Interview with Matt Rubano from Taking Back Sunday

Interviewer Sonja Hoff . made: 05/31/06 . Cologne/ LMH . takingbacksunday.com

Taking Back Sunday - You're So Last Summer

Punk76: Have you ever heard of “Mike Leon Grosch” and “Tobias Regner”? They are the finalists of Germany`s “Deutschland sucht den Superstar”, which is the German equivalent of “American Idol”. So these two guys play tonight at the E-Werk in Cologne too, and I think that their location is less bigger than the Live Music Hall. So what do you think about that?? Does it make you feel proud somehow, because you managed to play such a big show without the help of tv stations?

Matt: Oh, I guess that`s interesting, isn`t it? No, I mean we do not really apply any ideas of competition to music, not to our band…so that’s interesting and probably a good sign for the grad of good music and that people maybe are more interested in something like this than in pop idol shows. I say that’s cool, but I wouldn`t say something like “fuck those guys” I say that’s cool, but I wouldn`t say something like “fuck those guys”….but it´s interesting …sure…I guess the television isn`t as powerful as the media suggests us. The Pop idol shows are only designed for one season, and then the stars are gone.

Punk76: Your new (third) album is out for about one month now. So what can we expect this night?? Old an new songs or mainly the new stuff?

Matt: Certainly a mixture…Well, it´s really nice having three records to chose from to play a set. But of course the music from “Louder now” is the music that we are most interested in playing right now because it’s the newest music and a new record best represents a band at this point of time. We´ll play songs from all of the records, many songs from Louder now and where you want to be, and a couple of songs from tell all your friends…

Punk76: What are the new songs mainly taking about?

Matt: Well, I don’t write any lyrics.. But to generalise all of them together, I would say that over all this record is quite a bit darker than the previous albums, I think that a lot of the lyrical content is a lot more cutting and a bit introspective and a sort of telling with the degree of interpretation, it`s not literal.. Once you start to aknowledge certain things in a song you start of really let people know where you stand on certain things..And I would say that Adam and Fred lyricly and melodycly are at the top of their game right now, their worked very well together and I really like the sound of this record.

Punk76: So TBS comes from New York. My question is, if 9/11 is still present in your daily lifes? How do you manage to live with this incident?

Matt: It´s always present. There are military police all over the city at all times and it´s been years…I think it’s an absolute shame that you have to see or to feel the presence of armed government officers around your city/any city that that happens, because it´s not a free feeling place even though they are just standing there, they meant to just stand there so that you see them everywhere in the subway and near every tourist attraction…I think that one way you meant to feel save, but another way you meant to feel quite the opposite: that they need to be there, and if not, then there will be total chaos…New York certainly changed forever from that point, and the world to a degree, because of what the American president and the military government came up with…

Punk76: Does one of the songs deal with this theme?

Matt: It´s quite a disappointing thing to really think about it as far as writing songs about it... I don`t believe that we have tackled anything like that in our music. Its seems like it´s difficult in this days for artists to meaningfully be in the opposition, like Bono or some movie actors that decide to take a stand, I think you almost come off a bit silly.. even though you achieving something with your cause, because you are in fact an actor… The general state of “that’s an American and that’s a New Yorker” sure has some cleaning up to do, because we set a president that is quite dangerous for the future…the entire iraque invasion..and people were dying for this causeness cause…
Or Vietnam again…its quite disappointing…but its interesting because Vietnam had all of these implications with music…there was Woodstock for example..

Punk76: As I can see, TBS does not consider itself as a political band, but you got your own political identity…

Matt: maybe not as a band, but as individuals certainly…Im a bit conflicted at times weather or not I should be using the band to inform people or to take advantage of the fact that we can get people`s attention ….I`m not so sure that they should be turning to us for those things and I don’t believe that because they hear it from me that it would be a real thing to put it in their lives. I think it´s meaningless if I would publish “Fuck Bush” or “peach the president” compare to if they discoversomething for themselves…I`m personally conflicted on it sometimes, but my own awareness is intact and for the most part that’s what I have to be responsible for..

Punk76: You released your new album on Warner Bros (major debut), which means that you had to leave Victory records. What were your reasons?

Matt: We had opportunities to do so before we recorded where you want to be, and it wasn’t the right time for us and we didn’t feel like this was a progary . We had enough going on then with Fred and me joining the band, the record to write and continue touring and stuff… and this time we had another opportunity to consider moving it was really just to improve things for our band, and because we felt to a degree we had outgrown our relationship with them and we won´t making any progress with them…More often working against them to accomplish the same goal, which is very frustrating.. I think, by our own live experience, we can dispel the myth that the independent label is the good guy and the major label is the bad guy… We have more freedom and support now, and people all over the world stand behind our band and have our back and support us, which is really important the longer you continue to make music or do anything for that matter…Now we fell like we have teamed up with a great butch of people.. making this record was the first sign that we made the right decision because we were left completely up our own devises and giving all the means that we could make the record.. we had the opportunity to work with Eric Valentine and take as much time as we needed to write and record the album, it could not have been what it is without that…We are very lucky and we are much happier where we are now and it was the right decision for us..

Punk76: I would like to know, if you are full-time musicians or do you still have part-time jobs? I guess that as a member of TBS one cannot live the life of a superstar like Green Day or Blink 182. So please draw our readers a picture of your life and perhaps “destroy” some of their illusions.

Matt: Everybody is very lucky only to play music. We reached that point now, and music is all we have time for. The band is our live right now, it takes out all our time. I´ve got it the other way…working, cocking, and then go to bed…but that was the past… Well, I currently don´t own an automobile, I don’t have a home… Weve been touring since March 5th …I don’t have a place where I live…I have a storage facility in New York City where are my cd`s and my books up to the ceiling…And it´s not because I can´t manage to have a home, I´m just never there…when I am in New York and I do need some place to go, I sleep at my mothers couch or at my friends houses or in a hotel.. And I don’t have a supermodel…I like pretty girls, who doesn’t?? When I`m home, I like to by records and read books and sit around and drink coffee and talk to my friends…I think all of us in the band …We have two full family guys, Fred has two kids and Eddy has a brandnew baby, they are obviously married and have families to take care of. Marc, Adam and I live in modest homes, Adam has a very tiny apartment in Brooklyn, not even in a very fancy neighbourhood…Marc lives on Long Island, it’s a nice place. And every day on tour is like waking up and figuring out where you are, and then you go inside and eat some food, and then we wait for soundcheck and maybe we will have some interviews…and then you eat dinner and you sit around and wait a lot and maybe you will try to go out into the city and see what you can. And then at home its resting and seeing friends, really basic and a kind of boring… not that exciting.. some exciting things happen from time to time but I guess we keep them secret….

Punk76: I know that you and singer Fred are the “new” members in the band…I mean that you weren’t in the original lineup… Did you play in any other band before?

Matt: By new, we are taking about three and a half years ago…Fred was in another band , which was the opener for TBS on a tour in 2000/2001, and that’s how they became friends and obviously decided to have Fred in the band. Before TBS, I have never heart of the band. I was doing all different kinds of music, I went to a music school and studied jazz and I played with my own jazz group and I did some freelance stuff in New York, I recorded with Lauren Hill…I played music wherever I could…I grew uplistening to a lot of the same music as the other guys of TBS. But what make me start playing music in the first place was Fugazi and the alternative music that started in the late eightees and early ninetees like the Red hot chilly peppers and Fishbone…it was very much like coming all the way round and “wow, I could be in a rock band now and have some fun..” it was the best thing for me to do..and music still is fulfilling me…

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