Taking Back Sunday's Adam Lazzara Took Us Record Shopping

In my 27 years on earth, I would guesstimate that I have seen Taking Back Sunday perform live about 12 times. That is an experience every calendar month in the year. That is more times than I have had sex during a doomed relationship. That is, like, a lot of times. The reason I have seen Taking Back Sunday perform live more times than Janine Butcher has fleeced an EastEnders man for money isn't just because they have more emotions than a GCSE exam room, and a catalogue of hits that would make Ty Cobb blush. It is because in the decade and a half (under the influence) since their debut album Tell All Your Friends was released, shooting to the upper echelons of the modern emo canon, Taking Back Sunday have not stopped killing it. From the video with Flava Flav to the video that spawned a thousand sexy collar-pulling gifs to the video of two grown men eating sandwiches and drinking beer, Taking Back Sunday have channelled a shameless and flagrant number of feelings into music that somehow resonates just as purely at 4PM in the office as it did at lunchtime in high school. Every time I have thought 'oh, maybe I don't need to see Taking Back Sunday for the eighth, ninth, tenth time…' something has tugged at my gut, compelled me to go and then I have to spend the next hour and a half eating my words.

You could make fun of me for saying that – me, who wakes up every day and carefully fastens a necklace with the word 'emo' on it around my neck – but this footage of them playing "MakeDamnSure" to a sold-out Kentish Town Forum last week confirms everything I have just said. As you can see, there are plenty of men in their late twenties who would pay good money for Adam Lazzara to smack them in the face with his mic.

All of which is to say that I was extremely excited to somehow get Adam to go record shopping with me at Sister Ray in central London before they tore the aforementioned Forum into bits. He must not have remembered that date I took him on where I drank too much coffee and demanded to know what makes him cry.

Noisey: Hello, Adam! 
Adam Lazzara: Hello, again!

So Adam, which is the first section you usually go to when you go record shopping?
There's this store called Lunchbox in the town where I live. They buy a lot of used stuff that they just throw unsorted into a bin, but there's always a lot of new releases so I usually go straight there. I actually bought this William Shatner record recently that's all space-themed. He's covering David Bowie and "Bohemian Rhapsody" – it's pretty amazing. Since it's on vinyl you actually have to spend time with it, flip it over…

So you're forced to sit down with sides A and B of William Shatner's spoken word space album.
It's four LPs, actually.

Christ. I think soundtracks are one of my favourite things to buy.
Eddie, our guitar player, loves the Interstellar soundtrack. Me and some of my buddies take this trip up to the mountains every year – we did it two weeks before we came here. There's no technology allowed but we bring a record player so I wanted to get it for that but I don't think it's on vinyl yet.

That would've been a great record to listen to in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah, just looking at the mountains with that in the background. It gets your head in the right place. Jeff Bridges made this record called The Sleeping Tapes – if you ever come across it you should get it, it's really good.

What is it, him singing lullabies?
He just talks to you. It's… real strange. There's this one track that's basically him giving you positive affirmations for like five minutes. It's the most comforting thing I've ever experienced.

Do you consider yourself a "vinyl collector"?
Sort of. My collection isn't giant but I'm really particular with what I get on vinyl. If I hear something new that I like I'll go out and get it because I feel like it's a good way to support bands. It also reminds me of being a kid and going through my dad's records. He had a bunch of Golden Earring and stuff like that.

What was the first record you bought for yourself?
The first CD I ever bought for myself was Nirvana's MTV Unplugged. First vinyl was probably Mars Volta. I had this little apartment in Brooklyn and my room was real small but I set up speakers around the room and I would just sit in the middle and get lost with that. How about you? What was your first?

This is going to show my true colours but I actually bought my first vinyl by accident. I was about 15 and I found the whole Bright Eyes discography from Collection of Songs to I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning on Amazon for almost no money. I got it, thinking it was a bunch of CDs, but when it arrived it was a boxed stack of LPs and I was like "uhhhh, dad…"
That's awesome. I have that same one!

I looked it up recently to see how much it would be worth and it's like £300. They didn't make that many.
Damn. Did you hear his new record? It's great. He did one called Ruminations last year that's just him and an acoustic guitar, not a lot of bells and whistles on it, and he just released an accompaniment which is all the same songs but with a full band.

Have you got your son into vinyl yet?
Keaton is into it but I just get nervous because he's a kid so… I don't want him to hurt the records [laughs]. He hasn't gotten to the point where he'll put it on himself. You know what's funny though? He loves the song "Hallelujah" but he likes the Leonard Cohen version more than Jeff Buckley's version, which I think is crazy.

How old is he?
He's eight.

Tell eight-year-old Keaton he is wrong.
He also loves "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons. I have no idea where he heard it but it's his favourite song and now I have it on record. I've been playing Bob Dylan since he was tiny so he also knows Bob Dylan really well. Like he can sing "The Times They Are A Changin" and "Blowin' in the Wind" and stuff. That makes me feel like I did a good job!

When he can do "Subterranean Homesick Blues" front to back you know you've bossed parenthood.
I'll be like yeah! He did it! I don't even know all the words to that song!

Have you ever met any of your idols?
I got to meet Lou Reed once. We were at this awards thing, and he was there, and I walked up to him but I was shaking, I couldn't help it, I was so nerdy and I was basically trying to say, "Hey man, I needed to thank you for blah blah," so it was actually more like "herugh" and then I had to run off because I embarrassed myself.

