I am genuinely into soul, R&B and hip hop - all these genres that get slapped under the 'soul' genre. That spoke to me more than it did to my punk-rock friends. And punk spoke more to me than it did to my soul friends. I basically didn't fit comfortably in either world.
Lyrically, I personally lean towards venting.
I moved to L.A. and really didn't dig living there until I found places like Koreatown and Little Tokyo. I really like hanging out in the grocery stores and restaurants.
I used to work in a record store. I'm kind of a record nerd.
Everything I've ever wanted to do, we've kinda done. Everything beyond this has been just the cherry on top. I've been so happy with the band, and we're so lucky and blessed to be able to do it.
Kid problems are when you're bummed because girls don't like you or something silly, but then you get older and people start dying and going broke and whatever. People get sick. When you get older these things just happen.
I look at albums like novels. If you write a really good scene or a really good moment, just because you wrote it, doesn't mean that it fits with the story that you're writing.
Steven Tyler isn't in Aerosmith anymore, but his gravestone will probably say something about Aerosmith.
I really like pop music, I don't think it's a four-letter word.
When you're a little kid, you just like music that makes you happy and is fun. As you get older, you reach college or your 20s and you decide that music should be challenging and all art should be smart. So you start to think it makes you like high art more to put down things you consider low art. I don't even think things are low art.
We wanted to wait until the music felt right. We didn't want to do it, just to do it. We didn't want to do it for money, I guess, is the thing that would have just bummed me out so much.
I don't like to Google myself. I try and avoid it whenever I can.
There's no first impressions anymore. You go to a job interview, and they'll probably Google you. It's a shame - people should play it a little closer to the chest as far as what information they release to the world. If I'm angry about something, I'm not going to take to my Twitter.
I'm very curious about David Bowie's new record [2016]. I'm very, very... I'm just incredibly curious, I want to see what's happening with that. I don't really know who else is putting out records, we've had our heads buried working on ours. I haven't really been paying much attention lately.
I think any good artist - and I'm not saying that I am one - takes notes and should first emulate their heroes and then try to move beyond them.
The music that I made in my band wasn't the expression of everything I was into. Bands are based on compromise.
I think you can totally be a totally normal kid from the suburbs of Chicago and go off and play shows. It's one of those things that when you go home, you're still the nerd you were when you left, and your parents still get to yell at you about cleaning up your room, and your girlfriend still drags you to the pet store.
I didn't want to give up my Illinois driver's license and was unaware that was a crime. It is, by the way, in the state of California. Lesson learned. I technically broke a law, so technically I deserve whatever I get.
One of the things that always was Fall Out Boy was trying new things and kind of pushing ourselves in different directions.
I definitely love kimchi. The biggest influence that eating so much Korean food growing up had on me was that I have no limit for spiciness. The hotter the better.
I've learned a lot about things because of the Internet. I'm happy with it, but it's a long road for me. I'm still definitely a little anti.
I love playing our older songs along with newer ones but If all I have is my old stuff, I quit. Creating is more rewarding.
I have always loved David Bowie. When he began to experiment with pop music in the 80's, I really thought there was a really fascinating reverence for it. A lot of people looked at pop music as just idiot music, or dance music, and with this he was giving it a lot of respect.
Gym Class is a band I am more directly involved with than any other band except for Fall Out Boy.
I would love to hang out with Elvis Costello, to see what he's up to because he seems so fascinating to me.
