In SWT’s Sequential Listening series, we sit down with artists to examine their albums track by track, exactly as intended. After debuting the series with Chicago’s MV Wells, we caught up with the new alt-rock band ME. to discuss their debut album, All Good Things.
While the project is fresh, two of the band members are likely familiar. The lineup features former Taking Back Sunday members Mark O’Connell (drums) and Eddie Reyes (guitar), joined by Mike Jansen (vocals/guitar) and Neal Amiruddin (bass). Reyes left TBS in 2018, and O’Connell followed in 2024.
Until recently, the two hadn’t spoken for nine years, separated by a wall of miscommunication and perceived betrayal. When Reyes exited TBS to focus on his sobriety, he felt abandoned, assuming O’Connell was swayed by toxic band politics. In reality, their painful experiences mirrored each other, but the truth was lost in translation.
“There was a lot of conversations I had with Ed in my mind,” O’Connell admits over a recent Zoom call.
The silence finally broke when Reyes’s son, Jonas, encouraged O’Connell to reach out.
That healing process found a catalyst in Casey Carter. A lifelong Taking Back Sunday fan turned friend, Carter had stepped away from the music industry years earlier to raise her daughter, but she saw an opportunity. She posed a simple question: “What if you got back into a room and played together your way?”
Her conviction convinced them to test their old chemistry. Initially, they began writing with zero intention of starting a new band. Apprehension hung heavy in the air; having both witnessed how painful it is when a project you built stops feeling like your own, they were protective of their artistry.
Their shared act of creation slowly eroded the tension. To protect this new chapter, they vowed to keep the operation completely egalitarian—no frontmen, no hierarchy, just musicians finding joy in the craft again.
“It’s who you’re around and who you surround yourself with that keeps that tight and fun,” O’Connell says. “It keeps any bad or negative away as much as it can be.”
They wrote and recorded ten instrumentals themselves, building the songs from the ground up. They had full creative control of the music they were creating, something they hadn’t experienced since the early days of their band, Tell All Your Friends.
The band’s promotional materials note that these instrumentals “were a way of working through everything that hadn’t been said, tension, confusion, frustration, and loss, without having to explain it out loud. There was something familiar in them too. Not in a nostalgic, looking-back kind of way, but in the feeling. The kind of sound that pulls you back to a version of yourself you remember, even when everything around you has changed.”
Eventually, they realized the songs needed more. They launched an open casting call for a singer, releasing one of their instrumentals—which eventually became the song “Special”—and inviting vocalists to submit auditions. At the twelfth hour of searching, Carter recommended they try Jansen. She had known Jansen, a Chicago musician, for quite a while and thought he would be a great fit.
To her surprise, he was already in the process of answering the call. When Carter played his audition tape, Reyes and O’Connell knew they had their singer. They felt he understood where they were coming from, without a single prior conversation.
They met at Applehead Recording in Woodstock, NY, and instantly hit it off. As producer Chris Bittner put it via press release, “When the universe gives you a gift like this, you don’t say, ‘No thank you. Maybe later.’”
Not long after, they brought in Neal Amiruddin to play bass. Neal had been part of their lives since childhood, growing up alongside Mark and longtime friend Shaun Cooper. With the full band assembled, they felt they had something special. There were no egos, just a desire to create the best songs they could.
Press material reveals that “the music that followed didn’t come from a comfortable place. Much of it was written during one of the most turbulent periods of the band members’ lives, surrounded by personal upheaval, lawsuits, and the kind of chaos that leaves no room to hide.”
They picked their name to represent personal growth, listening to your gut, and rebuilding a lifelong bond.
On July 24, the band will release the result of their collaboration, their debut album All Good Things. They will celebrate the launch on Thursday, July 23, with an album release show at Amityville Music Hall in Amityville, NY, featuring openers BEINN and Gursday. You can get tickets here.
SWT caught up with Reyes, O’Connell, and Jansen by Zoom to have an in-depth, wide-ranging interview about the band’s formation and a track-by-track deep dive.
Mark and Eddie, you hadn’t planned this to be a band after the way your time with Taking Back Sunday ended. Can you talk a little bit about how family and friends brought you two back together?
Eddie Reyes: Yeah. I mean, my son was keeping in touch with Mark for a while and he just approached me one day and said, “Hey, maybe hit up Mark because I’ve been talking to him.” I said, “Oh, really? ” And then he filled me in and I said, “Yeah, let’s reach out to him.” And we did. And then we just started talking about jamming. And then Casey, our manager, she made it happen. She got us together and we just jammed and wrote music and caught up on old times. I mean, there was a lot more to it.
