Taking Back Sunday will be playing at the Bryce Jordan Center (BJC) tonight with openers Underoath and Armor for Sleep. Their North American Tour 2007 is the biggest touring endeavor the band has ever done, and this will be their first time playing at the BJC. During a conference call, I had the opportunity to talk with the bassist Matt Rubano.

The band played in University Park before, except last time it was at the Crowbar, a significantly smaller venue than the Bryce Jordan Center. Excited about the upgrade?

"Well I remember that show as being one of my first five or ten shows with the band, and I had played at the Crowbar before with another band. I remember that show as being really solidifying for me in the band. Maybe we'll slink down the Crowbar afterwards; it's nice to play in the same place."

What makes a Taking Back Sunday show stand out from other bands?

"I was thinking about this last night to myself, we've been off for a little while and I'm anxious to get back on, and I was thinking in particular about that moment right before we go on stage. It's like a bunch of racecars at the starting line, there is a really crazy energy in it. We're really having, at the bottom of it, a lot of fun. We're so in the middle of it but shows tend to go by really fast because I think we're all really worked up and have a lot of fun playing the shows."

Do you guys practice any pre-show rituals?

"I don't know when it started happening but probably when we started touring for Where You Want to be, I think it start when we started playing in front of larger audiences. We couldn't go out on stage like we did before with everyone getting together right before. We get together for a few moments and have a pre-show huddle, it's anything from a moment of silence or goofing around and talking about what we did that day."

What are your top five favorite musical artists of all-time?

"Miles Davis, A Tribe Called Quest, Queens of the Stone Age, Tom Petty and Björk."

How did your parents, friends and family react when you told them about your full-time band status?

"I made a commitment to playing music for my life when I was 16 or 17 when I wanted to go to music school. After that was over, I started to work, tried to make money, eat survive. I have a lot of support from my family but it's an incredibly difficult thing to do;. I was lucky. I have lots of support from my family and friends. I'm at the point where most of my friends are musicians."

What's your favorite ninja turtle?

"That's like choosing between Hans Solo and Luke Skywalker; it's the team that makes it what it is. But, I've always been kind of partial to Donatello because he is kind of smart, and I envy that."

What is the lineup of songs like?

"Since Louder Now came out, we played various amounts of songs from all the records. We've been getting ready to turn over our list of songs for a new one. We toured so much in 2006 that we had a list of songs that we continually played. Now we're going on the tour with a new list of old songs, a lot of things we haven't played in a while from all the albums."

Underoath and Armor for Sleep are opening for most of the tour. What is the criteria you look at when picking these bands?

"When we're picking bands from one our own tours, we simply go to bands that we like first, whose music we like or that we're friends with. It's a pretty fortunate position to be in. When we played with Weezer or when we toured with Blink., it's us being on the other side and them asking us to play with them. Its' pretty cool to be on the other side."

When is Taking Back Sunday due for studio time?

"I'm not really sure. We're going to tour until this upcoming summer. And I even hesitate to say it because I know you're gonna write it, but I think we'll be going in the studio at some point towards the end of 2007 and that's a ball park guess."

What cities haven't you played at before that you would like to play and not playing this time around?

"I keep hearing about different bands going to China, we've been to Japan, Australia, a few countries in Europe and the UK. I'd be interested in China or Taiwan where the cultures are different from the Western world."

I noticed that you guys are working with the stop global warming campaign. What is that about?

"The main thing we've been doing is using our website and appearances to direct people to them (stopglobalwarming.org) to figure out about this thing that is happening to our collective world and use a bit of our influence to direct people towards not just listening to our music or going to our shows. I guess we do feel a little bit of a responsibility that if one of us feels passionate about something we can turn other younger people onto it.. It's just kind of giving back to the global community."

What was the transition like from playing at small to major venues?

"It was really gradual for us, it wasn't overnight, some bands have this booming explosion and I think if that happened it would be really shocking for me. It's a very different kind of performance than doing things like small clubs and theatres. It was like a really natural progression, we were always anxious and prepared for it."

Do you feel less connected with your fans doing these larger shows?

"We're the kind of band that we don't keep ourselves from being unapproachable, it's not uncommon to run into us in the town after the show. The ultimate connection with fans is the music and the other personal things with blogging and MySpace but as far as one-on-one contact, we are pretty available."

Is there any song on Louder Now that you ware particularly proud of?

"The typical answer is I'm proud of all of them but I really am because I think that it's the biggest accomplishment of my life so far, and as a collection of songs I really stand by all of it. But for some kind of strange reason, maybe because of how we recorded it, the last track I'll let you live is kind of something that we're proud of because it's something that maybe in the past we didn't do and we learned about the scope of our sound."

Your tour extends until the end of April. Do you plan on coming up with any new songs while on the road?

"We do bring a modest recording set up with us on the road and work on things from time to time because there's certainly more than a little free time driving all over the country. A lot of Louder Now came from the back of the bus. The majority of the stuff and writing gets done when we're not on the road but we don't stop while touring."

What was it like being on the TV series Degrassi for an episode?

"It was cool, it was a really unique experience because I never spent a few days on a TV set before. The cast, the writers and everyone working with it made it really fun and made us feel welcome, it was really cool and kind of effortless."

As a Long Island native band, it was surprising to see that you aren't making a stop there during this tour. Why?

"Dude, I know. This tour was meant to fill in the gaps in between a lot of the major cities that we've visited, college towns and smaller places that we don't get to go to. It's never an intentional decision not to play anywhere, it's never like 'screw Florida, screw Long Island.' We are definitely due for a hometown appearance soon.: