New Again is an incredibly dynamic album; it sounds like a true band effort.
We had a really good idea of what we wanted to accomplish on this record and we paid attention to what each of us were doing more than we had in the past. We also tried to establish the heaviness on this record in a different way. Rather than having this big, giant wall of guitars we spread the guitar tones and the bass tone out across the track in a way where they all kind of occupied different space in the frequency spectrum. It sounds big but also, more interesting than having tons of chunking, low guitars and me just doubling that! That was a very conscious decision.

The band has had a line-up changed since the last album.
We have a new guitar player named Matt Fazzi and he joined right towards the beginning of the writing for this record. He’s obviously had a tremendous effect on the sound and the writing. He’s the kind of guitar player who is interested in sharing space and creating inter-locking parts instead of making the bass just a support instrument, which is what a lot of the sort of struggle in the band was about before. Certain guys think that the bass is supposed to stand behind them and while I’m not trying to be Les Claypool or Flea, working with Matt gave me a lot more space to express myself and also support the tune.

There are a lot of cool little riffs and counter melodies going on throughout the album.
Matt’s a very sensitive and talented musician when it comes to things like that and I find him to be, for rock at least, a very atypical guitar player. He’s certainly not your ‘power chord guy’; he’s always trying to find the thing that nobody else would play. He’s really interested in doing things that way and working to redefine things in a way where it’s not just this typical, old-sounding thing. That was a refreshing way to work because it kept the spectrum of what we could do really wide open which is a nice feeling while writing – it gives you way more potential.

Who produced the record?
We chose David Kahne to produce New Again basically because his background is so varied; he’s worked with everyone from Paul McCartney to Fishbone! He really isn’t a “scene” producer, which gave him the advantage to look at us as we are in the moment and not as he thought we should be. So it was great to work with him as it kept us focused on that goal.

How did you go about crafting your tones for the album?
On New Again, I really used a lot of pedals for the first time where in the past, or at least on Louder Now, I mostly used amp sounds with different combinations of instruments to get different tones. We also ended up doing a little bit of re-recording of the bass and guitars after we thought we were finished because we wanted them to be really perfect. And when I went in to do that I was using a bunch of different things to try and get the exact tones that I wanted. I really felt like each of the tunes, sonically, were kind of their own project. They were all very different sounding songs and called for very different things.

It seems like you had to re-evaluate the way you recorded your bass!
Yeah, in the past I felt like I had to get my tone and then record where on this record, we did that and I wasn’t really satisfied with it at all! The bass was all recorded D.I. through an API mic pre, a Manley compressor and an API 550B EQ and then we re-amped everything through my DB 750 and a cab with a few different effects here and there. And it was a hustle too man, I think I ended up re-cutting the entire record in two days or something like that!
While there is some challenging bass playing on this record, for me, playing the parts weren’t really the challenge; the big challenge was the tone and getting everything sounding exactly how I wanted it to be. So when we went back in to re-do it, I would try to do it in a few takes and really have the tone be the main thing. On a tune where you spend an hour or so just trying to nail the tone for the bridge, when you finally get it - it’s a really satisfying thing!

What cabinets did you use when you re-amped the tracks?
I had two cabinets in the studio; I had my Chocolate Thunder DB 810, and I had the GS 412 and we just went back and forth depending on what worked for different songs. I also threw the Tone Hammer in for certain things that I bumped up, like the solo in Carpathia and the bridge in Catholic Knees where I wanted to sound like the walls were coming down!

The group locks into a few, hip syncopations on some of the verses – how do you approach that?
One of the things that I really dig about Adam’s [Lazzara, vocals] approach to writing lyrics and melodies is that there are times when he structures things rhythmically with the sensibility of a rapper. And I always dug the fact the he tries to make verses as catchy as choruses in the way that they hit your ear.
Cut Me Up Jenny, as syncopated and sort of out there as it is for TBS, that’s an Adam ‘part’ – he wrote that. As a bass player I really like the fact that his flow, rhythmically, gives you opportunities to support those things in a way that then makes playing the bass parts really fun instead of just pumping along with 8th notes. A lot of singers don’t really take those things into account. Musically they are aloof, they’re on top of the track and Adam likes to really be in it, which is cool for me!
The bass solo on Carpathia – not matter how hard it is gonna be for people to believe, was not my idea! These guys really wanted a lead part on it and they gave it to me. For that I used a combination of the Tone Hammer, Big Muff and an octaver that was actually put on during mix down and that was all re-amped out through the GS 412. That’s a really fun little bit to play live.

Wow! Thanks Matt for taking the time to break down the album for us and sharing so much of your knowledge with us!

Matt will be doing a clinic at Aguilar with fellow bassist Steve Jenkins (Vernon Reid, Screaming Headless Torsos, Dave Fiusczynski) on Tuesday July 14th at 7pm. Put it on your calendar! Sign up for our mailing list for more info on upcoming clinics by clicking here

For more on Taking Back Sunday check out: http://www.myspace.com/takingbacksunday