#best band elton had ever

[turnstileskyline]

The Oral History of Take This To Your Grave – transcription under the cut

The pages that are just photographs, I haven't included. This post is already long enough.

Things that happened in 2003: Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California. Teen Vogue published its first issue. The world lost Johnny Cash. Johnny Depp appeared as Captain Jack Sparrow for the first time. A third Lord of the Rings movie arrived. Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, and Andy Hurley released Take This To Your Grave.

"About 21 years ago or so, 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," Patrick wrote in a May 2023 social media post.

"We were sloppy and couldn't solidify a lineup, but the three of us (Pete, Joe, and I) were having way too much fun to give up 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 eventually 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.'"

"We went into Smart Studios with the 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 at Butch Vig's legendary studio.

"Eight 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 despite that, eventually play with Elton John and Taylor Swift and Jay-Z and for President Obama and the NFC championship, and all these other wildly unpredictable 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."

Two decades after its release, Take This To Your Grave sits comfortable in the Top 10 of Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums, edging out landmark records from Buzzcocks, Generation X, Green Day, The Offspring, Blink-182, and The Ramones.

It even ranked higher than Through Being Cool by Saves The Day and Jersey's Best Dancers from Lifetime, two records the guys in Fall Out Boy particularly revere.

Fall Out Boy's proper full-length debut on Fueled by Ramen is a deceptively smart, sugar-sweet, raw, energetic masterpiece owing as much to the bass player's pop culture passions, the singers deep love of R&B and soul, and their shared history in the hardcore scene as any pioneering punk band. Fall Out Boy's creative and commercial heights were still ahead, but Take This To Your Grave kicked it off, a harbinger for the enduring songwriting partnership between Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz, the eclectic contributions from Joe Trohman, and the propulsive powerhouse that is Andy Hurley.

The recordings document a special moment when Fall Out Boy was big in "the scene" but a "secret" from the mainstream. The band (and some of their friends) first sat down for an Oral History (which doubled as an Oral History of their origin story) with their old friend Ryan J. Downey, then Senior Editor for Alternative Press, upon the occasion of the album's 10th anniversary. What follows is an updated, sharper, and expanded version of that story, newly re-edited in 2023. As Patrick eloquently said: "Happy 20th birthday, Take This To Your Grave, you weird brilliant lightning strike accident of a record."

– Ryan J. Downey.

A Weird, Brilliant Lightning Strike Of A Record. The Oral History Of Fall Out Boy's Take This To Your Grave.

As told by:

Patrick Stump

Pete Wentz

Joe Trohman

Andy Hurley

Bob McLynn - Crush Music

Sean O'Keefe - Producer/Mixer

John Janick - Fueled By Ramen

Tim McIlrath - Rise Against

Mani Mostofi - Racetraitor

Chris Gutierrez - Arma Angelus

Mark Rose - Spitalfield

Sean Muttaqi - Uprising Records

Rory Felton - The Militia Group

Richard Reines - Drive-Thru Records

"To Feel No More Bitterness Forever" - From Hardcore to Softcore, 1998-2000

PETE WENTZ: When I got into hardcore, it was about discovering the world beyond yourself. There was a culture of trying to be a better person. That was part of what was so alluring about hardcore and punk for me. But for whatever reason, it shifted. Maybe this was just in Chicago, but it became less about the thought process behind it and more about moshing and breakdowns. There was a close-mindedness that felt very reactive.

TIM MCILRITH: I saw First Born many years ago, which was the first time I saw Pete and met him around then. This was '90s hardcore - p.c., vegan, activist kind of hardcore music. Pete was in many of those bands doing that kind of thing, and I was at many of those shows. The hardcore scene in Chicago was pretty small, so everyone kind of knew each other. I knew Andy Hurley as the drummer in Racetraitor. I was in a band called Baxter, so Pete always called me 'Baxter.' I was just 'Baxter' to a lot of those guys.

JOE TROHMAN: I was a young hardcore kid coming to the shows. The same way we all started doing bands. You're a shitty kid who goes to punk and hardcore shows, and you see the other bands playing, and you want to make friends with those guys because you want to play in bands too. Pete and I had a bit of a connection because we're from the same area. I was the youngest dude at most shows. I would see Extinction, Racetraitor, Burn It Down, and all the bands of that era.

WENTZ: My driver's license was suspended then, so Joe drove me everywhere. We listened to either Metalcore like Shai Hulud or pop-punk stuff like Screeching Weasel.

MCILRITH: I was in a band with Pete called Arma Angelus. I was like their fifth or sixth bass player. I wasn't doing anything musically when they hit me up to play bass, so I said, 'Of course.' I liked everyone in the band. We were rehearsing, playing a few shows here and there, with an ever-revolving cast of characters. We recorded a record together at the time. I even sing on that record, believe it or not, they gave me a vocal part. Around that same time, I began meeting with [bassist] Joe [Principe] about starting what would become Rise Against.

CHRIS GUTIERREZ: Wentz played me the Arma Angelus demo in the car. He said he wanted it to be a mix of Despair, Buried Alive, and Damnation A.D. He told me Tim was leaving to start another band - which ended up being Rise Against - and asked if I wanted to play bass.

TROHMAN: Pete asked me to fill in for a tour when I was 15. Pete had to call my dad to convince him to let me go. He did it, too. It was my first tour, in a shitty cargo van, with those dudes. They hazed the shit out of me. It was the best and worst experience. Best overall, worst at the time.

GUTIERREZ: Enthusiasm was starting to wane in Arma Angelus. Our drummer was really into cock-rock. It wasn't an ironic thing. He loved L.A. Guns, Whitesnake, and Hanoi Rocks. It drove Pete nuts because the scene was about Bleeding Through and Throwdown, not cock rock. He was frustrated that things weren't panning out for the band, and of course, there's a ceiling for how big a metalcore band can get, anyway.

MANI MOSTOFI: Pete had honed this tough guy persona, which I think was a defense mechanism. He had some volatile moments in his childhood. Underneath, he was a pretty sensitive and vulnerable person. After playing in every mosh-metal band in the Midwest and listening exclusively to Earth Crisis, Damnation A.D., Chokehold, and stuff like that for a long time, I think Pete wanted to do something fresh. He had gotten into Lifetime, Saves The Day, The Get Up Kids, and bands like that. Pete was at that moment where the softer side of him needed an outlet, and didn't want to hide behind mosh-machismo. I remember him telling me he wanted to start a band that more girls could listen to.

MCILRATH: Pete was talking about starting a pop-punk band. Bands like New Found Glory and Saves The Day were successful then. The whole pop-punk sound was accessible. Pete was just one of those guys destined for bigger things than screaming for mediocre hardcore bands in Chicago. He's a smart guy, a brilliant guy. All the endeavors he had taken on, even in the microcosm of the 1990s Chicago hardcore world, he put a lot of though into it. You could tell that if he were given a bigger receptacle to put that thought into, it could become something huge. He was always talented: lyrics, imagery, that whole thing. He was ahead of the curve. We were in this hardcore band from Chicago together, but we were both talking about endeavors beyond it.

TROHMAN: The drummer for Arma Angelus was moving. Pete and I talked about doing something different. It was just Pete and me at first. There was this thuggishness happening in the Chicago hardcore scene at that time that wasn't part of our vibe. It was cool, but it wasn't our thing.

MCILRITH: One day at Arma Angelus practice, Pete asked me, 'Are you going to do that thing with Joe?' I was like, 'Yeah, I think so.' He was like, 'You should do that, dude. Don't let this band hold you back. I'll be doing something else, too. We should be doing other things.' He was really ambitious. It was so amazing to me, too, because Pete was a guy who, at the time, was kind of learning how to play the bass. A guy who didn't really play an instrument will do down in history as one of the more brilliant musicians in Chicago. He had everything else in his corner. He knew how to do everything else. He needed to get some guys behind him because he had the rest covered. He had topics, themes, lyrics, artwork, this whole image he wanted to do, and he was uncompromising. He also tapped into something the rest of us were just waking up to: the advent of the internet. I mean, the internet wasn't new, but higher-speed internet was.

MOSTOFI: Joe was excited to be invited by Pete to do a band. Joe was the youngest in our crew by far, and Pete was the 'coolest' in a Fonzie sort of way. Joe deferred to Pete's judgement for years. But eventually, his whole life centered around bossy big-brother Pete. I think doing The Damned Things was for Joe what Fall Out Boy was for Pete, in a way. It was a way to find his own space within the group of friends. Unsurprisingly, Joe now plays a much more significant role in Fall Out Boy's music.

WENTZ: I wanted to do something easy and escapist. When Joe and I started the band, it was the worst band of all time. I feel like people said, 'Oh, yeah, you started Fall Out Boy to get big.' Dude, there was way more of a chance of every other band getting big in my head than Fall Out Boy. It was a side thing that was fun to do. Racetraitor and Extinction were big bands to me. We wanted to do pop-punk because it would be fun and hilarious. It was definitely on a lark. We weren't good. If it was an attempt at selling out, it was a very poor attempt.

MCILRITH: It was such a thing for people to move from hardcore bands to bands called 'emo' or pop-punk, as those bands were starting to get some radio play and signed to major labels. Everyone thought it was easy, but it's not as easy as that. Most guys we knew who tried it never did anything more successful than their hardcore bands. But Pete did it! And if anyone was going to, it was going to be him. He never did anything half-assed. He ended up playing bass in so many bands in Chicago, even though he could barely play the bass then, because simply putting him in your band meant you'd have a better show. He was just more into it. He knew more about dynamics, about getting a crowd to react to what you're doing than most people. Putting Pete in your band put you up a few notches.

"I'm Writing You A Chorus And Here Is Your Verse" - When Pete met Patrick, early 2001.

MARK ROSE: Patrick Stump played drums in this grindcore band called Grinding Process. They had put out a live split cassette tape.

PATRICK STUMP: My ambition always outweighed my ability or actual place in the world. I was a drummer and played in many bands and tried to finagle my way into better ones but never really managed. I was usually outgunned by the same two guys: this guy Rocky Senesce; I'm not sure if he's playing anymore, but he was amazing. And this other guy, De'Mar Hamilton, who is now in Plain White T's. We'd always go out for the same bands. I felt like I was pretty good, but then those guys just mopped the floor with me. I hadn't been playing music for a few months. I think my girlfriend dumped me. I was feeling down. I wasn't really into pop-punk or emo. I think at the time I was into Rhino Records box sets.

TROHMAN: I was at the Borders in Eden's Plaza in Wilmette, Illinois. My friend Arthur was asking me about Neurosis. Patrick just walked up and started talking to me.

STUMP: I was a bit arrogant and cocky, like a lot of young musicians. Joe was talking kind of loudly and I overheard him say something about Neurosis, and I think I came in kind of snotty, kind of correcting whatever they had said.

TROHMAN: We just started talking about music, and my buddy Arthur got shoved out of the conversation. I told him about the band we were starting. Pete was this local hardcore celebrity, which intrigued Patrick.

STUMP: I had similar conversations with any number of kids my age. This conversation didn't feel crazy special. That's one of the things that's real about [Joe and I meeting], and that's honest about it, that's it's not some 'love at first sight' thing where we started talking about music and 'Holy smokes, we're going to have the best band ever!' I had been in a lot of bands up until then. Hardcore was a couple of years away from me at that point. I was over it, but Pete was in real bands; that was interesting. Now I'm curious and I want to do this thing, or at least see what happens. Joe said they needed a drummer, guitar player, or singer, and I kind of bluffed and said I could do any one of those things for a pop-punk band. I'd had a lot of conversations about starting bands where I meet up with somebody and maybe try to figure out some songs and then we'd never see each other again. There were a lot of false starts and I assumed this would be just another one of those, but it would be fun for this one to be with the guy from Racetraitor and Extinction.

TROHMAN: He gave me the link to his MP3.com page. There were a few songs of him just playing acoustic and singing. He was awesome.

WENTZ: Joe told me we were going to this kid's house who would probably be our drummer but could also sing. He sent me a link to Patrick singing some acoustic thing, but the quality was so horrible it was hard to tell what it was. Patrick answered the door in some wild outfit. He looked like an emo kid but from the Endpoint era - dorky and cool. We went into the basement, and he was like, trying to set up his drums.

TROHMAN: Patrick has said many times that he intended to try out on drums. I was pushing for him to sing after hearing his demos. 'Hey! Sing for us!' I asked him to take out his acoustic guitar. He played songs from Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. I think he sang most of the record to us. We were thrilled. We had never been around someone who could sing like that.

WENTZ: I don't think Patrick thought we were cool at all. We were hanging out, and he started playing acoustic guitar. He started singing, and I realized he could sing any Saves The Day song. I was like, 'Wow, that's the way those bands sound! We should just have you sing.' It had to be serendipity because Patrick drumming and Joe singing is not the same band. I never thought about singing. It wasn't the type of thing I could sing. I knew I'd be playing bass. I didn't think it'd even go beyond a few practices. It didn't seem like the thing I was setting myself up to do for the next several years of my life in any way. I was going to college. It was just a fun getaway from the rest of life kind of thing to do.

STUMP: Andy was the first person we asked to play drums. Joe even brought him up in the Borders conversation. But Andy was too busy. He wasn't really interested, either, because we kind of sucked.

WENTZ: I wanted Hurley in the band, I was closest to him at the time, I had known him for a long time. I identified with him in the way that we were the younger dudes in our larger group. I tried to get him, but he was doing another band at the time, or multiple bands. He was Mani's go-to guy to play drums, always. I had asked him a few times. That should clue people into the fact that we weren't that good.

ANDY HURLEY: I knew Joe as 'Number One Fan.' We called him that because he was a huge fan of a band I was in, Kill The Slavemaster. When Fall Out Boy started, I was going to college full-time. I was in the band Project Rocket and I think The Kill Pill then, too.

MOSTOFI: After they got together the first or second time, Pete played me a recording and said, 'This is going to be big.' They had no songs, no name, no drummer. They could barely play their instruments. But Pete knew, and we believed him because we could see his drive and Patrick's potential. Patrick was prodigy. I imagine the first moment Pete heard him sing was probably like when I heard 15-year-old Andy Hurley play drums.

GUTIERREZ: One day at practice, Pete told me he had met some dudes with whom he was starting a pop-punk band. He said it would sound like a cross between New Found Glory and Lifetime. Then the more Fall Out Boy started to practice, the less active Arma Angelus became.

TROHMAN: We got hooked up with a friend named Ben Rose, who became our original drummer. We would practice in his parents' basement. We eventually wrote some pretty bad songs. I don't even have the demo. I have copies of Arma's demo, but I don't have that one.

MOSTOFI: We all knew that hardcore kids write better pop-punk songs than actual pop-punk kids. It had been proven. An experienced hardcore musician could bring a sense of aggression and urgency to the pop hooks in a way that a band like Yellowcard could never achieve. Pete and I had many conversations about this. He jokingly called it 'Softcore,' but that's precisely what it was. It's what he was going for. Take This To Your Grave sounds like Hot Topic, but it feels like CBGBs.

MCILRITH: Many hardcore guys who transitioned into pop-punk bands dumbed it down musically and lyrically. Fall Out Boy found a way to do it that wasn't dumbed down. They wrote music and lyrics that, if you listened closely, you could tell came from people who grew up into hardcore. Pete seemed to approach the song titles and lyrics the same way he attacked hardcore songs. You could see his signature on all of that.

