Fred Mascherino recently sat down to discuss his relatively sudden departure from Taking Back Sunday and his new band, The Color Fred.

He explained:

I know that it comes down on me. I wish it didn't. It was ultimately my decision, but I wish it didn't seem like my fault. [The MySpace bulletin] was weird. It was kind of cold and not even from the band members. It's hard because I'm the only one speaking about it, so it's kind of all on me, and I don't know what other people want to be said as far as how much of the truth they want to come out.

The idea that I left Taking Back Sunday strictly to do The Color Fred is incorrect, I had been planning to release this record at this time. It was already set up. I was going to release it and do a tour, which I'm on now, and then go back and write the next record with them and record it. But along the line of a few months before and then on the Projekt Revolution tour, things were getting sour. I said, 'I don't want to do this anymore.' It was making me miserable. I felt like I was changing who I was.

Fred shied away from making any disparaging comments about his former band mates, but did cite "writing problems, bickering and proposed changes that couldn't be agreed upon" as among the problems.

Fred's solo project, The Color Fred released Bend to Break this year.