Interview: Taking Back Sunday’s Eddie Reyes on “Happiness Is”, New Beginnings, and No Labels

By: Daniel Gerichter (@ZenDonut) –

Taking Back Sunday.

Not every band endures the way Taking Back Sunday have. With a story that includes shuffling the deck with new and old members and freeing themselves of label involvement not every band could keep the punk spirit alive the way they have on Happiness Is. Guitarist Eddie Reyes sat down to talk free agency, keeping it real, an ever-evolving sound and an ages-old conspiracy theory.

With Happiness Is, What was your state of mind on the first day of recording?

Honestly? I wanted it to come out right away. As soon as we started recording it, I just wanted itto be done and out there. It’s a thing I do in my head because the whole recording process takes forever.

What was your state of mind on the last day of recording?

Thank GOD.

The lineup’s gone through some changes over the years. With Fred, Matt Rubano and Matt Fazzihaving left, What are some key elements that left with them?

Matt was a very talented bassist, Fozzy was a great guitarist and so was Fred. I mean, for me it was always about musicianship. They brought something to the table, but now our guys are back and now they bring something else to the table.

This is the second album with the original lineup back together. How would you say your sound has evolved on Happiness is?

I think it really came together because we did ourselves. We didn’t have people standing over our shoulders saying “change this, change that” and I think we wanted to do it the old fashioned way. And we’re going to keep doing that because we tend to write better records that way.

Other than each another, who are your favourite people to collaborate with?

Mike Sapone. It’s always to see what he does. Him and Mark Hudson worked on this record. It was great working with Eric Valentine on the other records, but Mark Hudson and Mike Saponereally took the reigns on this record. You know, we’re all old friends it was just like a bunch of buddies drinking beers and jamming it out in the studio, so you could really feel that on the record.

And what would you say Mike Sapone brought to the album?

He’s such a crazy man, that man. He just brings a lot of ideas that you or I wouldn’t normally think about or hear. We’ve also worked with him so many times in the past – I’d worked with him in other bands. The guy just really knows how to pick our brains apart. Same goes for Mark Hudson. He was our sound guy for 10 years. We just did our recording and would go “here you go buddy” and he’d just know what to do with it.

This is the first time since 2002 that you’ve had no label involvement an album’s creation. What’s that look like in terms of the creative process?

You know, sometimes certain bands – it’s good for them to use A&R guys. But for us… we came out of a basement. When we got into that world, we were suddenly getting like, 50 million opinions – and they’re not even opinions, you know what I mean? It’s their way of saying “you’re gonna do it that way” as if they know something WE don’t. It can take a bit out of the band’s soul, but now that we have full control, we don’t give a shit. We’re going to do whatever we want to do. And luckily, Hopeless Records told us that’s exactly what they wanted from us, so we couldn’t be happier there. 

On the other side of things, It’s hard to romanticize the idea of having an A&R rep around throughout an album’s creation, but are there any advantages to that?

I wish I could say ‘more exposure’, because honestly, after the first record we did on a major… we worked really hard on it, and we found that their interest just kind of slowly dwindled away. But with Hopeless, they’ve done more for us on this record than any other label we’ve ever worked with. Other than the schmooze-fests, I really don’t see any differences and I’d rather have it this way, to be honest. Being an old, grouchy punk rock kid from New York, I’m back to where I belong. We’re a lot happier now.

You guys were free agents for a while there. What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve seen an independent band do to get noticed?

There are a couple of bands who’ve done ridiculous shit on Kickstarter. There was one where the band was trying to make money to bring their family on the road with them. I think that’s silly. Go out there and work. They don’t want to work – they want to just make money. Not saying any names, but it was a fairly popular band.

It’s the 20th anniversary of the day they found Kurt Cobain’s body. Where were you when you found out?

I was at the P-wack in Long Island – it was a venue that my friends and I ran. I think it was Sick of it All that was playing at the time, and then they announced it on the mic. Believe it or not, as cruel as it sounds, a lot of people cheered.

I wasn’t one of the people doing that. I was pretty shocked, but I think there just wasn’t a connection with the whole Grunge thing in the hardcore scene. I grew up with guys like Fugazi and I think a lot of fans of bands like that were kinda bitter that Nirvana got all the cred when their favourite bands should have been the ones getting it. I do remember yelling at people, telling people to have some class. I had friends that were really upset, but I also had friends who were like “who cares?”. Myself? I don’t think he killed himself. I think someone had something to do with it.

Happiness Is streamed for free. Years ago, that sort of idea would have been inconceivable to both bands AND studios. How do you feel about it?

I think it helped. We were the number one indie on Billboard and we were in the top 10 on Billboard. I mean, if you’re going to steal it, fine. But still maybe go out and buy the record. I’ve had so many people come up to me and go “OK, I stole the record but I’m going to go out and buy it” and then later you see those same people and they went out and bought it. I think streaming the record’s a really smart idea. People should look to Hopeless for an awesome example of that.

There are so few radio stations that play anything beyond top 40, this is actually becoming a viable alternative.

It’s either, pop, hip-hop or dude/bro metal, so yeah. There are just a handful of stations that play good stuff. In Cleveland and Detroit, there’s 89X. On Sunday, they play the ’80s and alternative stuff you wanna hear – hell they play us three times a day.

Check out our photos of Taking Back Sunday’s show with The Used in Toronto on April 8th here.