STUMP: We all had very different ideas of what it should sound like. I signed up for Kid Dynamite, Strike Anywhere, or Dillinger Four. Pete was very into Lifetime and Saves The Day. I think both he and Joe were into New Found Glory and Blink-182. I still hadn't heard a lot of stuff. I was arrogant; I was a rock snob. I was over most pop-punk. But then I had this renaissance week where I was like, 'Man, you know what? I really do like The Descendents.' Like, the specific week I met Joe, it just happened to be that I was listening to a lot of Descendents. So, there was a part of me that was tickled by that idea. 'You know what? I'll try a pop-punk band. Why not?'

MOSTOFI: To be clear, they were trying to become a big band. But they did it by elevating radio-friendly pop punk, not debasing themselves for popularity. They were closely studying Drive-Thru Records bands like The Starting Line, who I couldn't stand. But they knew what they were doing. They extracted a few good elements from those bands and combined them with their other influences. Patrick never needed to be auto-tuned. He can sing. Pete never had to contrive this emotional depth. He always had it.

STUMP: The ideas for band names were obnoxious. At some point, Pete and I were arguing over it, and I think our first drummer, Ben Rose, who was in the hardcore band Strength In Numbers, suggested Fall Out Boy. Pete and I were like, 'Well, we don't hate that one. We'll keep it on the list.' But we never voted on a name.

"Fake It Like You Matter" - The Early Shows, 2001

The name Fall Out Boy made their shortlist, but their friends ultimately chose it for them. The line-up at the band's first show was Patrick Stump (sans guitar), Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, drummer Ben Rose, and guitarist John Flamandan in his only FOB appearance.

STUMP: We didn't have a name at our two or three shows. We were basically booked as 'Pete's new band' as he was the most known of any of us. Pete and I were the artsy two.

TROHMAN: The rest of us had no idea what we were doing onstage.

STUMP: We took ourselves very seriously and completely different ideas on what was 'cool.' Pete at the time was somewhere between maybe Chuck Palahniuk and Charles Bukowski, and kind of New Romantic and Manchester stuff, so he had that in mind. The band names he suggested were long and verbose, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I was pretty much only into Tom Waits, so I wanted everything to be a reference to Tom Waits. The first show was at DePaul [University] in some cafeteria. The room looked a lot nicer than punk rock shows are supposed to look, like a room where you couldn't jump off the walls. We played with a band called Stillwell. I want to say one of the other bands played Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath in its entirety. We were out of place. We were tossing a few different names around. The singer for Stillwell was in earshot of the conversation so I was like 'Hey, settle this for us,' and told him whatever name it was, which I can't remember. 'What do you think of this name?' He goes, 'It sucks.' And the way he said it, there was this element to it, like, 'You guys probably suck, too, so whatever.' That was our first show. We played first and only had three songs. That was John's only show with us, and I never saw him again. I was just singing without a guitar, and I had never just sung before; that was horrifying. We blazed through those songs.

ROSE: Patrick had this shoulder-length hair. Watching these guys who were known for heavier stuff play pop-punk was strange. Pete was hopping around with the X's on his hands. Spitalfield was similar; we were kids playing another style of music who heard Texas Is The Reason and Get Up Kids and said, 'We have to start a band like this.'

MOSTOFI: The first show was a lot of fun. The musical side wasn't there, but Pete and Patrick's humor and charisma were front and center.

TROHMAN: I remember having a conversation with Mani about stage presence. He was telling me how important it was. Coalesce and The Dillinger Escape Plan would throw mic stands and cabinets. We loved that visual excitement and appeal. Years later, Patrick sang a Fall Out Boy song with Taylor Swift at Giants Stadium. It was such a great show to watch that I was reminded of how wise Mani was to give me that advice back then. Mani was like a mentor for me, honestly. He would always guide me through stuff.

MOSTOFI: Those guys grew up in Chicago, either playing in or seeing Extinction, Racetraitor, Los Crudos, and other bands that liked to talk and talk between songs. Fall Out Boy did that, and it was amazing. Patrick was awkward in a knowing and hilarious way. He'd say something odd, and then Pete would zing him. Or Pete would try to say something too cool, and Patrick would remind him they were nerds. These are very personal memories for me. Millions of people have seen the well-oiled machine, but so few of us saw those guys when they were so carefree.

TROHMAN: We had this goofy, bad first show, but all I can tell you was that I was determined to make this band work, no matter what.

STUMP: I kind of assumed that was the end of that. 'Whatever, on with our lives.' But Joe was very determined. He was going to pick us up for practice and we were going to keep playing shows. He was going to make the band happen whether the rest of us wanted to or not. That's how we got past show number one. John left the band because we only had three songs and he wasn't very interested. In the interim, I filled in on guitar. I didn't consider myself a guitar player. Our second show was a college show in Southern Illinois or something.

MCILRITH: That show was with my other band, The Killing Tree.

STUMP: We showed up late and played before The Killing Tree. There was no one there besides the bands and our friends. I think we had voted on some names. Pete said 'Hey, we're whatever!'; probably something very long. And someone yells out, 'Fuck that, no, you're Fall Out Boy!' Then when The Killing Tree was playing, Tim said, 'I want to thank Fall Out Boy.' Everyone looked up to Tim, so when he forced the name on us, it was fine. I was a diehard Simpsons fan, without question. I go pretty deep on The Simpsons. Joe and I would just rattle off Simpsons quotes. I used to do a lot of Simpsons impressions. Ben was very into Simpsons; he had a whole closet full of Simpsons action figures.

"If Only You Knew I Was Terrified" - The Early Recordings, 2002-2003

Wentz's relationships in the hardcore scene led to Fall Out Boy's first official releases. A convoluted and rarely properly explained chain of events resulted in the Fall Out Boy/Project Rocket split EP and Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend. Both were issued by California's Uprising Records, whose discography included Racetraitor's first album and the debut EP by Burn It Down. The band traveled to Wisconsin to record their first proper demo with engineer Jared Logan, drummer for Uprising's 7 Angels 7 Plagues.

TROHMAN: This isn't to be confused with the demo we did in Ben's basement, which was like a tape demo. This was our first real demo.

STUMP: Between booking the demo and recording it, we lost Ben Rose. He was the greatest guy, but it wasn't working out musically. Pete and Joe decided I should play drums on the demo. But Jared is a sick drummer, so he just did it.

TROHMAN: We had gotten this great singer but went through a series of drummers that didn't work out. I had to be the one who kicked Ben out. Not long after, our friend Brett Bunting played with us. I don't think he really wanted to do it, which was a bummer.

STUMP: I showed up to record that demo, feeling pulled into it. I liked hanging out with the guys, but I was a rock snob who didn't really want to be making that type of music. The first few songs were really rough. We were sloppy. We barely practiced. Pete was in Arma Angelus. Joe was the guy determined to make it happen. We couldn't keep a drummer or guitar player, and I could barely play guitar. I didn't really want to be in Fall Out Boy. We had these crappy songs that kind of happened; it didn't feel like anything. Joe did the guitars. I go in to do the vocals, I put on the headphones, and it starts playing and was kind of not bad! It was pretty good, actually. I was shocked. That was the first time I was like, 'Maybe I am supposed to be in this band.' I enjoyed hearing it back.

SEAN MUTTAQI: Wentz and I were pretty tight. He sent me some demos, and while I didn't know it would get as big as it did, I knew it was special. Wentz had a clear vision. Of all the guys from that scene, he was the most singularly focused on taking things to the next level. He was ahead of the game with promotion and the early days of social media.

STUMP: Arma Angelus had been on Eulogy. We talked to them a bit and spoke to Uprising because they had put out Racetraitor. At some point, the demo got to Sean, and he decided to make it half of a split with Andy's band, Project Rocket. We were pretty happy with that.

HURLEY: It was kind of competitive for me at the time. Project Rocket and Fall Out Boy were both doing pop-punk/pop-rock, I met Patrick through the band. I didn't really know him before Fall Out Boy.

TROHMAN: We got this drummer, Mike Pareskuwicz, who had been in a hardcore band from Central Illinois called Subsist.

STUMP: Uprising wanted us to make an album. We thought that was cool, but we only had those three songs that were on the split. We were still figuring ourselves out. One of the times we were recording with Jared in the studio, for the split or the album, this guy T.J. Kunasch was there. He was like, 'Hey, do you guys need a guitarist?' And he joined.

MUTTAQI: I borrowed some money to get them back in the studio. The songwriting was cool on that record, but it was all rushed. The urgency to get something out led to the recording being subpar. Their new drummer looked the part but couldn't really play. They had already tracked the drums before they realized it didn't sound so hot.

STUMP: The recording experience was not fun. We had two days to do an entire album. Mike was an awesome dude, but he lived crazy far away, in Kanakee, Illinois, so the drive to Milwaukee wasn't easy for him. He had to work or something the next day. So, he did everything in one take and left. He played alone, without a click, so it was a ness to figure out. We had to guess where the guitar was supposed to go. None of us liked the songs because we had slapped them together. We thought it all sucked. But I thought, 'Well, at least it'll be cool to have something out.' Then a lot of time went by. Smaller labels were at the mercy of money, and it was crazy expensive to put out a record back then.

MUTTAQI: Our record was being rushed out to help generate some interest, but that interest was building before we could even get the record out. We were beholden to finances while changing distribution partners and dealing with other delays. The buck stops with me, yes, but I didn't have that much control over the scheduling.

WENTZ: It's not what I would consider the first Fall Out Boy record. Hurley isn't on it and he's an integral part of the Fall Out Boy sound. But it is part of the history, the legacy. NASA didn't go right to the moon. They did test flights in the desert. Those are our test flights in the desert. It's not something I'm ashamed of or have weird feelings about.

STUMP: It's kind of embarrassing to me. Evening Out... isn't representative of the band we became. I liked Sean a lot, so it's nothing against him. If anybody wants to check out the band in that era, I think the split EP is a lot cooler. Plus, Andy is on that one.

TROHMAN: T.J. was the guy who showed up to the show without a guitar. He was the guy that could never get it right, but he was in the band for a while because we wanted a second guitar player. He's a nice dude but wasn't great to be in a band with back then. One day he drove unprompted from Racine to Chicago to pick up some gear. I don't know how he got into my parents' house, but the next thing I knew, he was in my bedroom. I didn't like being woken up and kicked him out of the band from bed.

STUMP: Our friend Brian Bennance asked us to do a split 7" with 504 Plan, which was a big band to us. Brian offered to pay for us to record with Sean O'Keefe, which was also a big deal. Mike couldn't get the time off work to record with us. We asked Andy to play on the songs. He agreed to do it, but only if he could make it in time after recording an entire EP with his band, The Kill Pill, in Chicago, on the same day.

MOSTOFI: Andy and I started The Kill Pill shortly after Racetraitor split up, not long after Fall Out Boy had formed. We played a bunch of local shows together. The minute Andy finished tracking drums for our EP in Chicago, he raced to the other studio in Madison.

STUMP: I'm getting ready to record the drums myself, getting levels and checking the drums, pretty much ready to go. And then in walks Andy Hurley. I was a little bummed because I really wanted to play drums that day. But then Andy goes through it all in like two takes and fucking nailed the entire thing. He just knocked it out of the park. All of us were like, 'That's crazy!'

WENTZ: When Andy came in, It just felt different. It was one of those 'a-ha' moments.

STUMP: Sean leaned over to us and said, 'You need to get this guy in the band.'

SEAN O'KEEFE: We had a blast. We pumped It out. We did it fast and to analog tape. People believe it was very Pro Tools oriented, but it really was done to 24-track tape. Patrick sang his ass off.

STUMP: The songs we had were 'Dead On Arrival,' 'Saturday,' and 'Homesick at Space Camp. There are quite a few songs that ended up on Take This To You Grave where I wrote most of the lyrics but Pete titled them.

WENTZ: 'Space Camp' was a reference to the 1986 movie, SpaceCamp, and the idea of space camp. Space camp wasn't something anyone in my area went to. Maybe they did, but it was never an option for me. It seems like the little kid version of meeting Jay-Z. The idea was also: what if you, like Joaquin Phoenix in the movie, took off to outer space and wanted to get home? 'I made it to space and now I'm just homesick and want to hang out with my friends.' In the greater sense, it's about having it all, but it's still not enough. There's a pop culture reference in 'Saturday' that a lot of people miss. 'Pete and I attack the lost Astoria' was a reference to The Goonies, which was filmed in Astoria, Oregon.

HURLEY: I remember hearing those recordings, especially 'Dead on Arrival,' and Patrick's voice and how well written those songs were, especially relative to anything else I had done - I had a feeling that this could do something.

WENTZ: It seemed like it would stall out if we didn't get a solid drummer in the band soon. That was the link that we couldn't nail down. Patrick was always a big musical presence. He thinks and writes rhythmi-cally, and we couldn't get a drummer to do what he wanted or speak his language. Hurley was the first one that could. It's like hearing two drummers talk together when they really get it. It sounds like a foreign language because it's not something I'm keyed into. Patrick needed someone on a similar musical plane. I wasn't there. Joe was younger and was probably headed there.

HURLEY: When Patrick was doing harmonies, it was like Queen. He's such a brilliant dude. I was always in bands that did a record and then broke up. I felt like this was a band that could tour a lot like the hardcore bands we loved, even if we had to have day jobs, too.

"(Four) Tired Boys And A Broken Down Van" - The Early Tours, 2002-2003

STUMP: We booked a tour with Spitalfield, another Chicago band, who had records out, so they were a big deal to us. We replaced T.J. with a guy named Brandon Hamm. He was never officially in the band. He quit when we were practicing 'Saturday.' He goes, 'I don't like that. I don't want to do this anymore.' Pete talked with guitarist Chris Envy from Showoff, who had just broken up. Chris said, 'Yeah, I'll play in your band.' He came to two practices, then quit like two days before the tour. It was only a two-week tour, but Mike couldn't get the time off work from Best Buy, or maybe it was Blockbuster. We had to lose Mike, which was the hardest member change for me. It was unpleasant.

TROHMAN: We had been trying to get Andy to join the band for a while. Even back at that first Borders conversation, we talked about him, but he was too busy at the time.

STUMP: I borrowed one of Joe's guitars and jumped in the fire. We were in this legendarily shitty used van Pete had gotten. It belonged to some flower shop, so it had this ominously worn-out flower decal outside and no windows [except in the front]. Crappy brakes, no A/C, missing the rearview mirror, no seats in the back, only the driver's seat. About 10 minutes into the tour, we hit something. A tire exploded and slingshot into the passenger side mirror, sending glass flying into the van. We pulled over into some weird animal petting zoo. I remember thinking, 'This is a bad omen for this tour.' Spitalfield was awesome, and we became tight with them. Drew Brown, who was later in Weekend Nachos, was out with them, too. But most of the shows were canceled.

WENTZ: We'd end up in a town, and our show was canceled, or we'd have three days off. 'Let's just get on whatever show we can. Whatever, you can pay us in pizza.'

STUMP: We played in a pizza place. We basically blocked the line of people trying to order pizza, maybe a foot away from the shitty tables. Nobody is trying to watch a band. They're just there to eat pizza. And that was perhaps the biggest show we played on that tour. One of the best moments on the Spitalfied tour was in Lincoln, Nebraska. The local opener wasn't even there - they were at the bar across the street and showed up later with two people. Fall Out Boy played for Spitalfield, and Spitalfield played for Fall Out Boy. Even the sound guy had left. It was basically an empty room. It was miserable.

