The FOB bassist additionally shares some footage from The MANIA Experience pop-up.
Fall Out Boy had their largest hometown return this previous weekend once they performed the long-lasting Wrigley Field on Sept. 8. In addition to the monumental present, the Chi-Town-formed band held The MANIA Experience in downtown Chicago, which introduced a number of the songs on the group’s seventh album, MANIA, to life.
With six completely different rooms for followers to get pleasure from (and naturally snap some pictures tailored for Instagram), The MANIA Experience was Fall Out Boy’s means of exhibiting followers one other facet to their newest LP. And in Pete Wentz’s thoughts, the pop-up was a counterintuitive thought. “You can really feel it, you’ll be able to contact it, you’ll be able to expertise it,” the FOB bassist explains. “I believe we stay in an age [that’s] very digital, and every thing sort of exists in a cloud. This is the analog to that.”
But it was additionally a means for followers to additional have a good time Fall Out Boy’s bucket listing achievement of taking part in certainly one of their metropolis’s most famed landmarks, one thing that Wentz could not actually fathom forward of the present. Before The MANIA Experience opened its doorways on Sept. 7, Wentz chatted with Billboard in regards to the MANIA Experience, what Fall Out Boy’s Wrigley homecoming means to them, and his boundary-pushing hopes for FOB’s future.
Did you see MANIA as a bodily expertise if you guys had been making it?
[Looking at] the duvet artwork and the artwork that went with it, I at all times thought, “This would be insane down a hallway.” I wouldn’t say probably the most troublesome factor we’ve achieved, but it surely’s simply completely different and fully out of the wheelhouse. It’s very troublesome to make a factor of semi-permanent buildings that lasts for 3 days. I by no means thought I might have a look at like blueprints and room circulate, stuff like that. It was rather more troublesome simply than when it’s an concept in your head.Do you will have a favourite a part of The MANIA Experience?
The tablet pit is lots of enjoyable. I take into consideration that from the angle of my 4-year-old, who’d be tremendous psyched about it. There’s these facet rooms which might be actually cool — there’s a teddy bear room, an the other way up room, an infinity mirror coffin. I believe the atrium if you stroll in is mind-blowing. He’s a neighborhood Chicago artist [named Eric Rieger, often known as set up artist Hot Tea]. That’s the factor that I believed was actually cool, is we ended up partnering with lots of native [artists] – that makes it really feel like one thing that makes extra sense right here.
I really feel like if you get into ultra-hyper-literalism it might get like, tremendous corny. We did lots of analysis going to different museums and experiences and pop-ups to attempt to determine how you can do it. Making this profitable is having or not it’s individuals efficiently really feel like they built-in and had been part of it, had enjoyable in it. This was about attempting to do one thing – we’ve been doing a band for 15+ years, if you attempt one thing completely different, it’s like brushing your tooth together with your left hand, like “Oh man I feel like I opened other neuro passageways.” And then it permits to be extra artistic with the music then after that.
Speaking of recent music, did the Lake Effect Kid launch really feel any completely different than your previous releases, because it was a shock announce and rapid launch sort of factor?
That one felt attention-grabbing as a result of I used to be like, “We’re putting out three songs about Chicago – I don’t know how people will kind of walk away with that” [Laughs]. One music is from 10 years in the past, however we completed it. One music was the literal accompanying piece to “Young and Menace,” after which one music is a vibe that is sort of extra possibly what we might be doing sooner or later. None of these made sense on their very own, none of them made sense on one other album, and they also possibly make sense collectively.
I believe the world that Fall Out Boy might exist in is extra of a world that Drake exists in — Drake simply places out music, and a few of it’s a single and a few of it’s like, Drake music. And then generally the viewers decides, this music’s a single as a result of we made it an enormous meme. That’s what’s improbable in regards to the time we stay in. I don’t see any of these songs as a single. Lake Effect Kid did what it did as a result of there’s nostalgia hooked up to it, or no matter it’s, however that’s the great thing about it — individuals simply determine. You don’t must have the blokes in like A&R in a room being like, “Did we get the recipe right?” It’s sort of cool and liberating.
Has Wrigley Field at all times been on the Fall Out Boy bucket listing?
I believe it is at all times been a bucket listing merchandise but it surely’s by no means been a practical one. In the vein of [Rookie of the Year] the place the child breaks his arm after which he can throw tremendous quick and [becomes] a pitcher on [the Cubs], like, “Oh I might be in Wrigley Field. I’m presupposed to be on the sector,” however not in real looking means. We’ve talked about taking part in a stadium, and taking part in this stadium is among the wild issues the place you are not able to do it, however you simply must do it. No one’s gonna be like, “You’re prepared.”
Do you will have a favourite Chicago present from over time?
I might say that the primary present we performed again right here [after their hiatus, at Subterranean in Feb. 2013]. That was cool, it was particular. It felt like a factor that possibly two or three years earlier than that could not have ever occurred. It wasn’t a factor that was real looking as a result of we simply weren’t going to be a band. I believe, greater than something, it introduced me again to [the feeling of] being right here with these guys. There’s lots of different issues that come together with being in a band, but it surely’s actually particular being on stage with these guys.
Did the Wrigley present and the MANIA expertise make you concentrate on Fall Out Boy’s legacy in any respect?
I’m, like, a loopy particular person, so I by no means actually take into consideration the legacy and that is most likely why Patrick [Stump, FOB’s frontman] and I work nicely collectively — I’m a foot-on-the-gas sort of particular person on a regular basis, and he is the man that is steering the automobile and hits the brakes each every so often, which is nice.
I might say there are two issues we’re taking pictures for. First, [for example], Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” was pervasive, but it surely was like, “This is our band.” This is one [song] that’s for me, the misaligned individuals. The people who find themselves bizarre and odd. I believe we’re taking pictures to be that band for someone. So possibly we’re your entry level into discovering and discovering one other world, figuring out that there might be these different bands which might be like that.
I believe the second is far more like, much less particular. Again, I’ll use Metallica. There’s lots of bands the place you are speaking in regards to the band and you are like, “Yeah they’re heavy metallic” however if you discuss to someone you are like, “Metallica simply feels like Metallica.” They are a descriptor, their title is a descriptor and I believe that is good factor to shoot for too, as a result of at that time it isn’t style — you simply sort of develop into a factor unto your self.
Also, when somebody comes as much as me they usually’re like, “your band helped me through this” — somebody got here as much as me the opposite day and was like “I performed drums due to Andy Hurley.” That’s loopy. I’m identical to, in a punk band with this man. It’s a loopy factor, you already know?
Now that you have crossed this off, what else is on the Fall Out Boy bucket listing?
There’s all types of issues on the bucket listing. We’re the band that attempted to go play in Antarctica and play on each continent. We’re loopy [Laughs]. You can at all times inform when a band or an artist has been doing this for some time, sooner or later you’re like, “This is only a completely different model of a factor that they [already] did.” And it’s actually laborious – that’s why, after we labored with Burna Boy on “Sunshine Riptide,” it was like, “Wow, this is so refreshing” since you’re your self by means of a unique lens. I might say the following Fall Out Boy factor must be like, a movie rating, or we go to Jamaica and [make] a dancehall document. It’s gotta be one thing that forces us out of our consolation zone.
