Fall Out Boy - 02.21.2004
| Interview with Pete Wentz (bass) Interview by Jason Schleweis & Jeff Marriott | 02.21.2004 | Detroit, MI | Clutch Cargo  How many times have you heard about a band ‘doing there time?’ In other words, starting young, playing in garages, and if they’re real lucky they’ll get signed. Next comes an overproduced, underachieving record and perhaps an opening act for an established band. Well, don’t believe everything you hear. At least one band rightfully deserves their fast and ever-rising fame. Fall Out Boy, a Chicago based punk band with powerful vocals, catchy riffs and beats, and an honest love for music have earned the buzz and acclaim that swarms about them with their debut album, Take This To Your Grave. Throughout the course of only one rapid-paced year Fall Out Boy was founded, recorded, and signed. “We would have never have thought we would have made it this far,” commented bass player and founding member Pete Wentz. After releasing a three-song demo and shortly thereafter a split CD with Milwaukee based Project Rocket their fame multiplied like rabbits. How is this possible? They’re breaking the rules—they’re skipping the part about ‘doing time.’ The story about Fall Out Boy is not simply made great by the speed at which they made it big, but their uniqueness in a conformed market. Of course they sound like some of your favorite punk bands, that’s simply the nature of music, except this quartet has something special that sets them apart—‘softcore’ punk. Fall Out Boy combines the beauty and catchy-pop lyrics and guitar riffs with the raw emotion and intensity of hardcore. What more could you want? We don’t let an opportunity to meet movers and shakers of the music industry go unnoticed. In order to bring you the facts about Fall Out Boy and they’re energetic jump into mainstream we sat down with founder Pete Wentz toward the end of their national tour with Mest. What was your reaction when Island Records called you up and wanted to sign you guys? I dunno, I was like wow that’s insane. It’s become a pretty punk label, like with Thrice, Thursday, Sum 41 and a bunch of punk rock bands so of course we were really excited. We understand that you are going to be working on a new record to be released on Island Records this year. Is there anything you can tell us about it, or is there a tentative release date? Um, we recorded like 4 demos for it. We don’t have a release date set yet but it will be like in the fall or summer probably. It might be called...well we don’t know what it’s going to be called yet. But we were thinking about calling it “The Blues” or just something like really super simple. You guys are starting to get a lot of national recognition that you really deserve, which has helped you land spots on the Skate & Surf Festival and this summer’s Warped Tour. How does it feel to finally have reached those goals and being able to be part of those events? It’s awesome! Especially being part of the Midwest, like nobody cares about bands like us. Most of the music comes from the coasts and stuff. So it’s cool for us getting bumped in with bands like Alkaline Trio, Mest, and Lucky Boys Confusion, and all those bands from Chicago. It’s like we are in our own separate category because of it. How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard of you guys before? I dunno, cause it’s like really funny. If you describe it to your mom or something your going to say Blink 182 cause that’s the only thing they have heard of. (Laughter) But if someone kinda knew I always just say ‘softcore’ I dunno. You have described yourselves as ‘softcore’ before because you’re from the hardcore scene but want to make your music more accessible to the kids. Is there a part of you that wants to write more hardcore music or do you feel most comfortable expressing yourself the way you do now? There’s always a part, like after practice we always switch instruments and play as a hardcore group. (Laughter) But I feel like if anything I think we progress with dynamics and wanting to have a high part or a louder part or something. I don’t think it will necessarily ever be us getting more hardcore but if you listen to any band there will always be new ways they approach things and that is just how we are looking at it. What are some of your influences when you sit down to write a song? Like on the last record it was all like lifetime experiences pretty much. The new stuff like we have been listening to Joy Division and stuff like that. It will be a little bit different, but I think it will be more of a step forward rather than going backwards. Has this been the reason you are able to tour with a wide array of bands and their different styles of music because of the different influences you draw from? I hope man, we don’t really fit into a certain category so well. It’s like we are pop and we’re punk but we’re not necessarily a pop-punk band. Like parts of it you have to play punk rock and I think that comes through in our live show a little bit. I dunno, I hope so. I think that at some point if you have sincerity or sincere lyrics it doesn’t matter what your music is like that much. I listen to a lot of different bands and I’ve realized that’s one of the big reasons I listen to a lot of bands. When you first started out you were playing shows to small groups of people and now your playing in front of much larger crowds. What kind of show do you prefer? It’s funny, I like going back and forth between them. With the small show there’s the intimacy and your usually on the same level with the crowd. And then with the big shows there is a different kind of energy and it’s cool to hear all the people singing your words. I mean I like them both a lot and it’s interesting going between the small shows and the big shows because you have to find a way to bridge the gap especially when there is a five foot barricade or something and you have to figure out how to approach that. I think we do it better than some bands but I would say that it’s harder for us to play small shows anymore. It’s not even a question of like…we love them, but you end up playing a lot of shows to like two people or just not very many kids at all. What are some of the bands you haven’t toured with that you would really like to? We want to take The Academy out. They’re a pretty good band from Chicago. The guitarist from Movie Life’s new band...we like them a lot. What do you think is the best aspect to your live show that everyone should come see? I’d say our energy, as much as the crowd puts out and we put back. Hopefully that it is cathartic, like the words actually mean something to you then you have that whole cathartic thing going on you know. So far it seems that you are accomplishing all the goals you have set for the band, touring nationally and getting signed to a major record label... Actually that was never a goal. What had happened was the original goal was to just play music with friends. Everything else that has happened I think was because we never really put any pressure on ourselves and we just did our own thing. There are either a lot of bands that sound like us or try to do what we do, but one of the most important things for us is that we just do what we want to do and if people like us for that then cool and if they don’t it doesn’t really matter to us. Sorry about that, back to the original question! (Laughter) Added on to that, do you have any goals set for the band that you want to achieve in the future? Now we just want to see the rest of the world. We are going to Europe for like 10 days and then we are going to Japan in June and then Australia. It’s cool man, it’s like a scam, we get to see the world with our friends and get paid to do it. You are planning on touring internationally then? We saw something on your site that you were signed with Transcending Records in Australia. Yeah we are hitting up Japan in June and then I thought we were going to do Australia right after but I think now we are going to wait and do that later on with Less Than Jake or something like that. Down to the last question already, is there anything you want your fans to know that we didn’t ask? One thing I think that is important that I want to put out there is that I don’t think people should read everything they see on the Internet about all these bands. 99% of all those things are not true and it’s all just gossip. All these new punk sites just support gossip. |