Mark O’Connell: When we met up, he came to Long Island, and we went to a studio in Long Island. We had two days there and we got two songs, one song a day. And one of them is the first song on the album, “Bloodsport”. And the other one is “Violent People”, which is also on the album. And it was really good. Us being in a studio together in two days and we came up with what we had. The people around us, Casey, Jonas, Michelle, Neal, everybody were like, “Yo, you need to go and see this through because this is really special, the fact that you guys can get together like that and have that chemistry still after all that time.” And I mean, yeah, there’s so much more after, but that’s kind of the beginning of it. We didn’t really have a choice in the matter.
It was so good. It was so good that there was no way it was not going to happen. At least thank God it did.
What was it like working together again and taking ownership of the music?
Reyes: Just being able to write how we want to write and without any overthinking and stuff like that, it worked out that way. That’s just how it flowed. You’ve got to go with the flow.
At first, you hadn’t planned to work with a frontman again. However, Mike stood out during the casting call. What about working with him gave you confidence that things would work out?
O’Connell: He’s phenomenal, in short. He’s very talented. He’s a top tier musician. He cares about his craft. And most importantly, the creative side of that music is on another level to where he was the guy. And if we didn’t get him, it wouldn’t be what it is for sure. Mike, what would you have to say about you?
Mike Jansen: I would say that I think that the ideas that I was presenting resonated well with both Mark and Ed to where as I kept writing, they started to gain a confidence in what I was writing as well because it fit what they were feeling or trying to achieve with the project before anybody really knew what they wanted it to be. And it didn’t feel forced, which was something that I know they were both worried about. And conflict-wise, there wasn’t anything really with the music because I understood right away that this was their baby. As Mark often says, we treat the band like a baby.
Working on this project, it was “let’s work with the materials I’ve been handed.” And I liked the creative challenge of that. I think potentially in the future, I definitely want them to present ideas and then I write over to the top of them. But I know there are going to be times where it’s going to be a collective and we figured things out. But with this album specifically, it was what can I do with what’s presented to me? And what I was given was great material to work with. So it was difficult, but I was up for the challenge.
Reyes: And you did a good job.
The final piece of the puzzle came with Neal, whom it sounds like there’s quite a bit of familiarity already. Why did it make sense to bring him in?
O’Connell: Neal has been part of the whole process of the band ME. starting. He was there in the very beginning making sure that we got it off and running. He’s a big part of why the band ME. is ME. So him and I had talked about him playing bass. The thing is Neal never played bass before, but I’ve known him such a long time and he’s a brother, man. When I was down on my luck, he took me into his house, his whole thing. Me and him are as close as you could be. And I knew that he would be able to do it. And man, we practiced last night. We played the whole album. And Ed and Mike, I wanted to know, that dude is good. And so now we have a great bass player and a great person in our band. Having him around is a good vibe. He’s a good man.
Reyes: He’s just a good person. It’s good to be around good people and he’s a good person. And I’m really good at reading people right away, and I’ve always known Neal was a good person, so it’s just good to have him there. I told him if he had any trouble, I would be there to help him to show him because he literally has no choice.
O’Connell: Yeah. Ed’s there to give him a good kick in the ass when he needs it and he listens.
Reyes: Oh, I do. I do.
O’Connell: And also, Ed was in Movielife with Neal’s older brother, Alex. So, Ed has also known Neal since he was a kid, 15, 16 years old.
What were the vibes like the first time the band played together?
O’Connell: We were great immediately.
Jansen: It was a relief. Because you normally think of a band practicing and then going to write a record afterwards and then recording it. We played together for the first time after the record was finished. So it was a big relief on all of us to get through the first song and be like, “All right, we could do this. ”
Reyes: We’re a band.
O’Connell: Yeah. And we did it. Thank God also for that. And it’s really fun. I can’t wait. I really can’t. Mike and I were texting yesterday and we can’t wait for everybody to get together and play music again, which is in a couple days, I think, which is really exciting.
Reyes: Yes, it is. I’m excited. I’m anxious.
O’Connell: Once we get through that first song.
Jansen: Oh, you guys said I’m excited. I’m anxious. And I was like, “I’m so busy, so busy right now. Just trying to get everything in place before I leave. I know.
