Fall Out Boy - Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name of This Book So We Wouldn't Get Sued
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Fall Out Boy were front-and-centre of the emo scene of the mid-2000s, gaining a devoted following with their infectious brand of pop-punk. After a tumultuous decade, the band are now stronger than ever and winning new fans across the globe. Formed in 2001, Fall Out Boy were regarded as the 'next big thing' by critics who praised their ability to entertain audiences with energetic performances and an appealing melody. Their debut Take This to Your Grave was cited as a framework of pop-punk music and they achieved worldwide fame as the emo scene exploded. However, after a stream of hits, internal fighting, health issues and the eventual backlash against the emo scene threatened to destroy the band, leading to a temporary hiatus. Confounding the critics, they came back stronger, with a new sound and an even wider fanbase. Their latest album American Beauty/American Psycho, released in 2015, has sold over 1 million units in the US and their worldwide merchandise sales are enormous. They remain a huge commercial force. This is the first biography on the band and an in-depth account of their story, from its beginnings in Chicago, to worldwide fame, addictions and disillusionment with the music industry to their recent resurgence.
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In January of 2016, an author by the name of Ben Welch reached out for permission to use my 2012 essay on Fall Out Boy's album From Under The Cork Tree. I gave him the go-ahead and a quick interview about my small part in that portion of Patrick Stump's career.
Sometime between then and now, I completely forgot that this exchange ever happened. Today, while searching for an old "best of list" from 2012, I found a Google Books page highlighting a portion of Ben's book, cheekily titled Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name of This Book So We Wouldn't Get Sued (aka Fall Out Boy: The Biography). It's all there, portions of my essay, portions of Patrick's response, and my thoughts on the event.
The discovery of this lost interview comes at an interesting time, as I've been sitting on a blog post for discography.fm about my small, but nevertheless existent role in the Fall Out Boy reunion. For 8 years, I thought my post and Patrick's letter was the end of it. I only learned last year that it was that very letter which prompted Pete Wentz to reach out, which, in turn, led to the first writing sessions between the two in several years.
From Rolling Stone:
Right around the time Stump posted the letter, Wentz reached out to him. “I was like, ‘Let’s write some songs or something,'” he says. “I was in a dark place and I needed a creative outlet. Patrick is such a nice guy that he wrote the songs with me, but I don’t think his heart was in them. They were kind of ‘meh.’ I’d equate it to some lost weekend thing that only one fan on the planet would care about. It was kind of a wash.”
Undeterred, they tried again not long afterwards. Eventually they came up with the song “Where Did the Party Go.”
“Pete got really excited, and that got me excited,” says Stump. “It gave us a ton of momentum. Then we decided it was time to call everybody else.”
I'm not under any delusion that Fall Out Boy reuniting was my doing, but it's hard to discount that it was a catalyst for the reunion happening when it did. It's still a very weird thing to me that a piece I wrote about my childhood became a part, however small, in the grander story one of pop's biggest acts. Being that it is such a large part of my own career in the field of music writing, I'm glad that my thoughts were published somewhere.
Originally posted at jacobtender.net.