#Neal Avron

[your-girl-friday]

Ok. Who in that studio let him go Full Stump?

[nofuneralplease]

Fall Out Boy’s delayed fifth album finally surfaces 12/16/2008, from the Orange County Register.

[peteandthebigdog]

2 hours of Patrick and Neal Avron talking Stardust on this very good podcast.

[ikyw-t]

listening to electric touch and while it is tied for my favorite from speak now tv along with castles crumbling, I just think it is sooooo uncalled for that only one member of fall out boy got to play on this song. like can u imagine taylor swift singing on an ACTUAL fob song?? like even just letting fob record the drums for the song would've been sooooo epic.... would've been the best drum track on literally any ts song. like it could've been sooo epic.

[judasisgayriot]

Pete demonstrating Neal Avron's producerly investigative skills on Patrick

[mortalfortaxpurposes]

hi foblr in case you missed it patrick and neal avron were on this podcast discussing the writing of love from the other side, heaven iowa, and so much for stardust and they included demos and played the tracks layer by layer and it's extremely cool

[unluckyhorseshoecrab]

part of why patrick playing 'spotlight' really fucks me up is: "ten of you will know this". It rings similarly to his intro to "Lake Shore Drive" at Wrigley: "This isn't a song that everybody'll know, but the people who know it will appreciate it."

it's so different from the guy who took the initial receptions of folie and soul punk personally, who wrote "it's hard to wake up every day knowing i'm disappointing so many people". it's so different from the guy who fought to simplify Fall Out Boy's choruses because he internalized that he was bad at enunciating.

he really seems to be living his own advice, given before he played fucking What A Catch in 2023: "whatever your thing is, put yourself out there." he's--with the support of the band and others (vague cite to whatever interview(s) he's talked about neal avron pushing him to write a complex Fall Out Boy chorus for "Love From the Other Side")--giving himself permission to take up space to express something he needs to say. We're all invited into his studio, to watch him figure things out, and to play whatever is speaking to him in that moment, and it's okay if it's not for everyone. he's letting that happen. and, fuck. from a guy who has struggled so hard with negative public reactions to his music, especially his more experimental and personal music--it's amazing to watch

[earlgreytea68]

I have now finished the epic Patrick Stump / Neal Avron podcast. I'm sure I'll keep having thoughts but some things off the top of my head:

I love that we've all been like, "Why does the album end so dark? What's up with that?" and Patrick's like, "I just thought it would be cool to end on a depressing note," like, Patrick, hahahahaha.

I felt like hearing some of the demos was the first time I really deeply understood what Patrick means when he says that he writes weird stuff that doesn't go together. That said, I respect him for how much he clearly cares about every little thing but I'm sorry, Patrick, I cannot tell the difference in some of the stuff you're talking about lolololol

I love the idea of Patrick and Andy in a room together playing the drums in tandem. That makes me love the drums in Heaven, Iowa even more. And I loved hearing Patrick describe how he and Andy are both drummers but have different approaches, that was really interesting.

Pete saying that SMFS was a priority to have on the album makes so much sense, because it's such a cinematic song and Pete loves that cinematic stuff.

[fob4ever]

patrick stump & neal avron on tape notes podcast (12.15.23)

songwriting stuff, demos, lyric process, a bunch of things! they talk about the songs lftos, heaven iowa and smfsd.

long summary under the cut!

talked about how they sat outside “emo” because they leaned more towards hiphop/rnb, but also how they didn’t fit in the “pop” genre too and how they would be put on pop shows and “comparatively it was like slayer was playing” lmao “but we’re still a pop band!”

they experimented with reggae and 90s shoegaze and hardcore during the pandemic

they recorded most of stardust together in neal’s house :D at the beginning it was mostly just neal and patrick working together, at the end of the day everybody would come in to listen

patrick said he got “kinda obsessed” with streamlining pete’s lyrics in the chorus over the past few albums: “pete is very wordy. he has all these ideas that take up a lot of space.” and that their manager sat him down at lunch and said “don't do that. you guys used to ramble. why don't you ramble?” and lftos was the first song patrick put together after that convo

lftos writing process: patrick followed what he was feeling, and most of what he did in that song were things that years spent working in pop music had scared him off on doing.

