Fall Out Boy Interview July 23rd, 2005

I recently caught up with Pete and Patrick of Fall Out Boy at this year’s Warped Tour Chicago. This interview was set up as sort of a round robin interview where about 7 reporters from various organizations got to go around and ask a question. We were sitting in a small room press room on leather couches and I’d like to thank Vizion Jones who set everything up. I’d also like to thank Christina from Island Records and of course Pete and Patrick for taking time out of their busy day. The various publications will be represented with OP and the questions that I asked will be DFO. Thanks!

Other Publication: Hey guys my question for you is, you’ve guys have blown up huge especially with the last month with MTV. I was in Florida on vacation and I heard you guys on the radio and was like, “awesome”. How has met this your expectations so far, I mean how have you guys dealt with this?

Pete: I mean, Fall Out Boy never really had any expectations, Like we were never really about any expectations so like where ever we ended up was just always better than you thought because we never planned on going anywhere. It’s not weird for us with all the attention or whatever because we’re in a bus in the middle of Omaha when it’s all going on so we really don’t have a chance to see ourselves on tv or anything so it doesn’t really weird us out or anything.

OP: Anything to add?

Patrick: No I guess that’s pretty concise.

Driven Far Off: With your new cd how do you react to your fans that have been with you since “Evening Out With Your Girlfriend” and “Take This To Your Grave” like with all your new younger fans. Do you see like a battle going on between old and new?

Pete: You mean our one fan from “Evening Out With Your Girlfriend” ha ha ha?

DFO: Yeah that one fan ha ha

Pete: Yeah the one kid that bought that record ha ha ha. Alright alright, I think it’s cool because our fans have always been ambassadors for Fall Out Boy and we’ve always made it one of our goals is to be really cool with our fans. Just to always be really honest with what is going on, like if something goes wrong or if we can’t do something and we have to cancel we try to be really honest and try to make it up if we can. I think that how you treat people kind of spread to how you want your new fans to be treated. Our fans understand that nobody’s born cool so everybody’s got a skeleton in their closet. So like whatever band they were listening to something really bad that got you into music. So I think our fans have been really cool about it.

Patrick: Umm yeah, good answer ha ha ha

OP: There has been some confusion on to where you got the concept to this video. So could you explain the Sugar We’re Going Down video?

Patrick: Well it’s one of those things that’s supposed to be confusing. I think that’s why we picked it. We usually do our own videos and we choose the ideas ourselves but this time around we wanted to just let somebody else have a crack at it. So you say, “Fall Out Boy is accepting treatments” and of course you get like 40 of them that are like hot punk orientated people at a pool party.

OP: ha ha ha ha

Patrick: So that was the one were we got antler boy and we were like oh alright let’s try it. It’s kind of supposed to be confusing and you’re supposed to be not sure on where you’re supposed to laugh. That’s the beauty of it; it is confusing. We really don’tԚ  know what it means ha ha ha.

OP: ha ha ha

OP: You were talking about skeletons in your closet just bad things you were listening to, so what were you guys rocking out that got you into music?

Pete: I got into Michael Jackson

OP: I was so going to say Billie Jean too!

Pete: Ha ha, Michael pre-sleeping with children. Then I got really into Axel Rose and Guns and Roses then somebody gave me a Minor Threat tape and I got into punk rock.

OP: How bout you?

Patrick: I don’t know I’d say the worst thing I was ever into was ska but.

OP: ha ha ha

Patrick: Oh but whatever else I was 12 so it was cool.

OP: If you weren’t musicians what would you see yourself doing?

Patrick: Dying. I don’t know that’s the only thing I’m good at.

Pete: I don’t know I’d probably be something really not that interesting like work at a bookstore or something really dumb with my life.

OP: What has been the highlight of your tour so far? Do you like coming to Chicago or was Omaha ok?

Pete: I actually like Omaha a lot. On our last tour it was a highlight of our last tour. We played at the Ranch Bowl.

OP: The Ranch Bowl? I actually worked there nice.

Pete: Yeah they got this billboard outside of it and we got our friend Dirty to climb up and spray paint all over the billboard. He spray-painted like our tour managers name

Patrick: ha ha, yeah spelled wrong.

Pete: Yeah and all these really bad drawings and stuff. Then we got this phone call a second later from our booking agent and he was like, yeah you guys just bought a billboard for $4,000 in Omaha. So I guess that was the highlight of that tour. It’s definitely amazing coming to Chicago though because you can recharge and it feels like home.

Patrick: Yeah you’re away for so long that you kind of don’t believe that it’s there anymore and it’s like this mystic place. Then you come home and it’s like “Weird it looks like I remember that’s crazy”

OP: So have you guys ever been in a knife fight?