HURLEY: Even though we played a ton of shows in front of just the other bands, it was awesome. I've known Pete forever and always loved being in bands with him. After that tour, it was pretty much agreed that I would be in the band. I wanted to be in the band.

WENTZ: We would play literally any show in those days for free. We played Chain Reaction in Orange County with a bunch of metalcore bands. I want to say Underoath was one of them. I remember a lot of black shirts and crossed arms at those kinds of shows. STUMP: One thing that gets lost in the annals of history is Fall Out Boy, the discarded hardcore band. We played so many hardcore shows! The audiences were cool, but they were just like, 'This is OK, but we'd really rather be moshing right now.' Which was better than many of the receptions we got from pop-punk kids.

MOSTOFI: Pete made sure there was little division between the band and the audience. In hardcore, kids are encouraged to grab the mic. Pete was very conscious about making the crowd feel like friends. I saw them in Austin, Texas, in front of maybe ten kids. But it was very clear all ten of those kids felt like Pete's best friends. And they were, in a way.

MCILRITH: People started to get into social networking. That kind of thing was all new to us, and they were way ahead. They networked with their fans before any of us.

MOSTOFI: Pete shared a lot about his life online and was intimate as hell. It was a new type of scene. Pete extended the band's community as far as fiber optics let him.

ROSE: Pete was extremely driven. Looking back, I wish I had that killer instinct. During that tour; we played a show in Colorado. On the day of the show, we went to Kinko's to make flyers to hand out to college kids. Pete put ‘members of Saves The Day and Screeching Weasel’ on the flyer. He was just like, 'This will get people in.'

WENTZ: We booked a lot of our early shows through hardcore connections, and to some extent, that carries through to what Fall Out Boy shows are like today. If you come to see us play live, we're basically Slayer compared to everyone else when we play these pop radio shows. Some of that carries back to what you must do to avoid being heckled at hardcore shows. You may not like our music, but you will leave here respecting us. Not everyone is going to love you. Not everyone is going to give a shit. But you need to earn a crowd's respect. That was an important way for us to learn that.

MOSTOFI: All those dudes, except Andy, lived in this great apartment with our friend Brett Bunting, who was almost their drummer at one point. The proximity helped them gel.

STUMP: There were a lot of renegade last-minute shows where we'd just call and get added. We somehow ended up on a show with Head Automatica that way.

MCILRITH: At some point early on, they opened for Rise Against in a church basement in Downers Grove. We were doing well then; headlining that place was a big deal. Then Pete's band was coming up right behind us, and you could tell there was a lot of chatter about Fall Out Boy. I remember getting to the show, and there were many people there, many of whom I had never seen in the scene before. A lot of unfamiliar faces. A lot of people that wouldn't have normally found their way to the seedy Fireside Bowl in Chicago. These were young kids, and I was 21 then, so when I say young, I mean really young. Clearly, Fall Out Boy had tapped into something the rest of us had not. People were super excited to see them play and freaked out; there was a lot of enthusiasm at that show. After they finished, their fans bailed. They were dedicated. They wanted to see Fall Out Boy. They didn't necessarily want to see Rise Against play. That was my first clue that, 'Whoa, what Pete told me that day at Arma Angelus rehearsal is coming true. He was right.' Whatever he was doing was working.

"My Insides Are Copper, And I'd Like To Make Them Gold" - The Record Labels Come Calling, 2002

STUMP: The split EP was going to be a three-way split with 504 Plan, August Premier, and us at one point. But then the record just never happened. Brian backed out of putting it out. We asked him if we could do something else with the three songs and he didn't really seem to care. So, we started shopping the three songs as a demo. Pete ended up framing the rejection letters we got from a lot of pop-punk labels. But some were interested.

HURLEY: We wanted to be on Drive-Thru Records so bad. That was the label.

RICHARD REINES: After we started talking to them, I found the demo they had sent us in the office. I played it for my sister. We decided everything together. She liked them but wasn't as crazy about them as I was. We arranged with Pete to see them practice. We had started a new label called Rushmore. Fall Out Boy wasn't the best live band. We weren't thrilled [by the showcase]. But the songs were great. We both had to love a band to sign them, so my sister said, 'If you love them so much, let's sign them to Rushmore, not Drive Thru.'

HURLEY: We did a showcase for Richard and Stephanie Reines. They were just kind of like, 'Yeah, we have this side label thing. We'd be interested in having you on that.' I remember them saying they passed on Saves The Day and wished they would have put out Through Being Cool. But then they [basically] passed on us by offering to put us on Rushmore. We realized we could settle for that, but we knew it wasn't the right thing.

RORY FELTON: Kevin Knight had a website, TheScout, which always featured great new bands. I believe he shared the demo with us. I flew out to Chicago. Joe and Patrick picked me up at the airport. I saw them play at a VFW hall, Patrick drank an entire bottle of hot sauce on a dare at dinner, and then we all went to see the movie The Ring. I slept on the couch in their apartment, the one featured on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. Chad [Pearson], my partner, also flew out to meet with the band.

STUMP: It was a weird time to be a band because it was feast or famine. At first, no one wanted us. Then as soon as one label said, 'Maybe we'll give 'em a shot,' suddenly there's a frenzy of phone calls from record labels. We were getting our shirts printed by Victory Records. One day, we went to pick up shirts, and someone came downstairs and said, 'Um, guys? [Owner] Tony [Brummel] wants to see you.' We were like, 'Did we forget to pay an invoice?' He made us an offer on the spot. We said, 'That's awesome, but we need to think about it.' It was one of those 'now or never' kinds of things. I think we had even left the van running. It was that kind of sudden; we were overwhelmed by it.

HURLEY: They told me Tony said something like, 'You can be with the Nike of the record industry or the Keds of the record industry.'

STUMP: We'd get random calls at the apartment. 'Hey, I'm a manager with so-and-so.' I talked to some boy band manager who said, 'We think you'll be a good fit.'

TROHMAN: The idea of a manager was a ‘big-time' thing. I answered a call one day, and this guy is like, 'I'm the manager for the Butthole Surfers, and I'd really like to work with you guys.' I just said, Yeah, I really like the Butthole Surfers, but I'll have to call you back.' And I do love that band. But I just knew that wasn't the right thing.

STUMP: Not all the archetypes you always read about are true. The label guys aren't all out to get you. Some are total douchebags. But then there are a lot who are sweet and genuine. It's the same thing with managers. I really liked the Militia Group. They told us it was poor form to talk to us without a manager. They recommended Bob McLynn.

FELTON: We knew the guys at Crush from working with Acceptance and The Beautiful Mistake. We thought they'd be great for Fall Out Boy, so we sent the music to their team.

STUMP: They said Crush was their favorite management company and gave us their number. Crush's biggest band at the time was American Hi-Fi. Jonathan Daniels, the guy who started the company, sent a manager to see us. The guy was like, "This band sucks!' But Jonathan liked us and thought someone should do something with us. Bob was his youngest rookie manager. He had never managed anyone, and we had never been managed.

BOB MCLYNN: Someone else from my office who isn't with us anymore had seen them, but I hadn't seen them yet. At the time, we'd tried to manage Brand New; they went elsewhere, and I was bummed. Then we got the Fall Out Boy demo, and I was like, Wow. This sounds even better. This guy can really sing, and these songs are great.' I remember going at it hard after that whole thing. Fall Out Boy was my consolation prize. I don't know if they were talking to other managers or not, but Pete and I clicked.

TROHMAN: In addition to being really creative, Pete is really business savvy. We all have a bullshit detector these days, but Pete already had one back then. We met Bob, and we felt like this dude wouldn't fuck us over.

STUMP: We were the misfit toy that nobody else wanted. Bob really believed in us when nobody else did and when nobody believed in him. What's funny is that all the other managers at Crush were gone within a year. It was just Bob and Jonathan, and now they're partners. Bob was the weird New York Hardcore guy who scared me at the time.

TROHMAN: We felt safe with him. He's a big, hulking dude.

MCLYNN: We tried to make a deal with The Militia Group, but they wouldn't back off on a few things in the agreement. I told them those were deal breakers, opening the door to everyone else. I knew this band needed a shot to do bigger and better things.

TROHMAN: He told us not to sign with the label that recommended him to us. We thought there was something very honest about that.

MCLYNN: They paid all their dues. Those guys worked harder than any band I'd ever seen, and I was all about it. I had been in bands before and had just gotten out. I was getting out of the van just as these guys got into one. They busted their asses.

STUMP: A few labels basically said the same thing: they wanted to hear more. They weren't convinced we could write another song as good as 'Dead On Arrival.' I took that as a challenge. We returned to Sean a few months after those initial three songs, this time at Gravity Studios in Chicago. We recorded ‘Grenade Jumper' and 'Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy' in a night or two. 'Where is Your Boy' was my, 'Fine, you don't think I can write a fucking song? Here's your hit song, jerks!' But I must have pushed Pete pretty hard [arguing about the songs]. One night, as he and I drove with Joe, Pete said, 'Guys, I don't think I want to do this band anymore.' We talked about it for the rest of the ride home. I didn't want to be in the band in the first place! I was like, 'No! That's not fair! Don't leave me with this band! Don't make me kind of like this band, and then leave it! That's bullshit!' Pete didn't stay at the apartment that night. I called him at his parent's house. I told him I wasn't going to do the band without him. He was like, 'Don't break up your band over it.' I said, 'It's not my band. It's a band that you, Joe, and I started.' He was like, 'OK, I'll stick around.' And he came back with a vengeance.

WENTZ: It was maybe the first time we realized we could do these songs titles that didn't have much do with the song from the outside. Grand Theft Auto was such a big pop culture franchise. If you said the phrase back then, everyone recognized it. The play on words was about someone stealing your time in the fall. It was the earliest experimentation with that so it was a little simplistic compared to the stuff we did later. At the time, we'd tell someone the song title, and they'd say, 'You mean "Auto"'?

JOHN JANICK: I saw their name on fliers and thought it was strange. But I remembered it. Then I saw them on a flyer with one of our bands from Chicago, August Premier. I called them and asked about this band whose name I had seen on a few flyers now. They told me they were good and I should check it out. I heard an early version of a song online and instantly fell in love with it. Drive-Thru, The Militia Group, and a few majors tried to sign them. I was the odd man out. But I knew I wanted them right away.

HURLEY: Fueled By Ramen was co-owned by Vinnie [Fiorello] from Less Than Jake. It wasn't necessarily a band I grew up loving, but I had so much respect for them and what they had done and were doing.

JANICK: I randomly cold-called them at the apartment and spoke to Patrick. He told me I had to talk to Pete. I spoke to Pete later that day. We ended up talking on the phone for an hour. It was crazy. I never flew out there. I just got to know them over the phone.

MCLYNN: There were majors [interested], but I didn't want the band on a major right away. I knew they wouldn't understand the band. Rob Stevenson from Island Records knew all the indie labels were trying to sign Fall Out Boy. We did this first-ever incubator sort of deal. I also didn't want to stay on an indie forever; I felt we needed to develop and have a chance to do bigger and better things, but these indies didn't necessarily have radio staff. It was sort of the perfect scenario. Island gave us money to go on Fueled By Ramen, with whom we did a one-off. No one else would offer a one-off on an indie.

STUMP: They were the smallest of the labels involved, with the least 'gloss.' I said, 'I don't know about this, Pete.' Pete was the one who thought it was the smartest move. He pointed out that we could be a big fish in a small pond. So, we rolled the dice.

HURLEY: It was a one-record deal with Fueled By Ramen. We didn't necessarily get signed to Island, but they had the 'right of first refusal' [for the album following Take This To Your Grave]. It was an awesome deal. It was kind of unheard of, maybe, but there was a bunch of money coming from Island that we didn't have to recoup for promo type of things.

JANICK: The company was so focused on making sure we broke Fall Out Boy; any other label probably wouldn't have had that dedication. Pete and I talked for at least an hour every day. Pete and I became so close, so much so that we started Decaydance. It was his thing, but we ended up signing Panic! At The Disco, Gym Class Heroes, Cobra Starship.

GUTIERREZ: Who could predict Pete would A&R all those bands? There's no Panic! At The Disco or Gym Class Heroes without Wentz. He made them into celebrities.

"Turn This Up And I'll Tune You Out" - The Making of Take This To You Grave, 2003

The versions of "Dead on Arrival," "Saturday," and "Homesick at Space Camp" from the first sessions with Andy on drums are what appear on the album. "Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy" and "Grenade Jumper" are the demo versions recorded later in Chicago. O'Keefe recorded the music for the rest of the songs at Smart Studios once again. They knocked out the remaining songs in just nine days. Sean and Patrick snuck into Gravity Studios in the middle of the night to track vocals in the dead of winter. Patrick sang those seven songs from two to five in the morning in those sessions.

STUMP: John Janick basically said, ‘I'll buy those five songs and we'll make them part of the album, and here's some money to go record seven more.'

MCLYNN: It was a true indie deal with Fueled by Ramen. I think we got between $15,000 and $18,000 all-in to make the album. The band slept on the studio floor some nights.

STUMP: From a recording standpoint, it was amazing. It was very pro, we had Sean, all this gear, the fun studio accoutrements were there. It was competitive with anything we did afterward. But meanwhile, we're still four broke idiots.

WENTZ: We fibbed to our parents about what we were doing. I was supposed to be in school. I didn't have access to money or a credit card. I don't think any of us did.

STUMP: I don't think we slept anywhere we could shower, which was horrifying. There was a girl that Andy's girlfriend at the time went to school with who let us sleep on her floor, but we'd be there for maybe four hours at a time. It was crazy.

HURLEY: Once, Patrick thought it would be a good idea to spray this citrus bathroom spray under his arms like deodorant. It just destroyed him because it's not made for that. But it was all an awesome adventure.

WENTZ: We were so green we didn't really know how studios worked. Every day there was soda for the band. We asked, 'Could you take that soda money and buy us peanut butter, jelly, and bread?' which they did. I hear that stuff in some ways when I listen to that album.

HURLEY: Sean pushed us. He was such a perfectionist, which was awesome. I felt like, ‘This is what a real professional band does.' It was our first real studio experience.

WENTZ: Seeing the Nirvana Nevermind plaque on the wall was mind-blowing. They showed us the mic that had been used on that album.

HURLEY: The mic that Kurt Cobain used, that was pretty awesome, crazy, legendary, and cool. But we didn't get to use it.

WENTZ: They said only Shirley Manson] from Garbage could use it.

O'KEEFE: Those dudes were all straight edge at the time. It came up in conversation that I had smoked weed once a few months before. That started this joke that I was this huge stoner, which obviously I wasn't. They'd call me 'Scoobie Snacks O'Keefe' and all these things. When they turned in the art for the record, they thanked me with like ten different stoner nicknames - 'Dimebag O'Keefe' and stuff like that. The record company made Pete take like seven of them out because they said it was excessively ridiculous.

WENTZ: Sean was very helpful. He worked within the budget and took us more seriously than anyone else other than Patrick. There were no cameras around. There was no documentation. There was nothing to indicate this would be some ‘legendary' session. There are 12 songs on the album because those were all the songs we had. There was no pomp or circumstance or anything to suggest it would be an 'important’ record.