the “every lover's got a little dagger in their hand” lyric tied it all together for patrick: “[i was] singing that line and EAGERLY emailing neal: listen to this!”

they play a little of the lftos demo (16:55). it's wild. VERY guitar-forward

“neal and i lost most of the demos for [folie a deux].” the burning of the library of alexandria. to me

talks about how the folie demos were infinitely stranger than the final versions, “psychedelic at times”

for stardust, they didn't really keep much of the demo stuff- patrick: “and my demos are pretty decent!”

lftos piano demo (21:35)

patrick: i want some drama. when i look back at our records, our best ones start off with a sense of melodrama

they play individual parts of the lftos instrumentation (31:25), andy's drums, pete's bass, joe's guitar. <3

bridges are patrick's favorite thing to write, because he just gets to play

patrick: "pete doesn't even send lyrics in lyric-form, he just sends words. and it's interesting when you see it- it's almost like one-liner after one-liner. and i'll just get an email of those, and then you kinda have to figure out what thematically goes together, what feels like the same song. but then i also try to keep lyrics together as much as possible, because i feel he's in a place where it does feel like one thought."

"when i read it, there's almost a passive thing where i just imagine what it sounds like to me. and [the lyrics for heaven, iowa] scared me a lot, because it felt kind of sparse, and i don't really like sparse- i don't really like singing by myself. [...] i don't like being so front and center, and i could tell that there was something really intimate about this song, and it was a big challenge for me."

everybody immediately went for the heaven, iowa demo- it's from the first stardust session and it took the longest to complete because patrick wasn't satisfied with just his voice over keys- "it was too naked."

patrick doesn't ask pete about lyrics because: "first off, he will not explain things. but second off, i think there is something to that. where i'll read his lyrics, and i'll interpret it one way, and years later i'll realize it's another way. there's so many double entendres that i've only gotten decades later, i'll be singing and go, 'OH it's a sex thing.'"

patrick really attaches to the story of a lyric, the craft of it, and then years later he'll be like "oh that was a HEAVY lyric. [and] pete must have felt that thing! i don't really question it when i'm writing- it's kindof unfair on him, like, should i check on him?"

heaven iowa instrumental demo/instruments isolated (53:30)

patrick would tell joe to "go nuts" on heaven, iowa!

neal talks about the ambient guitar pedal joe plays during heaven iowa and how it worked really well. patrick says this was the kind of thing that saved (the song).

patrick and andy double drummed at the same time in the studio for heaven iowa! <3

pete told joe to go "full slash" at the end of heaven iowa : )

patrick almost didn't send out the demo for the title track, smfsd! he was almost sure no one was going to like it, even though he liked it. but he sent it out, and it "kept surviving"

both patrick and neal brushed smfsd off because they assumed they "couldn't do that", but pete really pushed for it, which surprised patrick.

so much for stardust demo (1:25:07) patrick plays drums on it, sloppily. which he freely admits to lol. it is quite sloppy indeed

patrick: "i'm a drummer too, but andy and i are very different drummers. and it's very cool translating our things between each other, because he comes from metal (...) and i'm more a funk drummer."

lotsa joe layering in heaven iowa and smfsd : )

it was patrick's idea to do a lyrical callback in lftos/smfsd, and pete was hesitant about it. but patrick pushed for it, becasuse it made sense as "story beats"- "it's like 'empire strikes back'!"

patrick doesn't like to putz around the studio that much, he just wants to be recording something.

patrick: "my routine [during the writing of the album] was just to make it to the studio as on time as i can be- i have adhd, it's very difficult- but i'd be there within 10-15 minutes of when i was supposed to be there, and then we'd just work through it."

patrick's advice: FROM ELTON JOHN: when you find your producer that understands you, stick with them. patrick: "and that was on a record we didn't do with neal, and i remember thinking [makes unsure noises]..." also prioritize in the short-term, what's important. take a step back.

