It Turns Out Pete Wentz Has Never Talked To Bruno Mars About That Iconic 2008 Photo

Pete Wentz: I feel like "Young and Menace" was inspired by 1990s modem connecting sounds. I don't know if that's actually true — Patrick did not think that was true. Maybe you should answer this question.

Patrick Stump: I'm trying to form a thought while there's puppies. So yeah, I don't know if there is a new sound. It's just every song's gonna be a different thing.

PW: I don't think — the record is not gonna sound like "Young and Menace."

PS: No. And that's the thing, it's not a style. For a long time, I don't think we've been very easy to— you know, if we wrote a song that sounded too specifically like a style, we don't really use it. So, yeah. I think I answered it. I got lost in puppy.

PS: That would be amazing. What do you think?

PW: I think it would be great. It's just really agreeing on the songs or creating cool original songs. We have one Christmas-ish, holiday-ish-type song, but it was recorded a long time ago.

PW: I have never talked to Bruno about it. The picture's funny. I think he explained the picture, and the explanation kind of takes a little bit of the magic out of it, possibly. He's like, a photographer bumped him or something. I know Phil, the other guy in the picture, his writing partner. And I always forget to ask him about it.

PS: Oh, wow, we are both answering this.

PW: Um, I have a lot.

PS: I think the early 2000s were one big fashion regret for me.

PW: Like, everyone does crazy fashion stuff, but to do it on, like, the cover of Rolling Stone is the wild part.

PS: Yeah, I think that's one of the hardest things is that for a while, when I started dating my wife, her dad googled me. Like, "Who is this guy? He's in a band, I'm gonna google him." And the first picture that came up was me in the absolute worst outfit I've ever worn, and it was apparently the top Google Image result of me at that time, and that's a bummer. Where you're like, well, that picture's never leaving me, with that olive print hoodie. It was a moment. And it was very highly photographed. We were dressing really bad.

PW: Well, we're not done recording.

PS: So how can you say it's purple, Pete?!

PW: I get it, I get it. So, our records since Take This to Your Grave have gone color palette blue and then red and blue and then red. And I think that when you first played "Young and Menace" for me, that song just felt especially purple to me. It felt like a left turn kinda. We should've made a right maybe. But there's other elements that feel like that [too].

PS: Probably not, because it was expensive! And this is one of those things that's super funny that no one knew about is we had wire work in that video, all of it got cut. But it cost, like, a house. It was so crazy, I can't believe we wasted money on it. And like, it didn't even work. It looked really stupid.

PW: My wire work made it... [laughs]

PS: Oooh, I'm so great! I did my own stunts!

PW: I did my own stunts over here! Nah, I'm just kidding.

PS: But it was insane. And I think back on it.

PW: It was a little bit like the closest we'll get to Axl Rose being like, "No, I need to jump off an actual airplane carrier."

PS: There needs to be dolphins. Real dolphins. No, I want the wedding cake to be 5 feet tall, and then I'm gonna smash it!

PW: I think that there are some things that, like, it's more interesting again to think about what it would be like. But if we actually did that video, it would not be great probably.

PS: Yeah, the sequel video to that, I don't know if that would work so hot.

PW: Patrick, I've been a fan for a long time — have a puppy.

PS: Yeah, no one's every brought me a puppy yet. Don't...please. I don't know! People don't usually get me anything that crazy.

PW: I think when something is disruptive, and interesting, and counterintuitive, it's interesting. But then when it becomes the thing that's expected, it's harder.

PS: We didn't want it to be a gimmick. It was a thing that we did naturally, and then when it started to be a thing that people commented on all the time, then it's like, well, we gotta not do that anymore.

PS: Not really. The most exciting thing I ever took from the set of a video was, we had this guitar — the video for "Saturday," the performance part, Joe smashed this guitar of his, he owned it. But it happened to be the guitar that we recorded like everything on, so I was super bummed. So I took the crumbles of it, the last bits of it.

PS: We get so many One Tree Hill questions! It's really funny because, like, that was like — well, [Pete] did it for a minute. But in general, it was, you know, maybe a few days out of our entire life. You know? So it's funny how often I get asked about that. I mean, it was awesome, it was really fun.

PS: I mean, you'll recognize them?

PW: I mean, I'm gonna be...gravely honest. We've been a band for over 15 years, and some places we've played the city 20-plus times, and you're playing in an arena where there's, like, some hardcore fans, and hardcore fans from like 10 years ago, and so it's quite a task to try and put a setlist together that's gonna please everybody. But at the same time, I think the thing that we've all said we wanted to do more and be better about is, like, kind of rotating songs a bit.

PS: The problem with rotating songs is, you pick like three songs, right? And of those three, the first few shows, you play them, and one song just destroys the other two. You play the one, and the first couple nights, that one song just destroyed and the other ones are not going over. So it's really like a bum-out to go back to those songs later in the tour. It's fun for the band when people like it. So I don't know.

PW: I'm drunk on puppies right now. I gotta admit, this would be the time to get me. Um, I don't know, it was just so on a whim when we did the last one, like if we did that in the same way. I just think sometimes when you hype something up too much, it just leaves you—

PS: Yeah, it was a dumb, funny thing...

PW: It was like a dumb, funny thing that just happened to be—

PS: We were, like, messing around for a half hour backstage, it wasn't like a real thing. But now there's, like, pressure.

PW: I would do it if we can attach the right director. If we can get this project moving with...

PS: You know, we're in talks — Ridley Scott's all tied up with the Aliens franchise. You know, originally, it was looking good. But scheduling, you know?

PW: I think my biggest accomplishment would be similar to some of the other guys — I would say our kids are probably the biggest. But maybe on a band level, I would say playing for President Obama's inaugural ball was pretty cool.

PS: It was crazy. That was the thing that, like, you know, you'll tell grandkids about that. It's pretty wild.

PW: Yeah. I thought you were for a second saying Obama will tell his grandkids about it. You'll never believe!

PS: You know, remember that one time...and they were great!

PW: And they were like, "No, we're not doing a sequel video to this."

PS: [laughs] He's like a diehard fan. Anyway, yeah, you can't really top that. But I suppose, hey, I have a job where I have to play with puppies for a day, so that's a pretty amazing accomplishment.

PS: For me, I think there's a real significance to "Dance, Dance" because it was the first song where we really stretched out of the thing. The first record, Take This to Your Grave, was really fun and really awesome, and I'm really proud of it. But that was us, like, we were still learning how to be a band, and we weren't really ambitious about it. I think all of us were like, yeah, this will be a really awesome thing to do while we're on a semester off from school. And then "Dance, Dance" was the first song to me where we kind of were our own band, we weren't really trying to be anybody else. You know, every record, every song we put out, people are always like, "What's with the new sound?" You know, and that's been for like 12 years of follow-up records, and I think the start of that is "Dance, Dance." I remember being on tour with Punchline and we played a "Dance, Dance" demo for Punchline and they were like, "Wow."

PS: I would love to break down the thing of bands being special. Right, like, that's where we came from when we were playing in these dumpy dive bars and stuff like that. There really wasn't a separation between audience and band except for that the band had guitars. And then something happened where it became this thing where you sign autographs and take pictures and stuff, which is awesome and I'm happy to do that! But it was a weird thing, it's always been a weird thing to me that that's the thing that separates you. You're not part of the audience anymore, and I don't like that, I miss that. So if I were able to hang out with a fan, I would just want to, like, just be normal. You know what I mean? And have that.

PW: Patrick Stump, normal guy. That just needs to have puppies delivered to him every day.

PS: My fresh batch of puppies has arrived!