i told the truth, i did not come to fool you.
Stranger Things Have Happened
Patrick et al. futurefic | 26012 words | 14A | 2/4
Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story--even those based on real people--are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated...poorly. The following story contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be read by anybody.
*
2. "I am not alone, dear loneliness. I forgot, but I remember this."
From the 12-04-2012 episode of The Strombo Show, broadcast live from Toronto, ON, Canada.
GEORGE STROMBOULOPOULOUS: Yo, Patrick Stump!
PATRICK STUMP: Hey!
GS: So how've you been?
PS: When did I last see you?
GS: Last interview was the Olympics, so I guess it's been almost three years.
PS: Wow, really? [laughs] Three years. Where to start. [laughs] Uh, my band broke up.
GS: No way. Who knew!
PS: Not me.
GS: Seriously?
PS: Yeah, it was--it was a surprise for all of us.
GS: None of you have talked about it much, just the usual press releases and no comment, so, tell me, because we have a special bond, ignoring the millions of people watching and listening to the show, what went down?
PS: Millions of people?
GS: Millions.
PS: Well. I guess. Because of the special bond. Uh. There was a meeting. Pete told us he didn't want to do the band anymore, I said I didn't want to do it if he wasn't doing it, and Andy and Joe decided they'd rather move on. So.
GS: So what you're saying is that the break up was your fault.
PS: [laughing] Yeah, pretty much. It's all my fault that Fall Out Boy is, you know, a former band.
GS: Nah, it's just sleeping.
PS: Pining for the fjords.
The thing is--and this would make really shitty interview material, so he always lies when asked about it--the thing is that Patrick doesn't really remember most of the meeting during which Fall Out Boy was dissolved. He remembers that Pete wasn't there, and his own disgust and anger curdling like bile in his stomach, a painfully cold spot of confusion and disappointment behind his heart. He remembers Pete's lawyer--Scott, with whom Pete had attended DePaul a million years before--and he remembers Scott giving Pete's shitty excuse for not showing up. He does not, however, actually remember Pete's shitty excuse.
He remembers Joe's shell-shocked eyes and the fraud of his indolent shrug. He remembers Andy watching everyone, all surface calm; deep nerves betraying themselves in his fingers tapping on the edge of the boardroom table.
He remembers Bob's face drawn in grief, pinched and stony--his granite handshake.
He knows there were lawyers besides Scott, and guys from the labels, but he doesn't remember who or where or what was said.
He remembers saying, "I meant it when I said I wouldn't do the band anymore if Pete quit," though he cannot for the life of him remember why the fuck he said it.
He remembers Joe flinching and looking at Andy, who tilted his head in deference and said, "It's your band, dude."
He remembers Joe laughing, startled, and saying, "Fuck yeah, and you're all fucking fired."
He remembers laughing along with everyone else, the laughter soaking up and releasing some of the bitter tension he'd been carrying around since Bob called him.
He remembers wanting to punch Scott right in his laughing goddamn face so hard his perfectly white, perfectly capped teeth would fall out and clatter on the boardroom table like loose change.
After the Strombo Show, he flies back to Chicago from Toronto and carries his own bag from the plane to the taxi stand. He kind of likes relative obscurity; or maybe it's just that he appreciates it now.
All the bad parts about coming home after a trip--dust, darkness, cold, no food, dead fish, not that he has fish, but still--are mitigated by having a housesitter. Patrick takes a chocolate chip muffin out of the basket on the kitchen counter and sits down in the living room with a pair of scissors for cutting open the thick brown envelope on the table.
He eats the muffin with one hand and goes through the photos with the other to avoid greasy fingerprints and crumbs.
He and Sophia did two shoots for the album--one in black and white, in an old brick warehouse, with intermittent use of a white backdrop. There are pictures of him standing by himself at a bank of arched, half-broken windows, or sitting on the ledge of one of the windows, staring into the distance. There are pictures of him playing instruments--all the instruments he played for the album, in fact: horns and strings and woodwinds. There's one precisely-captured motion shot of him fooling around on a nickel-plated Gibson, one leg raised as he spins, half in front of the backdrop, half in front of the windows, the guitar's body flashing. He puts that one to the side, a keeper. The rest of the warehouse photos are too cold, too lonely, too adamant about the fact that it's a solo album. He doesn't feel that lonely, or at least not that alone.
The second shoot is in colour, and was done at his condo in LA two days before he moved out. The place was pretty much packed up except for the furniture--sleek black leather couch and red corduroy chair, reclaimed teak dining room set, empty pine bookshelves. Sophia had put him in a red shirt and black jeans, saying he'd "pop" against the white walls and dark wood floor. He didn't really care; he was mostly thinking about all the work he'd done in the house, all the friends who'd been there. All of the photos are cut by hard, architectural shadows, anticipatory, like he and the rooms are waiting for something immense: something that will fill the wide, half-vacant spaces. He shuffles through the pictures, sorting five or six into the keeper pile, judging them good enough for the liner. They're better than the other set, but that's not saying much.
He doesn't have a cover shot, yet. This is the problem. In the last half-dozen prints from the condo, he finds a photo of his old living room window, bare and bright, looking down into the street, three stories below. He can just make out himself on the opposite sidewalk, in the red shirt and black jeans and a black porkpie hat, carrying a tray of Starbucks. There are dozens more people on the sidewalks, and cars filling the street, and he's not especially remarkable. He frames the photo with his fingers and imagines the album title in small white letters, in the top right-hand corner: Selma Avenue.
He remembers getting the Clandestine employee newsletter a week after the break up and ripping it to shreds in his kitchen. Then he called his business manager and said, "I want out."
"Okay," Ahmad said. "Of?"
"The fucking clothing line," Patrick said, "the stores, the bar, the restaurant, the label--everything." He clenched the hand that wasn't already clenched around the phone. "I want out."
Ahmad had made an affirmative noise and Patrick could picture him in his glass-walled, seventeenth-floor office, nodding placidly against the phone. Probably doodling on his desk blotter. Or watching the tropical fishes swim past on his screen saver. Patrick gritted his teeth, which were already gritted.
"What I'm hearing, just so I've got this right," Ahmad said, "is that you want to divest yourself of all interest in Pete Wentz."
Patrick had let out an explosive breath, like he'd been punched in the chest, shocked by the simplicity of what he actually wanted.
He remembers saying, "Yes."
He e-mails Sophia to let her know which pictures he likes, and Morris and the A&R guy whose name he can never remember to let them know the album art is pretty much done. It's a lie, but it'll only take him an hour to type everything up in Photoshop.
He checks his schedule for next week, crossing off a cancelled radio interview and using a red pen to circle the video shoot on Thursday and Friday. Some kid the label hired is directing. Patrick has read the concept and really couldn't give a fuck--"Quickstep" is a dance song; the video will be of people more attractive than Patrick dancing while Patrick pretends to sing. Frankly, he's surprised he's allowed to be in the video at all. He intends to wear a loose shirt and jeans and his black patent Converse.
He remembers thinking he'd be completely fucking fine without Pete, without the band, without the label. He remembers having five months of work, which had been booked before the break up, and then he remembers having nothing. No one called Bob asking for him, no one called his agent, no one randomly e-mailed him to see if he wanted to jam.
His collaborative tracks with Alicia and the Black Eyed Peas got cut due to label concerns. The funding fell through for his and Justin's next short. "It sucks," Justin said, "but we needed to get back in the studio anyway." He didn't invite Patrick to sing or produce or even come hang out. Mark called him personally to let him know he'd been replaced as producer on the Blink reunion album, which hadn't even been written yet--it was nice of Mark to call, so Patrick didn't get upset, just wished him the best of luck with Chester and promised to buy a hundred copies and told Mark to call if they needed help with anything. Anything at all.
He kept it all to himself. He had dinner at Joe and Marie's every couple of weeks, and listened to them talk about the new baby on the way and made jokes about Irish twins and explained what Irish twins were, and didn't mention how Jay wouldn't even reply to his e-mails anymore.
He didn't tell Andy either. He didn't tell his parents, or his stepparents, or anyone back home. He held it close like keeping it secret would keep it from being real; pressed the confusion, hurt, anger down in his stomach. It was all between him and the people telling him to pack it up and go back to Glenview--of course, they weren't saying it in so many words, and probably not even thinking it, but what else could he do?
He remembers blaming Pete, he remembers firing Bob and his agent, he remembers overhearing an intern at Crush talking about how last year everything was "feat. Patrick Stump," but that was last year, hello. Wake up and smell the "not It anymore," moron.
And still, for some reason, it didn't really hit him--or, all the "no"s and anger and bewilderment didn't really mean anything, maybe, until Timbaland gave him a sad, apologetic look over excellent Italasian fusion on Sunset and said, "I'm sorry, man, I just can't do anything for you right now," and, "I wish you the best of luck," and shook his hand.
"No, that's all right, I understand," Patrick lied. "Thank you," he said.
"If you put something together on your own, you should send it up to Morris at Loop Reps, they're real small--real elite." Tim took his napkin from his lap and put it on the table, obviously getting ready to leave. "They'd probably love to have you."
"Loop, okay," Patrick said, and, "I'll keep it in mind," and, "Thank you," again, because it wasn't Tim's fault. Whatever had gone wrong in the universe was not anyone's fault, except possibly Patrick's. Or possibly Pete's.
NORA: What was your process like on this one?
