If ever an artist seemed comfortable with the life that goes with being in a popular band, it would be guitarist Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy.
| With Hawthorne Heights, The All-American Rejects, From First to Last: 6:30 p.m., Tacoma Dome; $28-$30, 206-628-0888. on |
His group was the subject of considerable hype before the release last spring of “From Under the Cork Tree,” the band’s major label debut. The CD has lived up to expectations, selling well over one million copies, while generating two modern rock hit singles, “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” and “Dance, Dance.”
Fall Out Boy has just begun its first tour as an arena headliner, and Stump seems to be taking the change from playing clubs and theaters in stride.
“It will be weird because it will be a change of scenery, but we’re doing the exact same thing,” he said of the move up to arenas. “We’re a fairly loose band. We don’t like to really plan stuff out.”
Fall Out Boy headlines a show Saturday at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma. Hawthorne Heights and The All-American Rejects are also on the bill.
Stump also seems perfectly at ease with the expectations that come with major popularity. “From Under the Cork Tree” has been out less than a year a period that has featured near-constant touring for the group. Yet singer and guitarist Stump and his songwriting partner in the band, guitarist Pete Wentz, already have a new CD pretty much written and theoretically could be in the studio recording by summer.
Other members of the band are guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley.
Stump seems mystified, even a little irritated, at how other bands can be daunted by the prospect of following up a hit record.
“It’s kind of like bands make it seem like it’s this chore to do the things that you wanted to do at some point anyway,” he said. “Very obviously you wanted to put out a record at some point and you wanted to write songs and you wanted to tour. And it become this ‘Oh man, we have to tour again. We have to do another record.’ I don’t know, you get these records from rock bands every five or six years if you’re lucky, and we’re just excited to do it. I write all the time.”
Preparations for the next CD have gone far enough, in fact, that the group has discussed having Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds produce at least some tracks for the CD.
That choice is bound to raise some eyebrows. Edmonds has made his reputation as a producer and as a successful songwriter and recording artist on the R&B scene. Fall Out Boy, by contrast, is a guitar pop band through and through.
Stump, though, sees Edmonds as a perfectly compatible producer for Fall Out Boy.
“I met with him a couple of times. He’s a real awesome guy,” said Stump, who noted he admires Edmonds’ abilities to produce singers and arrange and write songs. “He can do it and is aware of rock, and that’s the thing a lot of people underestimate him for. We still haven’t solidified anything. We’ve just talked to him. But if it ends up happening, I think a lot of people will be surprised at how rock he can be.”
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