STUMP: Pete and I were starting to carve out our niches. When Pete [re-committed himself to the band], it felt like he had a list of things in his head he wanted to do right. Lyrics were on that list. He wasn't playing around anymore. I wrote the majority of the lyrics up to that point - ‘Saturday,' 'Dead on Arrival,' ‘Where's Your Boy?,’ ‘Grenade Jumper,' and ‘Homesick at Space Camp.' I was an artsy-fartsy dude who didn't want to be in a pop-punk band, so I was going really easy on the lyrics. I wasn't taking them seriously. When I look back on it, I did write some alright stuff. But I wasn't trying. Pete doesn't fuck around like that, and he does not take that kindly. When we returned to the studio, he started picking apart every word, every syllable. He started giving me [notes]. I got so exasperated at one point I was like, ‘You just write the fucking lyrics, dude. Just give me your lyrics, and I'll write around them.' Kind of angrily. So, he did. We hadn't quite figured out how to do it, though. I would write a song, scrap my lyrics, and try to fit his into where mine had been. It was exhausting. It was a rough process. It made both of us unhappy.

MCLYNN: I came from the post-hardcore scene in New York and wasn't a big fan of the pop-punk stuff happening. What struck me with these guys was the phenomenal lyrics and Patrick's insane voice. Many guys in these kinds of bands can sing alright, but Patrick was like a real singer. This guy had soul. He'd take these great lyrics Pete wrote and combine it with that soul, and that's what made their unique sound. They both put their hearts on their sleeves when they wrote together.

STUMP: We had a massive fight over 'Chicago is So Two Years Ago.' I didn't even want to record that song. I was being precious with things that were mine. Part of me thought the band wouldn't work out, and I'd go to college and do some music alone. I had a skeletal version of 'Chicago...'. I was playing it to myself in the lobby of the studio. I didn't know anyone was listening. Sean was walking by and wanted to [introduce it to the others]. I kind of lost my song. I was very precious about it. Pete didn't like some of the lyrics, so we fought. We argued over each word, one at a time. 'Tell That Mick...' was also a pretty big fight. Pete ended up throwing out all my words on that one. That was the first song where he wrote the entire set of lyrics. My only change was light that smoke' instead of ‘cigarette' because I didn't have enough syllables to say 'cigarette.' Everything else was verbatim what he handed to me. I realized I must really want to be in this band at this point if I'm willing to put up with this much fuss. The sound was always more important to me - the rhythm of the words, alliteration, syncopation - was all very exciting. Pete didn't care about any of that. He was all meaning. He didn't care how good the words sounded if they weren't amazing when you read them. Man, did we fight about that. We fought for nine days straight while not sleeping and smelling like shit. It was one long argument, but I think some of the best moments resulted from that.

WENTZ: In 'Calm Before the Storm,' Patrick wrote the line, 'There's a song on the radio that says, 'Let's Get This Party Started' which is a direct reference to Pink's 2001 song 'Get the Party Started.' 'Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today' is a line from the movie Rushmore. I thought we'd catch a little more flack for that, but even when we played it in Ireland, there was none of that. It's embraced, more like a shoutout.

STUMP: Pete and I met up on a lot of the same pop culture. He was more into '80s stuff than I was. One of the first things we talked about were Wes Anderson movies.

WENTZ: Another thing driving that song title was the knowledge that our fanbase wouldn't necessarily be familiar with Wes Anderson. It could be something that not only inspired us but something fans could also go check out. People don't ask us about that song so much now, but in that era, we'd answer and tell them to go watch Rushmore. You gotta see this movie. This line is a hilarious part of it.' Hopefully some people did. I encountered Jason Schwartzman at a party once. We didn't get to talk about the movie, but he was the sweetest human, and I was just geeking out. He told me he was writing a film with Wes Anderson about a train trip in India. I wanted to know about the writing process. He was like, 'Well, he's in New York City, I'm in LA. It's crazy because I'm on the phone all the time and my ear gets really hot.' That's the anecdote I got, and I loved it.

O'KEEFE: They're totally different people who approach making music from entirely different angles. It's cool to see them work. Pete would want a certain lyric. Patrick was focused on the phrasing. Pete would say the words were stupid and hand Patrick a revision, and Patrick would say I can't sing those the way I need to sing this. They would go through ten revisions for one song. I thought I would lose my mind with both of them, but then they would find it, and it would be fantastic. When they work together, it lights up. It takes on a life of its own. It's not always happy. There's a lot of push and pull, and each is trying to get their thing. With Take This To Your Grave, we never let anything go until all three of us were happy. Those guys were made to do this together.

WENTZ: A lot of the little things weren't a big deal, but those were things that [felt like] major decisions. I didn't want 'Where Is Your Boy' on Take This To Your Grave.

JANICK: I freaked out. I called Bob and said, 'We must put this song on the album! It's one of the biggest songs.' He agreed. We called Pete and talked about it; he was cool about it and heard us out.

WENTZ: I thought many things were humongous, and they just weren't. They didn't matter one way or another.

"Our Lawyer Made Us Change The (Album Cover)" - That Photo On Take This To Your Grave, 2003

STUMP: The band was rooted in nostalgia from early on. The '80s references were very much Pete's aesthetic. He had an idea for the cover. It ended up being his girlfriend at the time, face down on the bed, exhausted, in his bedroom. That was his bedroom in our apartment. His room was full of toys, '80s cereals. If we ended up with the Abbey Road cover of pop-punk, that original one was Sgt. Pepper's. But we couldn't legally clear any of the stuff in the photo. Darth Vader, Count Chocula…

WENTZ: There's a bunch of junk in there: a Morrissey poster, I think a Cher poster, Edward Scissorhands. We submitted it to Fueled by Ramen, and they were like, 'We can't clear any of this stuff.’ The original album cover did eventually come out on the vinyl version.

STUMP: The photo that ended up being the cover was simply a promo photo for that album cycle. We had to scramble. I was pushing the Blue Note jazz records feel. That's why the CD looks a bit like vinyl and why our names are listed on the front. I wanted a live photo on the cover. Pete liked the Blue Note idea but didn't like the live photo idea. I also made the fateful decision to have my name listed as 'Stump' rather than Stumph.

WENTZ: What we used was initially supposed to be the back cover. I remember someone in the band being pissed about it forever. Not everyone was into having our names on the cover. It was a strange thing to do at the time. But had the original cover been used, it wouldn't have been as iconic as what we ended up with. It wouldn't have been a conversation piece. That stupid futon in our house was busted in the middle. We're sitting close to each other because the futon was broken. The exposed brick wall was because it was the worst apartment ever. It makes me wonder: How many of these are accidental moments? At the time, there was nothing iconic about it. If we had a bigger budget, we probably would have ended up with a goofier cover that no one would have cared about.

STUMP: One of the things I liked about the cover was that it went along with something Pete had always said. I'm sure people will find this ironic, but Pete had always wanted to create a culture with the band where it was about all four guys and not just one guy. He had the foresight to even think about things like that. I didn't think anyone would give a fuck about our band! At the time, it was The Pete Wentz Band to most people. With that album cover, he was trying to reject that and [demonstrate] that all four of us mattered. A lot of people still don't get that, but whatever. I liked that element of the cover. It felt like a team. It felt like Voltron. It wasn't what I like to call 'the flying V photo' where the singer is squarely in the center, the most important, and everyone else is nearest the camera in order of 'importance.' The drummer would be in the very back. Maybe the DJ guy who scratches records was behind the drummer.

"You Need Him. I Could Be Him. Where Is Your Boy Tonight?" - The Dynamics of Punk Pop's Fab 4, 2003

Patrick seemed like something of the anti-frontman, never hogging the spotlight and often shrinking underneath his baseball hat. Wentz was more talkative, more out front on stage and in interviews, in a way that felt unprecedented for a bass player who wasn't also singing. In some ways, Fall Out Boy operated as a two-headed dictatorship. Wentz and Stump are in the car's front seat while Joe and Andy ride in the back.

STUMP: There is a lot of truth to that. Somebody must be in the front seat, no question. But the analogy doesn't really work for us; were more like a Swiss Army knife. You've got all these different attachments, but they are all part of the same thing. When you need one specific tool, the rest go back into the handle. That was how the band functioned and still does in many ways. Pete didn't want anyone to get screwed. Some things we've done might not have been the best business decision but were the right human decision. That was very much Pete's thing. I was 19 and very reactionary. If someone pissed me off, I'd be like, 'Screw them forever!' But Pete was very tactful. He was the business guy. Joe was active on the internet. He wouldn't stop believing in this band. He was the promotions guy. Andy was an honest instrumentalist: ‘I'm a drummer, and I'm going to be the best fucking drummer I can be.' He is very disciplined. None of us were that way aside from him. I was the dictator in the studio. I didn't know what producing was at the time or how it worked, but in retrospect, I've produced a lot of records because I'm an asshole in the studio. I'm a nice guy, but I'm not the nicest guy in the studio. It's a lot easier to know what you don't want. We carved out those roles early. We were very dependent on each other.

MCLYNN: I remember sitting in Japan with those guys. None of them were drinking then, but I was drinking plenty. It was happening there, their first time over, and all the shows were sold out. I remember looking at Pete and Patrick and telling Pete, ‘You're the luckiest guy in the world because you found this guy.' Patrick laughed. Then I turned to Patrick and said the same thing to him. Because really, they're yin and yang. They fit together so perfectly. The fact that Patrick found this guy with this vision, Pete had everything for the band laid out in his mind. Patrick, how he can sing, and what he did with Pete's lyrics - no one else could have done that. We tried it, even with the Black Cards project in 2010. We'd find these vocalists. Pete would write lyrics, and they'd try to form them into songs, but they just couldn't do it the way Patrick could. Pete has notebooks full of stuff that Patrick turns into songs. Not only can he sing like that, but how he turns those into songs is an art unto itself. It's really the combination of those two guys that make Fall Out Boy what it is. They're fortunate they found each other.

"I Could Walk This Fine Line Between Elation And Success. We All Know Which Way I'm Going To Strike The Stake Between My Chest" - Fall Out Boy Hits the Mainstream, 2003

Released on May 6, 2003, Take This To Your Grave massively connected with fans. (Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend arrived in stores less than two months earlier.) While Take This To Your Grave didn't crack the Billboard 200 upon its release, it eventually spent 30 weeks on the charts. From Under the Cork Tree debuted in the Top 10 just two years later, largely on Grave's momentum. 2007's Infinity on High bowed at #1.

WENTZ: I remember noticing it was getting insane when we would do in-stores. We'd still play anywhere. That was our deal. We liked being able to sell our stuff in the stores, too. It would turn into a riot. We played a Hollister at the mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. A lot of these stores were pretty corporate with a lot of rules, but Hollister would let us rip. Our merch guy was wearing board shorts, took this surfboard off the wall, and started crowd-surfing with it during the last song. I remember thinking things had gotten insane right at that moment.

HURLEY: When we toured with Less Than Jake, there were these samplers with two of their songs and two of ours. Giving those out was a surreal moment. To have real promotion for a record... It wasn't just an ad in a 'zine or something. It was awesome.

MCLYNN: They toured with The Reunion Show, Knockout, and Punch-line. One of their first big tours as an opening act was with MEST. There would be sold-out shows with 1,000 kids, and they would be singing along to Fall Out Boy much louder than to MEST. It was like, 'What's going on here?' It was the same deal with Less Than Jake. It really started catching fire months into the album being out. You just knew something was happening. As a headliner, they went from 500-capacity clubs to 1500 - 2000 capacity venues.

WENTZ: We always wanted to play The Metro in Chicago. It got awkward when they started asking us to play after this band or that band. There were bands we grew up with that were now smaller than us. Headlining The Metro was just wild. My parents came.

MCLYNN: There was a week on Warped Tour, and there was some beel because these guys were up-and-comers, and some of the bands that were a little more established weren't too happy. They were getting a little shit on Warped Tour that week, sort of their initiation. They were on this little, shitty stage. So many kids showed up to watch them in Detroit, and the kids rushed the stage, and it collapsed. The PA failed after like three songs. They finished with an acapella, 'Where is Your Boy,’ and the whole crowd sang along.

WENTZ: That's when every show started ending in a riot because it couldn't be contained. We ended up getting banned from a lot of venues because the entire crowd would end up onstage. It was pure energy. We'd be billed on tour as the opening band, and the promoter would tell us we had to close the show or else everyone would leave after we played. We were a good band to have that happen to because there wasn't any ego. We were just like, "Oh, that's weird.' It was just bizarre. When my parents saw it was this wid thing, they said, 'OK, yeah, maybe take a year off from college.' That year is still going on.

MCLYNN: That Warped Tour was when the band's first big magazine cover, by far, hit the stands. I give a lot of credit to Norman Wonderly and Mike Shea at Alternative Press. They saw what was happening with Fall Out Boy and were like, 'We know it's early with you guys, but we want to give you a cover.' It was the biggest thing to happen to any of us. It really helped kick it to another level. It helped stoke the fires that were burning. This is back when bands like Green Day, Blink-182, and No Doubt still sold millions of records left and right. It was a leap of faith for AP to step out on Fall Out Boy the way they did.

STUMP: That was our first big cover. It was crazy. My parents flipped out. That wasn't a small zine. It was a magazine my mom could find in a bookstore and tell her friends. It was a shocking time. It's still like that. Once the surrealism starts, it never ends. I was onstage with Taylor Swift ten years later. That statement just sounds insane. It's fucking crazy. But when I was onstage, I just fell into it. I wasn't thinking about how crazy it was until afterward. It was the same thing with the AP cover. We were so busy that it was just another one of those things we were doing that day. When we left, I was like, 'Holy fuck! We're on the cover of a magazine! One that I read! I have a subscription to that!'

HURLEY: Getting an 'In The Studio' blurb was a big deal. I remember seeing bands 'in the studio' and thinking, Man, I would love to be in that and have people care that we're in the studio.' There were more minor things, but that was our first big cover.

STUMP: One thing I remember about the photo shoot is I was asked to take off my hat. I was forced to take it off and had been wearing that hat for a while. I never wanted to be the lead singer. I always hoped to be a second guitarist with a backup singer role. I lobbied to find someone else to be the proper singer. But here I was, being the lead singer, and I fucking hated it. When I was a drummer, I was always behind something. Somehow the hat thing started. Pete gave me a hat instead of throwing it away - I think it's the one I'm wearing on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. It became like my Linus blanket. I had my hat, and I could permanently hide. You couldn't see my eyes or much of me, and I was very comfortable that way. The AP cover shoot was the first time someone asked me to remove it. My mom has a poster of that cover in her house, and every time I see it, I see the fear on my face - just trying to maintain composure while filled with terror and insecurity. ‘Why is there a camera on me?'

JANICK: We pounded the pavement every week for two years. We believed early on that something great was going to happen. As we moved to 100,000 and 200,000 albums, there were points where everything was tipping. When they were on the cover of Alternative Press. When they did Warped for five days, and the stage collapsed. We went into Christmas with the band selling 2000 to 3000 a week and in the listening stations at Hot Topic. Fueled By Ramen had never had anything like that before.

MOSTOFI: Pete and I used to joke that if he weren't straight edge, he would have likely been sent to prison or worse at some point before Fall Out Boy. Pete has a predisposition to addictive behavior and chemical dependency. This is something we talked about a lot back in the day. Straight Edge helped him avoid some of the traps of adolescence.