--he worked for nine weeks straight, locked in his condo, alone, fueled by fury and confusion and not a little righteous indignation--
PATRICK: It took me a couple of months to write most of the record. When I finished recording--when I thought I'd finished recording--I realized that it wasn't really enough, that I wasn't done, so I got in touch with my friend Victoria Asher and she came out to LA and helped me for a few weeks, laying down some harmonies and stuff.
--he stayed up for twenty-six hours straight at one point and sent her a few songs in a fit of panicked self-doubt; she showed up on a Tuesday with three suitcases and a keyboard and wouldn't leave until he'd played her the rest of the album and agreed to let her help, and also agreed to let her stay in his guest room--
NORA: What about the lyrics--what was it like, having to write words after so long?
--torturous, wrenching, like being roasted on a spit and put through a pasta maker and a juicer--
--easy, the easiest thing he'd done in years, like singing "Sugar" or reciting Prince's discography--
--like dying, like walking through Pete's house after Pete left, like holding one of Joe's kids--
PATRICK: Well, it's not as if I just stopped writing, period, because Pete was taking care of Fall Out Boy's lyrics. It wasn't that hard to start thinking of what I was writing as music again. I mean, I'd never written an entire record on my own, so that was difficult, but I managed. Somehow.
--he was sure he'd let out absolutely every feeling he'd ever had about, well, anything, maybe. He felt scraped hollow, half inside-out, like a smashed jack-o-lantern. He felt like he was actually over it, over everything, over his life--
NORA: I think "Your Time" is the most restrained I've heard you since, like, "Golden." Is it hard for you to sing quietly?
--yes--
PATRICK: Yeah, it really is. I had to learn to sing quietly. While I was working on the record, I listened to a lot of, like, Tom Waits and Elliot Smith and Leonard Cohen, and, you know, quiet singers.
--Greta, Victoria, Kurt Cobain, the list goes on--
NORA: There's a wide range of styles on the album--"Quickstep" is obviously a dance track, while "Your Time" and "Yield & Dream" are really subdued, compared to your previous work. What's up with that?
--Morris said the album was depressing; Morris said the label would want a single that would play on TRL, a summer song despite it being goddamn January; Morris Morris Morris fucking Morris, whom he had known for two fucking weeks; Victoria shrugged and said, "Quickstep," which was a shitty riff he'd written for Tyga back when he still worked at fucking Decaydance. Patrick thought about it and played the beat on his iPod for two days and wrote a goddamn dance song--
PATRICK: I have a really wide taste in music, myself. Seriously, I will literally listen to anything, so when people try to tell me I should limit what I'm writing, I don't respond well. "Quickstep" was originally a beat for an artist I'd been producing, but it didn't work for his album, so I kept it. I wrote some lyrics based on a few stupid things I've seen people do at clubs--or done myself, let's be honest here--and there you have it.
--there you have it: another number one on TRL; another number one download on iTunes; another hook in his voice he'll hear for the next six months, blasting through static from strangers' cell phones: oh lord I ain't a dancer but I do love a quickstep--
NORA: There you have it, indeed. Selma Avenue is out on Credit Records this Tuesday; pick it up at your local or through iTunes. Thank you so much for talking with us about the new album, Patrick.
--four months of his soul into a microphone, and it's one line of promo after another, that's all; he kind of gets Pete in a new way, and that is irritating and disquieting--
PATRICK: No problem, thanks for having me.
Selma Avenue - Patrick Stump (Credit Records; Triple Threat)
Three/five stars.
Step back, you don't know what you're in for--this is the opening line of Patrick Stump's first solo release. It would be a typical bombastic warning from Stump's ex-songwriting partner, Pete Wentz, but these lyrics were penned by Stump himself, and are sung with a bitter, world-weary confidence that belies the singer's years. Packed with retro grooves, techno style, and modern simplicity, Selma Avenue might be a surprise for fans of Stump's former band, Fall Out Boy, but probably won't shock anyone who's been paying attention to his career outside of the emo-rock scene….
Former Emo Crooner Finds His Voice
90%.
The key to the album's title, and maybe to the entirety of this cipher of a record, is in the sixth track "Yield & Dream": "dream of the wide world/wake up in the ocean/dream on Elm Street/wake up on Selma Avenue." Patrick Stump's Chicago home is on Elm Street, while his former Los Angeles residence is located right inside Hollywood--on Selma Avenue. Viewed as an autobiographical journey from Midwest suburbia to downtown New Babylon and back, this solo effort from Fall Out Boy's former lead singer reveals itself to be not a battle of conflicting influences, but a look inside the mind of a talent frustrated by life in the shadows--whether some of those shadows belong to FOB's ex-frontman Pete Wentz is another story all together.
Track by track, Selma Avenue unfolds as a roadmap to and from stardom: the fans, the clubs, the moneymakers, the heartbreakers. From the cutting opener "West vs. Midwest" ("when they've bought you--and they'll buy you--keep your eyes open, 'cause they'll slip around behind you and sell you right back") to the plaintive "I Had All These Dreams (And Then I Learned To Play Guitar)" ("I can't play guitar with one hand, I can't go on being half a man; the world is tired of the best of me--where's the rest of me?"), a picture emerges and is crystallized in the album's official closer, "Your Time" ("I'm not saying this so you'll say something back, I just want you to know…I just want you to have your time")….
essential track: patrick stump's selma avenue
okay, folks. this album is drivel. it's shiny, catchy drivel, because patrick stump is good at producing shiny, catchy drivel (i don't believe for a minute he wrote this whole album himself), but drivel nonetheless. the only song you need to have is--not "quickstep," and damn you to hell for even thinking it. you need "postscript," the hidden acoustic track only available on the icky physical compact disc release. you can't even get this shit on itunes, mofos. lyric check:
do you know how to say goodbye
with a few chords and no words
because i've tried i've tried i've tried
and it's hard it's hard it's hard
it's nobody's business how you feel anymore
and it's not your job to keep the show on the road anymore
do you know how to break a heart
with a few phonecalls and no words
because you did you did you did
and they missed you they missed you they missed you
it's none of your business how they're doing anymore
and it's not their job to miss you anymore
you're not the only one who got left behind, remember
you're not the only one who got fucked over; it's hard to remember
postscript to a letter they'll never send
postscript to a letter they'll never write
postscript; there are songs they'll never sing
do you know how they saved their own goddamn lives
with a few chords and a few of their own goddamn words
because they did they did they did
and they don't need you they don't need you
it's nobody's business if you're dead or alive anymore
and my job these days is keeping this show on the road
i love post-break up hetero life partners writing songs to each other. lennon/mccartney, anybody?
dl here. comment below. flames encouraged, because i deserve it for spending fifteen bucks on this shit.
wearestandingontheedge.blogspot.com entry for 01-28-2013.
from "story" by russell thornton
And you may have gone, you may have departed into the pure promise
of the unknown,
but what could you say of where you had gone when you came back,
or what could you say of your life - your loving, not loving, being loved,
not being loved,
and the miracle of the panic - was that you were standing,
staring,
that you were hearing a bird cry, that you were seeing the bright blade
of a wing,
that there was a seagull flying close and low through falling snow.
posted by xo at 3:19AM
The first show of the Dreaming On Elm Street Tour is in March, in Detroit, at a Croatian cultural centre. The room holds seven hundred people. It's not quite officially sold out, and only half full when Countdown Commence, the first openers, get on stage. Patrick stands in the wings, watching the band and watching the crowd slowly grow. The second opener is Alex and Victoria, billed as Everything You Want To Know, playing a nine-song set of covers on acoustic guitar and organ. Draped across the front of Victoria's organ is a Hurley Organics banner.
All the Patrick Stump and Everything You Want To Know shirts at the merch table were sustainably manufactured in Minneapolis at Andy's factory. There's a Hurley Organics outreach rep at the merch table too, with pamphlets about sustainable living and fair trade and how artists of conscience can change the world. Patrick doesn't really think of himself as an "artist of conscience," but a corporate sponsorship has never left him feeling so clean.
Backstage, Patrick, Alex, Victoria, and Greta stand in a square in the men's room, the single dressing room having been taken over by Countdown Commence's post-show rowdies. Patrick shrugs and says, "So, two weeks of rehearsal, and here we are."
"It's going to be amazing," Victoria says, and pats his shoulder.
"You're going to do the intros, right?" Patrick says to Alex.
Alex rolls his eyes and pats Patrick's other shoulder. "Just say the name of the song; it's not that hard."
"This is going to blow," Patrick says. Why did he let Morris talk him into touring? Seriously.
"Awesome," Greta says brightly. She puts her hand in the middle of the square and pulls it back out. "Go team!"
Alex guides Patrick out of the bathroom with his hands on his shoulders. "You can do it, champ, you're a fighter, you're a miracle man," he says. "You made Gabe Saporta sound like Michael Jackson."
Patrick can't think of anything to say. His stomach is clenching and releasing like a fist; he feels worse than he did before his first show ever, back in ninth grade. The four of them pass the small tour crew lounging in the hallway, chatting with some venue staff, and they all say, "Good luck, guys!" and, "Good show!" Paul, the tour manager, whom Patrick hadn't met before last week, falls in step with the band and claps Patrick on the back, between Alex's hands.
Patrick breathes faster, harder, with every step. He almost feels like he's getting ready for a long-distance run, which is bullshit, because he's never run long-distance, how the fuck would he know--
"Ax?" Alex says, holding him back at the guitar rack, keeping him from walking right out on stage without something to play.
