Writer: Chris Ahrens | Photography: Peter Dawson
By flipping off the overly produced music of the time, early punk rock made a statement. It was not corporate, nor was it merely a raw new sound made simply to push units. But it eventually became corrupted by the love of money as the music fell into the hands of the idol makers who sanitized, sterilized and castrated it until it was nothing more than a commodity to be traded on the big board like a piece of some poor boy’s heart and soul. Punk declined into a fashion statement rather than a street movement and traded its broken teeth and anger for trendy haircuts that cost upwards of 20 bucks.
    Peter Wentz, who writes the lyrics for Fall out Boy was being born about at about the time punk was beginning to crawl. He grew up hearing about the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Germs and the entire fall of Western Civilization. Bassist, Wentz and the other members of the band, who include: vocalist/guitarist, Patrick Stumph, drummer, Andrew Hurley and guitarist Joseph Trohman understand what it means that if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for, well, big stadiums, big hair and mega corporate logos.
    Wentz speaks with rapid urgency, struggling to give birth to ideas that matter to him. He is multi faceted, a serious prankster who contemplates the big questions at an age when most of his peers are contemplating whose shoes they’ll be barfing in at the next party. He likes clothes and people and is open, which might be a fault in the world of rock.
    When he found out that there were five young girls who had been seated in line to get into the show that wouldn’t start for 14 more hours, he made a point of tracking them down and getting them each backstage passes. He seems to have this life petty well worked out. But it’s what happens later that he spends a lot of time wondering about.

Risen Magazine: I heard you guys did a lot of shows last year.
Peter Wentz: We’ve done over 500 shows in the past two years.
RM: Is that difficult?
PW: I like touring, but if somebody wants to have a two-second conversation with me and I’m having a bad day or I’m in a hurry to get somewhere and I blow ‘em off, suddenly I’m a jerk. I feel that I’m a shy person, but when you’re in a band it doesn’t come off as shyness, it comes off as arrogance. Then I over compensate and that’s not real either. Nobody’s that nice all the time. We all have bad days and bad moments.

RM: Billy Bob Thornton said that he feels like he’s always on trial.
PW: To me it’s like life under a microscope. The thing about elevation is that sometimes the same people that want to elevate you can crucify you. It’s bizarre. You grow up and your parents teach you to trust everybody and you grow up and hear, Okay, you can’t talk about that. You want to be really honest about something. There are certain things. For example, when we were making our last record, it got to be too much and I was really exhausted. All I could think about was the record and it stressed me out to the point where I missed three or four shows. They would say, Never say that’s why you missed your shows. Say you were sick, or say this…I feel more comfortable being honest with people and whatever they read into it, they can read into it.

RM: Notoriety must be a pretty difficult position for a basically honest person. You’re just at the point where you can still walk down the street…
PW: We call it punk rock fame. It’s where people know our songs and our music and maybe the name of the band, but not what we look like. That means that you can be standing next to somebody and hear, “Oh yeah, those guys from Fall out Boys are jerks.” It happens all the time. It’s a really weird situation to be in. I’ll be with my friends and they all start laughing. We went into a Vans store in Colorado and the guy was like, “What kind of music do you play?” We were joking around and said, “We play heavy metal.” He said, “Cool because there’s a show in town, The fall Out Boys. I hate ‘em.” [Laughs]. My friend was like, “Yeah, they suck!” [Laughs hard]

RM: You seem like someone who would be more comfortable hearing that than the opposite.
PW: That makes me really nervous. When girls do this or this because your band is kinda’ cool, it makes me uncomfortable. That was never the reason I got into music. It’s cool the first 50 times it happens and you’re like, Wow, cool, people like me. After that you want something with a little more substance. And that can be more nerve wracking. I remember meeting people who, when they didn’t live up to the image you have of them…You’ve always got to be on and that sort of thing can drive you insane after a while.

RM: That’s one of the cool things about punk rock, I guess.
PW: Totally, and that’s one of the reasons I got into it. When I saw shows I thought, Oh, this [music] is attainable. Who they are is an attainable place for me. That’s really important for me to convey to people that are into our band. We were in the right place at the right time. Ten years ago I was like every kid out there, so…

RM: Did you want to be famous when you were a kid?
PW: Yeah, I remember seeing like Michael Jackson and Axle Rose when I was a kid and I was like, Oh wow, it would be really cool to be like a rock star. But as with something like being the president or being an astronaut…This thing just sort of happened by accident. I feel that if I had been trying really hard to do it, it probably wouldn’t have happened. It felt like it was thrust into our laps, kind of. The whole thing is bizarre. When I sit back I see that we’re these four kids from Chicago and I think that it’s bizarre that there’s any focus on us. On the internet people either vilify us or turn us into demigods. Neither’s true. We’re the most ordinary people in the most extraordinary position. I feel that when people meet us they understand that. When people read about us, they’re like, I hate him, he’s like the world’s worst person, or Oh my God, he’s a human being. It’s neither one really.

RM: What’s it like to hear thousands of people calling your name?
PW: When I hear people singing the words, it brings me back to the exact moment that song was written. It’s cathartic. If every day you had people whispering , Oh yeah, you’re the best thing since sliced bread, you’re going to take over the world and stuff like that… When you start believing your own hype is when it all goes away. No matter how cool you think you are you’re that far [holds fingers several inches apart] away from it all being over. I think when people stop realizing that is when it all goes away. There are bands we play with where you’re thinking, You’re not even big anymore. It’s bizarre. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to live in a real world and appreciate what I have while it’s all going on. I think that’s important. Whatever you’re doing, do it for yourself, not because people are paying you millions of dollars to reunite and go around the country.

RM: Is there an addiction to touring, where you know it’s unhealthy, but gotta’ have it?
PW: Yeah, definitely. We were at the point where we were doing two shows a day, or a high school during the day and a show at night. There’s this feeling you get from doing it. It’s like modern day marauders, going town to town. It is really addictive. If you don’t take the time to appreciate what’s going on in your life, you could just wear too thin and touring’s a really good way to do that. You can lock into it; wherever you sleep is your bed and wherever you put your head down is your pillow. It changes your perspective on the world when you don’t have a home. I don’t mean it like a homeless person. If you don’t have a home base it changes