neal's advice: if music is your passion, do it, and do it all the time

patrick was afraid people wouldn't like him "rambling" in songs, even though it was honest and natural to him. he was terrified of doing it again, thinking people wouldn't like it. but people did! "don't subvert yourself too much."

the host asks for them to choose a stardust song to close out the podcast, and patrick chooses what a time to be alive :)

the end

[vampylily]

Transcription of Fall Out Boy's interview with Rock Sound

Since I was going to read the article anyways, I thought I'd transcribe in case it'll be more accessible to read for others. The interview with Pete and Patrick goes in depth on the topics of tourdust, evolving as a band, So Much (For) Stardust, working with Neal Avron, and more.

Thank you to @nomaptomyowntreasure who kindly shared the photos of the article! Their post is linked here.

PDF link here. (more readable format & font size)

article in text below (and warning for long post.)

Rock Sound Issue #300

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

WITH THE TRIUMPHANT ‘SO MUCH (FOR) STARDUST’ CAPTURING A WHOLE NEW GENERATION OF FANS, FALL OUT BOY ARE RIDING HIGH, CELEBRATING THEIR PAST WHILE LOOKING TOWARDS A BRIGHT FUTURE. PETE WENTZ AND PATRICK STUMP REFLECT ON RECENT SUCCESSES AND THE LESSONS LEARNED FROM TWO DECADES OF WRITING AND PERFORMING TOGETHER. 

WORDS: James Wilson-Taylor

PHOTOS: Elliott Ingham

You have just completed a US summer tour that included stadium shows and some of your most ambitious production to date. What were your aims going into this particular show? 

PETE: Playing stadiums is a funny thing. I pushed pretty hard to do a couple this time because I think that the record Patrick came up with musically lends itself to that feeling of being part of something larger than yourself. When we were designing the cover to the album, it was meant to be all tangible, which was a reaction to tokens and skins that  you can buy and avatars. The title is made out of clay, and the painting is an actual painting. We wanted to approach the show in that way as well. We've been playing in front of a gigantic video wall for the past eight years. Now, we wanted a stage show where you could actually walk inside it. 

Did adding the new songs from ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ into the setlist change the way you felt about them?

PATRICK: One of the things that was interesting about the record was that we took a lot of time figuring out what it was going to be, what it was going to sound like. We experimented with so many different things. I was instantly really proud. I felt really good about this record but it wasn’t until we got on stage and you’re playing the songs in between our catalogue that I really felt that. It was really noticeable from the first day on this tour - we felt like a different band. There's a new energy to it. There was something that I could hear live that I couldn't hear before. 

You also revisited a lot of older tracks and b-sides on this tour, including many from the ‘Folie à Deux’-era. What prompted those choices? 

PETE: There were some lean years where there weren't a lot of rock bands being played on pop radio or playing award shows so we tried to play the biggest songs, the biggest versions of them. We tried to make our thing really airtight, bulletproof so that when we played next to whoever the top artist was, people were like, ‘oh yeah, they should be here.’ The culture shift in the world is so interesting because now, maybe rather than going wider, it makes more sense to go deeper with people. We thought about that in the way that we listen to music and the way we watch films. Playing a song that is a b-side or barely made a record but is someone’s favourite song makes a lot of sense in this era.

PATRICK: I think there also was a period there where, to Pete’s point, it was a weird time to be a rock band. We had this very strange thing that happened to us, and not a lot of our friends for some reason, where we had a bunch of hits, right? And it didn’t make any sense to me. It still doesn’t make sense to me. But there was a kind of novelty, where we could play a whole set of songs that a lot of people know. It was fun and rewarding for us to do that. But then you run the risk of playing the same set forever. I want to love the songs that we play. I want to care about it and put passion into what we do. And there’s no sustainable way to just do the same thing every night and not get jaded. We weren’t getting there but I really wanted to make sure that we don’t ever get there. 