Patrick laughs, it sounds pitiful in his ears, and takes the old red Gibson. He only allowed himself two guitars for this tour; Alex got to bring four, since he's also playing bass.
Corporate sponsorship means Patrick is not paying for everything, not that they get to have everything they want.
Patrick tucks his glasses in his back pocket and goes out into the light.
"How's Detroit tonight?" he asks at his mike, fiddling with the tone knob on his guitar for something to do.
The crowd yells back something indistinct.
"Awesome," he says, and taps his foot for a few imaginary beats. "I'm Patrick, and these are my friends. We're going to play some songs for you." He shrugs and looks over at Victoria. She smiles and nods, so he turns around and nods at Greta, who waves her sticks in an "okay, let's go" motion. Alex gives him thumbs up.
Patrick leans in to the mike again and says, "West Vs. Midwest," and Greta plays the beat and Alex kicks the pick up and the crowd screams.
It's really not that different. Not that different at all.
patrickstump.com 03-15-2010 - "Fall Out Boy, as an experiment, has failed."
Hey guys.
It's true. The band is over. It's been a crazy month. I'm sorry I haven't been able to keep you up to date, but I wanted to take a couple hundred words and talk about it, because as usual the world is full of everybody knowing exactly what happene,d but not really knowing at all.
People change. People grow. Sometimes the changing makes someone a better person, or improves their life, but means they have to give up things. Let things go. Move on.
More than one member of Fall Out Boy is at that place of changing. It's not wrong, or bad. It's no one's fault. It just happens sometiems. If it hasn't happened to you, it will, and it will happen again. It's life. Am I disappointed that it happened to us, at this moment? I won't lie, I am. But I'm not pissed off at any one person. I'm mostly pissed off at myself for not seeing it coming.
I'll get over it. You'll get over it too. Next week therell be another shitty band from the suburbs wanting a spot on your bedroom wall. It's okay. I'll miss you, the shows, the bus, the memories feeling like their just around the corner, but we'll be okay.
We're going to be okay, all of us. See you around.
-p.stump
Patrick comes out for the encore alone, with his acoustic guitar, and shuffles his feet a little before saying, "So, uh. I never expected to be standing here. The last few years have been--a learning experience. Thanks for coming tonight." He strums the first chord and says, "This is a song by Leonard Cohen," and plays "Last Year's Man."
In his bunk, three hours later, snugged back against the wall to feel the rock and rumble of the bus, he gets a text from an unknown number.
It says, "the show as good. xo".
He doesn't reply, but he keeps the message for a week, deletes it the morning his bus pulls in to Chicago. He almost tells Paul to tell security to keep Pete away if he shows up, but he doesn't. Pete doesn't show up, and he doesn't text again, or e-mail, or call. Patrick switches to a new cell phone anyway.
He dreams of standing alone on stage, of playing "Hum Hallelujah," and of not being able to sing. He dreams that the house lights come up and there's no one in the audience. He dreams that he goes home to find his cat dead, even though he doesn't have a cat. He has this dream in Chicago, Portland, Baltimore, Appleton, Redfork, Milwaukee--he has it a few times a week. He mostly takes it as confirmation that there are some Fall Out Boy songs he really shouldn't play ever again.
On the fourth day of pre-tour rehearsal, Greta started keeping a list of songs he wouldn't play. The list lives in Paul's binder of old setlists, purely for reference purposes. There are nine songs on the "Absolutely Not" list, and seven on the "Maybe" list. Patrick doesn't know what makes a song okay or not okay--it's not necessarily the intimacy of the lyrics, or how hard the song might have been to write in the first place, or how popular it is/was with the fans. "Sugar" is totally okay; he loves playing "Dance, Dance" with the band--he and Victoria sometimes do a little jitterbug in the bridge; "The Take Over" is fine; "Grand Theft Autumn" is fine, though he sometimes likes to sing "man" instead of "boy," just for fun. He does "Golden" once in a while too, during the encore, but in the third person instead of first; he decides he'll say it's a tribute, an acknowledgement, if anybody asks him why--nobody does.
Really, he has twelve of his own songs. Even if he played the whole album, it wouldn't be a proper headlining set, and he doesn't want to sing fucking "Quickstep" every night for six months. So, there are going to be some Fall Out Boy songs. It's not wrong if he only decides to do a half-dozen of them; it's not wrong if he chooses the singles over obscurities like "Patron Saint Of Liars And Fakes" or "It's Hard To Say 'I Do'". It's not wrong if he leaves out most of the songs with screaming in them--there's no one in the band who does that kind of thing.
There are Hush Sound and Cobra songs too. They do "Honey" and "Guilty Pleasure" and "Pop Punk Is So '05". He tells interviewers that since Cobra Starship broke up, there's been a void of awesome; he's just trying to fill it. He tells kids at signings that yes, the Hush Sound will make a new album and no, he doesn't know when. Some blogger says his setlist is like a graveyard of broken record deals.
The e-mail invitation appears in his inbox on a Thursday morning--a very stylish white background stamped with green leaves and a family of black birds on a black wire.
Juliette, Aida, & Lauren Trohman
invite you to join them
as they celebrate
the marriage of their parents
Marie Rosner
&
Joseph Trohman
at their home in Torrance, CA
on Sunday, July 7, 2013
Patrick calls Joe immediately. "Seriously?" he asks, happily.
"For total fucking serious," Joe says. "Fucking awesome, right?"
"I don't know, man, it's kind of quick," Patrick says.
"I thought it was time to de-bastardize the babies, make an honest woman of her, all that," Joe says.
"Congratulations," Patrick says, laughing.
"You're coming, right?" Joe asks, an edge of uncertainty over two thousand miles away.
"Hell yes," Patrick says. "You think I'd miss this?"
"Oh, sweet," Joe says. "Pete said you wouldn't come, 'cause he'll be there--"
Patrick closes his eyes and bites his lip, because Pete is fucking right. "Dude, actually," Patrick interrupts, "you know, I didn't check the schedule, I might be in, like, Maine--"
"'Kay," Joe says, slowly.
"Just let me check, I'll get back to you," Patrick says. He doesn't even try to sound reassuring.
"Awesome," Joe says, his voice going cold. "Looking forward to it."
Patrick asks after the girls and tells Joe he'll call again soon with his RSVP. As he closes his phone and puts it in his pocket, all he can think is that he's playing in Santa Barbara the day before the wedding, and San Diego two days after.
He tells Greta to fuck off during soundcheck that afternoon, and she tells him to fuck off right back and leaves the stage. Alex rolls his eyes and says, "Get a fucking grip, Stump," and goes after her.
Victoria leans on her keyboard, chin in her hands. "What's your problem?" she asks.
Patrick sits on the edge of the stage with a huff and fucks around with his pedals. "Nothing, I'm fine."
"You got invited to Joe's wedding, right?" she asks.
"Yes."
"Can I go with you?" Patrick turns around and blinks at her. She shrugs. "I like weddings. And who else are you going to take? I bet even Andy isn't going to show up alone."
Patrick doesn't answer, just unplugs things and plugs them in again and presses buttons while strumming his guitar, like he's actually trying to fix something.
"Oh," Victoria says after a few minutes. "Pete's going, right. Is that why you're upset?"
"No."
"Shut up," she says. "That's totally why you're upset."
"I'm not upset." He's not. He couldn't care less. He just doesn't want to be anywhere Pete is. Ever.
"Whatever," Victoria says, disbelieving. "I don't get what your problem is. I mean, yeah, he quit the band, but what happened after is not his fault--you left Decaydance--"
"So did you!" Patrick says. "You all did."
Victoria sits down beside him, her hands gripping the edge of the stage. "That was business," she says. "I mean. Cobra broke up, and Hush Sound, very smartly, I think, got their contract bought by a label that gave a shit about them. It had nothing to do with Pete--"
"Look, you know what, it's totally cool if, even after everything, all the shit he pulled, you guys are still friends with him," Patrick says. He doesn't need to hear about it, is the thing.
"Wow, thanks," Victoria says. "That's nice of you--"
He waves his hand and shakes his head. "Whatever, that's not what I meant and you fucking know it, just--I can't--"
"Relax," Victoria says, putting her arm steadily around his shoulders and holding on. "Seriously, okay. It's Joe's wedding, do you really want to miss that because of Pete?"
Patrick narrows his eyes at the mostly-dismantled pedal in his hands. "Fucking logic."
She shrugs. "Not just a pretty face," she says.
Two hundred and fifty-six autographs at a record store called Ziggy's in Pennsylvania. A hundred and four photographs with fans.
HMV in Boise: ninety-two autographs, eighty-seven photos.
Forty-nine autographs and photos at a New Dreamers fan appreciation event before the Griffith Amphitheatre show.
In New York, right after Patrick signs his four hundred and eighth autograph of the day (CDs; posters; calendars; notebooks; ancient OCK 8x10 glossies; issues of Rolling Stone or Spin), an interviewer asks, "So, how's it different, doing this by yourself?"
"Not that different," Patrick says, and shrugs. "It takes a little longer, or it feels like it does, anyway. You have to rely on security to keep you from spending too much time with somebody." He uncaps a bottle of water--the interviewer notes that it is a Hurley Organics brand--and drinks. "Sometimes people ask about the other guys, or the band I'm touring with." He shrugs again and waves his hand. "Same old, same old. Next question."
The truth is, Patrick thinks as he fidgets with his collar mike, waiting for the MuchMusic camera crew to set up: doing promo by himself is really fucking lonely. It's okay, though, because he's used to it, all the five hundred times he did it before Fall Out Boy broke up.