I currently play music for hotels, and restaurants and golf courses and private events. And it’s like I have eight in a row this week, two on Saturday. And then I get in the car Sunday morning and I drive the 14 hours. It’s busy, but good. It is. I mean, I like that my mind is constantly working on stuff with this project from a distance, because when we get together, there’s so much that has to get done when we get there. too. So it’s exciting, but I’ll sleep well after the show, that’s for sure.
How would you describe the band’s sound, and what do you think makes it special?
Reyes: I don’t know. I think that we are doing what we want to do and we’re doing it the way we want to do it so it’s coming out the way we want it to come out. So it all sounds like it was meant to be. So that’s how it all sounds to me. It just sounds like there’s nothing that needed to be fixed. Everything has fallen into place. It’s a giant, almost like a happy accident that was meant to be. And so that’s how I feel about the music. It all just flows really good for me.
O’Connell: Vulnerable. I feel like I always use that word vulnerable. Vulnerable. And I feel like that’s kind of what you just described. You could hear us in every way being vulnerable. That’s what I think.
Jansen: Yeah. I mean, definitely the vulnerable thing. I also think that a lot of projects I’ve been in the past, we all liked the exact same bands for the same reasons and wanted secretly the band to sound like one band. And then this is not that. We all had a different idea of what we wanted the final product to be, and it kind of became a blend of all of that. So, it made it different than any one thing that we drew inspiration from. And I mean, that’s what anybody wants in a band, right?
Reyes: Yeah. Well, you try, but sometimes it doesn’t go that way.
O’Connell: This album is a special thing that we have.
Can you talk a little bit about your future plans? Do you plan a tour or anything special coming up?
O’Connell: Taking it day by day. Shout out the show, Mike?
Jansen: The show at the Amityville Music Hall on the 23rd, which is on Thursday. Tickets are 15 bucks. It’s going to be a great show. I’m pumped. And it’s kind of an earlier show too. You don’t have to be out all night.
O’Connell: Is that right? That’s really funny.
Jansen: Well, I had a couple friends in the city be like, “I can’t be out that late.” I’m like, “Dude, we’re going at 9:15 and we’re playing a record that’s 35 minutes. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be a good time. And yeah, we’re really excited to finally play the show in front of whoever’s there. We’re pumped. We’re going to have some limited vinyl for the show, some limited merch. We’re just excited to hang out with everybody and see what everyone thinks.
Reyes: Hey guys, you want to hear a funny story about the venue we’re playing? So, me and Artie Shepherd, who’s playing in BEINN, when we were young teenagers, we used to go in that basement of that venue, and we used to watch a band called Suffocation practice. And we used to hang out with them. So that venue has a lot of memories. So, it’s cool that we’re playing our first show there. It means a lot.
O’Connell: That is cool. These guys have a lot of ties to Long Island. I’ve been there once, so I’m stoked to go to Amityville. I’ve never been there before.
Reyes: I’ll take you to the house around the corner.
Jansen: Yeah, I want to go.
Reyes: It’s a completely different house now. They tore it down. The person who owns it was like “I’m not feeling this.” And the guy had all the money, whatever. But I mean, there’s a house there now that’s not the old house, but it’s on the same spot. That street was built on Indian Burial Grounds.
Jansen: Yeah, Indian burial grounds. Wasn’t that the whole reason for the…
Reyes: Yes. Josh, I’m sorry, we don’t mean to get off, but I want to explain this real quick. South Ketcham, the street, Ketcham was a guy who came, and he killed all the Amityville Indians and just built houses over them. And that street, South Ketcham, that goes through this town is severely haunted and blah, blah, blah, blah. So that’s the whole history of Amityville and the Amityville horror and all that.
Jansen: You can’t say blah, blah, blah. That does sound like a horror.
Reyes: I know, but I grew up there, so it’s blah, blah, blah.
Jansen: Oh, man.
So, you’ll play on a show-by-show basis and see how things go?
O’Connell: Yeah, we’re going to see where we can go. This is a very different way to start a band, and there’s ways to do it. And as we go, we’ll find out. And as soon as we could be out on tour, we’re going to be out on tour.
Reyes: I have ideas and plans for things for us to do together as a band when we’re on tour.
Jansen: I want to play a great show there, and then I want to hang out with my friends in my band and all the people that are with us on our team. It’s going to be really fun.
I imagine you’re able to play different-sized venues compared to those in the past that you played.