WENTZ: I was straight edge at the time. I don't think our band would have been so successful without that. The bands we were touring with were partying like crazy. Straight Edge helped solidify the relationship between the four of us. We were playing for the love of music, not for partying or girls or stuff like that. We liked being little maniacs running around. Hurley and I were kind of the younger brothers of the hardcore kids we were in bands with. This was an attempt to get out of that shadow a little bit. Nobody is going to compare this band to Racetraitor. You know when you don't want to do exactly what your dad or older brother does? There was a little bit of that.

"Take This To Your Grave, And I'll Take It To Mine" - The Legacy of Take This To Your Grave, 2003-2023

Take This To Your Grave represents a time before the paparazzi followed Wentz to Starbucks, before marriages and children, Disney soundtracks, and all the highs and lows of an illustrious career. The album altered the course for everyone involved with its creation. Crush Music added Miley Cyrus, Green Day, and Weezer to their roster. Fueled By Ramen signed Twenty One Pilots, Paramore, A Day To Remember, and All Time Low.

STUMP: I'm so proud of Take This To Your Grave. I had no idea how much people were going to react to it. I didn't know Fall Out Boy was that good of a band. We were this shitty post-hardcore band that decided to do a bunch of pop-punk before I went to college, and Pete went back to opening for Hatebreed. That was the plan. Somehow this record happened. To explain to people now how beautiful and accidental that record was is difficult. It seems like it had to have been planned, but no, we were that shitty band that opened for 25 Ta Life.

HURLEY: We wanted to make a record as perfect as Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. A front-to-back perfect collection of songs. That was our obsession with Take This To Your Grave. We were just trying to make a record that could be compared in any way to that record. There's just something special about when the four of us came together.

WENTZ: It blows my mind when I hear people talking about Take This To Your Grave or see people including it on lists because it was just this tiny personal thing. It was very barebones. That was all we had, and we gave everything we had to it. Maybe that's how these big iconic bands feel about those records, too. Perhaps that's how James Hetfield feels when we talk about Kill 'Em All. That album was probably the last moment many people had of having us as their band that their little brother didn't know about. I have those feelings about certain bands, too. 'This band was mine. That was the last time I could talk about them at school without anyone knowing who the fuck I was talking about.' That was the case with Take This To Your Grave.

TROHMAN: Before Save Rock N' Roll, there was a rumor that we would come back with one new song and then do a Take This To Your Grave tenth-anniversary tour. But we weren't going to do what people thought we would do. We weren't going to [wear out] our old material by just returning from the hiatus with a Take This To Your Grave tour.

WENTZ: We've been asked why we haven't done a Take This To Your Grave tour. In some ways, it's more respectful not to do that. It would feel like we were taking advantage of where that record sits, what it means to people and us.

HURLEY: When Metallica released Death Magnetic, I loved the record, but I feel like Load and Reload were better in a way, because you knew that's what they wanted to do.

TROHMAN: Some people want us to make Grave again, but I'm not 17. It would be hard to do something like that without it being contrived. Were proud of those songs. We know that’s where we came from. We know the album is an important part of our history.

STUMP: There's always going to be a Take This To Your Grave purist fan who wants that forever: But no matter what we do, we cannot give you 2003. It'll never happen again. I know the feeling, because I've lived it with my favorite bands, too. But there's a whole other chunk of our fans who have grown with us and followed this journey we're on. We were this happy accident that somehow came together. It’s tempting to plagarize yourself. But it’s way more satisfying and exciting to surprise yourself.

MCILRITH: Fall Out Boy is an important band for so many reasons. I know people don't expect the singer of Rise Against to say that, but they really are. If nothing else, they created so much dialog and conversation within not just a scene but an international scene. They were smart. They got accused of being this kiddie pop punk band, but they did smart things with their success. I say that, especially as a guy who grew up playing in the same Chicago hardcore bands that would go on and confront be-ing a part of mainstream music. Mainstream music and the mainstream world are machines that can chew your band up if you don't have your head on straight when you get into it. It's a fast-moving river, and you need to know what direction you're going in before you get into it. If you don't and you hesitate, it'll take you for a ride. Knowing those guys, they went into it with a really good idea. That's something that the hardcore instilled in all of us. Knowing where you stand on those things, we cut our teeth on the hardcore scene, and it made us ready for anything that the world could throw at us, including the giant music industry.

[falloutboy]

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 up 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.” 

We went into Smart Studios with the 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 3 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 wildly 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 that absolutely changed my life. 

———

p.s. just dropped some TTTYG anniversary merch in our webstore to celebrate. also working on something special for a vinyl reissue��but you’ll have to wait a sec on that one 🤐

[tellmethisisnottumblisnextfuckup]

Hello I’m a Larry but I feel like they broke up a couple of years ago. I’ll also say I’m more of a Harrie and his music makes me believe he’s been in other relationships. But I’m also willing to be convinced otherwise!! The hopeless romantic in me wants to believe in the strength of their love so I guess my question is what evidence have you gathered that makes you believe they’re still together even now? I know this might be a lot to ask. Thanks in advance !!!

I’m this close to grabbing a digital pen and correct Larry to Larrie. (Did you know it’s one of the signs of having trolls in the dungeon)

Anyway. I do want to answer.

Life. Dear anon. It’s life that taught me everything. Do tell me when you time their break up - because I’ve been here since more than “a couple of years ago” - i know it’s super easy to throw this sentence - but you’re telling this to someone who has been here lol - and I wasn’t in my diapers on the playground when these 2 fell in love. So when do you time their break up? Because you know they’ve lived half their lives in the spotlight, in this industry and time and time again -let’s just say day-by-day week-by-week only proved the immense respect, and love they feel for each other. We’ve had these naysayers like you in the years, so this is nothing new but you know what? None of you are ever able to point out a period which proves that these 2 have broken up.

This is not a movie or high school. They have fought tooth and nail for their love, for their freedom, they “hid” it when they had to, but even then- jeez it gives me chills to remember all those moments- even then an eye movement, a caring look, a hidden touch, the other’s reaction- it just gave it away. And not to mention how fucking obvious they were when they didn’t hide it and just let it all out.

Life. Because I happen to be in a loving and supportive relationship since 2007. Because love isn’t a break up - getting together- break up- getting together spiral. Love is about trust, and respect, and growing together, being better together, finding your best friend in the other, it’s about fighting for what you two have together. That’s what they did when they were babies - fighting w modest, sony, whatever you want to add here. They don’t need to fight though because as soon as the cameras stop rolling they’re an out-couple to the surprise of no-one in this industry.

Life because we have 5 people in the same band and always these 2 seem to be so goddamn unlucky to share clothes ON A CONSTANT (to be PC), who finish each other’s sentences, who when even making eye contact making the other 3 look aside to their handlers with a pale face, always these 2 who in the band disappeared at the same time, who even AFTER 1D were still disappearing from the globe at the same time and reappearing at the same time, who had to have 235 stunts running at the same time to make them straight otherwise if you strip these stunts down all you have is two singers w constant denial of their sexuality. (Remember what Sir Elton John said..), it’s only these 2 whose teams work still to this day to make you and others believe H and L aren’t even in the same continent because god save them from cutting all their record incomes.

Life. Because WHY. You cannot explain why this happened in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 (you’re damn right I’ll type all the years out), 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and keeps happening in 2022 spring- summer.

Life. Because you learn what is THE LOOK. What it means that “when you know you know”. Because you learn that 16 year olds don’t just utter things out like always and moving in together and home. Because it IS possible to be and still be with your first love.

Life. Because relationships do not have an expiration date, because it can happen, because it does happen. Because those looks and touches were the very thing that drew me here in the first place and you cannot fake this shit.

Life. Because you can be w your SO together for years and they’d still say they’re not willing to have ONE innocent couple tattoo.

Life. Because celebrities lie. Money talks. Paps are paid. This industry is homophobic. Media shows what is paid for. What you see - they want you to see that.

Life. Because you learn to look at what you’re not shown, what you’re not told.

Life. Because in the 242 million pregnancies people have a year, they DO show at 8 months. 🙃

And finally: Because they’ve come so far from Princess Park and that lyric fits no one and he’s a habit that he CAN’T BREAK and he’s happy to shout this out every night to his fans anon.

Life. Because the strength of these words, all their goddamn lyrics goes deep in your heart and you know it’s not just some cheap 1000 words Y/N on goddamn wattpad.

Have a nice Saturday anon! 💚💙

[king-magppi]

PLEASE tell us more about the camper parents/guardians, they have so much personality already but I'm curious as to your thoughts on them!!!

OK SO. Here's a little info on some of the pairs! I based some of their backstories and "parenting" on how their children behave in Psychonauts 1 and on what little insight into the campers' home-lives we are given by their Campster pages if any at all (there's a web archive link to it on the Ps wiki when you look for "Campster" if you ever wanna check them out! Lots of interesting stuff on there! I've also tried to add it here!). They don't all have names yet, but soon enough they will!

⚠️ALSO! Before we start: a quick content warning for mentions of child abuse, alcoholism, and neglect. Not all of these kids live happy lives.⚠️

The Canolas: Don Canola and his wife homeschool Maloof and get him private tutoring in the subjects he needs help in. They're actually one of the more stable families of the bunch despite being a crime family.

Ms. Foote: Her and her Ex-husband share custody of Clem. Their relationship is extremely rocky and the only reason he even gets to see his son is because of the intense fear she has of him. She finds it hard to have a relationship with her son because of his unwillingness to show interest in anything at home. She tries her best to indulge in anything Clem seems to enjoy, but she feels like she barely knows him.

The Phages: Ms Phage is a widow and now single mother to Milka Phage. Her husband was an alcoholic that stormed off after an argument over his addiction one day and just never came home. The police found his body with several stab wounds under a bridge somewhere days later. After this death, Ms Phage went into a severe depression. During this time, she would become irritable when she saw her daughter and told her to "dissappear" because she couldn't stand to look at her (she looks a lot like her dad). Milka became so good at disappearing on command that sometimes her mom just straight up forgot she was there. During these times, Milka would help herself to whatever was in the fridge and hang around for however long she'd like. Well, at least her cat could see her.

Ms. Snagrash: The single mother to Crystal (never married). She hasn't gotten the memo that she can't go out drinking and partying all day anymore if she's a mom. Because of this mindset, she sees Crystal as a burden and make sure she knows that. She's never had Crystal in a stable environment and is always with some new guy she more than likely wants to leech money from.

The Bulgakovs: Mr. and Mrs. Bulgakov are Mikhail's parents! They live in Kazan, Russia, but sent little Misha over just so he can make some friends over in The States! Mr Bulgakov looks stern and serious, but enjoys a good bear fight. Mrs Bulgakov wishes the boys would get some different, more productive interests like carpentry or archery or something...

The Tripes: Mr and Mrs Tripe love to tell Vernon stories! They encourage him to make his own and think he'll make a great author one day (with A LOT of practice, of course). Sometimes, they'll tell Vernon a story, and he'll try to tell the same one to kids at his school but with HIM as the main character. They have an old little dog named "Lady" that Vernon likes to take on walks.

Ms. Fir: She is the single mother of Elton who works at a brothel by the seaside (this is also where she met his father). While she isn't with her son 24/7, she still makes an effort to provide what she can for him in their situation. Elton spends most of his time down by the docks talking to the marine life in the sea.

The Hedgemice: Mr and Mrs Hedgemouse are the parents to Quentin Hedgemouse! They are probably one of the most loving and supportive pairs in this bunch! Mr Hedgemouse used to be in a band himself in highschool (it wasn't very good or well known, but he had fun!) and thinks it's great Quentin's got one too! He often jokes about trying to join "The Levitators". Nowadays he works as a simple book shop clerk. Mrs Hedgemouse is a stay at home mom who enjoys baking and making treats! She dreams of one day opening her own bakery!

The Loves: Mr and Mrs Love are still new to learning about their psychic powers. They only recently got into it after finding out that Phoebe shared this gift and was having problems controlling it.

(P.S. I'm really glad a lot of you seem to enjoy them so far!!!!! Like I'm seeing a bunch of positive feedback for them and it makes me 😭😭😭/pos)

[lonely-soul-02]

Liam: an amazing songwriter and the person Noel would most like to go out for a drink with (2002)

Nevertheless, Gallagher is looking forward to touring in the spring and even to working with Liam, who was such an "arsehole" two years ago. Liam has written three songs on the new CD.  What are they like? "You'll be amazed, and anybody that hears them will gasp. They're that good.Two of them are astonishing and one's, like, really good."  He once said anything Liam wrote sounded like Elton John.

"No, in five years' time without a doubt he'll be the best songwriter in the country."  Better than him? "Oh yeah, easily."  I am astonished by the warmth with which he says this. "Liam's a very good friend of mine and I haven't been able to say that before. That's probably the first time I've ever said that.  When Oasis was at its height we lived a hundred yards from each other.  We had a year off yet I never saw him for a year. Looking back on it now, it's really bizarre. But, see, now I'd rather go out for a drink with him than any other person I know because only he really knows what it was like being in that band." 

Source: The Evening Standard, 2002

[lovesongbracket]

Reminder: Vote based on the song, not the artist or specific recording! The tracks referenced are the original artist, aside from a few rare cases where a cover is the most widely known.

Lyrics, videos, info, and notable covers under the cut. (Spotify playlist available in pinned post)

Your Song

Written By: Elton John & Bernie Taupin

Artist: Elton John

Released: 1970

The song was composed and performed by Elton John but the lyrics were written by Bernie Taupin. It originally appeared in his self titled and second album. Elton John hadn’t come out of the closet yet, but Bernie Taupin knew, which is part of the reason why the lyrics avoid using gendered pronouns. In a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone, Elton John said: “What can I say, it’s a perfect song. It gets better every time I sing it. I remember writing it at my parents' apartment in North London, and Bernie giving me the lyrics, sitting down at the piano and looking at it and going, ‘Oh, my God, this is such a great lyric, I can’t fuck this one up.’ It came out in about 20 minutes, and when I was done, I called him in and we both knew. I was 22, and he was 19, and it gave us so much confidence. ‘Empty Sky’ was lovely, but it was very naive. We went on to do more esoteric stuff like ‘Take Me to the Pilot,’ of course, but musically, this was a big step forward. And the older I get, the more I sing these lyrics, and the more they resonate with me.”

[Verse 1] It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside I'm not one of those who can easily hide I don't have much money, but boy if I did I'd buy a big house where we both could live [Verse 2] If I was a sculptor, heh, but then again, no Or a man who makes potions in a traveling show I know it's not much, but it's the best I can do My gift is my song and this one's for you [Chorus] And you can tell everybody this is your song It may be quite simple but now that it's done I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind That I put down in words How wonderful life is while you're in the world [Verse 3] I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss Well, a few of the verses, well, they've got me quite cross But the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song It's for people like you that keep it turned on [Verse 4] So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do You see, I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen [Chorus] And you can tell everybody this is your song It may be quite simple but now that it's done I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind That I put down in words How wonderful life is while you're in the world [Outro] I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind That I put down in words How wonderful life is while you're in the world

She Will Be Loved

Written By: Adam Levine & James Valentine

Artist: Maroon 5

Released: 2002

“She Will Be Loved” is the third single released from the band’s 2002 debut album, Songs About Jane. The song peaked at number five in the US (becoming their second top ten there), number four in the United Kingdom and number one in Australia (for five consecutive weeks). As of June 2014, the song has sold more than three million copies in the United States.