Transcript of interview conducted 05-24-2013 by Julia Beulia, MTV.com music/pop culture blogger.
Julia Beulia: So, I was hoping we could put a persistent rumour about Fall Out Boy to rest today.
Patrick Stump: [laughs] Which one?
JB: Was Pete in love with you?
PS: I'm sorry, what?
JB: All the photos, the ambiguous lyrics, the on-stage kisses, the stuff of the hopes and dreams of a million fangirls. I think you owe it to your fans to go on the record about your relationship with Pete.
PS: I owe--okay. My fans don't care--I'd think Pete's fans would feel the same way. I'd hope any Fall Out Boy fan would care less about how we made the music than about how it makes them feel, since that's why we did everything we did, and anything else is nobody's business but ours. But I guess pleading the fifth on this is the same as incriminating yourself, so, fine, look, for the record: Pete was my best friend. We were friends. Platonically. That's all. And a piece of advice: if you want to ask questions like that, don't ask them first thing--
JB: What--
PS: --because this interview is over.
patrickstump.net blog entry for 05-24-2013.
What Do I Owe My Fans?
by Patrick Stump, Aged 29 (and a bit)
1. Music.
2. Dedication.
3. Effort.
4. A show in their town, at their favorite venue, for free (or so I've been told).
5. My eternal gratitude for more than a decade of being able to do music instead of jockeying a desk or making lattes for minimum wage. Thanks, guys.
6. Not another single, little, solitary thing.
posted by patrick at 12:47PM
Patrick's still not over it when they get to Sacramento. He spends two hours in his bunk with his laptop, putting together a rearrangement of a song he hadn't ever wanted to sing again.
Victoria giggles and covers her face with her hands in glee when he tells her.
"Just to get back at some MTV teeny, really?" Alex asks.
"Yes," Patrick says. The back of his neck still feels warm and prickly from the raging flush he'd gotten as soon as he realized what the girl--Julia Beulia, seriously, what kind of name is that?--was asking. "Can you play the part, or is it too hard?"
"Hey, you know what, your mom is too hard," Alex says, and takes the printed sheet music.
They play through the song four times during soundcheck, and it sounds okay: Victoria carrying the bassline on keys, Alex managing very well on the chorus, Greta dropping some of the cymbals because Patrick has always over-written his drum parts.
Patrick points at Greta and Victoria. "You guys take harmony on the--"
"Right here, where it says to?" Greta says, poking her music with a drumstick.
"Yes," Patrick says. "The chorus, and the second verse intro, and the--the bridge."
"Like we have been the last nine times?" Greta says.
"There are a lot of drummers who'd pay me for a chance behind that kit, you know," Patrick says.
"Are any of them over thirteen?" Alex says.
"Victoria! How you doing?" Patrick asks.
"You're just going to sing the last line on the bridge?" Victoria asks, tilting her head.
"Yes," Patrick says.
"Can I put on a little rough voice there?" she says. "It would be more authentic. Or, I could scream!"
"I think you should, definitely," Alex says. Greta nods seriously.
"Are you--you're kidding," Patrick says. Victoria grins and shrugs. "Don't fucking do that, it's not funny." All three of them laugh at him as he turns back to his mike, getting ready to give it a fifth go. He really, really hadn't ever wanted to sing this song again, and it's nice, the band trying to distract him from the fact that he is singing it.
"I want to sing the chorus too," Alex says. "You need three backing you up on the outro anyway."
Of course, the band could just be being assholes as usual. "Okay, fine, you guys just do whatever the fuck you want and I'll apologize to the audience when it's over," Patrick says. "Does that work?"
"Yep," Greta says.
Alex plays the opening notes and Greta and Victoria join in and Patrick has no choice but to start singing.
That night, he introduces the song by saying, "I did an interview a couple of days ago--you'll probably never hear or see it, it didn't go very well." Victoria and Alex snicker suspiciously close to their mikes. Patrick smirks. "This one's for Julia Beulia."
And they play "Bang The Doldrums."
DAVE NORMAN: Where did you find your touring band?
PATRICK STUMP: Wal-Mart? I don't know. I've known them all for years--
DN: Yeah, but--
PS: Victoria's been with me since I recorded the album. I don't think there was ever a question about whether she'd come on the road with me. Alex and Greta, well. Okay. I know a lot of musicians. When it became clear that I was going to do a solo tour--which was never a sure thing, don't let the slick production fool you--I contacted some of the musicians I know and wouldn't mind sharing a bus with for six months. Not many were available. Alex and Greta weren't even, really, they were sort of busy with real life stuff, but [shrug] they came.
DN: They're certainly great assets to the show.
PS: Definitely. It's awesome, playing with other multi-instrumentalists. We switch off once in a while--I'll do drums, Greta'll do bass, stuff like that.
The thing about the band, the touring band, Patrick's solo band, is that he's known them all for years and years, and he's played with them for almost as long, and he's produced their albums, and they're good friends and everything, but. They don't really hang out or goof around much; they all have their own lives going on outside the tour, outside the bus; they have real work waiting for them when this is over.
Never mind Countdown Commence, the rookie opener Patrick's label gave him for pennies. They're children, which was fine when Patrick was six years younger and had some influence over their careers. These guys play their--admittedly talented--sets and make a mess of their side of the merch table and probably do a lot of semi-legal drinking in their shitty little camper van. Patrick doesn't have any patience for that shit anymore, so he's mostly glad they keep to themselves. Or, that they keep away from him, at least.
Greta and Chris talk long-distance in cycle and temperature codes, figuring out the best days for him to come stay on the bus, locked with Greta in the back lounge--Patrick starts booking hotels for these visits, whenever it's feasible. He loves babies, don't get him wrong, he just never ever needs to hear them being made.
Alex is trying to write a record with Ryland, also long-distance; their conversations are another kind of code--more familiar to Patrick, but just as isolating.
Victoria has been with him since recording; Victoria is not just a pretty face; Victoria is not Joe or Andy. Deep in the lull of three AM, everyone else fast asleep, she's not even Pete. She has a tiny Bloody Mary and the new Dean Koontz to keep her awake while Patrick talks.
"I keep dreaming about singing 'Hum Hallelujah,'" Patrick says.
"We could do it," she whispers back.
"I can't," he says. "In the dream, I lose my voice halfway through the song and the lights come up and no one's there and my cat dies."
"You don't have a cat," she points out.
"That's--no, I don't have a cat, that's true, but the point is--" he glances over at her, suspecting she's laughing at him, and also confused by her. "It's not a good dream, Vicky."
"So we won't do it," she says, sounding a little disappointed.
"But I keep having it, this dream. Almost every night. It's so stupid and weird." He shakes his head against the rough polyester couch cushion. "I don't even believe in dream shit."
"Well," she says, and shrugs.
"I could do 'Hallelujah,' I think, like the actual song," he says. "Maybe that would make it stop; you know, a compromise."
"You're negotiating with your subconscious?" she asks, smirking at him in the dim light of a table lamp.
"Apparently," he says. Even if it doesn't make the dream go away, it'll be better than doing "Last Year's Man" again, which is an awesome song, but really kind of depressing after the ninety-fifth time.
In Denver, Patrick sits at the keyboard he shares with Victoria and glances at the encore setlist--"Your Time," "Yield & Dream," "Last Year's Man," and then the band is supposed to come out and do "Sugar."
He looks out at the crowd, the lights reflecting off the stage and back from their eyes and glasses and teeth. He plays a quick, meaningless flourish on the keyboard and says, because it's his decision, because it's nobody's show but his, "Any requests?"
Some laughter, and someone shouts "Bohemian Rhapsody;" somebody else calls, "Pour Some Sugar On Me."
"'Freebird'!" comes from the front row, and Patrick is laughing in reponse when he hears:
"'Hand On Your Heart'!"
Patrick makes himself laugh a little more even as the first lines are automatically running through his head: keep quiet, I'm planning my escape/I hate to break it to you but I'm breaking out today/I know I'm not breaking your heart, don't lie.
He bites his lip and fits his fingers into a D major chord. "Anything else? Seriously, anything."
"'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others'!"
He giggles, unwillingly. This was not his best impulse ever, for real.
Someone yells, "'Hum Hallelujah'!" and he'd swear it's the same person who asked for "Hand On Your Heart."
His fingers move over on the keyboard and he says, hoping he's not throwing good impulse after bad, "I'll do you one better," and the crowd is hushed while he plays the first few bars of "Hallelujah." He looks into the wings as he sings the first line, at Victoria standing with her hands clasped under her chin and Alex behind her, singing along.
Posted to community.bigjournal.com/trickslump.
surprise cover at the Denver show!!!
omg, guise, here's a dl for patrick signing "hallelujah." it was sooo amazing. he held it in until the very last minut,. an his lyrics are awesmoe.
[link to megasenditspace page]
PS(lol): thats totally my bff Kindra screaming during the last verse!
TIM: This second single, "Yield & Dream," really made me realize, there's a real nighttime vibe to the record--really evocative of Fall Out Boy's later work. Was that deliberate? A hearkening back to the nocturnal feel of Infinity On High?
PATRICK: No…I just like evening. I think the world is really at its most, well, beautiful at dusk, twilight, whatever. […] The creative direction of Fall Out Boy was never under the control of one person. Like, believe it or not, Joe's actually the one who had dreams about giant grasshoppers.
