“A Newfound Zest”: Reflecting on the Past & Looking to the Future with Taking Back Sunday’s Shaun Cooper

Atwood Magazine sits down with Taking Back Sunday bassist Shaun Cooper as he dives into two decades of creative evolution, shares unexpected successes, and explores the symbiotic nature of music and friendship on the band’s eighth album, ‘152.’

Stream: ‘152’ – Taking Back Sunday

What’s a better time than now to ride (and capitalize off) the wave of 2000s nostalgia?

The short answer is there isn’t, and the industry has made that abundantly clear; finding a song that banks on nostalgia and doesn’t come off as creative stagnation or a shameless cash grab is harder than ever.

For Long Island rock ‘n’ roll veterans, Taking Back Sunday, this was something that bore in mind entering, and throughout, the making of their long-awaited eighth studio album. Released via Fantasy Records on October 27, 2023, Taking Back Sunday’s latest record 152 shows a band in its 24th year, post-pandemic and seven-year absence, bridging its past, present, and future. Nodding to their roots, but never regressing, 152 shows a two-decade-old band in a constant process of becoming, still looking to the road ahead. As vocalist Adam Lazzarra, guitarist John Nolan, drummer Mark O’Connell, and bassist Shaun Cooper reflect on their years of friendship, history, and the transformations they’ve undergone, Taking Back Sunday prove that, despite the time that’s passed, their goals and passions still stand.

“I think it’s easy to get complacent when you’ve been doing this for so long,” Cooper admits. “You’re playing shows, you’re putting out records, and some responses are better than others. The time away made us all think about how much we need this band in our lives, how much we love it, and how much attention we want to pour into this record. Of course, it made us think about how we need to change things as well. We need to revamp everything, whether it’s our image, the sound of the songs, or even how we work together.”

The 152 motif is nothing unfamiliar if you’re a longtime fan – as a matter of fact, there’s probably no title more fitting, eight albums into the game, than the strongest (and longest) continuity since the band’s inception, 152. Referencing a freeway exit in North Carolina where the band historically gathered, the number 152 has been an Easter egg on every album cover since Tell All Your Friends, serving as not only an invitational gateway into the Taking Back Sunday world for fans, but ultimately an homage to their origins and brotherhood.

“We’ve hit this really cool point in our careers where the nostalgia has kind of caught up to us,” shares Cooper. “We’re old enough to where there’s that now. But, we’ve been so passionate about continuing to push our careers forward that we’re hitting this nice meeting point, where we’re connecting the old world with the new world of Taking Back Sunday. I think you can hear that on this record.”

Commercial success is always validating, but few ever find it truly fulfilling. Rather than playing it safe and, in Cooper’s words, making “a ‘Cute Without The ‘E’’ Part Two” the band hopes to represent where they currently stand in their lives, individually and as a unit – no trend, stream count, or industry voice can outweigh the value of prowess and artistic integrity.

Twenty-four years is a long, long time. Within those years, Taking Back Sunday grew to heights and reached milestones beyond their wildest imaginations; of course, there was the whirlwind success of Tell All Your Friends, but the band proved to be far from one-hit wonders. From Warped Tour headlines to two Grammy nominations, it was only natural for them to become one of the primary architects of (and soundtracks to) the 2000s alternative scene. Through the personal turmoils, professional momentum, and several lineup changes, Taking Back Sunday’s goals remained the same.

“I’d like to be perceived as a band that could do anything!” Cooper exclaimed. “We’ve been a band that’s been around for a very long time, but we can surprise people! I think our best days are ahead of us. Sure, we’re the guys who have ‘Cute Without The ‘E,’’ ‘You’re So Last Summer,’ and ‘MakeDamnSure,’ but there’s a lot more to us than that. It’s not just the emo hits… I think time has been good to us, and we are passionate about this band, we are passionate about the songs. We’re passionate musicians. People are starting to understand that now, and that’s pretty cool.”

Intermediating what came before and what’s to come, 152 is filled to the brim with sincerity, connection, and maturity. Constantly reinventing and modernizing, yet remaining profoundly heartfelt and honest, the band is more unified in artistry and companionship than ever before. Taking Back Sunday, with a newfound appreciation for music and one another, continue to stand the test of time – and we’ll be making damn sure. The future’s looking bright, and we had Shaun Cooper tell us all about it.

