'That Was Embarrassing': Taking Back Sunday Singer Plays ‘Two Truths & A Lie’

Well, Adam Lazzara doesn’t really need an introduction, does he? If you grew up listening to punk, emo or rock in the late ‘90s or early 2000s, chances are you were privy to the inescapable Cute Without The E from 2002’s Tell All Your Friends, Taking Back Sunday’s debut album. 

The band are celebrating their 20th anniversary this January with a tour and a new compilation and Adam marked the occasion by taking me riiiight back to the band’s beginnings between North Carolina and Long Island in the early 2000s. We also get a glimpse of the iconic frontman’s times in high school (being a truant!), relationship with his dad (unconditional!) as well as his insecurities settling into the band in the early years.

Congrats on 20 years, Taking Back Sunday! 

Truth

Adam: When I was in high school – so grade 9 through 12 – in my senior year, I was passing all my classes but I ended up not graduating.

Uppy: Oh, crap!

A: Yeah! My dad was very disappointed. Now, I went later and got my GED, which is like the equivalent; I got that years later. And it just happened because I was absent so much! I would basically just go, I would find out when the tests were and I’d go and take that. And I remember senior English and they were reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and I had already read the book, and was already familiar with it, so I would just go and do the quizzes. 

U: Yup.

A: Other than that, there was a drama class I would always go to. It was kind of… towards the end of the day, so I’d just roll into school, on days where there weren’t any kind of tests or anything, I’d roll into school and go to the one class. Or I’d go in the morning and check in with home room so I was accounted for…

U: Yeah, take your attendance.

A: And then I’d come back for the last class. So then I had this really bad ear infection when I was a kid, so then I legitimately missed like a week and a half of school because my ear had gotten so bad. 

U: Yeah, ow.

A: Yeah, so when I went back, it was like two weeks before school was done. And I still had the cap and gown that I was SUPPOSED to wear, because my grades were fine, so I go back and one of my teacher’s was like, ‘You know you’re not gonna graduate, right?’ and I was like, ‘Well, why wouldn’t I graduate?’ and he was like, ‘Because you missed too many days.’ So then it became this huge thing and my dad had to come down to the school…

U: Oh no. 

A: And they said there was nothing they could do. And THEN, two years later and I was living in New York and playing with the band and I took two weeks - we had just recorded the demos for Tell All Your Friends – off work, came back to North Carolina, and I went to the community college and said, ‘Look, I have one week, is there any way I can take these GED tests.’ And they said yes.

U: Yes!

A: So I took ‘em, passed ‘em, got my GED and went back to New York.

U: That’s awesome! So how old would you have been then, like 20? 

A: No… I think I was 19. Because I was 17 in school.

U: So were you passing all your quizzes and exams while you were taking them?

A: I mean I wasn’t passing them with flying colours, I wasn’t all straight As or nothing, but yeah! I understood the math and I’d already read all of the books and so yeah, not that I was the biggest reader or super advanced. Some classes I was scraping by but I still passed. I don’t want this story to get misconstrued like I was some kinda…

U: Genius!

A: [laughs] Yeah! But that is not the case at all. So I would see classmates and ask, ‘When is this coming up?’ and I’d figure out what I needed to be there for.

U: Well, I gotta ask, what were you doing when you were skipping school?

A: Looking back, I wish I could say something like I was playing in bands or on tour or practicing an instrument or something like that, but really I was like kinda bumming around. I would go to the record store, I’d ride my skateboard… [laughs]

U: Just by yourself?

A: Yeah, I had one or two other friends, and then I had another group of friends who were a year older and already starting college and hanging around, so I’d go and hang out with them. But I wasn’t really doing anything too grand! Or anything ambitious, really. I was just living my life. 

U: In hindsight, do you think you weren’t like, a school schedule type of kid? Schools don’t suit everyone’s learning and some people just can’t sit still for eight hours and listen to stuff. Do you think you needed like some other sort of engaging teaching method or?

A: Looking back, I think that would’ve helped me but also with the gift of hindsight, I think I had a problem with anyone telling me what I needed to be like? 

U: Yeahh.

A: So, I think it was like, ‘Hey, you HAVE to go to school’ and I was like, ‘No I don’t’. I was just being a jerk kid! 

Truth

A: So, the story of me joining the band. With bands that come through North Carolina, just with the group of friends I was with, they would either stay at one of my friends’ houses after the show. So I met a couple of bands from New York and there was one band called Errortype: Eleven, so we were going to see a show in western Saint Lawrence, about half hour from the town I grew up in. And the band we were going to see there were called Sons Of Abraham. They were from Long Island and they were a Jewish hardcore band, so they sang songs about being Jewish and stuff. So I get there and heard that they had cancelled, was getting ready to leave and then I saw Phil [Hanratty, Errortype: Eleven], I’m like, ‘Oh man I didn’t know you guys were playing’, and he’s like, ‘Well, Errortype: Eleven aren’t playing but I’m filling in on bass for my buddy Eddie [Reyes]’s band, they’re called Taking Back Sunday.’

