Fall Out Boy's Infinite Worry

08/07/09 12:04pm

by Shehzaad Jiwani (CHARTattack)

The world's biggest emo band go big 'cause they don't know when they'll have to go home

Ubiquity is often a precursor to cultural backlash. If you look at the many flashes in the proverbial pan from the last 15 years, you'll find that once they achieved a certain level of over-saturation, people stopped caring and, thus, aside from popping up in a few reality TV shows here and there, the artists were never heard of again. For example, when's the last time you heard Limp Bizkit on top 40 radio? Exactly.

Fall Out Boy are damn near everywhere right now, thanks to the phenomenal
success of 2005's From Under The Cork Tree. In the last two years, you couldn't turn on a radio without hearing "Sugar We're Going Down," MuchMusic seemed to play "Dance, Dance" hourly, and they appeared on the cover of just about every music magazine known to man. Are Fall Out Boy walking down the same road as their predecessors? Lead singer/guitarist Patrick Stump doesn't seem to care.

"It's part of western culture to eat things up and spit them out when you're done with them," Stump reasons. "The only way to combat that is to just try and make the best thing you can make and not worry about how big it gets. Just because something's big doesn't mean it's great."

Amidst the torrent of media coverage the band received, they somehow managed to write and record Cork Tree's follow-up, Infinity On High. The new album is more in line with their proteges Panic! At The Disco, with theatrical compositions, piano ballads and gospel choirs adorning many of the tracks. The Boys are evidently growing up, and they're doing it on their own terms.

"I didn't want to worry about how many it sold or any of that stuff, even though it was the major label follow-up," says the singer. "I said, 'Screw that.' At the same time, the second major label record is kind of scary. This is your only chance to make a major label follow-up, and the only chance to make 'X' amount of singles and 'X' amount of money.

"It's also the last chance you know that somebody's going to be fronting the bill for you to make music however you want to do it. It could be your last one, you know? If it doesn't sell blah, blah, blah, you can get dropped in a second, and I'm not worried about getting dropped, but it's your last chance to really be able to do it. We were able to get strings and horns and shit like that, which brought it out of the basic four guys set-up, but we had to exercise restraint and not to go overboard."

Infinity clearly exhibits high ambitions, but they're held firmly in check by a strong sense of melody and pop songwriting. Unlike some of their contemporaries, Fall Out Boy don't have delusions of grandeur when writing songs, and that grounded attitude helps them play to their strengths — meaning way catchier songs with more cleverly written lyrics.

"We're not out to save anything," Stump clarifies. "I don't think we're ruining music and in the same way, I don't think we're saving music. We're out to make the best music we can make. I think about what people expect of us and I laugh. Dude, I'm a total dork. The only thing I've got going for me is that I sing in this band, and that's my favourite thing to do. I don't care about anything else, as far as goals or aspirations.

"I wanted to make the best record we could possibly make at that particular moment. With albums, for me, it feels like that whole adage about living every day like it was your last. I think we live every album like it's our last. If this is the last thing that anyone ever hears of ours, I want it to be the best things that we can do."

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Van Go-Go

FOB's bassist/lyricist Pete Wentz is known for referencing famous artists and authors in his lyrics, and the title of the band's latest album continues that trend.

"[Infinity On High] is a quote from a letter Van Gogh wrote to his brother," singer/guitarist Patrick Stump says of the name. "He said something along the lines of, 'Be clearly aware of the stars in infinity on high, and this life seems almost enchanted after all.' I think that 'almost' is just so tragic. That just resonated with us, so that's how we found it. It screamed to be a title."

This feature is from the February 2007 issue of Chart Magazine. To purchase the issue, go to the Chart Shop.