PETE: In the origin of Fall Out Boy, what happened at our concerts was we knew how to play five songs really fast and jumped off walls and the fire marshal would shut it down. It was what made the show memorable, but we wanted to be able to last and so we tried to perfect our show and the songs and the stage show and make it flawless. Then you don’t really know how much spontaneity you want to include, because something could go wrong. When we started this tour, and we did a couple of spontaneous things, it opened us up to more. Because things did go wrong and that’s what made the show special. We’re doing what is the most punk rock version of what we could be doing right now. 

You seem generally a lot more comfortable celebrating your past success at this point in your career. 

PETE: I think it’s actually not a change from our past. I love those records, but I never want to treat them in a cynical way. I never want there to be a wink and a smile where we’re just doing this because it’s the anniversary. This was us celebrating these random songs and we hope people celebrate them with us. There was a purity to it that felt in line with how we’ve always felt about it. I love ‘Folie à Deux’ - out of any Fall Out Boy record that's probably the one I would listen to. But I just never wanted it to be done in a cynical way, where we feel like we have to. But celebrating it in a way where there’s the purity of how we felt when we wrote the song originally. I think that’s fucking awesome. 

PATRICK: Music is a weird art form. Because when you’re an actor and you play a character, that is a specific thing. James Bond always wears a suit and has a gun and is a secret agent. If you change one thing, that’s fine, but you can’t really change all of it. But bands are just people. You are yourself. People get attached to it like it’s a story but it’s not. That was always something I found difficult. For the story, it’s always good to say, ‘it’s the 20th anniversary, let’s go do the 20th anniversary tour’, that’s a good story thing. But it’s not always honest. We never stopped playing a lot of the songs from ‘Take This To Your Grave’, right? So why would I need to do a 20-year anniversary and perform all the songs back to back? The only reason would be because it would probably sell a lot of tickets and I don’t really ever want to be motivated by that, frankly. 

One of the things that’s been amazing is that now as the band has been around for a while, we have different layers of audience. I love ‘Folie à Deux’, I do, I love that record. But I had a really personally negative experience of touring on it. So that’s what I think of when I think of that record initially. It had to be brought back to me for me to appreciate it, for me to go, ‘oh, this record is really great. I should be happy with this. I should want to play this,’ So that’s why we got into a lot of the b-sides because we realised that our perspectives on a lot of these songs were based in our feelings and experiences from when we were making them. But you can find new experiences if you play those songs. You can make new memories with them. 

You alluded there to the 20th anniversary of ‘Take This To Your Grave’. Obviously you have changed and developed as a band hugely since then. But is there anything you can point to about making that debut record that has remained a part of your process since then? 

PETE: We have a language, the band, and it’s definitely a language of cinema and film. That’s maintained through time. We had very disparate music tastes and influences but I think film was a place we really aligned. You could have a deep discussion, because none of us were filmmakers. You could say which part was good and which part sucked and not hurt anybody’s feelings, because you weren’t going out to make a film the next day. Whereas with music, I think if we’d only had that to talk about, we would have turned out a different band.  

PATRICK: ‘Take This To Your Grave’, even though it’s absolutely our first record, there’s an element of it that’s still a work in progress. It is still a band figuring itself out. Andy wasn’t even officially in the band for half of the recording, right? I wasn’t even officially the guitar player for half of the recording. We were still bumbling through it. There was something that popped up a couple times throughout the record where you got these little inklings of who the band really was. We really explored that on ‘From Under the Cork Tree’’. So when we talk about what has remained the same… I didn’t want to be a singer, I didn’t know anything about singing, I wasn’t playing on that. I didn’t even plan to really be in this band for that long because Pete had a real band that really toured so I thought this was gonna be a side project. So there’s always been this element within the band where I don’t put too many expectations on things and then Pete has this really big ambition, creatively. There’s this great interplay between the tour of us where I’m kind of oblivious, and I don’t know when I’m putting out a big idea and Pete has this amazing vision to find what goes where. There’s something really magical about that because I never could have done a band like this without it. We needed everybody, we needed all four of us. And I think that’s the thing that hasn’t changed - the four of us just being ourselves and trying to figure things out. Listening back to ‘Folie’ or ‘Infinity On High’ or ‘American Beauty’. I’m always amazed at how much better they are than I remember. I listened to ‘MANIA’ the other day. I have a lot of misgivings about that record, a lot of things I’m frustrated about. But then I’m listening to it and I’m like, ‘this is pretty good.’ There’s a lot of good things in there. I don’t know why, it’s kind of like you can’t see those things. It’s kind of amazing to have Pete be able to see those things. And likewise, sometimes Pete has no idea when he writes something brilliant, as a lyricist, and I have to go, ‘No, I’m gonna keep that one, I’m gonna use that.’ 

On ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ you teamed up with producer Neal Avron again for the first time since 2008. Given how much time has passed, did it take a minute to reestablish that connection or did you pick up where you left off? 

PATRICK: It really didn’t feel like any time had passed between us and Neal. It was pretty seamless in terms of working with him. But then there was also the weird aspect where the last time we worked with him was kind of contentious. Interpersonally, the four of us were kind of fighting with each other…as much as we do anyway. We say that and then that myth gets built bigger than it was. We were always pretty cool with each other. It’s just that the least cool was making ‘Folie’. So then getting into it again for this record, it was like no time had passed as people but the four of us got on better so we had more to bring to Neal. 

PETE: It’s a little bit like when you return to your parents’ house for the holiday break when you’re in college. It’s the same house but now I can drink with my parents. We’d grown up and the first times we worked with Neal, he had to do so much more boy scout leadership, ‘you guys are all gonna be okay, we’re gonna do this activity to earn this badge so you guys don’t fucking murder each other.’ This time, we probably got a different version of Neal that was even more creative, because he had to do less psychotherapy. 

He went deep too. Sometimes when you’re in a session with somebody, and they’re like, ‘what are we singing about?’, I’ll just be like, ‘stuff’. He was not cool with ‘stuff’. I would get up and go into the bathroom outside the studio and look in the mirror, and think ‘what is it about? How deep are we gonna go?’ That’s a little bit scarier to ask yourself. If last time Neal was like a boy scout leader, this time, it was more like a Sherpa. He was helping us get to the summit. 

The title track of the album also finds you in a very reflective mood, even bringing back lyrics from ‘Love From the Other Side’. How would you describe the meaning behind that title and the song itself?

PETE: The record title has a couple of different meanings, I guess. The biggest one to me is that we basically all are former stars. That’s what we’re made of, those pieces of carbon. It still feels like the world’s gonna blow and it’s all moving too fast and the wrong things are moving too slow. That track in particular looks back at where you sometimes wish things had gone differently. But this is more from the perspective of when you’re watching a space movie, and they’re too far away and they can’t quite make it back. It doesn’t matter what they do and at some point, the astronaut accepts that. But they’re close enough that you can see the look on their face. I feel like there’s moments like that in the title track. I wish some things were different. But, as an adult going through this, you are too far away from the tether, and you’re just floating into space. It is sad and lonely but in some ways, it’s kind of freeing, because there’s other aspects of our world and my life that I love and I want to keep shaping and changing. 

Patrick: I’ll open up Pete’s lyrics and I just start hearing things. It almost feels effortless in a lot of ways. I just read his lyrics and something starts happening in my head. The first line, ‘I’m in a winter mood, dreaming of spring now’, instantly the piano started to form to me. That was a song that I came close to not sending the band. When I make demos, I’ll usually wait until I have five or six to send to everybody. I didn’t know if anyone was gonna like this. It’s too moody or it’s not very us. But it was pretty unanimous. Everybody liked that one. I knew this had to end the record. It took on a different life in the context of the whole album. Then on the bridge section, I knew it was going to be the lyrics from “Love From The Other Side’. It’s got to come back here. It’s the bookends, but I also love lyrically what it does, you know, ‘in another life, you were my babe’, going back to that kind of regret, which feels different in  ‘Love From The Other Side’ than it does here. When the whole song came together, it was the statement of the record. 

Aside from the album, you have released a few more recent tracks that have opened you up to a whole new audience, most notably the collaboration with Taylor Swift on ‘Electric Touch’. 

