It shouldn't take an especially active reader to see that the Modern Pea Pod tends not to cover music that gets played on the radio. And I'm not gonna lie: part of that comes down to our own personal tastes. But another reason why we don't usually talk to bands who get radio airplay is because the bands who get radio airplay don't usually want to talk to us. I mean, seriously, if you were 50 Cent, James Blunt, Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Pussycat Dolls, would you want to talk to a bunch of smarmy zine writers from Michigan?
Well, apparently, Amityville, New York's Taking Back Sunday did want to talk to us. And oh man, have these guys been on the radio. And MTV. And the Billboard 200. In fact, Taking Back Sunday have been beating a path through the modern rock trenches since 2002, when their debut album Tell All Your Friends came at the cusp of the pop-punk/emo revolution still sweeping the mainstream airwaves today. Fred Mascherino, the band's guitarist and co-vocalist since 2003, recently spoke for 15 minutes with MPP's Laura Misjak. And just for the record, Fred's a super laid back, awesome guy. Here's what went down:
Modern Pea Pod: How are you?
Fred Mascherino: Good, good. I just got into a beach town in Florida and now I'm enjoying it.
MPP: Cool. So you guys are on tour right now, right?
FM: Yeah. To me it's been the funnest tour we've ever gone on, and the biggest we've ever done. We're headlining; it's been a very exciting summer, and I really like it because all the bands are different. The Subways are garage rock. Angels & Airwaves - it's very slick rock. And then you've got our cacophony on stage. It's been really fun; everybody comes to see all the different bands, and they stay for the whole show. It's great.
MPP: How did you make Louder Now different from your other albums?
FM: Well, one of the main things that was different with this record was time. Time spent and time that we had, because when we made the record Where You Want to Be, this lineup had only been together for less than a year. When we recorded that album, we hurried and put it out. This time we were able to make the most of 2004 and write the record, and then we took the entire fall of 2005 to record it. We got to record it with our number one choice producer, Eric Valentine, and he seemed like a good guy and a smart guy and we really wanted to work with him. He produced Queens of the Stone Age, and we wanted a heavy rock sound that was a little rougher than your average Top 40 rock, something that still had power to it. We noticed he had gotten that on a few recordings. So we just had a great time working with him and took our time with the record.
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