ADAM LAZZARA BIO
ADAM LAZZARA
History
Early years
Taking Back Sunday originally formed in 1999 with Antonio Longo on lead vocals, Jesse Lacey on bass and backing vocals, John Nolan on guitar, Eddie Reyes on guitar, and Stevie D. on drums. Their first release was the Taking Back Sunday LP. However, in the middle of recording the EP, the band went through a lineup change. Lacey left the band and was replaced by Adam lazzara, and Mark O'Connel replaced Stevie D on drums. The five-song EP was released in February 2001; though distributed at shows, the EP never got noteworthy success.
By the time their first album was released, Taking Back Sunday would again go through a major lineup change. After Longo was forced to leave the band, Reyes moved Adam Lazzara to lead vocals and then recruited Shaun Cooper to play bass. The resulting lineup would remain in place for the first album, Tell All Your Friends in Spring of 2001..
Independent success
The band released their first full album Tell All Your Friends, on Victory Records in 2002. It gave the band a small taste of success in the alternative rock spotlight.
The album cover is a picture of an off-ramp, with an overlay of the album title and the numbers "152", signifying the exit where they met their friends. The number has appeared on every LP cover to date.
In 2003, Taking Back Sunday almost broke up when guitarist and back-up vocalist John Nolan and bassist Shaun Cooper left the band. The loss of John and Shaun put the already unstable band into a state of heightened tension. Taking Back Sunday gained their new back up singer and guitarist - Fred Mascherino.
The year 2004 proved to be successful for Taking Back Sunday, with the band opening Blink-182 and co-headlining the Vans Warped Tour. In addition, their second album, titled Where you Want To be, was released on July 27, 2004, on Victory Records. Although sounding slightly different from Tell All Your Friends, the new album did well commercially. Propelled by the single A Decade Under The Influence, it went on to debut at the #3 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart, with around 163,000 copies sold.
Taking Back Sunday received even more mainstream exposure by appearing (on the day of Where You Want to Be s release) on late night talk shows Jimmy Kimmel Live where Lazzara had the job of hosting Loveline, as well as contributing a song to the soundtrack for Spider man 2. They also contributed the song Your Own Disaster to the Elektra soundtrack, and Error Operator. In 2007, the band contributed the song whats it feel like to be a ghost to the soundtrack for transformers, although the song did not appear in the movie. Also, the band was featured in the "tony hawks american wasteland" soundtrack when they covered the Descendent songs Suburban Home & I Like Food.
Major label debut
On April 25, 2006, Taking Back Sunday released their third album, entitled Louder Now, on Warner Bros. Records. The band's comments on the album reflected the dramatic change the band had undergone in the two years since their last release. Lazzara stated that fans seemed to feel their live shows had more energy than their recordings, and that Louder Now brought more of that across. Louder Now draws its name from the explosive opening track "Whats It Feel Like To Be A Ghost?" as Fred says, "Louder Now" multiple times in the song, in fact all of TBS's full length albums have been named after lyrics from songs featured on the album, but that the tracks themselves hadn't been named. Tell All Your Friends derived its name from "Cute Without The E (Cut From The Team)," And Where You Want To Be from "Set Phasers To Stun."
Taking Back Sunday received mainstream exposure by appearing on the late night talk shows The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien, as well as the teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation in an episode entitled What's It Feel Like To Be A Ghost?
In December 2006, the band released its first CD/DVD documentary, Louder Now: PartOne, featuring behind-the-scenes tour footage and four live concerts. Following months of touring to support Louder Now, Taking Back Sunday appeared in the american legof Live Earth on July 7, 2007. During the summer of 2007, Taking Back Sunday was also a part of Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution tour, along with My Chemical Romance, HIM, and many other bands.
On October 30, 2007, the band's former record label, Victory Records, released Notes From The Past, which featured four songs from Tell All Your Friends, six songs from Where You Want To Be, and two B-sides: The Ballad of Sal Villanueva and Your Own Disaster ('04 mix). The band then released Louder Now: PartTwo on November 20, 2007, a DVD of unreleased live concert footage from their show at Long Beach Arena as well as special features such as the video for "Twenty-Twenty Surgery" that was made for Europe. The DVD was packaged with a companion CD featuring eight live tracks, two B-sides that were previously unreleased in America, and a special "Twelve Days of Christmas" track.
