Adam Lazzara reflects on the impact 'Louder Now' had on Taking Back Sunday

Taking Back Sunday's debut album Tell All Your Friends is synonymous with emo, but that was never the band's intention. They wanted to be rockstars, and their third album (and major label debut) Louder Now took them there.

“I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe this is what we do!’” singer Adam Lazzara told Kerrang!. “‘We just get to go in and play really loud rock’n’roll music all day. This is insane!’ So we knew that it was going to be a kind of defining moment in the life of the band up to that point.”

And it was. Louder Now peaked at No. 2 on the charts and proved TBS was more diverse than other bands that fell into the "emo" category. “I remember at the time saying out loud, ‘I don’t want people to say, ‘Hey you’re the guy from that emo band.’’ No. F**k you. I’m the guy from that rock’n’roll band. I hate that s**t. We didn’t want to be looked at as just part of a fad,” Lazzara divulged, before admitting that they never "completely felt a part" of the scene because they'd tour with a variety of bands. "We’d go from touring with a metal band to touring with a pop-punk band, but all we wanted was to exist in this world with bands like Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam. Louder Now was our big leap in that direction.”

There were a lot of crazy stories during that time, but perhaps one of the most surreal was playing The Tonight Show. "We’re outside smoking and he just pulls up in his crazy car and we just start talking to Jay Leno for a minute, just because it’s normal," Lazzara recalled. "When I look back, it almost feels like a movie. I couldn’t believe that was our lives. It was like, did somebody f**k up and accidentally let us in here? Because this is crazy…”