*
Upward.
Patrick et al. futurefic | 26012 words | 14A | 2/4
Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story--even those based on real people--are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated...poorly. The following story contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be read by anybody.
*
2. "I am not alone, dear loneliness. I forgot, but I remember this."
From the 12-04-2012 episode of The Strombo Show, broadcast live from Toronto, ON, Canada.
GEORGE STROMBOULOPOULOUS: Yo, Patrick Stump!
PATRICK STUMP: Hey!
GS: So how've you been?
PS: When did I last see you?
GS: Last interview was the Olympics, so I guess it's been almost three years.
PS: Wow, really? [laughs] Three years. Where to start. [laughs] Uh, my band broke up.
GS: No way. Who knew!
PS: Not me.
GS: Seriously?
PS: Yeah, it was--it was a surprise for all of us.
GS: None of you have talked about it much, just the usual press releases and no comment, so, tell me, because we have a special bond, ignoring the millions of people watching and listening to the show, what went down?
PS: Millions of people?
GS: Millions.
PS: Well. I guess. Because of the special bond. Uh. There was a meeting. Pete told us he didn't want to do the band anymore, I said I didn't want to do it if he wasn't doing it, and Andy and Joe decided they'd rather move on. So.
GS: So what you're saying is that the break up was your fault.
PS: [laughing] Yeah, pretty much. It's all my fault that Fall Out Boy is, you know, a former band.
GS: Nah, it's just sleeping.
PS: Pining for the fjords.
The thing is--and this would make really shitty interview material, so he always lies when asked about it--the thing is that Patrick doesn't really remember most of the meeting during which Fall Out Boy was dissolved. He remembers that Pete wasn't there, and his own disgust and anger curdling like bile in his stomach, a painfully cold spot of confusion and disappointment behind his heart. He remembers Pete's lawyer--Scott, with whom Pete had attended DePaul a million years before--and he remembers Scott giving Pete's shitty excuse for not showing up. He does not, however, actually remember Pete's shitty excuse.
He remembers Joe's shell-shocked eyes and the fraud of his indolent shrug. He remembers Andy watching everyone, all surface calm; deep nerves betraying themselves in his fingers tapping on the edge of the boardroom table.
He remembers Bob's face drawn in grief, pinched and stony--his granite handshake.
He knows there were lawyers besides Scott, and guys from the labels, but he doesn't remember who or where or what was said.
He remembers saying, "I meant it when I said I wouldn't do the band anymore if Pete quit," though he cannot for the life of him remember why the fuck he said it.
He remembers Joe flinching and looking at Andy, who tilted his head in deference and said, "It's your band, dude."
He remembers Joe laughing, startled, and saying, "Fuck yeah, and you're all fucking fired."
He remembers laughing along with everyone else, the laughter soaking up and releasing some of the bitter tension he'd been carrying around since Bob called him.
He remembers wanting to punch Scott right in his laughing goddamn face so hard his perfectly white, perfectly capped teeth would fall out and clatter on the boardroom table like loose change.
After the Strombo Show, he flies back to Chicago from Toronto and carries his own bag from the plane to the taxi stand. He kind of likes relative obscurity; or maybe it's just that he appreciates it now.
All the bad parts about coming home after a trip--dust, darkness, cold, no food, dead fish, not that he has fish, but still--are mitigated by having a housesitter. Patrick takes a chocolate chip muffin out of the basket on the kitchen counter and sits down in the living room with a pair of scissors for cutting open the thick brown envelope on the table.
He eats the muffin with one hand and goes through the photos with the other to avoid greasy fingerprints and crumbs.
He and Sophia did two shoots for the album--one in black and white, in an old brick warehouse, with intermittent use of a white backdrop. There are pictures of him standing by himself at a bank of arched, half-broken windows, or sitting on the ledge of one of the windows, staring into the distance. There are pictures of him playing instruments--all the instruments he played for the album, in fact: horns and strings and woodwinds. There's one precisely-captured motion shot of him fooling around on a nickel-plated Gibson, one leg raised as he spins, half in front of the backdrop, half in front of the windows, the guitar's body flashing. He puts that one to the side, a keeper. The rest of the warehouse photos are too cold, too lonely, too adamant about the fact that it's a solo album. He doesn't feel that lonely, or at least not that alone.
The second shoot is in colour, and was done at his condo in LA two days before he moved out. The place was pretty much packed up except for the furniture--sleek black leather couch and red corduroy chair, reclaimed teak dining room set, empty pine bookshelves. Sophia had put him in a red shirt and black jeans, saying he'd "pop" against the white walls and dark wood floor. He didn't really care; he was mostly thinking about all the work he'd done in the house, all the friends who'd been there. All of the photos are cut by hard, architectural shadows, anticipatory, like he and the rooms are waiting for something immense: something that will fill the wide, half-vacant spaces. He shuffles through the pictures, sorting five or six into the keeper pile, judging them good enough for the liner. They're better than the other set, but that's not saying much.
He doesn't have a cover shot, yet. This is the problem. In the last half-dozen prints from the condo, he finds a photo of his old living room window, bare and bright, looking down into the street, three stories below. He can just make out himself on the opposite sidewalk, in the red shirt and black jeans and a black porkpie hat, carrying a tray of Starbucks. There are dozens more people on the sidewalks, and cars filling the street, and he's not especially remarkable. He frames the photo with his fingers and imagines the album title in small white letters, in the top right-hand corner: Selma Avenue.
He remembers getting the Clandestine employee newsletter a week after the break up and ripping it to shreds in his kitchen. Then he called his business manager and said, "I want out."
"Okay," Ahmad said. "Of?"
"The fucking clothing line," Patrick said, "the stores, the bar, the restaurant, the label--everything." He clenched the hand that wasn't already clenched around the phone. "I want out."
Ahmad had made an affirmative noise and Patrick could picture him in his glass-walled, seventeenth-floor office, nodding placidly against the phone. Probably doodling on his desk blotter. Or watching the tropical fishes swim past on his screen saver. Patrick gritted his teeth, which were already gritted.
"What I'm hearing, just so I've got this right," Ahmad said, "is that you want to divest yourself of all interest in Pete Wentz."
Patrick had let out an explosive breath, like he'd been punched in the chest, shocked by the simplicity of what he actually wanted.
He remembers saying, "Yes."
He e-mails Sophia to let her know which pictures he likes, and Morris and the A&R guy whose name he can never remember to let them know the album art is pretty much done. It's a lie, but it'll only take him an hour to type everything up in Photoshop.
He checks his schedule for next week, crossing off a cancelled radio interview and using a red pen to circle the video shoot on Thursday and Friday. Some kid the label hired is directing. Patrick has read the concept and really couldn't give a fuck--"Quickstep" is a dance song; the video will be of people more attractive than Patrick dancing while Patrick pretends to sing. Frankly, he's surprised he's allowed to be in the video at all. He intends to wear a loose shirt and jeans and his black patent Converse.
He remembers thinking he'd be completely fucking fine without Pete, without the band, without the label. He remembers having five months of work, which had been booked before the break up, and then he remembers having nothing. No one called Bob asking for him, no one called his agent, no one randomly e-mailed him to see if he wanted to jam.
His collaborative tracks with Alicia and the Black Eyed Peas got cut due to label concerns. The funding fell through for his and Justin's next short. "It sucks," Justin said, "but we needed to get back in the studio anyway." He didn't invite Patrick to sing or produce or even come hang out. Mark called him personally to let him know he'd been replaced as producer on the Blink reunion album, which hadn't even been written yet--it was nice of Mark to call, so Patrick didn't get upset, just wished him the best of luck with Chester and promised to buy a hundred copies and told Mark to call if they needed help with anything. Anything at all.
He kept it all to himself. He had dinner at Joe and Marie's every couple of weeks, and listened to them talk about the new baby on the way and made jokes about Irish twins and explained what Irish twins were, and didn't mention how Jay wouldn't even reply to his e-mails anymore.
He didn't tell Andy either. He didn't tell his parents, or his stepparents, or anyone back home. He held it close like keeping it secret would keep it from being real; pressed the confusion, hurt, anger down in his stomach. It was all between him and the people telling him to pack it up and go back to Glenview--of course, they weren't saying it in so many words, and probably not even thinking it, but what else could he do?
He remembers blaming Pete, he remembers firing Bob and his agent, he remembers overhearing an intern at Crush talking about how last year everything was "feat. Patrick Stump," but that was last year, hello. Wake up and smell the "not It anymore," moron.
And still, for some reason, it didn't really hit him--or, all the "no"s and anger and bewilderment didn't really mean anything, maybe, until Timbaland gave him a sad, apologetic look over excellent Italasian fusion on Sunset and said, "I'm sorry, man, I just can't do anything for you right now," and, "I wish you the best of luck," and shook his hand.
"No, that's all right, I understand," Patrick lied. "Thank you," he said.
"If you put something together on your own, you should send it up to Morris at Loop Reps, they're real small--real elite." Tim took his napkin from his lap and put it on the table, obviously getting ready to leave. "They'd probably love to have you."
"Loop, okay," Patrick said, and, "I'll keep it in mind," and, "Thank you," again, because it wasn't Tim's fault. Whatever had gone wrong in the universe was not anyone's fault, except possibly Patrick's. Or possibly Pete's.
NORA: What was your process like on this one?