Jansen: I haven’t played any venues. I mean, I have, but not on a larger scale. So, any and all venues I’m excited about. I’m hoping that a lot of our first shows are more intimate because it’s just going to make us a stronger band, make us like Ed’s been talking about that since the day I met him. As many intimate shows as possible.
Reyes: Yes. It’s very important. It’s very important never to forget where you came from, and you always keep that ground where you play the small venues and yeah, you’re going to play big venues. But for me, my best shows and the shows that always mean the world to me were always the shows where you could smell the crowd and you could smell each other’s farts and everyone is sweaty and I just love it. I just love it.
Jansen: Love it. I would like central air conditioning.
O’Connell: Yeah. The farts part I’m not with, but everything else he said, I agree.
Jansen: I’ve done the basement shows and the VFW halls and stuff and I’m down to do some of those. But yeah, less farts. But yeah, so a breeze, but intimacy and breezes.
O’Connell: Listen, wanting a breeze, you’re keeping it real if you want to breeze. That’s okay. Yu could want to breeze and keep it real at the same time.
Reyes: Oh my God, that’s funny.
And without further ado, here’s our lengthy and engaging track-by-track discussion:
“Intro”
Jansen: The intro is interesting because as we wrote the record, everyone became more confident in each other and their ideas and kind of gave space. Specifically, to me, in a sense, with the intro, we were done with the record, and it was 9:30 at night, the night we were finished. And I said I had an idea for an intro, and I lied,
But I knew what could happen. So I just played one chord, and I said, “And Ed’s going to do this thing.” And I didn’t know what the thing was. I just said, “He’s going to do this thing.” And then he did the thing. And I had a poem that I wrote really quickly. It kind of sounded like a weird hello intro. And then I did that, and then Mark was like, “Can I throw some cymbals?” And I said, “Yeah, of course, because it’s going to lead into the beginning of ‘Bloodsport’, so well if there’s some light percussion in the background of it. ” And it just kind of came out and we were like, “Well, if we use it, we use it. If not, whatever.” But it worked so well.
O’Connell: It really builds anticipation into “Bloodsport” incredibly well.
Jansen: Yeah. And it’s fun because the first thing you hear is the last thing we threw together. Everything is throwing things at a board and seeing if it sticks. And this was like throwing a bucket at a wall and seeing what sticks.
“Bloodsport”
“O’Connell: ‘Bloodsport’ is a nasty album opener with energy. It has the type of energy that sometimes you just need a rock song to have, and that song has it. No parts really repeat itself throughout the entire song. It’s part after part after part after part. But somehow we got it together and made it this song that lives in this life that is really special and a great way to open the album.
Jansen: Yeah, that was one of the first ones you guys wrote together when you got together, right?
Reyes: Yeah. That intro riff is like an old riff that I always wanted to try to use. And I knew Mark would come up with the beat right away, and he did.
O’Connell: But then I was like, “Ed, I want to start the song.” And you’re like, “Okay.”
Reyes: And I said, “You know what, Mark? There’s no rules here, baby, so do it.”
O’Connell: That’s literally exactly what happened.
Jansen: I think also because of me coming into these songs not knowing what they were thinking for them, my idea of where the choruses were, and theirs were different. They were swapped, and it ended up staying that way. The choruses are where I left them, but there was a lot of reform to get those verses to be as strong as they are now, where I would write something. The original idea for that song that I’d written, the second half is exactly the same. But the first half I did multiple rewrites and Mark would be like, “That thing, do that again. Do five times. Do that. Keep that melody.” So, there was a lot of rewrites with “Bloodsport” before it got to the right place, but it felt like a great intro to the record as everything was being put together. One, because it’s so heavy-hitting.
And the themes around most of the record are about change and growth. And that song is about the realization that the change needs to happen. You haven’t done it yet, but you’re noticing that it’s time to change things. So it’s good to come in with that anger, that angst of something’s wrong. What’s going to happen?
O’Connell: That fire bro, that fire that you could hear the fire and the need. Eddie and I got kind of handed this predicament that could be looked at as a blessing and a curse, maybe. I don’t know. Whatever it was, we ended up being able to play together, and we were at this feeling that there was a need, there was a fire to where you don’t really get that later in life like we had. So that’s the great and the positive side of it. You know what I mean? Being able to do that again, and at the end of the day, everything happens for a reason, and here we are, and it’s really cool. I’m really happy I’m right here talking with everybody on this call right now because everything before this moment had to happen the way it did. It just did. And you could hear that as well.