[Verse 1] Beauty queen of only eighteen She had some trouble with herself He was always there to help her She always belonged to someone else [Pre-Chorus] I drove for miles and miles And wound up at your door I've had you so many times But somehow, I want more [Chorus] I don't mind spending every day Out on your corner in the pouring rain Look for the girl with the broken smile Ask her if she wants to stay a while [Post-Chorus] And she will be loved And she will be loved [Verse 2] Tap on my window, knock on my door, I Want to make you feel beautiful I know I tend to get so insecure Doesn't matter anymore [Pre-Chorus] It's not always rainbows and butterflies It's compromise that moves us along, yeah My heart is full and my door's always open You come any time you want, yeah [Chorus] I don't mind spending every day Out on your corner in the pouring rain Look for the girl with the broken smile Ask her if she wants to stay a while [Post-Chorus] And she will be loved And she will be loved And she will be loved And she will be loved [Bridge] I know where you hide Alone in your car Know all of the things that make you who you are I know that goodbye means nothing at all Comes back and makes me catch her Every time she falls, yeah [Pre-Chorus] Tap on my window, knock on my door, I Want to make you feel beautiful [Chorus] I don't mind spending every day Out on your corner in the pouring rain, oh Look for the girl with the broken smile Ask her if she wants to stay a while [Post-Chorus] And she will be loved And she will be loved And she will be loved (Please don't try so hard to say goodbye) And she will be loved [Outro] Please don't try so hard to say goodbye (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh) Please don't try so hard to say goodbye (I don't mind spending every day, ooh) (Out on your corner in the pouring rain) Please don't try so hard to say goodbye

[panickinganakin]

stepping stones to hell ch. 8 (ronance fic)

hello!! you can find all previous chapters here!

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Painter’s Point was beautiful; even in the dark. Especially in the dark, Robin had thought. 

The grass was so soft it almost felt fake. There were small yellow flowers throughout the field and taller yellow flowers that surrounded the pond. An old wooden dock sat to the right of the pond, “It’s rather fragile. I think it’s best if we lay out here,” Nancy said. She flung out the blanket and it glided down, landing perfectly on the ground. 

The two sat down next to one another and Robin stared at the water. The moon was reflected in it but it looked huge and beautiful. “Everything is so clear out here,” Robin said as they both fell on their backs. 

She stared up at the night sky; it was as if she could see every single star. Nancy held her hand up, pointing straight down below them, “Capricornus.” 

Robin looked over and it took her a moment to locate the constellation. “I can’t believe how well you can see everything. What’s that one?” Robin gestured towards Nancy’s side above them.

“Ohhhh, that one is Cygnus. It’s one of my favorites. There’s Pegasus,” she turned on her side, motioning to the left of them. 

Robin found which one Nancy meant and let out a soft breath, “Stars are so fucking beautiful.” 

Nancy stayed propped on her side now looking at Robin, “I love coming out here to look at the sky. There’s something so calming about it. I usually come alone.” 

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” Robin said, trying to hold eye contact with her. 

Nancy sat up and opened one bottle of the wine then took a long drink. She passed it to Robin who turned it up. She wasn’t someone who drank a lot so she was surprised to find that it was sweet. “I don’t think I’ve ever had good wine before.” 

“It’s one of the cheapest they sell at Walmart. The expensive shit is always so dry and bitter.” 

“Noted,” Robin took another drink of the wine before passing it back to Nancy. 

They sat in silence before Nancy looked out over the water. “Can we play a game?” 

Robin raised an eyebrow, “Like?” 

“Just ask each other questions. I feel like there’s so much of our lives we’ve missed out on. I just want to know you.” Nancy said quietly. 

Robin knew that even the night sky couldn’t hide how red her cheeks had become. She nodded slowly, “Alright. I’ll go first, what’s your favorite color?” 

Nancy smiled before she tilted her head in thought, “Peach. But not like a bright peach, like a soft peach. An almost pastel shade of peach.” Robin closed her eyes for a moment and could picture Nancy wearing a cardigan the color she had described. It paired well with her eyes and dark hair. It made sense that it was her favorite. Nancy interrupted Robin’s imagination with a question of her own, “Who’s your favorite band? Or artist?” 

Robin bit her lip, “That is a tough one. Elton John is one of my favorites and has always been an icon to me. I also love Prince and The Cranberries. Ugh, too hard to choose. I love them all for different reasons.” 

“If you had to pick one?” 

“Queen,” Robin finally decided. Nancy nodded her head in approval while Robin thought of her next question. “What’s your favorite movie?” 

“Okay, so I think it’s because we literally just watched it but I really love Jurassic Park. However, it is fresh on my mind. Had you asked me hours ago before I had seen it,” she trailed off in thought. “Hmmm, I think I would have said Back to the Future two.” 

Robin covered her heart with her hand, “Nancy Wheeler. Those are the words I’ve waited to hear my whole life.” 

“I figured you would say something like that.” She smiled and Robin raised an eyebrow, “What? Don’t think I forgot Halloween of eighty-five. I had come to rent a movie and you were dressed like Marty McFly. You made Steve wear that ridiculous Doc costume.” 

Robin fell into a fit of laughter. She hadn’t forgotten about that year but she did forget that Nancy had stopped by Family Video. “Oh man, Steve hated that wig. He was so pissed. I don’t think we’ve topped those costumes since.” She sighed before looking back at Nancy, “You would love my bedroom. I have a replica of Marty’s guitar from prom night.” 

“You don’t!” 

“I do! I really do. In fact, when I get back from tour, you are more than welcome to come see it.”

“Oh? So I can see something as precious as that but I’m not allowed to see your t-shirt collection?” 

“Why do you think I said when I get back? I can’t show you tonight because then you’ll rob me and leave town before I’m even back.” 

Nancy laughed as she grabbed the second bottle of wine. “I’m glad you feel you know me so well. Okay, my turn. Oh, got it. What’s your favorite book?” 

“Oh that’s an easy one,” Robin started. “The Princess Bride.” 

“Really? The Princess Bride?” 

“What? Why do you look so shocked?” Robin stared at Nancy who looked to be in disbelief. 

“I just would have expected like Stephen King or something?” 

Robin did a double take of her, “Stephen what? No! No way. I cannot stomach horror. I’m a scaredy cat. Like the biggest ever.”

Nancy let out a joyous laugh, “What?!” 

“What? What’s so surprising about that? Have you met me? I’m terrified of almost everything!” 

“Okay, that’s fair. But, you don’t act like it.” 

The two of them shared more wine before they laid back on the blanket again, staring at the stars again. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve only ever seen you in one scary situation. You know, when we were younger. You always seemed so brave. When I look back I always picture you throwing that bottle while we literally stared death in the face.” 

Robin chuckled softly, “Funny. I thought you pictured me as Marty McFly.” 

Nancy laughed and brushed Robin’s arm, “Shut up.” 

They laughed together, falling into a silence once again. Robin squeezed her eyes shut tight, trying to not think about what had happened that night in Hawkins all those years ago. “When did you know you liked girls?” Nancy asked. 

“I thought it was my turn,” Robin offered, then sucked in a breath. “I don’t really remember, that’s how young I was. I know when I had my first real big crush was high school. I just never had an interest in men. I could never say that though, no matter how early I knew.” 

The two turned their heads to look at each other. Robin could see something on Nancy’s face she had never realized before. She was wearing the same scared look that Robin herself had masked all those years ago. It was the same look she had given herself in the mirror when she questioned why she was different. “Nancy, I-'' she paused. She didn’t want to assume. What if it was just the alcohol? Robin didn’t feel drunk, she barely felt buzzed. However, maybe it had hit her harder than she realized. She didn’t want to make Nancy uncomfortable. They had just become friends, she didn’t want to scare her away. 

“I’m really glad we’ve reconnected, Robin.” Her voice was barely a whisper. 

So maybe the alcohol was clouding her judgment. Or maybe it was the hope deep down that someone like Nancy Wheeler could ever like someone like her. She felt crazy. Even though they had known each other for a long time they had only just rekindled a friendship. Robin didn’t like Nancy. She couldn’t, it was too soon. She was just feeling the wine, that was all. 

Robin gave a half smile before turning to look back at the constellations above her, “Me too, Nance. Me too.” 

[charissenicolette]

The Only Boy Band That Passed My Musical Standards

Here’s the thing: I am a bit of a music snob, although my music taste has grown diverse over the years (and I also have some guilty pleasures too). If you ask me what my favorite genres are, I’d say pop and rock. During my toddler years, I liked Britney Spears’ music (I am a millennial born in 1995). During my elementary years Disney was at its peak so of course the music I consumed at that time came from them. I liked some songs from Hilary Duff, Raven, and Lindsay Lohan. The singers I loved, though, were Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato. The second millennial wave of Disney girls brought something new to the table. I enjoyed their pop rock music.

I guess it’s no surprise that pop rock was the first genre I truly appreciated during my childhood. My father has a wide range of musical tastes, but classic rock by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones stood out to me. It was in high school that I started listening to alternative rock. In college (around 2014 or 2015), I started listening to the Beatles. I appreciated Elton John after watching Rocketman. I am now starting to appreciate more retro pop rock artists too.

To reiterate, my perception of One Direction was kiddie music. Therefore, I didn’t bother to care for their music back in the day. I remember when Best Song Ever came out, and I was slightly irked because of its redundant chorus; I also thought, “What is the best song ever that they keep on singing about?” Basically, I didn’t listen to their music during their active years since I was listening to other artists. To be honest, I also had the perception that boy band music was cheesy.

It was this year that I appreciated You and I. I thought the song sounded pretty. Each member’s solo verses fit the song perfectly, and all their parts flowed smoothly. It’s a radio-friendly yet mature ballad. After a month of becoming a Harry fan, I gave in and went through 1D’s discography.

At first, I thought that their singles were catchy and their non-singles okay. I thought, "Maybe if I were Gen Z (like my niece, who was a fan during their first two albums), I would’ve appreciated them during their heyday." I eventually came to appreciate them. I was surprised to hear their fresh take on pop rock. Some songs on Midnight Memories sounded like they could’ve been done by an alternative rock or pop punk band (Diana reminded me of the pop punk band All Time Low). The album is a mixed bag for me. Some songs I enjoyed, and some were average. I’d consider it their transitory album (this has been said to have a mature, “rockier” sound). I was surprised to hear the rock influences on some songs, especially on Little Black Dress.

It’s fan consensus that FOUR is the group’s best album. To be honest, FOUR and Made in the AM are a tie for me. I’d consider the two albums solid pop rock albums. The last two albums have a bit of a retro influence. 1D experiments with several pop genres with these two. They have a more polished pop rock sound this time around.

One Direction is the boy band that stood out to me. They made an excellent transition from bubblegum pop to solid pop rock. It’s no surprise that boy bands don’t have much input when it comes to songwriting and creative/musical direction (during their prime), so I was impressed to find out that 1D was able to defy usual boyband protocol while managing to remain relevant. I am not really a person who is into dancing, and I guess that is the reason that I appreciate pop groups that only sing. Of course, I share the popular opinion among fans who say that all the boys of 1D are talented and have relevant contributions. I remember telling my elder brother, “The Backstreet Boys are singers. One Direction are artists.”

[redsoapbox]

The Third and Final Volume of Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas is Released Tomorrow

So, I've reached the end of a rather wonderful journey. When I had the idea of curating a Christmas album, almost two years ago now, I didn't really have a specific project in mind at all. However, the best decision I took early on was to ban cover versions (I adore all the great Christmas classics, from Bing and Nat to Noddy and Elton) but anybody can round up a crappy cover version of an all-time classic. I wanted to see if there were undiscovered Christmas songs floating around in the ether that had simply never had a fair hearing, songs good enough to be future classics, at least within the genre of Indie music.

That meant a lot of back breaking and heart breaking (there are still moments when I full-on curse a record company for not consenting to the release of a track!) work along the way. I must have listened to every Indie Xmas compilation ever recorded - day after day spent trawling through Bandcamp, Discogs, label catalogues, you tube, Xmas podcasts and blogs.

On the subject of the latter, it was chancing upon the phenomenal Christmas Underground – We are the War on Christmas (Music) that allowed the fanciful vision I had of compiling the 'Best Indie Xmas Album Ever' to crystalize into a realistic proposition. I was discovering song after song there that I was falling in love with. These songs were from bands (mostly unknown to me) from all parts of America and all over Europe (Scandinavian Indie Xmas songs is a really flourishing sub-genre), it was incredibly exciting and lead to dozens of punch the air moments as, one by one, bands agreed to participate.

In addition to discovering new songs, I also set about tracking down bands that I admired and who I knew had an Xmas song in their back catalogue. I was lucky enough to get hold of songs from Dodgy, Girl Ray, White Town, bis, Pete Astor and many more. It was around this point that my idea for a 20-30 song album began to trend to the mammoth 108-track compilation that was released last Christmas. There were just so many unbelievable songs that I had to try and track down.

An example of the obsessive hole that I was digging for myself came when I read a write up on a Minneapolis band called GLOSS (who became Poshlost) before splitting up. Christmas Underground called their song 'Gifts Received' 'the best Joy Division/New Order Christmas song of all time! From the baseline, to the vocals, to the lyrics, GLOSS have hit the nail on the head when it comes to writing a dark, pulsing, disturbing Christmas song'. You can imagine, as someone whose favourite band is JoyDivision/New Order how much I wanted that song, because, unbelievably and against all the odds, it did sound like a Joy Division Christmas song. The band had long since split up though (the song dated back to 2015) and my bandcamp messages met with silence. In the end, I tracked down a band member on Facebook and received an immediate and favourable reply. That wild goose chase was repeated dozens of times through 2022.

Volumes I and II succeeded in raising £5,800 for Crisis, nearly treble the target I had set myself, having been played on BBC6 Music, BBC Scotland, Radio X and BBC Radio Wales (each volume was named Album Of The Week by Huw Stephens). In addition, the songs were played on "indie" stations around Europe and America (thanks to Sandra and Alice for constantly playing the albums on their shows from Berlin) but also in Canada, Hong Kong and Australia. Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas was also shorlisted as a (Welsh Origin) AOTY by Wales Arts Review.

The main aim accomplished then, but what of my personal ambition to compile an album that would be played at Christmas for years to come? Here is the verdict: A REMINDER OF THE INCREDIBLE REVIEWS FOR HAVE... (tumblr.com). I don't think there is anything else to touch it. For example, Rough Trade, as good an Indie label as there ever was, released a Christmas comp this year (some five or six tracks are on HYAMIC too), but it comes nowhere near the quality of any of the three volumes that constitute Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas.

Speaking of Volume III (you may have read the tracklist already at Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas Vol III: Line Up Reveal - Wales Arts Review), it matches the standard of its predecessors, featuring The Wedding Present, The Futureheads, Helen Love, Euros Childs and Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard.

The project closes then, having rounded up 143 distinctive, thrilling Christmas earworms into a three volume compilation that raises money for a cause which demands urgent support. This is the 21st Century and no one should be homeless in the United Kingdom. Thank you all for your generosity in helping others and for giving these forgotten songs a home too.

A track from Volume III "Xmas Trip" by Run On

You can purchase all three volumes here Music | Various Artists (bandcamp.com) If you do that on December 1st (after 8.ooam UK time) bandcamp waives its commission, raising more money for Crisis at Christmas.

[thestarsarecool]

11, 15, 22, 42!

Hi, thank you Fiona!!!