--he worked for nine weeks straight, locked in his condo, alone, fueled by fury and confusion and not a little righteous indignation--
PATRICK: It took me a couple of months to write most of the record. When I finished recording--when I thought I'd finished recording--I realized that it wasn't really enough, that I wasn't done, so I got in touch with my friend Victoria Asher and she came out to LA and helped me for a few weeks, laying down some harmonies and stuff.
--he stayed up for twenty-six hours straight at one point and sent her a few songs in a fit of panicked self-doubt; she showed up on a Tuesday with three suitcases and a keyboard and wouldn't leave until he'd played her the rest of the album and agreed to let her help, and also agreed to let her stay in his guest room--
NORA: What about the lyrics--what was it like, having to write words after so long?
--torturous, wrenching, like being roasted on a spit and put through a pasta maker and a juicer--
--easy, the easiest thing he'd done in years, like singing "Sugar" or reciting Prince's discography--
--like dying, like walking through Pete's house after Pete left, like holding one of Joe's kids--
PATRICK: Well, it's not as if I just stopped writing, period, because Pete was taking care of Fall Out Boy's lyrics. It wasn't that hard to start thinking of what I was writing as music again. I mean, I'd never written an entire record on my own, so that was difficult, but I managed. Somehow.
--he was sure he'd let out absolutely every feeling he'd ever had about, well, anything, maybe. He felt scraped hollow, half inside-out, like a smashed jack-o-lantern. He felt like he was actually over it, over everything, over his life--
NORA: I think "Your Time" is the most restrained I've heard you since, like, "Golden." Is it hard for you to sing quietly?
--yes--
PATRICK: Yeah, it really is. I had to learn to sing quietly. While I was working on the record, I listened to a lot of, like, Tom Waits and Elliot Smith and Leonard Cohen, and, you know, quiet singers.
--Greta, Victoria, Kurt Cobain, the list goes on--
NORA: There's a wide range of styles on the album--"Quickstep" is obviously a dance track, while "Your Time" and "Yield & Dream" are really subdued, compared to your previous work. What's up with that?
--Morris said the album was depressing; Morris said the label would want a single that would play on TRL, a summer song despite it being goddamn January; Morris Morris Morris fucking Morris, whom he had known for two fucking weeks; Victoria shrugged and said, "Quickstep," which was a shitty riff he'd written for Tyga back when he still worked at fucking Decaydance. Patrick thought about it and played the beat on his iPod for two days and wrote a goddamn dance song--
PATRICK: I have a really wide taste in music, myself. Seriously, I will literally listen to anything, so when people try to tell me I should limit what I'm writing, I don't respond well. "Quickstep" was originally a beat for an artist I'd been producing, but it didn't work for his album, so I kept it. I wrote some lyrics based on a few stupid things I've seen people do at clubs--or done myself, let's be honest here--and there you have it.
--there you have it: another number one on TRL; another number one download on iTunes; another hook in his voice he'll hear for the next six months, blasting through static from strangers' cell phones: oh lord I ain't a dancer but I do love a quickstep--
NORA: There you have it, indeed. Selma Avenue is out on Credit Records this Tuesday; pick it up at your local or through iTunes. Thank you so much for talking with us about the new album, Patrick.
--four months of his soul into a microphone, and it's one line of promo after another, that's all; he kind of gets Pete in a new way, and that is irritating and disquieting--
PATRICK: No problem, thanks for having me.
Selma Avenue - Patrick Stump (Credit Records; Triple Threat)
Three/five stars.
Step back, you don't know what you're in for--this is the opening line of Patrick Stump's first solo release. It would be a typical bombastic warning from Stump's ex-songwriting partner, Pete Wentz, but these lyrics were penned by Stump himself, and are sung with a bitter, world-weary confidence that belies the singer's years. Packed with retro grooves, techno style, and modern simplicity, Selma Avenue might be a surprise for fans of Stump's former band, Fall Out Boy, but probably won't shock anyone who's been paying attention to his career outside of the emo-rock scene….
Former Emo Crooner Finds His Voice
90%.
The key to the album's title, and maybe to the entirety of this cipher of a record, is in the sixth track "Yield & Dream": "dream of the wide world/wake up in the ocean/dream on Elm Street/wake up on Selma Avenue." Patrick Stump's Chicago home is on Elm Street, while his former Los Angeles residence is located right inside Hollywood--on Selma Avenue. Viewed as an autobiographical journey from Midwest suburbia to downtown New Babylon and back, this solo effort from Fall Out Boy's former lead singer reveals itself to be not a battle of conflicting influences, but a look inside the mind of a talent frustrated by life in the shadows--whether some of those shadows belong to FOB's ex-frontman Pete Wentz is another story all together.
Track by track, Selma Avenue unfolds as a roadmap to and from stardom: the fans, the clubs, the moneymakers, the heartbreakers. From the cutting opener "West vs. Midwest" ("when they've bought you--and they'll buy you--keep your eyes open, 'cause they'll slip around behind you and sell you right back") to the plaintive "I Had All These Dreams (And Then I Learned To Play Guitar)" ("I can't play guitar with one hand, I can't go on being half a man; the world is tired of the best of me--where's the rest of me?"), a picture emerges and is crystallized in the album's official closer, "Your Time" ("I'm not saying this so you'll say something back, I just want you to know…I just want you to have your time")….
essential track: patrick stump's selma avenue
okay, folks. this album is drivel. it's shiny, catchy drivel, because patrick stump is good at producing shiny, catchy drivel (i don't believe for a minute he wrote this whole album himself), but drivel nonetheless. the only song you need to have is--not "quickstep," and damn you to hell for even thinking it. you need "postscript," the hidden acoustic track only available on the icky physical compact disc release. you can't even get this shit on itunes, mofos. lyric check:
do you know how to say goodbye
with a few chords and no words
because i've tried i've tried i've tried
and it's hard it's hard it's hard
it's nobody's business how you feel anymore
and it's not your job to keep the show on the road anymore
do you know how to break a heart
with a few phonecalls and no words
because you did you did you did
and they missed you they missed you they missed you
it's none of your business how they're doing anymore
and it's not their job to miss you anymore
you're not the only one who got left behind, remember
you're not the only one who got fucked over; it's hard to remember
postscript to a letter they'll never send
postscript to a letter they'll never write
postscript; there are songs they'll never sing
do you know how they saved their own goddamn lives
with a few chords and a few of their own goddamn words
because they did they did they did
and they don't need you they don't need you
it's nobody's business if you're dead or alive anymore
and my job these days is keeping this show on the road
i love post-break up hetero life partners writing songs to each other. lennon/mccartney, anybody?
dl here. comment below. flames encouraged, because i deserve it for spending fifteen bucks on this shit.
wearestandingontheedge.blogspot.com entry for 01-28-2013.
from "story" by russell thornton
And you may have gone, you may have departed into the pure promise
of the unknown,
but what could you say of where you had gone when you came back,
or what could you say of your life - your loving, not loving, being loved,
not being loved,
and the miracle of the panic - was that you were standing,
staring,
that you were hearing a bird cry, that you were seeing the bright blade
of a wing,
that there was a seagull flying close and low through falling snow.
posted by xo at 3:19AM
The first show of the Dreaming On Elm Street Tour is in March, in Detroit, at a Croatian cultural centre. The room holds seven hundred people. It's not quite officially sold out, and only half full when Countdown Commence, the first openers, get on stage. Patrick stands in the wings, watching the band and watching the crowd slowly grow. The second opener is Alex and Victoria, billed as Everything You Want To Know, playing a nine-song set of covers on acoustic guitar and organ. Draped across the front of Victoria's organ is a Hurley Organics banner.
All the Patrick Stump and Everything You Want To Know shirts at the merch table were sustainably manufactured in Minneapolis at Andy's factory. There's a Hurley Organics outreach rep at the merch table too, with pamphlets about sustainable living and fair trade and how artists of conscience can change the world. Patrick doesn't really think of himself as an "artist of conscience," but a corporate sponsorship has never left him feeling so clean.
Backstage, Patrick, Alex, Victoria, and Greta stand in a square in the men's room, the single dressing room having been taken over by Countdown Commence's post-show rowdies. Patrick shrugs and says, "So, two weeks of rehearsal, and here we are."
"It's going to be amazing," Victoria says, and pats his shoulder.
"You're going to do the intros, right?" Patrick says to Alex.
Alex rolls his eyes and pats Patrick's other shoulder. "Just say the name of the song; it's not that hard."
"This is going to blow," Patrick says. Why did he let Morris talk him into touring? Seriously.
"Awesome," Greta says brightly. She puts her hand in the middle of the square and pulls it back out. "Go team!"
Alex guides Patrick out of the bathroom with his hands on his shoulders. "You can do it, champ, you're a fighter, you're a miracle man," he says. "You made Gabe Saporta sound like Michael Jackson."
Patrick can't think of anything to say. His stomach is clenching and releasing like a fist; he feels worse than he did before his first show ever, back in ninth grade. The four of them pass the small tour crew lounging in the hallway, chatting with some venue staff, and they all say, "Good luck, guys!" and, "Good show!" Paul, the tour manager, whom Patrick hadn't met before last week, falls in step with the band and claps Patrick on the back, between Alex's hands.
Patrick breathes faster, harder, with every step. He almost feels like he's getting ready for a long-distance run, which is bullshit, because he's never run long-distance, how the fuck would he know--
"Ax?" Alex says, holding him back at the guitar rack, keeping him from walking right out on stage without something to play.
