Fall Out Boy have become the latest in a recent string of bands to go on hiatus. After wrapping a summer tour with Blink-182, the band have announced they are taking a break and have called FOB’s future “uncertain.” Side projects in film, television, and the literary field, as well as designing a clothing line and opening--count ’em--an art gallery, nightclub, film production company and a record label all in the last several years, not to mention his tabloid-documented courtship of pop singer Ashlee Simpson which culminated in their Alice in Wonderland-themed nuptials and the birth of their son Bronx Mowgli, have all left FOB bassist and lyricist Pete Wentz feeling a wee bit overexposed (and the rest of us desperate for a period. There.)
As the face of Fall Out Boy, the outspoken Wentz fears his name has become a hindrance to the band he helped found back in 2001. “I think the world needs a little less Pete Wentz,” he says. The ambitious, entrepreneurial Wentz makes a legitimate point, though I doubt he’ll be out of the music scene for long. After all, music and songwriting have been a lifeline for him ever since he first put pen to paper to vent his frustration at being sent to an 8-week tough love boot camp during his freshman year of high school. And when a suicide attempt failed, he wrote about that too in the song “7 Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen),” which was released in 2005 on the FOB album, "From Under the Cork Tree", the band’s major label debut which has sold more than 2.5 million copies in the U.S. alone. (The Van Halen reference was inspired by “7 Minutes in Heaven’s” intro which uses a similar chord progression to Eddie Van Halen’s on songs like “Panama” and “Dance the Night Away.”)
So much of Fall Out Boy’s sound is rooted in Wentz’s lyrics. With song titles like “Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends,” and “Snitches and Talkers Get Stitches and Walkers,” his clever wordplay and highly personal lyrics resonate with fans. Wentz draws on irony and other literary devices to help narrate his experiences and cites Hemingway and poet Sharon Olds, not fellow songwriters, as his influences.
Wentz and FOB co-founder and lead guitarist Joe Trohman were both part of Chicago’s hardcore punk scene back in the late ‘90s when they decided to form their own band. They recruited rhythm guitarist and lead singer Patrick Stump and eventually added drummer Andy Hurley to the lineup. Fall Out Boy steadily built a loyal following across the country--EP by album by tour--until they broke into the mainstream in 2005 with the aforementioned From "Under the Cork Tree", a record that nearly cost Wentz his life.
Pete Wentz suffers from bipolar disorder and tends to obsess everything he does. During work on Cork Tree, the pressure became so intense that he began to isolate himself. Wentz says of that time, “I wasn't sleeping. I just wanted my head to shut off, like, I just wanted to completely stop thinking about anything at all.” He ultimately overdosed on the anxiety medication Ativan and spent a week in the hospital. Wentz eventually recovered, and Fall Out Boy’s popularity grew as their brand of emo/pop-punk began to catch on.
In early 2007, the band released its second major label album, "Infinity on High", which charted at #1 on the Billboard 200 on the strength of the single, “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race.” The song reached #2 in both the U.S. and the U.K.
"Folie a Deux" was next up in 2008. As the band’s fifth studio album, Folie a Deux met with generally positive reviews and included collaborations with artists like Elvis Costello, Panic! At The Disco, and Debbie Harry of Blondie. Fall Out Boy toured throughout 2009 in support of Folie and opened for Blink-182 this summer on that band’s mega hot reunion tour.
A compilation album called "Believers Never Die: Greatest Hits" dropped in November 2009 and includes the group’s past singles as well as two new songs. The album’s release was followed up three days later with Fall Out Boy announcing an indefinite hiatus.
When asked in a 2006 interview with the online alternative music news source AbsolutePunk whether the spotlight ever makes him want to lay low for awhile, Wentz replied in the affirmative, saying it is a fantasy of his to disappear to Oklahoma. “But,” he added, “the feeling is fleeting.”