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:: stream/purchase 152 here ::

:: connect with Taking Back Sunday here ::

“Amphetamine Smiles” – Taking Back Sunday

A CONVERSATION WITH TAKING BACK SUNDAY 

Shaun Cooper: Thank you so much! The mindset we had was similar for everything. Someone would start off with a song idea, and each of us would just follow that to see what ideas we individually presented. We wanted to see what everyone else was resonating with. A lot of times, our drummer, Mark, would bring in a lot of song ideas that he’d been working on on his phone. He’s like the master of GarageBand. Depending on the day, we’d just kind of go from there. I had some guitar parts and stuff. We’ve really learned, especially on the writing of our previous record, that we have to trust our gut and not overthink things. There was that element there. We wanted to try out a whole bunch of different ideas, while also not overthinking things. Then when we brought them to our producer, Tushar Apte, he added a whole new level of musicality and a whole new array of sonic textures to the mix that were just so cool. So, we followed his lead with all of those things, which led to how the record actually sounds. We’re just so excited for everyone to hear it really soon!

Shaun Cooper: I think, like Mark said, it’s just a feeling – feeling something, anything, that moves you. So we’ve focused really hard on on on the songs. The way Adam and John write lyrics really connect, and there are lines that raise the hair on my arms and give me goosebumps. That’s always the goal. You don’t really know how to do that, and it kind of just happens. It’s a pretty magical thing when it does. That’s always the goal: to make people move, to feel something, to feel good, or to just feel a connection with us and what we’re doing. I think we believed in these songs, so I’m hoping that that works, but again, you never know if what resonates with us is going to resonate with other people. I think we’ve hit this really cool point in our careers where the nostalgia has kind of caught up to us; we’re old enough to where there’s that now. But, we’ve been so passionate about continuing to push our careers forward that we’re hitting this nice meeting point, where we’re connecting the old world with the new world of Taking Back Sunday. I think you can hear that on this record.

Shaun Cooper: We always trust our gut during the songwriting process. We try not to do anything that’s a current trend. When the band started off, we had so many friends tell us, “Oh, you need a DJ, you need a rapper, you need all these things really want to be big and make it.” That music is cool and I’m a fan of it, but it’s not what connects with us. It’s not the kind of music that resonates with all of us, so we’re not going to do it, and we didn’t. We didn’t jump on those trends, and we continue to do that, for better or worse. That’s what has always remained the same.

I think we’ve all grown as musicians and songwriters; Mark used to write his stuff solely on a guitar, so the basis of what he wrote became “Cute without the ‘E.’” On this, we have so much more use of electronics, and it’s so much more convenient to do more things on our own. We had a lot more complete ideas coming in, because of the great use of technology and stuff. I think we’ve also worked really hard on communicating as a band, as musicians, and as people, so there’s a lot of personal growth on the record that made the writing process really amazing. You can hear it in the songs.

Shaun Cooper: I don’t know. I think everyone is a lot more open to hearing everyone else’s ideas. There’s not as much, “I need to get my ideas across.” There’s a bit more patience, and I think that that comes with getting older and trusting each other more. I think there’s always a push-pull dynamic which is something that’s important for art. If it were easy all the time, maybe you’re not making the best stuff. Maybe you’re not pushing each other hard enough. There’s always going to be a hard dynamic. It’s like physical exercise or something; it might be a little a little tough, but when you push through, you feel really good at the end of the day. There were times when it flowed too easily. We were like, “Is this any good?” Everyone just kind of agreed with each other, and it went really quickly. We didn’t know if it was right.

For example, we had the song, “S’old,” written, and it really wasn’t working. We didn’t know why, and we didn’t know exactly what to change about it. The melodies and words that Adam had written were really amazing, and we didn’t want to lose those. Maybe in the past, we would have lost a song like that, because we couldn’t figure out the direction to take it. When we put Tushar in the mix, he was like, “Man, this is too good!” He took what we had, and then he did some rearranging, putting a couple of different chords under some of the melodies, and there was the song! He’s included as a writer on that song and in the credits because he helped shape it. It was really amazing to be able to trust him with that and to go with it, because I think it’s a fantastic song that would have wound up in the trash had it been with the past albums. I’m so happy we didn’t do that this time.