Patrick laughs, it sounds pitiful in his ears, and takes the old red Gibson. He only allowed himself two guitars for this tour; Alex got to bring four, since he's also playing bass.
Corporate sponsorship means Patrick is not paying for everything, not that they get to have everything they want.
Patrick tucks his glasses in his back pocket and goes out into the light.
"How's Detroit tonight?" he asks at his mike, fiddling with the tone knob on his guitar for something to do.
The crowd yells back something indistinct.
"Awesome," he says, and taps his foot for a few imaginary beats. "I'm Patrick, and these are my friends. We're going to play some songs for you." He shrugs and looks over at Victoria. She smiles and nods, so he turns around and nods at Greta, who waves her sticks in an "okay, let's go" motion. Alex gives him thumbs up.
Patrick leans in to the mike again and says, "West Vs. Midwest," and Greta plays the beat and Alex kicks the pick up and the crowd screams.
It's really not that different. Not that different at all.
patrickstump.com 03-15-2010 - "Fall Out Boy, as an experiment, has failed."
Hey guys.
It's true. The band is over. It's been a crazy month. I'm sorry I haven't been able to keep you up to date, but I wanted to take a couple hundred words and talk about it, because as usual the world is full of everybody knowing exactly what happene,d but not really knowing at all.
People change. People grow. Sometimes the changing makes someone a better person, or improves their life, but means they have to give up things. Let things go. Move on.
More than one member of Fall Out Boy is at that place of changing. It's not wrong, or bad. It's no one's fault. It just happens sometiems. If it hasn't happened to you, it will, and it will happen again. It's life. Am I disappointed that it happened to us, at this moment? I won't lie, I am. But I'm not pissed off at any one person. I'm mostly pissed off at myself for not seeing it coming.
I'll get over it. You'll get over it too. Next week therell be another shitty band from the suburbs wanting a spot on your bedroom wall. It's okay. I'll miss you, the shows, the bus, the memories feeling like their just around the corner, but we'll be okay.
We're going to be okay, all of us. See you around.
-p.stump
Patrick comes out for the encore alone, with his acoustic guitar, and shuffles his feet a little before saying, "So, uh. I never expected to be standing here. The last few years have been--a learning experience. Thanks for coming tonight." He strums the first chord and says, "This is a song by Leonard Cohen," and plays "Last Year's Man."
In his bunk, three hours later, snugged back against the wall to feel the rock and rumble of the bus, he gets a text from an unknown number.
It says, "the show as good. xo".
He doesn't reply, but he keeps the message for a week, deletes it the morning his bus pulls in to Chicago. He almost tells Paul to tell security to keep Pete away if he shows up, but he doesn't. Pete doesn't show up, and he doesn't text again, or e-mail, or call. Patrick switches to a new cell phone anyway.
He dreams of standing alone on stage, of playing "Hum Hallelujah," and of not being able to sing. He dreams that the house lights come up and there's no one in the audience. He dreams that he goes home to find his cat dead, even though he doesn't have a cat. He has this dream in Chicago, Portland, Baltimore, Appleton, Redfork, Milwaukee--he has it a few times a week. He mostly takes it as confirmation that there are some Fall Out Boy songs he really shouldn't play ever again.
On the fourth day of pre-tour rehearsal, Greta started keeping a list of songs he wouldn't play. The list lives in Paul's binder of old setlists, purely for reference purposes. There are nine songs on the "Absolutely Not" list, and seven on the "Maybe" list. Patrick doesn't know what makes a song okay or not okay--it's not necessarily the intimacy of the lyrics, or how hard the song might have been to write in the first place, or how popular it is/was with the fans. "Sugar" is totally okay; he loves playing "Dance, Dance" with the band--he and Victoria sometimes do a little jitterbug in the bridge; "The Take Over" is fine; "Grand Theft Autumn" is fine, though he sometimes likes to sing "man" instead of "boy," just for fun. He does "Golden" once in a while too, during the encore, but in the third person instead of first; he decides he'll say it's a tribute, an acknowledgement, if anybody asks him why--nobody does.
Really, he has twelve of his own songs. Even if he played the whole album, it wouldn't be a proper headlining set, and he doesn't want to sing fucking "Quickstep" every night for six months. So, there are going to be some Fall Out Boy songs. It's not wrong if he only decides to do a half-dozen of them; it's not wrong if he chooses the singles over obscurities like "Patron Saint Of Liars And Fakes" or "It's Hard To Say 'I Do'". It's not wrong if he leaves out most of the songs with screaming in them--there's no one in the band who does that kind of thing.
There are Hush Sound and Cobra songs too. They do "Honey" and "Guilty Pleasure" and "Pop Punk Is So '05". He tells interviewers that since Cobra Starship broke up, there's been a void of awesome; he's just trying to fill it. He tells kids at signings that yes, the Hush Sound will make a new album and no, he doesn't know when. Some blogger says his setlist is like a graveyard of broken record deals.
The e-mail invitation appears in his inbox on a Thursday morning--a very stylish white background stamped with green leaves and a family of black birds on a black wire.
Juliette, Aida, & Lauren Trohman
invite you to join them
as they celebrate
the marriage of their parents
Marie Rosner
&
Joseph Trohman
at their home in Torrance, CA
on Sunday, July 7, 2013
Patrick calls Joe immediately. "Seriously?" he asks, happily.
"For total fucking serious," Joe says. "Fucking awesome, right?"
"I don't know, man, it's kind of quick," Patrick says.
"I thought it was time to de-bastardize the babies, make an honest woman of her, all that," Joe says.
"Congratulations," Patrick says, laughing.
"You're coming, right?" Joe asks, an edge of uncertainty over two thousand miles away.
"Hell yes," Patrick says. "You think I'd miss this?"
"Oh, sweet," Joe says. "Pete said you wouldn't come, 'cause he'll be there--"
Patrick closes his eyes and bites his lip, because Pete is fucking right. "Dude, actually," Patrick interrupts, "you know, I didn't check the schedule, I might be in, like, Maine--"
"'Kay," Joe says, slowly.
"Just let me check, I'll get back to you," Patrick says. He doesn't even try to sound reassuring.
"Awesome," Joe says, his voice going cold. "Looking forward to it."
Patrick asks after the girls and tells Joe he'll call again soon with his RSVP. As he closes his phone and puts it in his pocket, all he can think is that he's playing in Santa Barbara the day before the wedding, and San Diego two days after.
He tells Greta to fuck off during soundcheck that afternoon, and she tells him to fuck off right back and leaves the stage. Alex rolls his eyes and says, "Get a fucking grip, Stump," and goes after her.
Victoria leans on her keyboard, chin in her hands. "What's your problem?" she asks.
Patrick sits on the edge of the stage with a huff and fucks around with his pedals. "Nothing, I'm fine."
"You got invited to Joe's wedding, right?" she asks.
"Yes."
"Can I go with you?" Patrick turns around and blinks at her. She shrugs. "I like weddings. And who else are you going to take? I bet even Andy isn't going to show up alone."
Patrick doesn't answer, just unplugs things and plugs them in again and presses buttons while strumming his guitar, like he's actually trying to fix something.
"Oh," Victoria says after a few minutes. "Pete's going, right. Is that why you're upset?"
"No."
"Shut up," she says. "That's totally why you're upset."
"I'm not upset." He's not. He couldn't care less. He just doesn't want to be anywhere Pete is. Ever.
"Whatever," Victoria says, disbelieving. "I don't get what your problem is. I mean, yeah, he quit the band, but what happened after is not his fault--you left Decaydance--"
"So did you!" Patrick says. "You all did."
Victoria sits down beside him, her hands gripping the edge of the stage. "That was business," she says. "I mean. Cobra broke up, and Hush Sound, very smartly, I think, got their contract bought by a label that gave a shit about them. It had nothing to do with Pete--"
"Look, you know what, it's totally cool if, even after everything, all the shit he pulled, you guys are still friends with him," Patrick says. He doesn't need to hear about it, is the thing.
"Wow, thanks," Victoria says. "That's nice of you--"
He waves his hand and shakes his head. "Whatever, that's not what I meant and you fucking know it, just--I can't--"
"Relax," Victoria says, putting her arm steadily around his shoulders and holding on. "Seriously, okay. It's Joe's wedding, do you really want to miss that because of Pete?"
Patrick narrows his eyes at the mostly-dismantled pedal in his hands. "Fucking logic."
She shrugs. "Not just a pretty face," she says.
Two hundred and fifty-six autographs at a record store called Ziggy's in Pennsylvania. A hundred and four photographs with fans.
HMV in Boise: ninety-two autographs, eighty-seven photos.
Forty-nine autographs and photos at a New Dreamers fan appreciation event before the Griffith Amphitheatre show.
In New York, right after Patrick signs his four hundred and eighth autograph of the day (CDs; posters; calendars; notebooks; ancient OCK 8x10 glossies; issues of Rolling Stone or Spin), an interviewer asks, "So, how's it different, doing this by yourself?"
"Not that different," Patrick says, and shrugs. "It takes a little longer, or it feels like it does, anyway. You have to rely on security to keep you from spending too much time with somebody." He uncaps a bottle of water--the interviewer notes that it is a Hurley Organics brand--and drinks. "Sometimes people ask about the other guys, or the band I'm touring with." He shrugs again and waves his hand. "Same old, same old. Next question."
The truth is, Patrick thinks as he fidgets with his collar mike, waiting for the MuchMusic camera crew to set up: doing promo by himself is really fucking lonely. It's okay, though, because he's used to it, all the five hundred times he did it before Fall Out Boy broke up.