11. What was your favorite concert you've ever been to?

Sorry to be predictable, but it really was the McCartney concert I went to last June. It was legitimately life-changing and completely altered the way I think about music. It was totally surreal, as though I was high but it was the best high ever and it lasted for days. I kept yelling out "WHAT?!" and "NO WAY!" and laughing hysterically the whole time?? Bruce Springsteen showed up and I think Paul planned that but then later Bon Jovi showed up just to sing happy birthday and left?? Ridiculous. I have this photo of my parents' faces when Bruce Springsteen walked out and it's really funny. But it was nuts. Like, Paul started playing Blackbird and my mom looked at ME and said "Maya I'm so proud of you" and started crying because she remembered how I learned to play that song on the piano (it was like this little jazzy version) when I was eight and she also started ranting to me about how scared she was about how the world would treat my little sibling because they're nonbinary? She also got a little drunk before the concert and said to me and my siblings "when he plays Maybe I'm Amazed, me and your dad are gonna make out the entire time" which was really funny (that was the song they danced to for their first dance at their wedding). The concert was legitimately altering the chemicals in our brains.

And it really was this crazy feeling for me. Because though I've always loved the Beatles and I had been involved in Beatles fan-spaces before, I really wasn't in the midst of an intense Beatles phase like I am now when I saw the concert. And it swept me off my feet, how much I loved it. I didn't go thinking it was going to be that incredible. I had seen artists I loved in concert before who had even more of a personal nostalgia element and not felt this way. I grew up on Billy Joel's music more so than any other musician, and when I went with my family to see him in concert, it was excellent and I had a great time, but I didn't have this urge to go see him again and again and again. It didn't fundamentally alter the way I viewed his music or music in general. But, man, Paul McCartney... It was just this feeling of loving this music so much. Loving it so so so much. And I didn't even know how much I loved it until I was there, loving it. And it was my parents dancing to Maybe I'm Amazed at their wedding and it was little me playing Blackbird on the piano and it was teasing my siblings to the tune of Honey Pie ("you are driving me crazy, I love you but I'm lazy, so won't you please go home") and it was watching the Yellow Submarine movie three times a week when I was seven and it was singing In My Life at my eight grade graduation and it was getting home from school and opening my falling-apart Lennon/McCartney songbook to pluck out Here, There, and Everywhere on the piano and it was and it was singing Band on the Run in the hallways of my middle school and it was getting Lovely Rita stuck in my head so bad that I couldn't stop singing it. And THEN it was looking up and seeing tens of thousands of people loving it just as much as me. And then I understood Beatlemania and I understand why this made people go insane and I understood everything and it was everything. Then I annoyed everyone for months by never shutting up about seeing Paul in concert.

Other concerts I've really loved were Billy Joel, Dead & Co., Elton John, and various jam bands at various music festivals that I went to as a kid with my entire extended family.

15. What song has the most meaning to you?

Oh man, this is a tough one for me. Cause I generally attach to and am moved the most by songs because of their beauty and sound but not because I connect especially to their meaning, if that makes sense? Let's see. I remember being really moved by Billy Joel's Vienna, though that's a basic choice I suppose. In recent memory, the songs I have been most struck by are The Velvet Underground's I'll Be Your Mirror and Leonard Cohen's Who By Fire. Those mean a lot to me.

22. What songs do you listen to when you're sad?

I know a lot of people tend to listen to sad music when they're sad, but I generally just listen to music that I find either very beautiful or very calming. So this tends to be the Beach Boys (only certain songs though) and the Grateful Dead. Listening to the Grateful Dead makes me think of home. So basically I listen to all of Pet Sounds on repeat and Eyes of the World, Ripple, Uncle John's Band, etc. Oh!! I also find listening to Sgt. Pepper all the way through very reinvigorating. That guitar at the beginning wakes me up. Also Peter, Paul, and Mary! Weave Me the Sunshine makes me so happy. And Rainy Days and Mondays by the Carpenters.

42. For the next week, you can only listen to five songs. What would you choose to listen to?

42!!!!!!!!!!! The meaning of life, the universe, and everything. I set all my alarms to 42 or 18 for good luck.

Ok, on to the actual question, my first instinct here was to list songs that are little medleys in and of themselves, but now I'm thinking I kind of want to get some variety? I don't know, here are my picks:

You Never Give Me Your Money by the Beatles

America by Simon & Garfunkel

Beechwood Park by the Zombies

Son of Sam by Elliott Smith

Uncle John's Band by the Grateful Dead

I can't imagine getting sick of those songs, so I think they'd last me the week.

[polikszena]

For a little bit of sunshine - Chapter 6

Fandom: Top Gun: Maverick

Rating: Teen and up audiences

Summary: He is one of the country’s best naval aviators, she is a dance instructor and a writer. He has been called back to Top Gun for an extremely dangerous mission, she is battling her insecurities. They meet at a bar. This is their story.

Relationships: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x Female OC

Chapter 1 I Chapter 2 I Chapter 3 I Chapter 4 I Chapter 5

Chapter summary: Rooster playing Elton John's Tiny Dancer in The Hard Deck strikes a chord with Hangman, and when Maggie joins them sometime later, he decides to do a little experiment.

Songs: Tiny Dancer by Elton John, A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action by Toby Keith

Word count: 2276

A/N: This chapter was written because I wanted one that focuses a little more on Rooster and because I wanted him to sing Tiny Dancer. Also, there is a Dagger Squad moment as well, related to the song. The Toby Keith song is the one Hangman puts on when he dances with Maggie. Oh, and never write scenes that set in the men’s room, they are a nightmare.

Chapter 6 - Hold me closer, tiny dancer

The young aviators were the first guests in The Hard Deck that afternoon. They came in chatting, laughing together. They were a team now, Penny Benjamin stated in mind as she watched them approaching the bar to order. While she was preparing their drinks, she kept throwing glances at the door, hoping that Maverick would join them, but he didn’t come.

The sound of the piano snapped her out her thoughts and she saw Rooster sitting there, playing the first chords of Elton John’s Tiny Dancer. The others gathered around him; even Hangman put down the pool cue and started listening as Rooster began to sing:

“Blue-jean baby,

LA lady

A seamstress for the band…”

The song was playing on repeat in his head in the last couple of days. Back then he had learned to play it because her mother liked it a lot; it always made her smile. Nowadays, however, it made him think about someone else as well. She wasn’t that tiny and nor was she a dancer per se, but lately, whenever this song came up in his mind, he saw Maggie smile, laugh, or run a hand through her blonde waves during a turn on the dance floor. Rooster knew he should have been thinking about the upcoming mission and he did, more than enough, but besides that, Maggie “Letdown” Miller slowly began to take up more and more space in his mind.

They kept seeing each other and texting which soon made him realize she didn’t think he was a clumsy idiot for messing up that dip. Although he hadn’t tried to do that step again ever since, just stuck to the ones he knew. Sometimes he asked Fanboy to teach him a few things (as the Weapon Systems Officer was a skilled salsero, too) in order to impress her. He loved to see her face lighting up when he led her something new. Well, new for him as she, being an instructor, probably knew most of the steps already.

“Now she's in me

Always with me

Tiny dancer in my hand…”

When he got to the chorus, the people around him joined in as well. Started by Payback, Rooster could see his teammates putting their arms around each other’s shoulders while singing. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight. By that time, Hangman and Coyote had left the pool table behind and were standing in the small crowd around the piano. Noticing them, Fanboy waved at the two aviators to join, too. However, Hangman only had a space next to Phoenix. He shot her a questioning glance, and she just rolled her eyes and lifted her arm, indicating that he could join.

“Oh, how it feels so real

Lying here, with no one near

Only you, and you can hear me

When I say softly, slowly…”

The voices of the singing pilots filled the bar, warming Penny’s heart as she watched them belting out the chorus together. If only Maverick could be here to see this, she thought to herself, although she didn’t mind that he couldn’t join the singing as it wasn’t his forte. When the young aviator finished the song, the few guests that were already there started to clap and cheer for him. It was always a spectacle when someone played the bar’s piano and Bradley “Rooster” Bardshaw never disappointed the audience.

“Hold me closer, tiny dancer

Count the headlights on the highway

Lay me down in sheets of linen

You had a busy day today.”

When Maggie Rose Miller arrived at the Hard Deck about an hour later, the aviators were still there, gathering around the pool table, chatting, laughing. Hangman was the first one to spot the blonde girl with a gym bag hanging from her shoulder, and he headed to greet her, when Rooster appeared out of nowhere and escorted her to the bar. The aviator raised a brow, surprised by his rival’s sudden appearance then he headed to the bar as well.

“Hello, Maggie,” he greeted the dance instructor with a wide grin. “Nice to see you again.”

“Hi, Jake,” she smiled up at him. “How are you?”

“Good. Very good,” he said. “Has anyone got you a drink yet?”

“Oh yes,” Maggie nodded. “I did.”

“You gotta love an independent woman,” he grinned at her then gently patted her back as he walked by her to order.

Later on, while playing pool, he found himself throwing glances at Rooster and Maggie. He  could not notice how he changed after seeing Maggie around. A few minutes before he wasn’t particularly happy as he had lost a table soccer match with Payback against Harvard and Yale, but now, chatting with her, he was grinning like an idiot. A thought began forming in Hagman’s head.

"Your turn," he said, handing the pool cue to Harvard then he stepped away from the table.

"I don't like that look," Coyote said.

"That's the only one I've got," Hangman shrugged his shoulders with a smile.

"Where are you going?"

"Doing an experiment," he replied, heading to the jukebox.

He put on a country song then walked to Maggie with his trademark grin.

"May I?" He asked, holding out his hand for her. "Let's see what you remember."

"I've just arrived and I'm already challenged," she stated. "But I accept it," she said, then after taking a sip of her beer, she let Hangman lead her to the dance floor where some people were already dancing to the upbeat music, including Bob, Payback and Fanboy from their group.

Even though Rooster knew that Maggie and Hangman had met at the country club, he felt a growing discomfort as he watched them dancing together. Which he found disturbing as normally he didn't care about Maggie dancing with other people. He shouldn't anyway - they weren't  even dating, but if they were, it still would be her own business. Yet seeing Hangman's smug smile when he led her a turn felt like a punch in the stomach. And then he gave him, Rooster, a challenging look, being well-aware that he was watching them. His grip strengthened around the beer bottle when he realized that Hangman was dancing with Maggie just to antagonize him. His mocking remarks were one thing, but using Maggie for their rivalry was below the belt. It pissed Rooster off. And what pissed him off even more was that it worked. He was furious and humiliated as he watched Hangman dipping Maggie, as if he knew he couldn’t do it the other day. He couldn’t know it as he wasn’t there at La Cubanita to see him messing up the dip. His knuckles turned white as his fingers clenched around the beer bottle even more, and his body moved faster than his brain: he threateningly got up from his chair. Phoenix had noticed what was going on, perhaps earlier than he did, and now she was looking at him, concerned.

"Don't," she said. "This is just what he wants."

"I know," Rooster nodded; his voice was shaky with anger.

Still, what he wanted the most was to walk to Hangman and punch him in the face. Even though he knew it wouldn't help with his chances to fly on the mission. No, he couldn't do that. He could also go to the jukebox, change the song and ask Maggie for a dance, but then he wouldn't be any better than Hangman, plus, he still wanted to keep her as far away from their rivalry as he could. Maggie had nothing to do with what was going on between the two pilots and Rooster wanted it to stay that way. Right now she didn’t seem to suspect anything, she was just following Hangman’s lead without noticing the other aviator’s fury.

Letting out a sigh, Rooster decided to leave the room to calm down and pull himself together, preferably before Maggie could notice that something was going on. Heading to the men’s room, he didn’t see Hangman’s smirk as he saw him walk away. The experiment was successful.

“Thank you,” Maggie said when the song ended and they high-fived.

“My pleasure, as always,” the pilot nodded with a disarming smile then he led Maggie back to the dancing pilots and left the room, followed by Phoenix’s gaze.

Rooster needed all his self-discipline in order not to launch himself at Hangman when he entered the restroom. Taking a deep breath, he pressed his lips together. Water was dripping from his chin as he washed his face to calm himself down a little. It didn’t really help.

“Hello, Rooster,” Hangman greeted him in a cheerful, patronizing tone then he stepped into a cubicle, counting down the seconds until the other aviator would snap at him. He could tell he was boiling inside. “I was surprised how well Maggie could remember the steps,” he remarked nonchalantly. “But then again, she is not a dance instructor for nothing.”

“Leave her out of this,” Rooster hissed. There we go.

“Of what?” Hangman asked, knowing very well what he was talking about.

“Don’t use her to antagonize me,” the other man said, stepping closer with his hands clenched into fists.

Hangman let out a small laugh as he left the cubicle, finally facing Rooster.

“And I thought you’d be mad at me for dancing with her,” he said with a smile.

“You took advantage of her. She didn’t deserve it.”

“And do you think you deserve her?” Hangman wondered with his smile growing wider.

The sudden change of topic took Rooster by surprise.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Does she even know you like her?” Hangman continued.

Now Rooster wasn’t just angry and surprised; he felt exposed as well. How could he figure that out when he hadn’t told it to anyone? He hadn’t tried to hide it either, but it couldn’t be that obvious. Especially not for someone like Hangman. 

“How do you know?” he asked.

“‘Hold me closer, tiny dancer?’ Come on, Bradshaw, you’re as subtle as a spiked baseball bat,” Hangman said with a mocking smile.

Rooster shook his head in disbelief. He wasn’t expecting anybody to put the picture together - except for Phoenix, who was probably well-aware of his feelings towards Maggie, but only because she knew both of them quite well. And then along came Hangman, finding it out from a four-minute long song. What if others had noticed it, too? What if Maggie had found it out? Thoughts began racing in his head, searching for anything that proved that she knew it. Or maybe she did know it, but didn’t feel the same way and she wouldn’t say anything because of that.

“I guess that’s a no,” the other aviator’s voice pulled him back to reality. “The good old Rooster,” he sighed. “So, today’s serenade was just the rehearsal and now you’re waiting for the right moment, aren’t you?”

For a moment Rooster wondered what Maggie would have said if she had heard him play Tiny Dancer, but he quickly brushed that thought off, because he purposefully played the song way before her arrival so she wouldn’t get to the same conclusion as Hangman.

“You don’t understand,” he said with his muscles going tense again.

“You’re right: I don’t,” Hangman admitted. “But to give you some advice, son, don’t wait around too much, because if you don’t ask her out, someone else will.”

“You?”

“No, not me, but there are others, so if you don’t want to lose her, get off your perch and do something.”

And with that he walked out of the men’s room, leaving Rooster alone with his thoughts. As much as he wanted to tell Maggie how he felt, he just couldn’t do it. Not because he was afraid of rejection, but because of the mission, even though he still didn’t know whether he could fly on it. What he knew was how it felt losing someone to flying. Despite being very young when his father died, he could still remember his mother’s face when she told him the news. He knew that it was a different situation as his parents were married and with Maggie they would only be in the dating phase if they got together, but he still didn’t want to put her in that place in case he wouldn’t return. It wouldn’t be fair, even if they both knew this was part of the job.

Leaving the restroom, he spotted Maggie chatting with Phoenix, Bob, and Hangman, laughing at something. Rooster’s heart wrenched as he thought of her hearing about his death. Imagining her with someone else was killing him, but the thought of her having to mourn him felt even worse than that. The only thing he could do was to wait until the mission ends to say anything to her. And hoping that she would wait for him, too, no matter how hard it would be.