Shaun Cooper: With the way we live on the road and the way we work together, it’s impossible for there to not be overlap. There’s just been so much connection over the years and stuff like that in this business. It’s no nine-to-five where you get to go home; I get on the bus with these guys, and we’re bonding, talking, hanging out, and arguing. That happens, but we work together. It is a really weird, extended family/marriage thing. There’s amazing chemistry that I think we all love and really enjoy there. It can make for some difficult times, but overall, we know we can’t do this without each other, so we really appreciate one another.

Shaun Cooper: There was certainly nostalgia playing songs I hadn’t played for seven years. That was cool, but the whole thing and the reason why it worked is because we all grew as individuals together. Everyone kind of needed time to mature, find out what they needed in life, establish themselves as adults, and get into this world. It was just really cool – we all kind of met the people we ended up marrying and having kids with at a similar time. There was a certain maturity that took place within each and every one of us separately, and it made us a stronger unit. If that wasn’t there, if it was just songwriting chemistry, and if there wasn’t something more personal and deeper, I don’t think it would have worked. I don’t think I would have stuck around. That was something we knew was a very real possibility when we first reconnected, and fortunately, it worked out well. Here we are all these years later, been back in the band since 2010! That time has really blown by.

Shaun Cooper: It was bizarre. We had spent 2019 celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the band, and we knew we were going to need a little time off to kind of recover from that wild year of touring across the globe. March 2020 was when we went down to a studio in Charlotte, North Carolina, to reconnect and start working on the songs that would become this record. We were there for about five or six days, then my manager called me as I was at the airport going down to Charlotte from New York. He was like, “Is everything okay? Are you guys feeling alright?” I’m like, “Well, it’s kind of bizarre that the airport’s shockingly empty. I’ve heard of this virus and I don’t know how that’s gonna be, but I think I think we’re fine.” We were gonna go down there, see how it was, and if it’s weird, we’d come back. Maybe we’d just take a little break while the world kind of figures this thing out. Doing that was a little bit weird coming home from Charlotte. The airport was packed and people were starting to get really scared. I remember seeing a lot of people wearing gloves getting on the plane, because no one was even thinking about face masks and stuff. So I’m like, “Wait, something’s happening here. We’ve got a show coming up at the end of the month. I don’t know if that’s going to happen.” And then, sure enough, that show was canceled and the world shut down. That was incredibly frustrating, and we had no idea when we were going to be in the same room again. We all want to be as safe as possible, and we all have small kids and things that we need to take care of and tend to.

We had an extended break that we wouldn’t ordinarily give ourselves, we had more time to work out the songs, we had more time to work on ourselves, and kind of redeveloped a passion for the band. I think it’s easy to get complacent when you’ve been doing this for so long. You’re playing shows, you’re putting out records and some responses are better than others. The time away made us all think about how much we need this band in our lives, how much we love it, and how much attention we want to pour into this record. Of course, it made us think about how we need to change things as well. We need to revamp everything, whether it’s our image, the sound of the songs, or even how we work together. Having the time to do that throughout the pandemic was very important because when we got in a room again, we were just so excited and happy to bang out these new ideas. Through our friend, Steve Aoki, we met our producer Tushar Apte. Then, we were off to the races and everything was amazing! I think that time was ultimately the best thing that could have happened for our band, to really think about reinventing ourselves and reigniting the passion we all have for it.

Shaun Cooper: The dynamic didn’t really change. I think it was just more powerful. The chemistry became stronger. With a greater appreciation came a newfound zest for this thing. It’s very hard to explain.

Shaun Cooper: That’s awesome! It’s always really surprising to hear. When we put out that record, I thought it was good and I really believed in what we had done, but I didn’t know anyone that had made it in the music business and made a career out of it. I just thought we would put the record out, maybe some people would like it, some people wouldn’t, and we’d go on tour because the label is really behind us on things like that. I was excited to do that, but I assumed that since the record would come out in March, we’d tear through the summer, and by fall, I’d be going back to school and working on a different career that was a lot safer bet than playing in a band. That was the extent I thought that that record would go. I thought it would resonate with a couple hundred people. All this time later to see it connecting with generations is really mind-blowing, so thank you for telling me that! It makes me feel really good.

