Were there times where you weren’t present that you regret? Is there anything you would do differently now that you have the knowledge and wisdom of being older?
“Man, I don’t know about having a lot of knowledge or wisdom. Sure, there are some things I would like to have handled differently, but I don’t think I would change anything, simply because if it wasn’t for that thing happening, then I wouldn’t be where I am now. We wouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s like the butterfly effect – you change one little thing and it throws everything else off-kilter. So I don’t think I would change anything. But also, I think it’s a damaging thing – and I still do this – if you look back and say, ‘Man, what if?’ That’s not very healthy, because then you’re not appreciating where you are right then or giving credit to the person you are because you made the decisions you did.”
That sounds almost antithetical to the spirit of some of those early Taking Back Sunday songs. The Adam Lazzara of back then would be too hung up on the past, right?
“Oh yeah. And there’s also that saying, ‘If you love something, let it go – and if it comes back you know it’s the real deal.’ In a certain sense there are pieces of yourself that you let go of too, but they come back later and that’s when you realise, ‘Oh, okay, this is shaping up okay. I can be the kind of man that I want to be.’”
How has fatherhood changed you?
“That’s a really big question. It’s hard to see when you’re in it. It’s hard to for me to look at myself and be like, ‘You’ve changed this way since you’ve had kids.’ I think I’m a little more cautious. When you’re in your early 20s it’s like, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to live forever!’ and you do stupid things. I don’t do that anymore. And there have been a lot of times when I’ve called my dad like, ‘Hey, I’m going through whatever with [oldest child] Keaton right now and I can only imagine what I was like at that age, so I wanted to call to say I’m really sorry.’ And then he laughs and says, ‘Man, I’ve been waiting a long time for this call.’”
It almost seems as if Taking Back Sunday has been one big search: for true love, or something internal, like discovering who you really are. Is that a fair analysis?
“The self-reaching thing sounds more accurate; trying to come to terms with yourself and figure out that grand question of, ‘Who am I?’ Everybody’s chasing that to some degree, and that’s one of the things I’ve been so proud of with the band. When we play, the age ranges from people who are a little older than us to people who are much younger, but they’re all getting lost at that same time and all connecting the same dots. A lot of those people have grown up with us, or we’ve grown up with them, and there’s a lot to be said for that. But as for the search for true love? It’s hard to pinpoint, because I’ve never listened back to our catalogue and really wondered, ‘What am I mapping out here?’”
Going back to the subject of growing up, what were you like as a child?
“I stuttered really badly when I was younger. It still happens from time to time, but it’s gotten a lot better over the years. I think that made me stay quiet a lot of the time, although I wasn’t a quiet kid exactly. When I was around other people I would either not know what to say or simply not be able to say it. But I don’t know, I’m trying to think back to myself as a young boy and struggling. From the age of 13 onwards, I know that I started to live and breathe rock music and skateboarding. Those were the only two things I think I really cared about at that time.”