Later that night when he got into his car to go home and turned on the radio, he wasn’t surprised when he heard the familiar chords:

Jesus freaks

Out in the street

Handing tickets out for God

Turning back

She just laughs

The boulevard is not that bad

Piano man

He makes his stand

In the auditorium

Looking on

She sings the songs

The words she knows

The tune she hums

But oh, how it feels so real

Lying here, with no one near

Only you and you can hear me

When I say softly, slowly

Chapter 7

Hold me closer, tiny dancer

Count the headlights on the highway

Lay me down in sheets of linen

You had a busy day today.

***

Tagging: @lj13oct, @discojohndeacy, @luckyladycreator2, @moechen86, @katieshook02, @the-untamed-soul, @literary-lesbian, @a-littlebit-ofeverything, @jascasandra, @getmyprettynameoutofyourmouth, @angelinagabriel, @alanadetigy, @multiple-fandoms-girl, @heaven-bvck, @agentlyddon, @carlaangel86, @yuewengao, @justahopelessssromantic, @lais06 

If you would like to be added to the list or removed, please let me know!

[pennyserenade]

i was getting ready earlier and rocket man by elton john came on and i couldn't help but think about how much the lyrics are fox mulder coded. like:

I miss the Earth so much I miss my wife It's lonely out in space On such a timeless flight

mulder is rocket man, lonely out in space, his timeless flight being samantha, the pursuit of the aliens, the restless and oftentimes futile attempts at finding truth in the bundles of lies. he does miss earth and even his wife too (remember that gold wedding band and diana; how she left him there all alone). he misses being normal, feeling normal, but this is it, this is what he was made for. earth is a long ways behind him now.

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time 'Til touchdown brings me 'round again to find I'm not the man they think I am at home Oh, no, no, no I'm a rocket man Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone

this mission has made mulder irrevocably changed, no longer the man they think he is or the one they think he could be. everyone wishes he would be different. the fbi brings scully to him in hopes to discourage his pursuit of the truth, to bring him back to sensible work where his talents brought home missing children and stopped ruthless serial killers. they think of him as their boy genius: the guy with the beautiful mind, oxford's best pupil, and they see what he does with the x-files as a disservice to himself and the public. its a mockery of his talents. mulder's gone crazy in the basement, is what they surmise. but samantha is out there, and he knows it (though a quiet part of him is scared that she isn't). after he finds her - and he will find her - he will not be who he was. how can he be? the boy genius has clocked out and now he's burning out his fuse, chasing his aliens with a head always aimed up at the stars

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids In fact it's cold as hell And there's no one there to raise them If you did

mars is cold as hell, no place for a child. think of conduit, the way mulder protects and wraps himself around that little boy with the missing sister. how he cries after it is over and she comes home and won't tell the public what happened to her. a faithless man in a pew, visible tears streaming down his face. that little boy got what he never did: a sister who came back and a mother who was kind enough to shield them with her love. mulder grew up alongside a ghost named samantha and two parents who forgot they still had another child. mars was so cold, lonely, no place for any child. he talks to children with tender tones, hopes against hope for their survival, for them to not to ever have to experience what he has. he knows about mars, knows how it feels to grow up there. he does his best to save them from it the way no one did for him

[gerogerigaogaigar]

The Cure - Disintegration

Drawn out loving emotional splendor exudes from every pore of The Cure's undeniable magnum opus. Still gothic in its own way, but now with a sheen of glittery passion as Robert Smith write dramatic long love aong after dramatic longing love song. Nothing is done in brief, every song plays out its every melodic and harmonic idea for minutes before the lyrics even start. Lush, angelic, longing, desperation, love, sadness, bombastic, it blends into an all encompassing haze. Nine minute songs will go by in a rush and you will find your hour spent quicker than is reasonable. You will drown in this album.

Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d. city

A short film by Kendrick Lamar. Thats what the album cover says and that's most certainly what we get. An autobiographical concept album about Kendrick's life growing up in Compton. Kendrick Lamar takes us through his trials as a teen dealing with drugs and gang violence, his aspirations as an artist, the struggle to survive, and the knowledge that everything he does could easily be the last thing he ever did. Not only does Kendrick thread the needle really well when it comes to bringing all this together in a cohesive engaging way, but he also has a one of a kind voice. His rasp is iconic nowadays and his flow is so casual that it feels like he isnt even trying. But watch out, try to sing along and you'll realize that he actually has an incredible ear for the beat that allows him to play around it in ways that are very hard to mimic.

The Strokes - Is This It

Is This It is one of those overlooked turning points in musical history. It may seem like a perfectly normal alt rock album to the modern listener, but it was the first of its breed. The entire zeitgeist of 00's post punk revival starts here. Without Is This It there is no Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Silversun Pickups, Vines, Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys, Vampire Weekend, Interpol, Fratellis, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hives, Shins, and about a million other bands who were very specifically copying the sound of this album. Now i do think the historical value of Is This It might be a little higher than the artistic value. Its a nice garagey album, lots of jangle and a couple of really catchy songs, but I think it was honestly topped by many of its imitators. This album is like Seinfeld, everyone copied it so well that it no longer scans as unique.

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead

I'm a dramatic bitch. This is a dramatic bitch album. There are not a lot of albums that I have finished and then immediately started over again. The first two Smiths albums are dramatic and delightful, but they are 100% sincere. The Queen Is Dead brings a bitter irony into the mix. Morrissey is practically mocking his fans. I Know It's Over, Never Had No One Ever, and There Is A Light That Never Goes Out are so melodramatic that they feel satirical. Meanwhile Cemetry Gates, Bigmouth Strikes Again, and Frankly, Mr. Shankly are just humorous takedowns of people that just annoy Morrissey. This is music for listening to by candlelight while you lay on your chaise longue and pretend to have the consumption. Top ten album material.

Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

This is a good album, but its extremely bloated. It's often held up as Elton John's best work, and i would agree if you cut out most of the middle. In fact Jamaica Jerk-Off should instantly disqualify this album from being considered one of the best. Admittedly side one is actually some of Elton John's best work, starting with the eleven minute prog epic Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding and continuing with three of his best hits in a row. I think of you trimmed about fifteen minutes of fat off this bad boy until you had a solid 60 minute album it would be really improved

Janet Jackson - Control

Not gonna lie, they definitely put Janet's albums on here in reverse order. Obviously they are all deserving of a spot but i just think Rhythm Nation>The Velvet Rope>Control. Minor placement gripe aside, Control is Jackson's first masterpiece. She establishes the album's theme succinctly: control. Every song really is about a woman establishing some sort of dominance over her life, often men. It established a precedent for female pop and R&B artists to present more forward and dominant personalities in their music and in their piblic persona. The fusion of pop, R&B, and synths, while not actually a new idea, was a perfect blueprint for her sound.

Joni Mitchell - Court And Spark

Here we see the beginning of it all. The first album where Joni Mitchell would start experimenting with jazz. It's clear that her folksy rambling vocal style was already perfect for some jazzier numbers. Mitchell is just a natural artist and everything she does is golden. It has been hard to review her every time because I simply don't have the time or energy to dissect the poetry of her lyrics and how it all ties together. You just gotta listen. I think that if you want to get into Joni Mitchell this is the only logical starting point. It has the artistic depth of her late work while still having a few songs that you can actually hum.

Lou Reed - Transformer

Yet another punk rock progenitor. The fuzzy garage rock of his Velvet Underground days is now mixed with a deliberately Bowie-esque glam. The result is a series of New York City street fables about drug dealers, hookers, and queers. Its more stripped down, more real than Reed's previous work. It shows off NYC the way a Bakshi film would, lovingly with warts and all.

Fiona Apple - When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right

Yes that is the album title. Where Fiona Apple's debut is youthfully melodramatic the follow up is a more mature album. She is much more capable of being genuinely sad but also gleefully mean. And her voice is slightly huskier, fuller at times. Apple is clearly not entirely in a great place on When The Pawn, but she is really mining that bad place for everything its worth.

[figthefruitfaeth]

hiiiiiiii 🫶🩷 for the fic writer asks: 5 & 17!!

hiiiiiiiiiiiii liv <3

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

There's definitely a good handful of little ideas I probably won't get around to making full fics, mostly cause I don't have quite enough to string them together into something coherent. like for example, "5+1 times steve and eddie were in a photo booth together" or "5 lies you told me". like i do still Love them, but i've got like two and half scenes for each of them

also there's a fruity four college band au (cause who doesn't have a band au in this fandom) i still distantly dream about.

nancy's trying to put on a good face, but not only did she Not get into Emerson, she's at the same college as her underachieving ex-boyfriend who's heart she broke, and there's this girl in her politics of america class who never studies and still somehow keeps beating her on assignments (and that woman's name? robin). Steve doesn't even want to really be in school, but he's going anyway, trying to rush for a frat with guys he can't even really stand anymore, but also can't quite leave cause what else is he supposed to do? eddie who's previous band (corroded coffin) fell apart due to a lot of things (someone moved, someone can't committ to the time, someone doesn't talk to them anymore) and now he's looking for a new band, something to keep him from crawling the walls of his house and do something reckless. robin i hadn't developed all the way, but definitely tension with nancy, with steve, and she's figuring shit out!

steve and robin work at a grocery store together, constantly moving between departments, only really becoming friends when they get held up by robbers and robin comes out to him in the deli section.

eddie/steve on guitar/vocals, with eddie writing the lyrics and steve finding the music very elton john. nancy on bass and robin on drums. also it's an indie-ish punk riot girl sound. think 'black sheep' from scott pilgrim, 'vixen' by destroy boys, 'chaise longue' by wet leg, and 'deceptacon' by le tigre. they're never gonna be world famous, at most they get 3rd place in the battle of the bands, but it's about the friends they make, about the ways music let's them let loose, about discovering themselves and learning how life is more than school and things you're supposed to do

okay that got long :D i've got more in my notes somewhere but i will stop there, yeah it's my darling AU but probably won't ever get written

17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

Ugh I learn something new in every fic cause I love researching. Did you know 3rd generation beanie babies did not come with a poem, though later generations did? Or that a crack that runs across a ceiling and down a wall is likely from a poor build or heavy damage? Smoke rings are best made with a thick smoke like hookah, and that pagers [REDACTED].

fic writer asks

[are-we-really-doing-this]

Tagged by @bl33ditout THANK YOU SO MUCH, I’ve been wanting to do one of these again

Rules: Shuffle your library and list 10 songs and tag 10 people (this is from my liked songs of all time which is currently at 1,455 flat)

1. I Wonder Why - Dion and the Belmonts (fucking catchy and I like his weird little sounds)

2. Heridas - aNeurisma (obscure Chilean “Aggro Metal” band goes hard, lowkey)

3. Self Esteem - Offspring (I like the Offspring, they’re kooky and dorky and know how to write a hook)

4. Possum Kingdom - Toadies (what the hell is this song about, I don’t care, it’s hot and scary and also incredibly lame but in a good way)

5. Rocket Man - Elton John (started sobbing during his biopic on Thanksgiving and went into the garage and very intensely tuned my old guitar, good fucking song)

6. Blind - Korn (been getting back into the music video for this, thinking about if I should get an eyebrow piercing)

7. La Danza - Il Volo (I already said, I fuck with the opera, seen them three times live, fantastic)

8. How Did You Love - Shinedown (not my favorite Shinedown song but they play it on the radio down here a lot and it’s still good, forever pissed I could’ve seen them live this year but I was too hungover to get out of my hotel room)

9. Not In Blood, But In Bond - Hans Zimmer (okay, this is just the song with that sexy violin riff from Sherlock Holmes when the pier blows up, I’m a sucker for a good soundtrack)

10. Epitaph - King Crimson (best song ever written, would marry it if it was a person even though it’d probably retreat into art and religion then murder me and eat my heart in catharsis)

@tache-noire @c0unterfe1t @3dollarbillyalls @downtherabbitholewithlucy @secret-slipknot-thirst-account @lauraleshauntedmp3 @himbos-hotline @teeboyswaggins @dysphorie @ao3userglitchesaintshit If y’all wanna, I just had to put 10 names, sorry if this was annoying or if you’ve already been tagged.

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday Fran Healy of Scottish Band Travis.

Although born in Stafford, England, Healy grew up in Glasgow his parents’ hometown. His mother had moved back to Scotland after divorcing her husband, who was abusive (towards her); as a result of this, Healy continues to refuse any contact with his father. Healy has said that both his mother and his grandmother were major influences on him as a child. Healy attended Holyrood Secondary School in Glasgow.

Although as a young child at primary school, he had been awarded a book of Rabbie Burns poems and a certificate “For Outstanding Singing Abilities” after singing the old Scottish song “Westering Home” while dressed in a kilt, Healy showed no further interest in singing until his teens. His obsession in song writing began to take shape when he got his first guitar in 1986 at the age of 13, having seen Roy Orbison perform his hit Pretty Woman on The Last Resort With Jonathan Ross. First songs played on the guitar were old rock'n'roll numbers like Johnny B. Good and 3 Steps To Heaven by Eddie Cochran. His first complete song was written about the Headmaster of his school, Peter Mullen entitled “Mr. Mullen Blues”

He played in a couple of school bands until drummer of Glasgow band Glass Onion Neil Primrose asked if he would like to audition. This band would become Travis, named after the main character in Wim Wenders movie Paris, Texas.

Travis’ first single, “All I Want to Do Is Rock”, was written by Healy while on a visit to Millport on Greater Cumbrae, a small island in the Firth of Clyde. Going there with the sole intention of composing the best song he had ever written, Healy surprised even himself when the track was born. In spite of Healy’s success as a songwriter since, he is without formal musical training. As the band have risen to prominence, Healy has continued to be Travis’ main songwriter, as well as the band’s main spokesman and most recognisable member.

Healy’s songwriting has been praised by Paul McCartney, Elton John and Noel Gallagher. In 2005, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin called himself “a poor man’s Fran Healy”. In interviews, Healy has talked of being influenced by songwriters such as Joni Mitchell, Paul McCartney and Graham Nash (of the Hollies and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fame). Healy has since played with both McCartney and Nash. Although Healy predominantly plays guitar, he has also been known to write and perform with piano.

Travis have twice been awarded British album of the year at the annual BRIT Awards, and is credited as having paved the way for British bands such as Coldplay and Keane. Travis have released nine studio albums, beginning with Good Feeling in 1997.

Fran is involved with the Save the Children Organization, for which he has just launched the biggest ever global campaign to help the ten million children who die unnecessarily each year survive, he has made visits to Sudan to highlight the plight of children in third world countries. He is a keen runner, having been a member of the Glasgow athletics club Bellahouston Harriers in his youth, and took part in the Berlin Relay Marathon in 2012.

 I’ve chosen my favourite Travis song, Fran Healy wrote it while on holiday in Israel. He wanted to go somewhere sunny because in his hometown of Glasgow it rained all the time. In an interview at the Live 8 concert, he explained that he was spending a short holiday in the southern vacation city Eilat in the middle of the winter. The city is known for it’s hot weather even during the winter time, but surprisingly it began to rain for two days during his stay. The line “is it because I lied when I was 17 is about him lying to get a job in a nightclub as a teenager.

Why Does It Always Rain On Me was their first top ten hit and when Travis began to perform this song at the 1999 Glastonbury Festival, after being sunny for several hours, it began to rain exactly when the first line was sung and ended when they finished the song!