Fall out boy

Fall Out Boy

2/15/04-Bottleneck-Lawrence,KS Tuesday 03 May 2005

2/15/04
Fall Out Boy

Ashley: Introduce yourself?
Pete: I'm Pete and I play bass for Fall Out Boy.

Ashley: Give me the history of your band in the form of a brief faerie tale.
Pete: Three boys, lost in the woods, they ran into a monster and he was their bass player. Then they were just lost in the woods still and they were trying to get back to the castle, and they got there and lived happily ever after. No princess or anything. Actually, there were lots of princesses.

Ashley: How's the tour with Mest going?
Pete: It's fun. We get to play in front of a lot of our crowd. Our crowd and Matchbook Romance's crowd are actually very similar.

Ashley: What's the best tour you've been on?
Pete: This one or our headlining tour we did with our friends Spital Field.
Ashley: Have you played Lawrence before?
Pete: We've played in Kansas City before and played Topeka, but we've never been to Lawrence.

Ashley: Describe your writing style.
Pete: I'd say on the last record, it was a very reactionary record where I centered a bad situation around people and wrote primarily about that. It's one of those things where it's easier to write your revenge about somebody than to actually confront them. I think on the newer stuff, it's more introspective and I think it's like we're trying to understand the dynamics of why people interact with each other the way they do.

Ashley: What do you think about negative critics?
Pete: This is the thing. If you do art, you have to understand that probably everybody that checks out your art isn't going to be into it, obviously. That's the whole beauty of it. It's objective. There's no right or wrong. Negative critics are fine. If they're just like, "This is not my thing" that's fine. If you're like, "I don't like this band because I'm jealous," that's probably a different story. For the most part, to each their own. I don't like every kind of music.

Ashley: Tell me about your latest release.
Pete: The one that just came out is called "Take This to Your Grave" and it's on Fueled by Ramen Records. It's an introduction to the scene and to a lot of people which is cool. It's our way of saying hello. We're putting out an acoustic EP/DVD this spring, also on Fueled by Ramen. "My Heart Will Always be a BSide to My Tongue". That will showcase some of our new stuff and the DVD will explain our history. We're going to put our full length on Island this fall.

Ashley: What do you think of Island?
Pete: It's awesome. They're really rad people over there. It's probably closer to an independent label than people think. They're very artist friendly. They're really nice people. We're pretty much on a punk rock label right now. Every band on there's like punk.

Ashley: What's the first/last album you've bought?
Pete: The first album that I ever bought was some Cheap Trick record. The last record that I bought was I think Postal Service. I must admit, I'm a downloader a bit.

Ashley: Who are some of your influences?
Pete: Musically, I'd say the Descendants, the Police, the Smiths, the Cure, bands like that. Outside of music, interactions with people. I think I'm a really reactionary person. Things affect me a lot, and when they do, I speak my mind. I take my revenge on people in words. Pretty much everything and everyone.

Ashley: What did you listen to as a kid?
Pete: Michael Jackson first, then Def Leopard and Guns and Roses, then Metallica and Megadeath. A lot of death metal, and punk rock.

Ashley: Where do you want to go with the band?
Pete: It's hard to say because it's gone so much further than we thought it would go. I hope that I'm just still hanging out with my friends and having a good time. Any other success ontop of that is just complimentary.

Ashley: Do you have any closing comments?
Pete: Go to FalloutBoyRock.com! Thank you for the interview!