Pete: No I don’t think I have

Patrick: Well not recently. Actually my brother and his friend were playing with little swiss army knives having a little fight. One of them knocked me over, on accident, because I was the little brother and everything. I got a bloody nose and they paid me like 20 bucks not to tell Mom.

OP: ha ha ha. Besides Warped Tour if you could make your own tour who would you put on it?

Pete: Like maybe, Starting Line

Patrick: Motion City Soundtrack!

Pete: and Boys Night Out

Patrick: and Panic at the Disco!

Pete: and that tour will be coming through Chicago this fall

DFO: With the shorter Warped Tour set how do you pick what songs you’re going to play and when with the mix of old and new? How do you pick your only half an hour Warped Tour Set?

Pete: I think you want to play the songs where you can just flow right through. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing a lot of new songs or old songs it’s just the ones that mean the most to you at the time. Probably I guess I don’t know

Patrick: Yeah we kind of call it as we see it. We like to change it up a little bit each show.

OP: Since you guys just switched over to a new major label were their any downsides or anything different with that?

Pete: Yeah definitely. When you move onto bigger mediums there is always changing. There are more cooks in the kitchen and more people trying to dictate where you are supposed to go. The cool thing is that Island has always let us have creative control. They have let us go in our own weird direction and they have only just helped to amplify that. At the same time I think bands outgrow labels faster so if we were still on Fueled By Ramen I don’t know if we would be doing some of the stuff we wanted to do now.

OP: Where did the name Fall Out Boy come from?

Pete: This is the last time this question will ever be asked ha ha ha. This is officially the last time. This is it you have ha ha ha.

Patrick: Alright alright, there is really no interesting story. We literally played two or three shows without a name and at one of them we were on stage and asked does anybody have a name for us? And like one of like four people there goes, yeah be fall out boy, I’m just some drunk guy. Ha ha ha

OP: Ha ha ha ha

Patrick: And it was like the only one, so it was what we were named afterwards. It was kind of an accident but we still got it.

OP: What is something you take on tour with you to remind you of home?

Patrick: Pete! (hugging Pete) ha ha ha. Kidding!

Pete: (shaking his head and looking at Patrick) ha ha ha ha, That’s so weird I don’t even know how to follow that answer ha ha ha. I don’t know I’m obsessed with the internet so I just take my sidekick everywhere. We just bring like comfort things. Like I think that’s what everybody in our band does we bring things that remind us of home. Like with me, my mom has all kinds of crappy little kids food around everywhere so that’s like all I have. Like Gushers, and juice boxes’ ha ha ha

OP: ha ha ha

Patrick: My girlfriend made me a blanket but someone else on the bus stole’ it (glances at Pete)

Pete: Who did it?

Patrick: (mutters a name under his breath)

Pete: Oh really?

Patrick: (Looking at us) Don’t worry bout it. Ha ha ha

OP: Where would you like to see yourself in the next five years?

Pete: I don’t know I think it’s weird to think that far in advance. I mean I can’t even think about my own life that far in advance so I can’t think about how different everything is. I don’t know I guess we’ll be celebrating the anniversary of this question maybe ha ha ha.

OP: In the perfect world would you like to still be in music? Touring?

Pete: I don’t know, I don’t even have any clue on what I’m doing right now

Patrick: I’ll still be doing music whether or not someone is listening to it or not so I don’t know what are you going to be doing five years from now ha ha ha?

OP: Probably putting my kids through junior high

Pete: Wait you have kids !? ha ha ha Seriously?!

OP: yeah a four year old and a two year old.

Pete: wow ha ha ha

OP: I guess this tour is the superhero tour, so what’s your favorite comic book?

Patrick: uhh..

OP: Do you read comic books?

Patrick: What do you think? (Looking at Pete)

Pete: I don’t know you can go.

Patrick: Alright, I think our drummer should be here for this question because he’s a comic book fanatic but, me being a casual I used to read them when I was a little kid, I’d say Wolverine is still the coolest thing in the world. He’s just awesome.

Pete: I don’t know, I’m like casually flamboyant so I wasn’t into superheroes that much. So I think maybe the Archie comics because I couldn’t decide between the blonde and brunette. Ha ha ha

OP: Ha ha ha

Patrick: Jughead.

Pete: yeah

OP: Pretend you are home from tour and are MTV cribs what do we find in your fridge?

Pete: I don’t know I live with my mom so she’d have all kinds of stuff.

OP: Like the little kid junk food?

Pete: Yeah like little kid junk food. Like Lunchables, and juice boxes and crap like that. And Popsicles, I eat Popsicles like they’re going out of style.