I still can’t believe it. I always feel like we’re on borrowed time. Maybe there’s some insecurity in me. It’s like, I’m not meant to live this dream, this is too bizarre, I should be doing something else with my life that’s more mundane, and not the thing I wanted since I was six or seven years old. It’s so amazing to hear that. The longevity of that record is something none of us ever imagined. I think as we’ve worked on each record, we go, “Oh, maybe we get five more years out of this. Maybe there’s enough excitement behind this. We can keep the thing going on there.” Now, the Rolling Stones are like 80 years old, they’re still doing the thing. How’s that going to be? I think I could still do it. I think I’d have Mick Jagger’s energy. It’s really cool to see that there are rock bands older than my parents still going. Then, there are people like you who weren’t even born when our first record came out! That makes me pretty hopeful and pretty excited for the future and the longevity of this band, because this is what I would love to do for the rest of my life.

Shaun Cooper: I would say, “Chill out, this is going to be the most amazing ride you’ve ever been on. Buckle up, it’s going to be insane. But like, chill out and enjoy it! Not a lot of people get to do this, so you’re one of the lucky ones.”

Shaun Cooper: I don’t know if we ever really had challenges. It’s just the communication, getting in the room, and getting on the same page. Like I was saying earlier, there’s a push-pull dynamic; sometimes, someone wants to take a song in one direction, and someone else wants to take it in another. Sometimes that can creep up. We’re old enough to get around those things and trust each other, so I wouldn’t really say we were creatively challenged. I think time was the biggest challenge with this record, because when the pandemic was over, we went straight back into touring. We needed to. It was so important to remind people who we were since we’d been away for a while. We are so excited to get out and play shows again, because that’s such a big part of who we are; it’s a big part of my identity. That was the biggest challenge – finding the time in between tours to write, record, not get burned out, and also have time for our families and things like that. Then suddenly, you’ve got two weeks. You’re going to be in the studio, then you’re going right back out on tour, and then you need a couple of days with your family. The time and getting to do it in a timely fashion was difficult.

That was part of what took so long. We had to write and record in these week or two-week-long sessions, whereas with previous records, it was like, “You got six weeks, you’re gonna be in the studio, bang this thing out. Let’s go.” This is like, “Okay, two weeks here, two weeks there. Five days there. When’s the producer available? When’s the studio available? Where are we going to be? Okay, we got some time.” But, I think that is going to be amazing for the future, because we learned how to ride on the road and how to record on the road. There was not a day off on tour where we’d just be sitting in a hotel room; I’d be playing video games, FaceTiming with the family, or even DoorDash something. It was great to be able to just spend a day in the studio and bang out a song. We were like, “One song a day. Let’s go.” I think that opened up a whole new avenue for us to create.

Shaun Cooper: Yeah, there was a sense of immediacy. We were like, “Okay, I need to work on this bassline while Mark’s banging out his drum stuff. We got the chords, we kind of got a loose guitar idea. All right, I’m gonna write and expand on this bassline in real time, while he’s he’s going and doing the drums. Once the drums are done, I have an hour to do bass, because we have to get John’s guitars and vocals. Time is of the essence.” It was cool to put on headphones, listen to the scratch tracks, go back through things, and work on them within that time crunch. Once we were away from that process and the song was written, I could refine it home and things like that. That immediacy definitely helped. I think it was a different way than we’ve done things in the past too, which was really fun.

Shaun Cooper: One of my favourite songs on the record is a ballad called “I Am The Only One Who Knows You.” John brought the bones of that song to us. We turned it initially, from that very first writing trip in March of 2020. Before the world shut down, it was like a rollicking punk rock song, and then Adam had the idea of turning it into a ballad – let’s slow it way down, and let’s see where this goes. It turned out to be something really beautiful, because the punk rock version was cool and fun, but it wasn’t a next-level song. It was like, “This is fine, but it’s not great.” That was one of those things we refined over time and took it in a much different direction to breathe some fresh air into it. I’m so proud of that song. I’m so excited about how it came out.

