Mark O'Connell Interview

AoS: This isn’t the leadoff tour for Louder Now, so have you been throwing in a balanced amount of older songs into the setlist?

Mark: Yeah, yes we are. We’re playing songs off of every album.

AoS: We’re approaching a year since the release of the album. Are you pleased with how it has been received publicly?

Mark: Absolutely. Well, I mean we are, but it’s always important for us to like the album, and we like the album, the kids seem to like the album. So we’re very pleased, we’re very blessed people.

AoS: How do you spend your days off from touring?

Mark: Well, when we have days off we usually just lay low. We just hang out in our hotel rooms and watch movies, go out to eat. Nothing really too crazy or anything. Yeah, that’s basically it. We’re kind of boring. (laughs)

AoS: Who do you consider to be some of your major influences in music?

Mark: Oh man…see that’s funny because we all listen to such a wide variety of music, but we all grew up listening to punk rock and hardcore and that kind of genre of music. It’s so big, but that’s where it comes from. People grew up listening to Minor Threat, and the Descendents, and Dag Nasty, and Quicksand, and Texas Is The Reason. So I would say mainly older punk rock music.

AoS: The show that I’m doing this interview for is a sold-out arena show. Do you still get nervous about playing to large crowds or have you grown accustomed to it?

Mark: It’s still nerve-racking, every single show is. Especially for me, I get kind of nervous, more excited, more, “Alright! We’re gonna do this! It’s going to be so much fun!” Yeah, it’s still crazy, man. We go to these places, and a sold-out arena show is like, “What the hell?!” It’s awesome.

AoS: How would you describe Taking Back Sunday’s sound?

Mark: I would describe it as rock. Everybody puts the “emo” tag to it, but I don’t really know what emo…you hear emo bands nowadays and I don’t listen to any of those bands, so not that, but yeah, I guess just rock.

AoS: What do you have planned in the upcoming months?

Mark: Well, we have this tour [with Underoath and Armor For Sleep] and then we have off for a couple of months, and then we might tour over the summer, we’re not sure, though.

AoS: Would it be a North American tour?

Mark: Probably, yeah.

AoS: I heard that you’re a bit of a baseball fan. Coming from New York, are you a Mets or a Yankees fan?

Mark: Yankees all the way. It’s funny, there’s this show on FOX on Saturdays and I hosted This Week In Baseball from Yankee Stadium last year. I am a die-hard Yankees fan.

AoS: Any last words?

Mark: Thank you very much for supporting us and listening to our music.

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