Taking Back Sunday has plans to outlive the trendy subgenre that spawned it

Thanks only partly to Fall Out Boy, emo is now officially to 2006 what grunge was to 1992. Once a fringe punk-rock subgenre, the movement that made Pete Wentz a millionaire has entrenched itself in the shopping malls of middle America. And that means it's time to cue the backlash. Just as the Stone Temple Pilots and Bush marked the beginning of the end for the Seattle sound, it won't be long before the emo army contains more imitators than originators. (Hello, Saves the Day.) Consequently, the smart ones are already moving on. It's no accident that My Chemical Romance's latest, The Black Parade, sounds more like vintage Queen than a poor man's Lifetime. Or, for that matter, that Taking Back Sunday seems to be thinking about the future as much as the present on its third and latest album, Louder Now.

Released last year, the disc won't disappoint anyone who's convinced there's no greater label in the world than Victory Records. If The OC hadn't been deep-sixed, it would have been only a matter of time before its producers unearthed "MakeDamnSure" and "Miami". At the same time, the New Jersey five-piece has made a successful effort to push beyond the sound that's vaulted it from the Top Ramen diet to sold-out arenas. The delicate indie-popper "My Blue Heaven" blazes with symphonic strings, "Liar" is what the Strokes might have sounded like if Julian Casablancas had grown up in Jersey, and "Spin" features a guitar-pyrotechnics display that would impress professional rehab junkie Eddie Van Halen. Reached at a Denver, Colorado, tour stop, guitarist Fred Mascherino posits that Taking Back Sunday isn't the same band he joined just before the recording of 2004's Where You Want to Be.

"When we were writing Louder Now, we thought a lot about being a part of a scene," he reveals. "When that scene falls out of favour, then you end up going down with the ship. On this record, we didn't really think about what our peers were doing. It was more trying to make a record that people could listen to in 10 years and go 'That's a rock record' as opposed to 'This is a record that comes from this one tiny department of music.'"

If that makes Mascherino sound like he has regrets about his membership in the emo nation, it shouldn't. The 31-year-old guitarist isn't exactly new to the business of rock 'n' roll. Before joining up with singer Adam Lazzara, guitarist Eddie Reyes, bassist Matt Rubano, and drummer Mark O'Connell, he fronted Philadelphia hardcore unit Breaking Pangaea. Initially he must have wondered if he made the right job choice. As replacements for original bassist Shaun Cooper and singer-guitarist John Nolan, Lazzara and Mascherino signed on at a time when founding members of the TBS fan club had written the group off for dead. Shockingly, then, the Victory-released Where You Want to Be debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard charts, with Louder Now topping that by landing at No. 2. On its current tour, Taking Back Sunday is filling 4,000-seat venues, something that the guitarist finds nothing short of incredible.

"Every day, before we go on-stage, we do a huddle," Mascherino says. "We talk about how lucky we are, how amazing all this is, and how we have to enjoy it because we can't count on it always being like this. It's almost like someone is playing a trick on us. We're very lucky, and we're trying to work hard to stay that way."

Mascherino can, as much as anyone in TBS, take responsibility for where the band finds itself today. The guitarist was thrown right into the writing process for Where You Want to Be, admitting that he was asked to give his input into the songs at his first practice. On Louder Now, he was even more involved. Although all tracks are credited to Taking Back Sunday, long-time fans have suggested that Mascherino shaped the sound of the record.

"Um, uhhh, let me see how to put this," the guitarist says carefully. "Adam and I had a bond during Louder Now. We really came together—I was being inspired because I felt he was writing some really deep lyrics, and that really got me into writing music."

Proving that his perspective on life hasn't changed much during Taking Back Sunday's ascent, when it's suggested to Mascherino that—like it or not—he's now a legitimate rock star, he responds with a bemused laugh.

"Nothing has changed for me," he argues. "I've always been a family guy”¦and that sort of keeps me grounded. The things that were important to me before are still important to me today. It's not like any of us have gone out and bought nice cars or anything. I mean, I just bought a 1982 Rabbit."

Mascherino made that purchase for a reason: it's a diesel that has been converted to run on used vegetable oil. The guitarist—who's a long-standing vegetarian—figures that he has a responsibility to set an example. Most gratifying of all is the way that Taking Back Sunday is in a position to change the way its fans think. So while Louder Now may find Lazzara dwelling on the internal wars within, the band is concerned with larger issues in its day-to-day dealings.

"The Al Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] has definitely shifted our whole band into high gear on the environment," Mascherino relates. "We're trying to educate the audience about the issues, as well as putting information on our Web site.”¦We're recycling on tour now—on our bus, in our dressing room, and in the venues. We'll also be planting trees at the end of our tour that will completely offset the carbon that we've put into the air from our buses and trucks."

So let Fall Out Boy act as the voice, and, yes, whipping boys of a generation. These days, Taking Back Sunday is thinking about more than where it stands in the emo army.

Taking Back Sunday plays the PNE Forum on Sunday (March 18).