Shaun Cooper: Yeah, it’s really cool to be a part of it. It was unexpected, and it wasn’t something we thought about at all when we were working on the record, because we’re always trying to push ourselves forward. We never want to write “Cute Without The ‘E’” Part Two, although that has been suggested several times over the years. People are like, “Why don’t you do something like this? Why don’t you do something that’s totally stuck in the past?” Well, that’s not us. We don’t feel good about that. We wouldn’t be happy about rehashing something that we’ve done before, and we’re proud of that, but we want to leave it there. We want to create and open new doors instead of revisiting and walking in the same old ones.

I think it’s cool to be a part of that; I’m happy that our songs have stood the test of time. It’s exciting that there’s so much interest in our band, and I feel like so many people are paying attention to this new record, thanks to that nostalgia. We wrote really good songs, and we were always really passionate about it. We always kept trying to evolve and push ourselves in a good direction because we loved what we were doing. We never wanted to be stuck in the same place. It was all those ideas that gave our band the longevity it’s had, and I’m so happy people are paying attention to the new stuff now. I think that it’s all worked in some sort of synergy, which is an amazing thing at this stage.

Shaun Cooper: I’d like to be perceived as a band that could do anything. We’ve been a band that’s been around for a very long time, but we can surprise people! I think our best days are ahead of us. Sure, we’re the guys who have “Cute Without The ‘E,’” “You’re So Last Summer,” and “MakeDamnSure,” but there’s a lot more to us than that. It’s not just the emo hits. We’re pretty finely-tuned songwriters and musicians, and we love playing live. There’s passion and energy to our shows, because we really do love what we’re doing. I think time has been good to us, and we are passionate about this band, we are passionate about the songs. We’re passionate musicians. People are starting to understand that now, and that’s pretty cool.

Shaun Cooper: Right now, there’s a song called “Lightbringer” that really connects with me. I think it’s just really fun. I was actually rehearsing by myself today to play through the record, because we’re doing these album play shows shortly. We have some rehearsals coming up with the band, so I have to work on that. It’s just one of those things that really connects with me. The lyrics that Adam wrote really connect with me as an adult looking at the past. I don’t ask him and John what the lyrics are about, but they connect with me in a certain way. I feel like I have a certain understanding; it’s something that allows you to look back at the past and ask some questions about what happened in your life and these different moments. It’s just that song that really resonates with me right now.

Shaun Cooper: That’s tough. We did a lot of recording. The Killers were very kind, and they opened up their studio to us when we had some time off in between shows. It was just really cool being in their space, and they were so accommodating to us. We met some of the people who worked for them, and they were they were just so awesome. It was just a really good time hanging out around Las Vegas. I think that it created a cool vibe and a cool energy for the record, though there wasn’t really anything amazing that happened. We just hung out, talked, ate food, and made some really cool songs. We watched a lot of Walker and Texas Ranger, because they had the box set of DVDs in there. In our downtime, we’d just pop on a DVD and watch the absurdity of good old Walker, and that was pretty fun.

Shaun Cooper: Gosh, I’m looking forward to everything! We have these really cool album play shows that I’m excited about. We’re going to be in Los Angeles, Nashville, and New York City. I can’t wait to play this record front to back, and maybe we’ll do it a lot more than these album play shows. I feel so strongly about this record that I’m excited to just play. It is a pretty short record, but I think the content is there, and it’s really strong. I’m really looking forward to that. I’m looking forward to going to Australia since my sister and her family live there, and they’re just amazing people. I’m going to get to see them in Melbourne and I can’t wait for that. That’s going to be really cool – our holiday shows to end the year. I’m also looking forward to a nice break in January, because we’re doing so much traveling and so much work. That’s gonna be cool, but we just have a lot of plans coming up for 2024. I’m excited to unveil all those, but we haven’t gotten them all sorted out yet. There’s so much more coming for us and for this band. The future’s looking bright, and I can’t wait to just get this record out to the world!

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:: stream/purchase 152 here ::

:: connect with Taking Back Sunday here ::

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