I don’t know how to explain it. It’s a weird thing, but you could hear that urgency, and that need to create and make this beautiful thing, and we did.
SWT: Imagine that’s satisfying when you are able to find a use for an older riff like you did.
Reyes: Yeah. I have a bunch of old riffs running around in my head. Whenever I was in a band, and people were like, “Nah,” I was like, “Okay,” but it would go back in some file. I don’t remember how to make a sandwich going into the kitchen, but I’ll remember a riff I wrote freaking 30 years ago or something. It’s weird.
O’Connell: It is weird…You make good sandwiches.
Reyes: Thank you. I take pride in that.
“Grown Man”
Reyes: Yeah, Grown Man, again, a riff I had. And then my daughter sings a lot in her room. She sings a lot of Björk, and she sings a lot of her own stuff. And she was singing this melody, and I was in the kitchen, and I could hear it. And I said, “Whoa, that actually works with this riff.” And I took her melody idea. And then I told her, and she was like, “Oh, cool.” And then closed the door in my face again. So, she was glad to be a part of that idea, but that’s where the idea of “Grown Man” came.
And then Mark came in, and he instantly knew right away the beat that I was looking for and stuff like that. It just all fell through. That’s the thing. I can’t sit here and say, “Man, it’s been so hard. It’s been so hard. This is the hardest album to write, or it’s so hard to write music.” But it’s almost like we walk in and we already have all this shit and it just happens. So that’s how “Grown Man” for me personally came together. And then Mike came, and he sang these lyrics over it, or he played me some. Right, Mike, you played me on the acoustic, right? When you were singing to it the first time? It was in that small room.
Jansen: Yeah. I’d written the vocal for the song, and just kind of played it over some similar chords to the song.
Reyes: And that was instant.
O’Connell: Yep.
Reyes: Anyway, that was the idea for “Grown Man”. And then when Mike wrote those lyrics over it, they were instant. It molded perfectly with it. I had to go out and play for Mark and tell Mark to come in and listen to us. And that’s just how “Grown Man” came too, for me personally.
Jansen: Yeah. So yeah, I wrote a lyric and melody to that song, not to what his daughter was singing. I never heard that, but I wrote the vocals to that song about being scared of being in love. Not that I don’t trust myself or anything like that, but it’s scary knowing that you found a real connection with somebody and you’re going to dive, you’re going to jump in, and you know you want it, and it’s just part of life, being anxious.
Reyes: Sometimes you’ve got to go for it. Screw things up. I fell in love with my lawyer’s assistant in the middle of a split-up. And you know what? I got remarried, and I’m happy. So love is scary. So, it does make a lot of sense with that.
O’Connell: Love is scary. That’s another track off the next album. Love is scary. Ed? Come on.
Reyes: Love is scary.
“Special (Kings)”
O’Connell: First song out.
Reyes: Yeah. It’s the first song we jammed to, right?
Jansen: First song they invited me to play with them was the reason I’m playing with them at all was writing “Special”. Some look at it as a song about betrayal. I look at it as a song about self-reflection and when bad things happen to you, is it your fault or not looking out for yourself? But I wrote it in such a vague way that it could be looked at as pointing a finger, but I’m really pointing a finger at myself in it. And in one way or another, we all found something in that song that resonated. I think before we were able to figure out what the sound of the band was, that was a starting point. So we were excited to put that song out first to just give everybody that same starting point that we had.
“Violent People”
Jansen: I think that’s the first idea that they wrote in the studio together.
O’Connell: Yeah.
Reyes: Oh yeah, that was the first one. I thought for some reason “Bloodsport” was, but “Violent People” was.
O’Connell: That was the second.
Reyes: Yeah, it was the second one. Again, it just came together.
O’Connell: I think, Ed, not to cut you off, but I think that “Violent People”, Mike coming in and having that track and having to write over that track the way that it was in no way, shape, or form was really an easy task. That’s not an easy task for anyone. And then to make sure that he backed off in places where he should back off and leave space for no singing, it is an art form that I could even overlook. But man, that’s a difficult thing to do. And to bring it in the way that he did was pretty unbelievable. And that song is fire. That song is fire.
Reyes: Yeah. I think that Mike, your vocals, because that was the one song that I was having trouble with because I was too worried that it was just some riffs that I was just putting together and starting to sound like other stuff. And when Mike came in and put his lyrics on it, it really brought it back to life for me. And now I listen to that song all the time.