U: [laughs] Whoa. 

A: So I stayed and watched the show and got talking to them, and I’m like, ‘I know how to play the bass, can I try out for your band?’ And they said yes, so my buddy Chris and I, we had a friend named Caitlin who had just moved to Brooklyn. So my buddy Chris Cavallero and I, I had an 1988 Honda Accord and we got in and drove up to New York. We stayed with her and I took the train into Long Island and rehearsed with the band, went back to Brooklyn and drove home, and got a call from Eddie later, and he was like, ‘If you want to join the band, we have some shows coming up next month, if you wanna join, the spot’s yours.’ Of course I’m freaking out, I didn’t have anything going on, like I was just delivering Chinese food!

U: You’re just out of high school at this point? 

A: Yeahh, JUST out of high school. I moved to the coast with my dad for a while, then I moved back kind of to the area where I grew up, met Eddie and it was shortly after. So anyways, I get a plane ticket and it’s a round-trip ticket and I rehearse with the guys, starting to get to know everybody, and we play these two shows and I had the best time. Then it came time to get the return flight home and I just didn’t get on it. I just stayed up there.

U: Wow. 

A: From that point, I didn’t go down to North Carolina for months after that. I had to find a job and save up money and all that. Actually, the next time I came down was when I got my GED! So I was living in this house in Greensboro, North Carolina [before leaving for NYC] and I was sharing a room with my friend Derek, and there were like 1, 2, 3, 4… 6 guys living in this house. 

U: That’s a lot of guys.

A: Yeeeeah, and no one’s over the age of 22, I think was the oldest one there. It was like a frat house. So my dad, he had to go there to get what little things I had – a futon, a refrigerator… he had to go to this house to pick this stuff up, walk through… there was one room where there’s a dog, but they didn’t train the dog or anything so there’s just poop everywhere.

U: Eugh!

A: Yeah, it was just really gross. So here’s my dad getting all this stuff, and this whole time he’s totally livid – ‘How could you do this? How could you be so irresponsible?’ It was a bad spot I put him in. So he did all that for me, I’m pretty sure he was upset with me for a WHILE. There’s even times he’ll bring it up, you know? Like he’ll go, ‘Oh yeah, like that time you went to New York and just never came home and I had to take care of all your stuff!’ 

U: Awww, man.

A: Yeah, he’s the most supportive dad, I’m a very lucky guy. 

U: Good ol’ Papa Lazzara. 

Lie

A: Okay, so when I first moved to New York… so I’ve stuttered since I was a kid. I stuttered and I also had a Southern accent. I was living on Long Island and people would give me a hard time! I had this job and I was waiting tables at this breakfast restaurant – people would either poke fun at me, which was fine, or talk slower to me? Like I couldn’t keep up or something? 

U: UGH. How annoying.

A: I was really insecure about it at the time, now it doesn’t bother me at all. So I just started doing a fake New York accent, like all the time? For about three years, that’s just how I talked! 

U: Wow, to your friends too?

A: Like off and on. Well, I’d use it on stage, I don’t know why! I think it just was that I wanted to fit in with everyone else in the band and also, there was that whole thing about like… people from the South are like slow and dumb, and I was like, ‘Well, that’s not true.’ 

U: Of course. 

A: I was just trying to reinvent myself or something. But when I think about it, that whole thing was really embarrassing. So if you listen to early shows of ours, I have this fake Northern accent I was putting on, which was SO embarrassing now that I think about it. I don’t know why – it was just a thing I did.

U: Did you lose your stutter while you were doing that?

A: It got less and less over the years. When I was in school, I could hardly get sentences out. If I was meeting someone for the first time, or if it was a conversation like this, I wouldn’t have been able to get through it like I am now. But over the years, it’s gotten… better. 

Taking Back Sunday are celebrating their 20th anniversary this January with a career-spanning set of shows playing Tell All Your Friends, Where You Want To Be and Louder Now in full from January 9 until January 17. They also play UNIFY Gathering on January 12; check out theGuide for more details.

The band will also be releasing a career retrospective compilation called Twenty in January.

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If you’re a musician and have some stories to share and some secrets to tell – be it hilarious or heartbreaking, humiliating or honourable – send us an email at twotruthscolumn[at]gmail.com.

We might be telling the whole world about the time you accidentally killed your brother’s pet snake and replaced it without anyone knowing in no time.