TAMPA—Chicago natives Fall Out Boy first gained national
exposure with their catchy song, “Sugar, We’re Goin’
Down.” The poster boys for angstridden
youth have become somewhat
of a positive role model to their fans.
It is too bad that some of the kids’
parents don’t see it that way. Fall
Out Boy guitarist Pete Wentz admits
to cussing like a sailor, but that
aside, he doesn’t drink, smoke, or do
drugs. He also has some positive things
to say, and is standing up for tolerance
of all people.
“What we do not endorse here is
racist, sexist or homophobic comments
or behavior. If you are going to
act like a racist, sexist or homophobic
asshole, return our merchandise, return
our CDs and leave our show,” is
something that Wentz has been saying
at his shows recently. He feels that
he has a voice and wants it to be
heard. Those sentiments fell on deaf
ears recently as a ‘concerned’ mother
did not want to hear what he had to
say. In an email she sent to Fall Out
Boy’s record company, it included this statement, “The
ticket said ‘all ages,’ and your band was very foul-mouthed
and anti-morals. Charlotte [NC] is not the demoralized city
that liberal San Francisco and other cities across the North
and West are. I had looked forward to this concert with my
girls for months [and] I didn’t spend over $200 on gas, food
and, unfortunately, shirts for you to give your own personal
political testimony. … This was a concert, not some liberal
homosexual rally.” She went on to say that she plans on
contacting other venues where the band will be playing and
letting the towns folk know what they are in for.
Then there is the feud with label mate band the Killers.
Both bands share the same representative, and the Killer’s
lead singer Brandon Flowers was getting jealous that Fall
Out Boy had been getting all of his attention of late. Blog
entries from both bands shared barbs back and forth. That
is not all that Wentz has been up to. Nude photos of the
singer surfaced on the internet recently, though Wentz
claims it was an act of revenge from a former friend whose
girlfriend he hit on.
When a buxom young woman flashed her breasts,
Wentz told her to cover them up. “No keep your shirt on.
You don’t have to flash Fall Out Boy, you just have to rock
out and have a good time.” A few songs later he had quite
a different approach to guys exposing their chests. “We
know it’s hot out there and we want to turn this into a 50-
Cent show, so guys, take off your sweaty shirts and start
swinging them over your heads.” Wentz noticed a guy with
“the coolest hair in the place,” and pulled him on stage to
hang out for a song. He is also a fan of the show “Project
Runway.” Hmmm…Pete, should we connect the dots?
Wentz likes their single, “Sugar. We’re Going Down,”
but never expected it to become
such a huge hit. It has been the
number one requested single on
many radio stations and video programs
worldwide. “This single kind of
took off more than they expected.”
The band is very tongue in cheek.
Some song titles include, “Our Lawyers
Made Us Change The Name Of
This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued,”
and “I Slept With Someone In Fall Out
Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid
Song Written About Me.”
Living the rock star life for this
band seems tame in comparison to
the stories you hear on VH1’s Behind
The Music. “We are not really that
crazy. We watch DVDs on our bus
then go to sleep. We stop off at a drug
store and buy some candy or whatever.
It doesn’t get that crazy really.
You start this thing so you never have
to have any responsibility and you
never miss out on hanging out with
your friends and then because of this thing you have
created, you have all of this responsibility and you miss
out on everything. The grass is always greener whatever
you are doing.”
A lot of musicians are concerned with selling out. Wentz
says, “To me, selling out is when you bend your ideals or do
something that you wouldn’t otherwise do just for like a
lucrative interest. Everything that Fall Out Boy does is
something that we are interested in doing and we are not
doing because of the money. If there is money there or not
that is cool. There have been plenty of things that we turned
down that we could have done to increase our popularity,
whether it be tours, commercials, tours with certain
bands…but we hold certain ideals and there are certain
things that we are just not going to do.” Media darlings, the
band has been seen on MTV’s TRL as well as guest starred
on the WB teen drama “One Tree Hill.”
The full out rock show consisted heavily of songs from
their second release, From Under The Cork Tree. During the
show, the band was joined by lead singer from the band The
Academy Is. The audience seemed very familiar with most
of the songs as they sang and danced their way throughout
the evening. At one point, Wentz joked about the parents in
the audience and said it was cool that they brought their kids
to the show, something his dad would have never done.
Wentz said Fall Out Boy has 12 new songs written, with
about 30 “fragments” of other songs floating around.
Joining Fall Out Boy on their ‘Black Clouds And Underdogs’
tour was All-American Rejects and Hawthorne Heights.
Popularity: 2% [?]
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