Jansen: I mean, nothing about that song was easy to write. It was a struggle for a long time. We had another guy with us writing on that song at first, Alex, he’s a great dude, and we’re going to be working with him on something in the future. So there’s a couple little counter lines that we were able to use. I found a topic that fit the record better for what we were going for and ran with it. And once that idea started, it was just like, “all right, this is the direction the song should go for the album.” Aggressive, but there’s a nursery rhyme element to it too, which makes it more aggressive.
Catchy. It kind of mocks the idea of a nursery rhyme with how it comes across and how hard I had to push my voice to get it to… They write with some very normal chords that are just out of my range at 40. So I have to get up to them. And that song was definitely one that was harder to sing, but we came out with something great.
Reyes: Yeah, we did.
“Nuzzo”
O’Connell: We recorded that song and the first thing I said to Ed when it was time to do a new song and we were just going to write it on the spot and we did, I kind of came to him like, “Yo, maybe we’ve been put in a category of people that wouldn’t or can’t or shouldn’t play heavier music, faster music, but could be whatever we want to be now.”
And that goes back to when I said just having the ability or whatever, us being able to play music again. We can do whatever we want to do. So, we went a different route, and we kind of did it for fun, and we came up with it in one day, and it ended up just being what it is. But I was listening. We recorded in Woodstock, and I was on my way home. I was going to Long Island to pick my daughter up and go back to Woodstock. And I got pulled over and arrested.
That got dismissed; it’s all done. It’s all good. So it’s away from me. But the officer’s last name is Nuzzo, and I played it for all the cops in the police station, and they loved it. I was like, “I’m going to call this ‘Nuzzo’, this song’s called “Nuzzo.’”
Reyes: I like the idea that we’re going to write whatever we want. We’re going to write atmospheric music. We’re going to write heavy shit, post hardcore, hardcore, rock, indie, whatever. There’s no rules. That’s the way I look at it. So that’s just an example of the heavy, fast song on the album, along with the slow jam. I liked the music to be kind of bipolarish, up and down, crazy. I’ve always been like that with bands that I’ve been in.
And this band, I feel like we really have that control to write any kind of songs we want. And Nuzzo just is a cool ass post hardcore song, so why not do it?
O’Connell: And with that, Mike’s approach to it and what he wrote about and how he found his way to make that song his also I think it made it something that there isn’t anything like it really at all out there. So it blew my mind when he went the certain way that he did, and it took me a minute to let it soak in what we all did, and it’s a really special song.
Jansen: Yeah. When you’re used to only hearing the instrumental version of that, I mean, it’s very heavy. I heard that…I like to do the opposite of what the music is doing sometimes, as far as how hard I’m pushing a song, because I don’t need to push harder than the song. It’s already heavy. So it was fun to do something that kind of danced over the top of what they were doing because it allowed the song to be heavy, but me more fun at the same time.
“Big Smiles”
Jansen: I got to the studio a day before everybody else and was missing being home with my wife. So I wrote about how the difficulty of being excited about what I was doing and driving out to Woodstock from Chicago, but also not really wanting to get out of bed because I knew that I’d be gone for a couple of weeks. So just kind of capturing that feeling. And the night that I got to the studio, the producer, Chris Bittner, was showing me a bunch of other styles of recordings that he’s done with jazz bands and acoustic musicians, and just kind of made me start thinking. And luckily, I just kind of came up with that. A couple days later we asked if I could just lay it down, and no one had really heard it yet. So they just said, “Yeah, do it. See what happens.”
O’Connell: I walked in when he was recording it, right?
Jansen: Yeah, Mark. You were like, “What is this? ”
O’Connell: Yeah. I was like, “This is great. This is great. Let’s choose this.” And yeah, that was the one before the intro, right? That was one of the last things.
Jansen: Yeah, we were finishing “Soap Bar” and…I remember Mark going, “You mean I could take a break? I could grab a Diet Coke or something? Three minutes. I don’t have to worry. All right, I’m in.” It was awesome. It was an awesome feeling.
“Sun Poison”
O’Connell: When does “Sun Poison” come out? How many days?
Jansen: It comes out Tuesday.
O’Connell: Wow. Exciting. “Sun Poison” is a wonderful song. It just captures this feeling. That’s pretty magical. And the way it came together was a little bit different. I did my drum track first, and then Eddie had the two riffs.
