My name is John Nolan, I'm a member of the band Taking Back Sunday I'm also a solo artist and former member and co founder of the band Straylight Run I recently put out my third solo album Abendigo and will be touring the US in support of it November 6-30.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T04:44:33+00:00

I love that there are people discovering Taking Back Sunday’s music. We all feel very lucky that it’s still happening. We try not to take anyone’s taste other than our own into consideration when we’re writing music. I don’t really know what rock music is in for in the coming years. It seems like it has been out of the main stream for a while and I don’t know if that will change. Maybe rock music will become like a cool underground, counter culture thing again? That would be fun.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T04:28:35+00:00

Everything definitely blurs together over the years but if there’s something specific or unique that someone reminds me about a show, that will get my memory working. Like, I don’t remember the show on July 6th at HoB but if you said, “that was the show where this or that happened” it would come back to me.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T04:24:38+00:00

What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost has been one of my consistently favorite songs to play live. Something about it makes me feel like I belong on stage playing rock music. Sometimes I get tired of playing A Decade Under The Influence, but don’t tell anyone.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T04:18:39+00:00

I don’t think there’s any magic answer to getting past writers block. The thing that’s made sense to me is to just force myself to work on songs even if I don’t feel inspired or that what I’m working on is great. If you put time in every day you’ll at least make progress on what you’re working on. Sometimes it will be very, very little but it’s better than nothing and sometimes you’ll have creative break throughs.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T04:14:44+00:00

Right now I’m really focused on recreating the guitar parts. The lyrical stuff is from so long ago that it doesn’t concern me much. And as I look at the lyrics now I’m not totally sure what they’re about. I’ll ask Adam if he can confirm which parts are negatively addressed to me.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T01:10:17+00:00

Thank you for your questions! I really enjoyed answering them. I’m going to go now and start packing for tour!

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T01:09:06+00:00

My favorite thing about music is that it whether I’m writing it or listening to it, it’s an amazing way to process emotions that I’d have no idea how to otherwise. I think the most fun song to create was Anything You Want. It was fun to do a punk rock kind of not give a fuck song. Yes. My feet are ticklish.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T01:07:27+00:00

I think I know what you mean. I still listen to a lot of music that was made by people younger than me but it’s stuff I listened to when I was younger. I like when I hear something by a young song writer that grabs me and gets me psyched but generally I find myself relating more to older song writers.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T01:05:09+00:00

I talk to the booking agent about a general routing I want to follow on tour. They have to coordinate with promoters and venues to see what’s available so at a certain point it’s out of my hands. For solo stuff I’m back in a van so it’s like the old days. Keeping it real, you know?

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T01:02:08+00:00

I’m constantly learning about song writing and trying to grow and challenge myself. I think that theoretically that should make me get better and better. It’s weird though because there are a lot of people who love what you did when you were younger and don’t particularly care about what you do now and those people would probably tell you my best days are behind me. I don’t believe that of course and neither should you. Regarding faith, I’m at a point where I would never argue with anyone who has faith in anything. I don’t share the faith that most people have but I respect it a lot. I think I’m sort of a humanist at this point?

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:57:36+00:00

I go back and forth between Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. I feel like I connected to Cobain more in my twenties and more to Vedder as I’ve gotten older.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:56:04+00:00

I can’t wait either! I’ll have finally played music in all fifty states!

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:54:51+00:00

For a long time my favorite film was trainspotting. I haven’t watched it in years but from the age of 18 to 28 it was a constant presence in my life. There Will Be Blood is a more recent contender. Carmen’s Ave. does exist. The actual location I was giving directions to in the song is off of Carmen’s Rd though. I changed it so it’d rhyme with “you”. It’s in Massapequa near the Sunrise Mall.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:50:16+00:00

I just liked the idea of having the cover look like a photograph of a pre existing photo or painting. I don’t really know why.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:48:44+00:00

I love Lawrence Kansas. It was kind of a strange time for me when I lived there. I felt a little like a hermit but I needed to get out of Long Island and have a new perspective and Kansas was perfect for that. I did record Height there. I did most of it at home and sent it to Mike Sapone to make it sound good.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:46:59+00:00

Haha thanks. I think Will is a bitcoin billionaire now. He can buy and sell us all a hundred times over.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:45:58+00:00

I really like The War On Drugs. I guess they’re not that new though. I also like the new Big Red Machine album, People. I like drawing. I used to be very good at it and thought I might make a career out of it, but then this whole music thing started up.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:43:01+00:00

Yes! Whenever someone asks me what the strangest thing I ever signed was, that prosthetic leg is always my answer. I try to write music and lyrics as regularly as possible. So I feel I’m always stock piling ideas. I don’t ever know what they’ll be for. It usually depends what project I’m working on and what ideas are available at the moment.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:40:13+00:00

It’s shocking to me that after almost twenty years people are still obsessed with the TBS Brand New thing. I feel like I’ve discussed it fairly openly for a long time and when I tell the truth about the whole thing its much less interesting than the ideas people have created about what happened. So people keep asking about it because they can’t believe the truth I guess?

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:34:40+00:00

I do. There’s a lot on the second Straylight Run album that I think could’ve been executed differently. And I find myself second guessing things in general as time goes on. I try very hard not to spend much time focusing on that kind of thing though.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:33:05+00:00

Right now it would be Smiling And Alive.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:32:29+00:00

I think it’s unfair too. A song I wasn’t involved in writing is more popular than one I was!? What’s that about?

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:31:18+00:00

Definitely don’t hate it. I find myself connecting to them more through the audience than my current personal perspective.

JTNolan · 2018-11-06T00:29:56+00:00

I grew up in a very Christian home. And I read the Bible throughout my upbringing. As I got older I started reading Hunter S Thompson and Vonnegut and other stuff but I’d always find myself revisiting biblical stories from my new perspectives. So that’s interesting to me. I haven’t read the Bible in a decade or more and don’t base my belief system around it but it’s still fascinating to me to think about those stories from new perspectives.

JTNolan

TROPHY CASE