Fans of Fall Out Boy and the music world got an insider scoop as Patrick Stump, the band’s lead vocalist, shared a tweet thread that unraveled the story behind the making of their album ‘Take This To Your Grave.’ In celebration of the 20th anniversary, Stump recalled the days of getting the album made that changed the trajectory of their lives.
As Stump revealed, the album ‘Take This To Your Grave’ was not a smooth sail from the start. The band’s initial formation was rough, with its members juggling between this ‘pop punk side project’ and other more serious commitments. Despite the bumps in the road, the band was determined to make it in the music business.
Patrick even reminisced about their raw beginnings, sharing a memory when a teacher told him, after listening to ‘Evening Out With Your Girlfriend,’ that his best instrument was probably the drums, not singing. Still, they pressed on and eventually ended up in Smart Studios with Sean O’Keefe, despite their incomplete lineup, and created the album celebrating its 20th birthday.
Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump’s tweet about ‘Take This To Your Grave’s 2o year anniversary read:
“About 21 or so years ago, as I was applying to colleges I would ultimately never go to, Fall Out Boy began as a little pop punk side project of what we assumed was Pete’s more serious band, Arma Angelus. We were sloppy, and we couldn’t solidify a lineup, but the three of us (Pete, Joe, and I) were having way too much fun to give on it.
We were really rough around the edges. As an example of how rough, one of my favorite teachers pulled me aside after hearing the recording that would become ‘Evening Out With Your Girlfriend’ and tactfully said, ‘What do you think your best instrument is, Patrick?Drums. It’s drums. Probably not singing, Patrick.‘”
He added:
“We went into Smart Studios with Sean O’Keefe. So there we were 3/5 of a band with a singer who’d only been singing a year, no drummer, and one out of two guitarists. But we had the opportunity to record with Sean and record at Butch Vig’s legendary studio.
8 or so months later, Fueled By Ramen would give us a contract to record the remaining songs. We’d sleep on floors, eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly, live in a van for the next three years, and somehow in spite of that, eventually play with Elton John and Taylor Swift and Jay Z and for President Obama and for the NFC championship and all these other widely unpredictable and unlikely things.
But none of that would ever come close to happening if Andy hadn’t made it to the session and Joe hadn’t dragged us kicking and screaming into being a band. Happy 20th birthday, ‘Take This To Your Grave,’ you weird brilliant lightning strike accident of a record.”
The band does come from humble beginnings, with hardships and numerous odd jobs they held to keep going. In spite of it all, they managed to create ‘Take This To Your Grave,’ an album that turned their dream into a lifelong journey that still is going with their latest album release, ‘So Much (For) Stardust.’
Happy 20th birthday Take This To Your Grave pic.twitter.com/uQdI0x4F8U
— Fall Out Boy (@falloutboy) May 8, 2023