And then I put a couple riffs on it and then we have that. But because I did the drum track first, before we put any of the music on it, I was like, “Oh, then we could do this, and then I could do another track of this.” So, there’s cymbals and high hats and rim shots on the snare drum and percussion throughout the entire thing like I’ve never done before. And then once again, Mike came in and laid down what he laid down over a topic that was really close to him and made him really feel and think, and it came out the way it did, and it’s beautiful. I’m very excited for people to hear it.
Jansen: Yeah, I think sometimes you go to these touristy places, and they try to force-feed you happiness, and it does the opposite if you’re not in a good mental space. And I don’t know, I just kind of pulled it all together with when you’re at the beach and you know you should put some sunscreen on and you’re getting burned, but you feel something. You feel life, and you’re okay with that.
Reyes: Vitamin D.
O’Connell: Is that what he’s feeling?
Jansen: It’s the same as when you’re going through struggles in any sense, and you go outside to the really cold air just to get a rush, and it hurts, but you’re like, “I fucking feel alive right now.” It’s the opposite feeling. Well, it’s the same thing, but just with heat. And stoked that’s the last single. I think that shows another dynamic of the band, and anything that people are curious as to what we’re going to cover, anything they think…they want to hear is on the record, and it’ll be out two days later, they’ll hear it. But I’m just really stoked for “Sun Poison” to be the last taste of the record before the whole thing comes out.
“Soap Bar (Jehu)”
Reyes: Cool Track. That was again, another riff that I had, but it was played differently, but then I started picking it.
O’Connell: Why did you start picking it?
Reyes: I’m trying to think. What do you mean? I changed it up. Well, originally, the riff sounded like a Jehu riff. That’s why I called it new Jehu. And I didn’t want to sound like someone’s ripping off someone’s riff, so I started picking it. And I think the picking sounds way better. Mark just put a sick beat to it. I don’t even know how to explain it. That song just came together yet again so easily, and it wasn’t even hard. I put the riff down, Mark came out with a sick beat, and then Mike topped it off with the lyrics, and then Chris Bittner played some bass on it. And yeah, I mean, so far to me is one of my favorite songs. I know I say I love all the songs the same, but I find myself listening to that one a lot because of the mood change in it.
It’s like two songs put together, and it’s so bipolar. And the way Mike sings at the end, it’s like this giant breath of air. And yeah, I don’t want to get too dramatic. That was another accidental key change, the ending, because the song was what it was before the ending. And then I was like, “Well, it should be a little longer. What if I have this riff?” And then Chris was like, “It doesn’t go with the song. It’s in a different key.” And then he was like, “Well, if we just hit this one chord for a little while before we go to that, then it’ll sound good.” And then we did that, and then it did. And it’s just so strange how we put these songs together. It’s pretty crazy. It’s really fun.
Jansen: A lot of Hail Marys. Yeah. I had the verses and chorus that I was writing because that was the song they were putting together while I was there, where a lot of the other ones were written before I was around. So I got to write lyrics in the background and just figure out what I wanted to do with the song. And then the end comes up, and I didn’t know what to do with that at all. So I went in, and I sang this one thing for an hour and a half, and I could just… Chris, the producer, such a great guy and easy to work with, and I could just tell he wasn’t loving that idea that I was doing as much as some of the other stuff I had done. And I said, “Well, give me a minute.” And then I just wrote this thing real quick, and I sang it more.
Sometimes you have to make fun of yourself when you’re doing it. I think actors have to do this. You have to fully go into something that you wouldn’t normally do and then believe it. And that was one of the things I’m like, “Well, what if I was one of those guys that…” And I had this idea of being overdramatic about the glorification of everybody loving each other when you die. And I just said this thing real quick, and Chris was like, “That’s great, do that again.” And I’m like, “All right.” And it was like five minutes later the song was done.
O’Connell: Yo, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. And that’s really cool.
Jansen: I had multiple other endings that Chris was just like, “Okay. Okay.”
O’Connell: The glorification, though, that’s a wild topic, and I didn’t know that that was about that. So cool.
Jansen: Because when we were writing it, we were talking about that being the end of the record. And we were going to make that ending even bigger. So I wanted to tie it out.
The beginning of the song is about youthful friendships and how you fade apart or some things might change in your life, and you go different directions. But the end of that is when the end of your life is here, you kind of forget about all of the little things and you’re happy to see everyone again that made your life what it is. But I said it more grand.