PETE: Taylor is the only artist that I’ve met or interacted with in recent times who creates exactly the art of who she is, but does it one such a mass level. So that’s breathtaking to watch from the sidelines. The way fans traded friendship bracelets, I don’t know what the beginning of it was, but you felt that everywhere. We felt that, I saw that in the crowd on our tour. I don’t know Taylor well, but I think she’s doing exactly what she wants and creating exactly the art that she wants to create. And going that, on such a level, is really awe-inspiring to watch. It makes you want to make the biggest, weirdest version of our thing and put that out there. 

Then there was the cover of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’, which has had some big chart success for you. That must have taken you slightly by surprise. 

PATRICK: It’s pretty unexpected. Pete and I were going back and forth about songs we should cover and that was an idea that I had. This is so silly but there was a song a bunch of years ago I had kind of written called ‘Dark Horse’ and then there was a Katy Perry song called ‘Dark Horse’ and I was like, ‘damn it’, you know, I missed the boat on that one. So I thought if we don’t do this cover, somebody else is gonna do it. Let’s just get in the studio and just do it. We spent way more time on those lyrics than you would think because we really wanted to get a specific feel. It was really fun and kind of loose, we just came together in Neal’s house and recorded it in a day. 

PETE: There's irreverence to it. I thought the coolest thing was when Billy Joel got asked about it, and he was like, ‘I’m not updating it, that’s fine, go for it.’  I hope if somebody ever chose to update one of ours, we’d be like that. Let them do their thing, they’ll have that version. I thought that was so fucking cool. 

It’s almost no secret that the sound you became most known for in the md-2000s is having something of a commercial revival right now But what is interesting is seeing how bands are building on that sound and changing it. 

PATRICK: I love when anybody does anything that feels honest to them. Touring with Bring Me The Horizon, it was really cool seeing what’s natural to them. It makes sense. We changed our sound over time but we were always going to do that. It wasn’t a premeditated thing but for the four of us, it would have been impossible to maintain making the same kind of music forever. Whereas you’ll play with some other bands and they live that one sound. You meet up with them for dinner or something and they’re wearing the shirt of the band that sounds just like their band. You go to their house and they’re playing other bands that sound like them because they live in that thing. Whereas with the four of us and bands like Bring Me The Horizon, we change our sounds over time.  And there’s nothing wrong with either. The only thing that’s wrong is if it’s unnatural to you. If you’re AC/DC and all of a sudden power ballads are in and you’re like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to do a power ballad’, that’s when it sucks. But if you’re a thrash metal guy who also likes Celine Dion then yeah, do a power ballad. Emo as a word doesn’t mean anything anymore. But if people want to call it that, if the emo thing is back or having another life again, if that’s what’s natural to an artist, I think the world needs more earnest art. If that’s who you are, then do it. 

PETE: It would be super egotistical to think that the wave that started with us and My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco has just been circling and cycling back. I remember seeing Nikki Sixx at the airport and he was like, ‘Oh you’re doing a flaming bass? Mine came from a backpack.’ It keeps coming back but it looks different. Talking to Lil Uzi Vert and Juice WRLD when he was around, it’s so interesting, because it’s so much bigger than just emo or whatever. It’s this whole big pop music thing that’s spinning and churning, and then it moves on, and then it comes back with different aspects and some of the other stuff combined. When you’re a fan of music and art and film, you take different stuff, you add different ingredients, because that’s your taste. Seeing the bands that are up and coming to me, it’s so exciting, because the rules are just different, right? It’s really cool to see artists that lean into the weirdness and lean into a left turn when everyone’s telling you to make a right. That’s so refreshing. 

PATRICK: It’s really important as an artist gets older to not put too much stock in your own influence. The moment right now that we’re in is bigger than emo and bigger than whatever was happening in 2005. There’s a great line in ‘Downton Abbey’ where someone was asking the Lord about owning this manor and he’s like ‘well, you don’t really own it, there have been hundreds of owners and you are the custodian of it for a brief time.’ That’s what pop music is like. You just have the ball for a minute and you’re gonna pass it on to somebody else. 

