said if I hadn’t used The White Album beforehand. I’d love to be a part of Radiohead, they’re easily one of my favourite bands; I think that they’re all actual geniuses, so I wouldn’t really fit in well. But I would love it if, in some way, I could be a part of Radiohead. That would make me very happy.
Jonty Simmons
TAKING BACK SUNDAY / THE USED
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
THURSDAY 21 AUGUST - ADELAIDE, HQ – Lic A/A
www.oztix.com.au / www.venuetix.com.au
FRIDAY 22 AUGUST - BRISBANE, EATON'S HILL HOTEL – Lic A/A
www.oztix.com.au / www.ticketmaster.com.au
SATURDAY 23 AUGUST - SYDNEY, UNSW ROUNDHOUSE – Lic A/A
SOLD OUT
MONDAY 25 AUGUST - MELBOURNE, 170 RUSSELL – 18+
SOLD OUT
TUESDAY 26 AUGUST - MELBOURNE, 170 RUSSELL – 18+
SOLD OUT