"My name is Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy. We have nothing to do with being called Emo.
If we grew up in Seattle in the '90s, we'd probably be called grunge,
right?"
Fall Out Boy singer/guitarist Patrick Stump is not exactly at an
Emos Anonymous meeting, but he does feel the need to that the
Chicago-based band of any prior misjudgments.
He even makes his point by
quoting bass player and lyricist - and infamous nude pictures poser - Pete Wentz: "If you're going to hate us,
hate us on our own turf. Don't hate us before we're an Emo band, don't like
us because we're an Emo band. Like us because you like our songs."
Come on, Pat, it's not as if you guys don't have any fans that like you for
you. If last year's successful From Under The Cork Tree is anything to go by
- it did earn the band a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist - FOB are
rock 'n roll geographers, one of those bands that reinsert a city on the
Rock Map, like The Strokes with the Big Apple, for example. In their case,
the quartet, comprised of Stump, Wentz, drummer Andy Hurley and guitarist
Joe Trohman, have rehabilitated Chicago.
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"Chicago's weird because when we were starting out, there was really no
network for bands. It felt like there was no music coming out of Chicago,"
explains Patrick, while Andy sits quietly, too weakened from his cold to
bear another interview. "I'm not saying we started it, but our generation
had to definitely create it. Even if there were bands before us, the network
wasn't as defined as it is now."
As for other famous other Chicagoans, he
names "John from Panic At The Disco!" OK, so basically it's still only FOB territory. Their latest offering, Infinity On High, fully embraces
contemporary American culture, twistig hip hop into rock, a genre
that's always being announced as being "on the comeback" with the emergence of each new guitar act.
"I don't know that rock ever went away. I don't know that it's making a
comeback," Patrick says. When I tell him that Fred Durst complained to me
that America is hip hop, he replies, "Or hip hop is America. It's really
intertwined with our culture. I think it only makes sense that it's one of
the biggest music forms in the country." It also explains why FOB chose
Babyface as a producer. You're thinking, how did that ever happen?
"It was one of those things where we were
thinking real big..." - Patrick Stump gets out the hyperbole for Fall Out Boy's Babyface collaboration...
"As a singer, I admire him. His records make you wanna sing. It was one of those things we'd always dreamed of for a long time. 'We were like, "Yeah,
let's do a record with Babyface. It was one of those things where we were
thinking real big." No dream is ever too big, especially in America.
Nevertheless, the band was surprised when he accepted the job offer. "To say
the least! I think people in general have this idea of him being an
exclusively R&B guy who doesn't know much about rock, but that's completely not the case. He knows more about rock than anyone would expect. And he's really intuitive for it. The other thing is that the songs that we did for him are not particularly R&B. They're very, very rock for the record. I
think people will be really surprised by it."
People will also be surprised to hear Jay-Z lending his voice on a track.
And FOB's hip hop ventures continue on Timbaland's upcoming compilation
album. "Andy and I flew out to Virginia to work on it. We worked on a rock
song. It's Fall Out Boy meets Timbaland!" Then there's the remix of This
Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race, the first single off Infinity, undergoing
some changes with the magic knob-turning fingers of a certain Kanye West.
But this doesn't mean the band is falls into the hip hop wannabe category.
Far from it, reassures Patrick.
"Rock music briefly flirted with the idea of rapping, which was a very
stupid idea, and now it has accepted that it should probably "do its thing",
respect hip hop music without trying to do it. I think that's where we're
at. We are a band that very much owes a great debt to hip hop and we
probably listen to it way more than rock."
Despite their ongoing quest for
hood cred, Stump also admits to being inspired by '80s pop/rock. "Yeah, I
like the '80s. It was very much geared towards that. That's what I was
thinking of anyway." He drew his inspiration from some of the most marking
records of that era. "I wanted this record to be the most triumphant,
biggest feeling. So I was listening to all my favourite big records, like
Thriller, Peter Gabriel's So or Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run.
"I've been a lot of things but I've never been a cartoon!" - Patrick Stump on becoming Simpsons fodder...
But their biggest inspiration may have been The Simpsons. Named after Fall
Out Boy, a character in the popular cartoon series, everyone is surprised
that they haven't been sued yet. Except the producers of the show, who
actually feared a Grammy-nominated band would take them to court.
"Well, here's the story: we heard that they were making T-shirts that say
The Original Fallout Boy. They were just passing them around the office. We
found out about this and we were like, 'Dude, let's get one of those shirts!
That's the funniest thing!' We contacted the people at The Simpsons: 'We heard you were making these shirts. And they were like, 'Don't sue us!'
Here we were, scared that they were going to sue us." Stump says they
finally came to an amicable agreement: "We were like, 'Yeah, just give us
one of those shirts and everything will be fine.' If anything, it's made me
like the show more!"
Does this mean that Fall Out Boy will soon guest star on the show? The idea
amuses Patrick. "I've been a lot of things but I've never been a cartoon! That would be wonderful."
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