Fall Out Boy

If you haven’t heard of this band by now, you’ve probably been living with your head up your ass. If you really haven’t discovered Fall Out Boy yet, I’d be willing to bet you’ve listened to at least one of their songs on the radio and not known it. Since the release of their third LP — and first for Island Records — From Under the Cork Tree, back in 2005, this four-piece from Chicago has completely dominated the alternative rock/pop-punk scene. The band is presently headlining the venerable Honda Civic Tour along with supporting bands 44, The Academy Is…, Paul Wall and Cobra Starship. Riding the wave of their fresh new release, Infinity on High, the band shows no sign of holding anything back. Synthesis managed to acquire an exclusive interview with the band’s drummer, Andrew Hurley. Words were spoken, opinions were formulated and the origin and background of the band were revealed.
Fall Out Boy has a substantial fanbase including much of today’s younger generation of music fans.

Why do you think the music you’ve created appeals so strongly to this demographic?
I’d like to think it’s because we’re not some pre-formulated or pre-packaged group that some producer or label executive thought up while in a board meeting or something. I think that kind of corresponds to an era where too many bands are prefabricated and forced down the throats of today’s music fans. I think there is a lot of integrity and sincerity in our music and our lyrics. There has been a big boom in our genre because a lot of the bands we’ve come up with express a lot of reality and honesty; the fans notice that and appreciate it as a legitimate art form as compared to the pre-packaged bands that have surfaced in the past.

At what point in the career of the band did you recognize that Fall Out Boy’s popularity had skyrocketed to the superstar level?
It’s hard to say. I think there have been numerous growth spurts in our history. I think the biggest leap we made was when From Under the Cork Tree was released. I think “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” did really really well; that initial boom and that success is hopefully carrying over with this new record.

Are you, Pete, Patrick and Joe the original members of Fall Out Boy?
No, originally it was a five-piece band but two of the guys left and I joined up shortly after that in 2003. I’ve been in bands with Pete [Wentz, bass, vocals] since I was 16, which included Racetraitor among others.

How many years was the band playing the local shows around Illinois before you landed your first record deal?
We demoed sometime in 2002, and after talking with numerous indie labels we decided to sign with Fueled By Ramen. After we recorded our first record, Take This to Your Grave, with me in the band, we toured for about a year or so and it started doing really well. At that point we decided to sign with Island Records.

Was the band going on large regional or national tours before you were signed?
I’ve been in hardcore bands and punk rock bands since I was 16, so it was almost part of the normal routine to jump in a van with a bunch of guys and go on the road playing shows wherever we could book them. Lots of the shows would fall through but just the experience of going out and traveling the country on our own made it worthwhile. I joined the band before we departed on our first legitimate tour and that was before we recorded Take This to Your Grave. Once that came out we started touring nonstop. That was around 2003. We’ve never really had a break from touring since then, except to record.

I imagine it must have been a welcome change to go from touring in a beat-up van to hitting the road in a full-size tour bus.
Yeah, it was awesome! The first time we did it was really exciting, although we shared our first tour bus with another band so it was really, really full and it was kind of a shitty tour bus. I think as a band we didn’t skip any steps on the way to the top. We began with our self-released demo and built on that until our first record at which point the nonstop touring began. We’ve really worked our way from the bottom up, and I think that truly shows in our music and live performances. We never went from touring on a van to each of us getting our own bus or anything like that.

When trying to imagine where the band’s name came from, I immediately think of an old Simpsons episode where Bart and Milhouse compete for the position of Radioactive Man’s sidekick, whose name just happens to be Fall Out Boy. Am I wrong to make that connection, or is it true that the Simpsons television show inspired the band’s name?
Yeah, that is definitely the origin of our band’s name. How it happened was the original five guys were playing a show, and I was also performing that night, although at the time I was in a different band. At that point the band had no name and the guys were mulling over some choices and someone just yelled out Fall Out Boy during the discussion and everybody seemed to like it so they stuck with it. We’re definitely stuck with it now. At this point in our career, our band name doesn’t matter so much. If you think about it, the Red Hot Chili Peppers is a retarded name but it doesn’t have that literal meaning anymore because of all the band has accomplished.

Do you see the future of the band changing dramatically in terms of themes and styles of each new record?
Well, every record is an evolutionary step forward, so I guess in that sense, yeah. On the other hand it’s hard to tell what our next record will sound like in terms of where we’ll be at lyrically and instrumentally. After this tour we’ll probably take a couple of months off, because we have been touring nonstop. But, then again, Patrick [Stump, guitarist] has already started writing 10 or 12 more songs while on the road so the break could be cut short to record another record. Pete writes the majority of the lyrics, but we all help arrange the music, which puts a whole new spin on the material.

The Honda Civic Tour it's coming to a venue near you.

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