Patrick: Whenever I’m home I eat at like just five or six local restaurants so I never ever have anything. Whatever’s in my fridge, or my mom’s fridge, is whatever she eats which I hate anyways. Just like health food and stuff I won’t eat. Ha ha ha, like oh cottage cheese that looks great.

DFO: So I saw you guys on Conan. How was that whole Conan O’Brien experience for you?

Pete: He’s hilarious. Conan is amazing and I think he’s just really really funny. We watched him do the run-through and he was just really on. I think that playing those shows is really bizarre though. You play for cameras and it’s kind of stupid and it’s not really where our band thrives at all. We thrive in front of a live audience so you get Fall Out Boy but it’s like Fall Out Boy turned up to level 5 only. Before we go on our publicist freaks out and is like, Okay you can’t break anything. You guys got to actually play the songs right. Ha ha ha

Patrick: Ha ha, like shoot we haven’t done that in years ha ha ha

Pete: I had this pair of jeans and they were about to go and they were way to thin to wear underwear on anything so she was like, Your junk is going to come out on TV!! Your junk is going to come out on TV!! ha ha ha.

Patrick: I know she was running around screaming, He can’t wear that! Patrick he can’t wear that! I don’t know, can he?!

Pete: I don’t know it was kind of ridiculous but whatever.

OP: Since you guys have been in the top 5 on TRL the last couple weeks do you ever feel misplaced between artists like Mariah Carey or Hillary Duff or anything?

Pete: ha ha ha. I think it’s funny, just hilarious.

Patrick: It’s a fucking joke on the rest of the world. For anyone who has to say Kelly Clarkson and then Fall Out Boy ha ha ha.

Pete: ha ha ha But it’s cool now because My Chemical Romance and I heard that Relient K might be and then I think Hawthorne Heights will be next week maybe and it’s cool because it’s a bunch of people that we’re friends with. With music I’d rather hear that then a lot of the stuff that’s on there so it’s cool. And I hate Kelly Clarkson! Write that down!

OP: ha ha, hate’s Kelly Clarkson it’s down

Patrick: I don’t, sorry Kelly ha ha ha

OP: ha ha ha. Okay kind of a lame question but where did you guys meet up?

Patrick: Well the rest of the guys knew each other for a long time from the hardcore scene. I was just one of those peripheral guys that went to see those bands. They were talking about doing a band, and I don’t know we met at a bookstore. Nothing exciting I guess.

Pete: When I met him it was one of my most insane meetings of anybody. He was wearing an Argyle sweater and shorts and black socks ha ha ha

OP: ha ha ha

Pete: And I was like I better make this guy my bestfriend because he’s insane ha ha ha

Patrick: No it was weird for me to because I had watched a lot of these bands that Pete and Andy had been in and I had known about them for awhile. I think it was one of those things that I think that somehow every band that you had been in (talking to Pete) anytime I ever saw them you weren’t playing with them. So I had only heard legend of Pete. And you walked into my house and I was like, Man he’s short. Ha ha ha
Pete: ha ha ha

OP: What advice do you have for aspiring musicians?

Pete: Quit and go back to school ha ha ha

OP: Ha ha ha

Pete: It will ruin your life. I don’t know, it’s cool if you are excited about doing it, it’s a long hard road where a lot of people will try to take advantage of you.

Patrick: Don’t do drugs, you’ll sound bad.

OP: I know you don’t get much leisure time but what do you like to do in your leisure time?

Pete: Here’s the thing that’s the biggest myth about being in a band it’s that you don’t have leisure time. Today for example it’s insane and crazy and we don’t have a lot of days off because we have to fly and stuff. But outside Warped Tour because Warped Tour is the exception, it’s always hurry up and wait. You get to your venue and they are like, ‘blah blah blah’ and then you just sit there all day. That’s why I think people in bands do really crazy shit all the time..

OP: They’re just bored?

Patrick: Yeah we’re just bored. I mean it can get really boring. You can just sit in a room for awhile.

Pete: We watch a lot of Dvds, I just got the new Harry Potter.

Patrick: Is that the one with Gary Oldman?

Pete: Umm no, it’s book actually ha ha ha. (giving Patrick a hug)

Patrick: We watch a lot of Dvds? then you bring up Harry Potter I don’t know

Pete: You don’t like to read.

Patrick: I’m not reading that that’s your book.

Pete: ha ha ha,

Patrick: But do you have the one with Gary Oldman?

Pete: No but that thing is excellent.

Patrick: Alright you’re buying it and playing it for us.

Pete: We like Gary Oldman a lot.

Patrick: Best actor around

Pete: Yeah

Patrick: On Earth.

OP: Coke or Pepsi?

Patrick: Coke

Pete: Cocaine ha ha ha

OP: Ha ha

Pete: no Pepsi

Patrick: Alright cool way to end the interview there man.

Pete: ha ha sorry.