We will soon see you in the UK for your arena tour. How do you reflect on your relationship with the fans over here? 

PETE: I remember the first time we went to the UK, I wasn’t prepared for how culturally different it was. When we played Reading & Leeds and the summer festivals, it was so different, and so much deeper within the culture. It was a little bit of a shock. The first couple of times we played, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, are we gonna die?’ because the crowd was so crazy, and there was bottles. Then when we came back, we thought maybe this is a beast to be tamed. Finally, you realise it’s a trading of energy. That made the last couple of festivals we played so fucking awesome. When you realise that the fans over there are real fans of music It’s really awesome and pretty beautiful. 

PATRICK: We’ve played the UK now more than a lot of regions of the states. Pretty early on, I just clicked with it. There were differences, cultural things and things that you didn’t expect. But it never felt that different or foreign to me, just a different flavour…

PETE: This is why me and Patrick work so well together (laughs). 

PATRICK: Well, listen; I’m a rainy weather guy. There is just things that I get there. I don’t really drink anymore all that much. But I totally will have a beer in the UL, there’s something different about every aspect of it, about the ordering of it, about the flavour of it, everything, it’s like a different vibe. The UK audience seemed to click with us too. There have been plenty of times where we felt almost like a UK band than an American one. There have been years where you go there and almost get a more familial reaction than you would at home. 

Rock Sound has always been a part of that for us. It was one of the first magazines to care about us and the first magazine to do real interviews. That’s the thing, you would do all these interviews and a lot of them would be like ‘so where did the band’s name come from?’ But Rock Sound took us seriously as artists, maybe before some of us did. That actually made us think about who we are and that was a really cool experience. I think in a lot of ways, we wouldn’t be the band we are without the UK, because I think it taught us a lot about what it is to be yourself. 

Fall Out Boy’s ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ is out now via Fueled By Ramen

[thekidsare-not-alright]

this is 7 months old but idc I wanna make notes so here we go

LFTOS

pete's mind blown by the chorus

pete had a mv idea right away

andy thought it was a good song to play live (and it is)

HBFSG

andy "that is a great song"

post chorus screams important to pete

nod to Nope, movie pete likes

HMLAG

3 day mv shoot, really fun

reminds pete of 2000s alt radio vibes

but chorus is so ~patrick stump~

FO

older than other songs, pete calls it a sleeper

andy loves the bridge

calls to influence of the cure, smth dance dance <3

H,I

patrick demoed it early, one of the first ones

andy's favorite song on smfs <3

pete loves openness to choruses and verses

SGRN

pete heard it a while ago (?)

distinctly "something we could make" peterrrr <3

lyrics bittersweet quality

andy "dialectical" yesSs

TPSS

ethan hawke let them use it

nihilistic side of the record~

[pete existential crisis]

IAMOM

the score side of patrick~

pete likes the bridge a lot

pete thinks it's something they would've tried forever ago but wouldn't have been as good, neal avron helped w/ that

FG

michael jordan reference

pete says it's all over the place to him

chaotic like this ain't a scene

andy thought it was fun to record, beat is fun

BA

being careful about throwback qualities

pete excited to do the spoken word dfskjhdgh

a little annihilation explanation

TKK(TY)

almost didn't make the record D:

bizarre yet catchy melody reminds pete of skrillex and justin bieber

"ear worm"

marvel howling, she's very into being in a rock band ahsdhDSfh

pete is very glad they decided to put it on the record

WATTBA

pete calls it a very patrick stump song, the way his brain works

they worked on it before the pandemic but pete feels like it's a pandemic song

dialectical~

diad~

(vocabulary lessons with pete and andy)

SMFS

pete "a really fitting end for the record"

~our dialectical record~

[grntaire]

2023 really was crazy if you told me a year ago that within the span of less than a year there would be a second season of good omens where they kiss, a new fall out boy album produced by neal avron, and david tennant as the doctor again i would’ve combusted on the spot