“The Astronaut Show”
O’Connell: First thing that comes to mind is that riff. He’s had that for, I remember, he actually had that one 10 years ago.
Reyes: I have a lot of riffs like that. And then he brought it back, and then we started working on it. And then around that riff, there’s this motivational thing. I was like, “Man, it reminds me of montages in movies. We should push this song towards…like a montage. It would be good in a montage. Like a movie montage, like Rocky.
O’Connell: Yeah.
Jansen: They had more of an eye of the tiger feel to it.
O’Connell: Punked out “Eye of The Tiger”.
Jansen: But I don’t know. I can’t really sing that way. So that song took me a long time to figure out, and I ended up writing it very quickly, but there was six months where nothing sounded good.
Reyes: He used to complain to me, “Goddammit, I can’t write anything today.” And I’m like, “But you will.” We’d always say something like that.
O’Connell: Chris said, “I’ll just take a nap.” And he got up from the console and laid down for 15 minutes, and I just looped it and then was like, “All right, I have it. ” But that was another one where I had a different chorus when I went into the room, and he loved the verses, and he didn’t like the choruses. And one of the first ideas that I wrote when I got to the studio the first few days that I met everybody, I wrote something that I went back in the notebook, and I went, “What about this? ” And then I sang this thing, and he again was like, “Yes, that’s the thing. Yes.” But I never know if it’s good or not while I’m doing it. There’s so much going on in your head, and there’s so much excitement and doubt and pressure, and you just have to throw ideas out until one’s good.
O’Connell: At that time, we didn’t know that we would be where we are right now, man. So, the uncertainty of it all was, especially at that time, it’s very difficult to deal with while trying to write and finish the album. You could also hear that.
Reyes: You know what I think about a lot, Mark, is a lot of the shit that went on over the last year and a half that we went through with writing a record and ourselves, and you’re dealing with your stuff, I almost feel like all that energy was put there on purpose to make this happen.
O’Connell: Dude, I think about that all the time.
Reyes: Me too.
O’Connell: Just all of the wild stuff that has happened around us and in everyone’s lives that made this energy. It created an energy that created this album is wonderful. It’s taking this opportunity and making the best of it. And you really did that. I’m proud of us, everybody involved in this. It’s amazing.
Reyes: I’m not very religious, but I’m very spiritual. And I like to think that my higher power brought Mike into my life and brought you back into my life and made these songs just flow the way it did. So I’m not arguing with nobody. I’m just following that path. You know what I mean?
O’Connell: Casey and Neal, too.
Reyes: Yeah. Everybody. You know what I mean.
“This Is What It Feels Like To Be Normal”
O’Connell: It’s an upbeat punk song.
Reyes: Got a little kumbia in there in the beginning.
O’Connell: It does. The song stems from… I’ve had a lot of personal things going on with not being in Taking Back Sunday just very quickly. And then also at the same time, dealing with a divorce, and at the same time, I got sober. So I dealt with all these things while being sober. I was having an issue with getting divorced in the courts and access to my children. And there was one specific day where I finally was holding my daughter, and she fell asleep in my arms. So, I whipped out GarageBand. I was so excited. I was so happy. I was in such a good place holding her that I came up with the outline of what became “This Is What It Feels Like to be Normal.” And that’s what the song stemmed from. And when I brought it to Eddie, he was feeling it.
Reyes: But the way I look at it, the inspiration was you brought that, and I didn’t want to screw it up. So I wrote around it so it wouldn’t screw it up. You know what I mean?
O’Connell: That’s what we do, man. That’s how we write together. Together. So that’s where the song stemmed from, and came from a beautiful place. And once again, Mike fucking nailed it. Mike nailed it.
Jansen: I kind of wrote about never really getting anywhere with my own music. Not that I’m not proud of making a living playing music the way I have been, but there’s just something relatable, I think, to everyone, where you might not have gotten specifically what you were hoping to get with what you thought would happen with your life at 40. And it’s not a negative song. It’s just a, “are you doing anything to change that, or are you just bitching about it?” It’s kind of the mentality of the song. So a lot of the lyrics are like a journal to myself, and that’s kind of what I was talking about. I was like, “Well, are you going to run with this opportunity or not? See what happens.” You’ve got to make it what it is, right?
A lot of the lyrics are literal, or they’re very close to home. I know that I’ll fall, but I’ve done it a million times. I’ve fallen every time. So what? I still like doing it.
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Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