Has that happened on more than one occasion?
From now on I don't introduce myself because I was such a nerd about it.

Fair play. What's one of the first records that ever resonated with you?
The first rock and roll song I ever heard was Dire Straits, "Money for Nothing". We used to live with my aunt in this duplex – my parents and I lived upstairs and my aunt lived downstairs and I'd run errands with her. She'd blast this in the car and I thought it was the best thing I'd ever heard. That guitar sounds like it was linked up to a diesel engine or something. We'd pull up to the house and my mom would run down the stairs yelling at my aunt because the music was so loud she thought it was going to ruin my ears.

It's funny how many memories you retain from childhood because they're attached to music.
Yeah! When I hear anything off Michael Jackson's Dangerous it takes me right back to being a kid.

Is there one particular record where you would be like "everyone needs to hear this"?
Man, that's hard. The thing is everyone's taste is so different, so I wouldn't want to push something and they think it's trash… But Nirvana were the band that made me think that I wanted to do music. I'm from a small town so I didn't know anything about punk rock, really, I just knew what was on the radio. They were the first band where I was like, what is this sound? I discovered so many other bands through them, you know – you go down a wormhole. In fact when we were on that mountain trip John [Nolan] brought No Code by Pearl Jam. I'd never really sat down and listened to it because I was never a big Pearl Jam fan really, but it's incredible. Like I said we don't take technology or anything so when we put a record on we listen to it all the way through and after almost every song I'd look at John like, "why didn't you tell me about it sooner?!" and he'd be like, "I know, I haven't even listened to it in years – this is crazy!"

Do you have a go-to record store?
My favourite one actually closed. It was called BB's Compact Discs and it was in Greensboro, North Carolina. You could go in there and listen to anything new or used, so when I was a kid I would spend hours in there and they hated me because I'd bring a huge stack of CDs up. I went in there so much I ended up becoming friends with the guy that worked there, and he turned me onto so much great music. I actually went to take my girlfriend there not too long ago and I hadn't been back in so long I didn't know it was closed. We drove there and I walked up to the store and the sign was gone. I peered through the window and you could see on the carpet where the bins used to be…

That's the saddest story I've ever heard. The city near my hometown actually has the oldest record shop in the world.
Holy shit. In the whole world?

Yeah, it's called Spillers. It used to be on the high street in Cardiff but they moved it into an arcade a few years ago so it's not technically the same space but it's the same in every other respect.
Damn. We'll have to check it out next time we're there. My favourite kind of music to listen to on vinyl is singer-songwriter stuff, roots music, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks… There's something about that kind of music that feels like it was intended to be listened to in that way, like it feels true to how they recorded it.

Now it's all kicking off in the punk and metal section, too.
I used to put Rancid's …And Out Come the Wolves on, and jump around my room having little dance parties with myself. I know every word to every song on it, to this day.

Were punk shows the first shows you went to?
I grew up in quite a small town so all the first shows I went to were for local bands or the bands of kids who were in my high school. The big one for us was a band called Pest and there was another called Dirty Deep.

At what point were you like, "I want to do that"?
Immediately. It just took me a long time to figure out how to do it. Right when I heard Nirvana and I heard that sound it did something to me, and that led me to other stuff, which I guess led me to where I am now.

Do you ever buy records based purely on the artwork?
I have done that once or twice.

Has it ever worked out?
No!

It is a risky game.
Do you know what else is good to listen to on vinyl is older jazz. I feel like there's something about them that you can get lost in. John Coltrane has this one record and he said it's basically his love letter to god.

Jackpot!
He's so handsome, that Leonardo.

My life was ruined by Leonardo DiCaprio in this film. How am I supposed to date anybody after knowing that this is possible?
I can imagine. Like, 'they're nice, but they'll never be Jack'. Hey look, they have George Jones. There's a notorious story about him where he was drinking and ran out of booze in his house, but his wife hid the car keys from him so he got on his riding lawn mower to drive to the bar.

My grandad once did that in reverse. He was at a bar and nobody would give him his car keys, so he stole a horse and rode it 12 miles home over a mountain.
Imagine waking up the next day and seeing that in your back garden. How did this horse get here? Did I name him?

These are the things that happen when you live in the middle of nowhere.
Wait so did he get in trouble for stealing it?

I have no idea. Nobody ever gets to that bit of the story, do they? You always hear the weird part but nothing about the consequences. Anyway, I'm gonna go ahead and cop this Bieber record.
I'm going to get this Billy Joel record. Maybe some Lynyrd Skynyrd…

I've thought about getting 'free bird' tattooed on me so many times then backed out upon sobering up. Do you have any tattoos?
A few, yeah. Actually, and I know I've referenced this so many times but, on that mountain trip we did stick and pokes [laughs]. It's just now healing, too. My buddy got the same thing on his ankle, I've also got this weird tree looking thing on my leg, my other buddy did a little anchor… They take so long when you do them like that though. I was telling them in the car, "it's boring, tattoos are boring!" But they hurt less, because at least you know when the pain is coming.

That's worse! If you had to pick out a record for me right now what would it be?
Jeff Bridges' spoken word album.

Consider it at the top of my list. Thank you for record shopping with me, Adam Lazzara of Taking Back Sunday!

All photos by Chris Bethell.

You can find Emma on Twitter.