Transcript of interview conducted 05-24-2013 by Julia Beulia, MTV.com music/pop culture blogger.
Julia Beulia: So, I was hoping we could put a persistent rumour about Fall Out Boy to rest today.
Patrick Stump: [laughs] Which one?
JB: Was Pete in love with you?
PS: I'm sorry, what?
JB: All the photos, the ambiguous lyrics, the on-stage kisses, the stuff of the hopes and dreams of a million fangirls. I think you owe it to your fans to go on the record about your relationship with Pete.
PS: I owe--okay. My fans don't care--I'd think Pete's fans would feel the same way. I'd hope any Fall Out Boy fan would care less about how we made the music than about how it makes them feel, since that's why we did everything we did, and anything else is nobody's business but ours. But I guess pleading the fifth on this is the same as incriminating yourself, so, fine, look, for the record: Pete was my best friend. We were friends. Platonically. That's all. And a piece of advice: if you want to ask questions like that, don't ask them first thing--
JB: What--
PS: --because this interview is over.
patrickstump.net blog entry for 05-24-2013.
What Do I Owe My Fans?
by Patrick Stump, Aged 29 (and a bit)
1. Music.
2. Dedication.
3. Effort.
4. A show in their town, at their favorite venue, for free (or so I've been told).
5. My eternal gratitude for more than a decade of being able to do music instead of jockeying a desk or making lattes for minimum wage. Thanks, guys.
6. Not another single, little, solitary thing.
posted by patrick at 12:47PM
Patrick's still not over it when they get to Sacramento. He spends two hours in his bunk with his laptop, putting together a rearrangement of a song he hadn't ever wanted to sing again.
Victoria giggles and covers her face with her hands in glee when he tells her.
"Just to get back at some MTV teeny, really?" Alex asks.
"Yes," Patrick says. The back of his neck still feels warm and prickly from the raging flush he'd gotten as soon as he realized what the girl--Julia Beulia, seriously, what kind of name is that?--was asking. "Can you play the part, or is it too hard?"
"Hey, you know what, your mom is too hard," Alex says, and takes the printed sheet music.
They play through the song four times during soundcheck, and it sounds okay: Victoria carrying the bassline on keys, Alex managing very well on the chorus, Greta dropping some of the cymbals because Patrick has always over-written his drum parts.
Patrick points at Greta and Victoria. "You guys take harmony on the--"
"Right here, where it says to?" Greta says, poking her music with a drumstick.
"Yes," Patrick says. "The chorus, and the second verse intro, and the--the bridge."
"Like we have been the last nine times?" Greta says.
"There are a lot of drummers who'd pay me for a chance behind that kit, you know," Patrick says.
"Are any of them over thirteen?" Alex says.
"Victoria! How you doing?" Patrick asks.
"You're just going to sing the last line on the bridge?" Victoria asks, tilting her head.
"Yes," Patrick says.
"Can I put on a little rough voice there?" she says. "It would be more authentic. Or, I could scream!"
"I think you should, definitely," Alex says. Greta nods seriously.
"Are you--you're kidding," Patrick says. Victoria grins and shrugs. "Don't fucking do that, it's not funny." All three of them laugh at him as he turns back to his mike, getting ready to give it a fifth go. He really, really hadn't ever wanted to sing this song again, and it's nice, the band trying to distract him from the fact that he is singing it.
"I want to sing the chorus too," Alex says. "You need three backing you up on the outro anyway."
Of course, the band could just be being assholes as usual. "Okay, fine, you guys just do whatever the fuck you want and I'll apologize to the audience when it's over," Patrick says. "Does that work?"
"Yep," Greta says.
Alex plays the opening notes and Greta and Victoria join in and Patrick has no choice but to start singing.
That night, he introduces the song by saying, "I did an interview a couple of days ago--you'll probably never hear or see it, it didn't go very well." Victoria and Alex snicker suspiciously close to their mikes. Patrick smirks. "This one's for Julia Beulia."
And they play "Bang The Doldrums."
DAVE NORMAN: Where did you find your touring band?
PATRICK STUMP: Wal-Mart? I don't know. I've known them all for years--
DN: Yeah, but--
PS: Victoria's been with me since I recorded the album. I don't think there was ever a question about whether she'd come on the road with me. Alex and Greta, well. Okay. I know a lot of musicians. When it became clear that I was going to do a solo tour--which was never a sure thing, don't let the slick production fool you--I contacted some of the musicians I know and wouldn't mind sharing a bus with for six months. Not many were available. Alex and Greta weren't even, really, they were sort of busy with real life stuff, but [shrug] they came.
DN: They're certainly great assets to the show.
PS: Definitely. It's awesome, playing with other multi-instrumentalists. We switch off once in a while--I'll do drums, Greta'll do bass, stuff like that.
The thing about the band, the touring band, Patrick's solo band, is that he's known them all for years and years, and he's played with them for almost as long, and he's produced their albums, and they're good friends and everything, but. They don't really hang out or goof around much; they all have their own lives going on outside the tour, outside the bus; they have real work waiting for them when this is over.
Never mind Countdown Commence, the rookie opener Patrick's label gave him for pennies. They're children, which was fine when Patrick was six years younger and had some influence over their careers. These guys play their--admittedly talented--sets and make a mess of their side of the merch table and probably do a lot of semi-legal drinking in their shitty little camper van. Patrick doesn't have any patience for that shit anymore, so he's mostly glad they keep to themselves. Or, that they keep away from him, at least.
Greta and Chris talk long-distance in cycle and temperature codes, figuring out the best days for him to come stay on the bus, locked with Greta in the back lounge--Patrick starts booking hotels for these visits, whenever it's feasible. He loves babies, don't get him wrong, he just never ever needs to hear them being made.
Alex is trying to write a record with Ryland, also long-distance; their conversations are another kind of code--more familiar to Patrick, but just as isolating.
Victoria has been with him since recording; Victoria is not just a pretty face; Victoria is not Joe or Andy. Deep in the lull of three AM, everyone else fast asleep, she's not even Pete. She has a tiny Bloody Mary and the new Dean Koontz to keep her awake while Patrick talks.
"I keep dreaming about singing 'Hum Hallelujah,'" Patrick says.
"We could do it," she whispers back.
"I can't," he says. "In the dream, I lose my voice halfway through the song and the lights come up and no one's there and my cat dies."
"You don't have a cat," she points out.
"That's--no, I don't have a cat, that's true, but the point is--" he glances over at her, suspecting she's laughing at him, and also confused by her. "It's not a good dream, Vicky."
"So we won't do it," she says, sounding a little disappointed.
"But I keep having it, this dream. Almost every night. It's so stupid and weird." He shakes his head against the rough polyester couch cushion. "I don't even believe in dream shit."
"Well," she says, and shrugs.
"I could do 'Hallelujah,' I think, like the actual song," he says. "Maybe that would make it stop; you know, a compromise."
"You're negotiating with your subconscious?" she asks, smirking at him in the dim light of a table lamp.
"Apparently," he says. Even if it doesn't make the dream go away, it'll be better than doing "Last Year's Man" again, which is an awesome song, but really kind of depressing after the ninety-fifth time.
In Denver, Patrick sits at the keyboard he shares with Victoria and glances at the encore setlist--"Your Time," "Yield & Dream," "Last Year's Man," and then the band is supposed to come out and do "Sugar."
He looks out at the crowd, the lights reflecting off the stage and back from their eyes and glasses and teeth. He plays a quick, meaningless flourish on the keyboard and says, because it's his decision, because it's nobody's show but his, "Any requests?"
Some laughter, and someone shouts "Bohemian Rhapsody;" somebody else calls, "Pour Some Sugar On Me."
"'Freebird'!" comes from the front row, and Patrick is laughing in reponse when he hears:
"'Hand On Your Heart'!"
Patrick makes himself laugh a little more even as the first lines are automatically running through his head: keep quiet, I'm planning my escape/I hate to break it to you but I'm breaking out today/I know I'm not breaking your heart, don't lie.
He bites his lip and fits his fingers into a D major chord. "Anything else? Seriously, anything."
"'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others'!"
He giggles, unwillingly. This was not his best impulse ever, for real.
Someone yells, "'Hum Hallelujah'!" and he'd swear it's the same person who asked for "Hand On Your Heart."
His fingers move over on the keyboard and he says, hoping he's not throwing good impulse after bad, "I'll do you one better," and the crowd is hushed while he plays the first few bars of "Hallelujah." He looks into the wings as he sings the first line, at Victoria standing with her hands clasped under her chin and Alex behind her, singing along.
Posted to community.bigjournal.com/trickslump.
surprise cover at the Denver show!!!
omg, guise, here's a dl for patrick signing "hallelujah." it was sooo amazing. he held it in until the very last minut,. an his lyrics are awesmoe.
[link to megasenditspace page]
PS(lol): thats totally my bff Kindra screaming during the last verse!
TIM: This second single, "Yield & Dream," really made me realize, there's a real nighttime vibe to the record--really evocative of Fall Out Boy's later work. Was that deliberate? A hearkening back to the nocturnal feel of Infinity On High?
PATRICK: No…I just like evening. I think the world is really at its most, well, beautiful at dusk, twilight, whatever. […] The creative direction of Fall Out Boy was never under the control of one person. Like, believe it or not, Joe's actually the one who had dreams about giant grasshoppers.
*
Upward.