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AMSTERDAM - After a lot of line-up changes, the American alternative rock band Taking Back Sunday added guitarist Matthew Fazzi to work on the fourth album New Again. "He reminded us what was the most important: music itself", says lead singer Adam Lazzara.

Since the band was founded in 1999, Taking Back Sunday proved that they're not the most stable band around. Only guitarist Eddie Reyes is a member since the start. All those line-up changes had a negative effect on the band and the tension between the members rised. Writing new songs was the last thing they had on there mind.

With guitar player Fred Mascherino leaving – he rather wanted to work on a solo record – and Fazzi joining, the band got some new inspiration again.

Expectations
“Matt made us realise that it;s up to us to decide what and who Taking Back Sunday is and what it sounds like”, tells Lazzara, who joined the band in 2001 as a bass player and later became the lead singer. “For a long time I felt we were working on things that people expected from us. When Matt came in, the dynamic shifted and that was very freeing. Since then we tried a lot of new things.”

In their own country, Taking Back Sunday is pretty successful. The second album Where You Want To Be reached the third spot in the album charts and the next album, Louder Now, even reached the second place.

So it's not strange that Fazzi was very excited when he joined. But they were no complete strangers from each other. “I know these guys for a while now. It's good that we had that kind of base to start with”, explains the newest member.

Relation
“It would have been way different if I hadn't knew any of them and just came in after an audition. They knew a little bit about me and I think that really helped a lot. Our relation is getting stronger every day.”

For Fazzi it was important that he also had a voice in the writing proces of the new album. “They really gave me a lot of space to try to help push the band forward. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't have New Again I think.”

The album title New Again is a clear reference to the many line-up changes through the years. “All around the corner we're a totally different thing then when we started back then”, Lazarra explains. “We improved as performers and in songwriting. Everything has improved and I hope we'll keep doing that.”

Kristiaan Asscheman

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