The Sweet Meaning Behind Taking Back Sunday's New Album Title

Taking Back Sunday have a new album out this week. It has a cryptically short title: 152. That’s it.

Now on their eighth studio album – and first in seven long years – the beloved US rockers are clearly intent on doing things their own way.

Before 152 officially drops on Friday, October 27th, Tone Deaf asked Adam Lazzara from the band to take us through that curious album title in more detail, which you can read below.

And Australian Taking Back Sunday fans rejoice: the band are coming to Australia for Good Things 2023, playing alongside Fall Out Boy, Limp Bizkit, Corey Taylor, and more. Taking Back Sunday are also confirmed for three Good Things Sideshows in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney (see full dates below).

Taking Back Sunday’s 152 is out Friday, October 27th.

152 is the number of an exit in North Carolina. There’s these two Interstates – Interstate 40 and Interstate 85 – and they kind of connect, northeast, southeast. But for that stretch of highway in North Carolina, they come together to form one super highway. It’s not really that “super,” but it’s just a road that you can drive past on without stop lights. And that’s where the original exit 152 is located.

The reason why we named our new record 152 is that for years it’s been like this inside joke – or not even an inside joke, it’s more like an inside thing with our friends. We put it on all our record covers and we hide it in other artwork so that when they see it, they can know: hey, we’re thinking about you. You’re a huge part of everything we do and who we are and we love you. And that’s why 152 was on everything.

I grew up in a small town, so to go to shows you’d have to drive an hour and a half to two hours away, and that exit was kind of halfway from where we lived to where we were headed. And we would meet there and we’d stop there, and there’s just a lot of memories there.

I’ve driven by it recently. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, and if you’re going to Raleigh, North Carolina, you pass it. So I’ve driven by it, but it’s been a long time since I’ve actually stopped since those early days. It’s changed a lot. What used to be this kind of rundown, maybe a little seedy truck stop is now this giant chain truckstop with a McDonald’s in it. So it’s lost a little bit of its charm. But I’ll never forget it, there’s a lot of memories around that.

When we were recording 152, we would rent one car because we were coming from all different places to this one place, and we’d always be going around in the car together. It very much felt like it did in high school. Sometimes you’ve just got to get out and go for a drive. And that very often reminds me of that feeling that I had way back then, those days of going to shows and stopping at 152.

And another significant thing about why we named the record 152 is that I feel like for a long time we were kind of trying to get into other people’s worlds, like, ‘Hey! Hey! You want to let us in,’ kind of thing. And that’s no way to live. So it’s almost like by naming the record 152 and with the meaning that it has for us and our people behind it – that’s our way of inviting people into our place, into our house. We’ve got snacks, all kinds of things. It’s way fun. You’re going to hear a bunch of great stuff.