[thekidsarentalright]

this is going to sound music snobbish or like i know almost anything about production, neither of which are true about me, but i think my realization relating fob’s production has explained a LOT for me

i am a prehiatus preferrer, and i think a lot of it has to do not with the music itself, but the production and recording of the music. i couldn’t put my finger on what it was for a long time about WHAT was different, not until smfs came out. the other posthiatus albums up until smfs were produced by butch walker, and i think sometimes suffer from overproduction, and i just don’t think his production style suits fob’s sound i guess? another factor for sure is fob going back to “old style” of recording all together, which i think provides for a fuller sound as well, because some of the posthiatus songs can almost suffer from the opposite problem of overproduction and sound just…hollow. idk it’s hard to explain but main point neal avron is the perfect producer for them, whereas i dislike butch walker’s production. (and this was further proven because don’t you know who i think i am is probably my least fav track from ioh, my second favorite fob album, and butch produced that track too…)

okay as a music snob who knows about production gotta tell you i Loved reading this ask because like. i feel like people so so often do Not realize how much the production of a song or album can alter it and that each producer has a style so like. production is a huge reason why ppl dont like certain songs or albums i think!!! so like Totally fair and understandable that you don’t like butch walker’s production style, i’m under the impression he leans into a lot more heavy, pop-inspired production, meanwhile other producers fob has worked with, like neal avron, are a lot more. particular and controlled? i guess? w their production so. it really is just two wildly different styles! and i think i agree to an extent that the more controlled production suits fob a lot more Because of how much emphasis is put on the instrumentation in their songs its not like the production Needs to be heavy to add more interest to a song? and though personally i Love everything butch walker has done w fob, thats just because thats a style i enjoy listening to, i think in the end i agree neal avron is literally Perfect for them. hope they keep working w him in some capacity for years to come just bc he knows how to manage their music so so well

[its-always-emo-in-philadelphia]

So Much (For) Stardust released march 24, 2023 is the eighth and newest studio album by Fall Out Boy with Fueled by Ramen, Elektra Records and DCD2. This was a return for the band on a few fronts having been five years since their last album (mania), releasing with their previous record label (FBR), and being produced by Neal Avron (who they last worked with on FAD). But to say this album was return to form would be to discount the evident growth in musical style presented by the band. Swing drums, slappin bass, sweeping orchestrals, this album touches everything the band has done and brings it to today rather than letting it live solely as nostalgia. On a personal note this album means the world to me and I am beyond excited to see how I look back on it in twenty years the way I look back on tttyg

[release-the-mccracken]

hi! you probably don't remember me, but i was the anon who told you about the indie band sub-radio a while back. anyway, i just wanted to share the good news with you that they got the attention of neal avron (a producer who's worked with fall out boy, linkin park, and twenty-one pilots) and are currently in the process of producing an album with him, so they may not be a small indie band posting parody covers to tiktok for long, which i'm super hyped about because i think they're really talented and they deserve all the recognition they're getting! anyway, i don't have a lot of bandom mutuals, but i figured i'd share that with you. hope you have a great day/night! 😊

I remember! And ah! That's so exciting! Fun fact, I've listened to them for a while since you told me about them, although only a couple songs. They're on my playlist! I'm glad to hear that they're working on an album with him, it's much needed good news. Very excited for you, them, and their future. Thank you so much for sharing :)

[fob9]

sorry random but do you think what post-hiatus haters actually hate is just all the butch walker. like the p2 creative dyamic is never not gonna do its thing AND they were bringing good-taste-joe more into the mix this time and they couldn't find anything to enjoy???. if fob had gone back to neal avron immediately would they have loved everything?? (a bit of a stupid thought experiment bc that would have resulted in such a radically different totally unrecognizable timeline offshoot the universe would have imploded but it just does not feel like coincidence that sm(f)s brought a lot of 'only good album since their hiatus' or 'going back to their roots' (???) loser comments. like sm(f)s is by nature and necessity gloriously made of everything that came before her you stupid sluts)

I could see that, but I think it is more about how people seems to have this fixed idea of what fob should sound like (even though fob have always being interested in reinvent themselves/expand their sound) and I guess stardust seems to fit into this supposed "real" fall out boy sound ('this one has actual guitars' 'no rap featured' etc)