That One Fall Out Boy Podcast I Love So Much

So I was inspired making this piece of my personal perspective about being a Fall Out Boy fan regarding the new podcast that was released by Kerrang! magazine via Spotify.

The podcast, titled Fall Out Boy: The Rebirth of Rock's Great Believers, consists of interviews of stories from each tracks of Fall Out Boy's second compilation album Believers Never Dies Volume Two that was released fresh this year and the band's personal backstory about their 2009's hiatus.

What I liked so much about the podcast is that the interviewer took Fall Out Boy first to their heartbreaking first compilation album Believers Never Dies Volume One and then through the hiatus, the 2013's Save Rock and Roll as their comeback album, the groundbreaking success of 2015's American Beauty/American Psycho, their latest album MANIA, this year's collaborations, and as their closing, their personal perspective about what they learned from the hiatus.

I've been reading a lot about their hiatus, Patrick's solo album, Pete's band called Black Cards, and Andy and Joe collaboration in some fucking metal bands (pun intended). It took me back to the year of 2008 where everything felt difficult and unbearable for the band.

Joe and Andy (lead guitarist and drummer) felt like they're no longer had the creativity that they like to share. Joe even said that they didn't have any 'grounding', meaning they didn't have any quality time with their family, often left the house, always on the road touring, and they no longer had the desire to create music in that state.

Patrick (rythm guitarist and singer) was struggling so much with how the music industry shifted at that time and how it was so hard to stay cool-headed with everything that's been going on. After all, he and Joe barely had a break since their debut album Take This To Your Grave. They're very young at that time and they barely taking care of their younger self with all the music and touring and arguing they did all the time.

While Pete (bassist) on the other hand was struggling with his mental health and his marriage. He said that he's the only person in the band that didn't want to go to a hiatus. I get the feeling that maybe Fall Out Boy was the reason of why he could still stand and not loosing touch of what's good. I feel like he didn't want to go on a hiatus because he was afraid he'd loose of what he once had.

Because at that time, no one was exactly sure when they'd come back.

Thankfully, the band was making each other sure that it was just a break. Not permanently but it sure would take a while.

So the story goes from that. Pete contacted Patrick to just hang out or maybe tried to play with several songs. They contacted Andy, Joe, and their manager. And as the time went through, SRAR, AB/AP, and MANIA was born.

I'll skip to the last part because you should really listen to the podcast. It's really interesting to know what are they thinking about the tracks and its backstory.

In the end, the interviewer asked about what have they learned from their hiatus and all the things that has been going through. And the answers were well-said:

Joe said that he learned not to care so much. It may sounded negative and even cold, but he's right. You don't get to enjoy yourself or enjoy what you do if you give too much shit about it. Before the hiatus he was struggling so hard about the creativity they shared and now, he just let them be and see how it goes. Honestly, it's the most mature thing to do. And I'm glad he pointed that out.

Patrick said (he learned that from Sia) he need to give the best he got and then just forget about it. It's logical because, like Joe said, if you're thinking so much about what you had done and what comes after, it really really stress you out. You just need to know and sure that you'd done your best and then that's it. Nothing comes after.

Pete said he didn't need to push people too hard anymore. Pete is one of the people who really appreciate music and art, and maybe that made him a bit more critical and defensive about it. It makes a lot of sense if he tend to 'push' people as he likes. But again, him saying something like that really inspire me to do things differently in a good way.

In short, I really love this band so fucking much. How they see things differently, how they cope with it, how they get creative and try a lot of things, how they appreciate anything, and how to look forward without erasing the past. They mean so much to me and million other people, and I honestly can't think of any other band that made feel this way.