Before Fall Out Boy catapulted into mainstream stardom, my sole encounter with Pete Wentz was a fleeting moment in the Chicago of the late nineties. Fresh from the breakup of Texas is the Reason, I found myself amidst a group of hardcore enthusiasts, suburban natives who seemed to share a common history. One evening, I joined them at the Metro to catch a band, and afterwards, we gravitated towards Pick Me Up, a local vegan café and a haven for straight-edge youth. Pete was already there, settled in a booth. I greeted him, but our conversation remained minimal. Back then, in the 90s scene, Pete was far from being considered shy. His involvement in bands like Firstborn, Extinction, Birthright, Racetraitor, and Arma Angelus made him a constant presence. Yet, that night, we both remained in our own worlds.
Over the ensuing decade, Pete Wentz would become the bassist, lyricist, and often the public face of Fall Out Boy, a band that would sell over 30 million albums and fill stadiums worldwide. Despite the trappings of fame and success, those who knew Pete from his hardcore days still remembered him as that hardcore kid. Mike D.C. of Damnation A.D. recounted taking his child to a Fall Out Boy concert and reconnecting with Pete. My friend D.J. Rose, a key figure in the Syracuse hardcore scene of the 90s, shared how Pete had been a true friend during a difficult time. The overwhelming consensus was of a person who remained grounded, never forgetting his friends and the community that shaped him, regardless of life’s dramatic turns. This enduring loyalty, in itself, is hardcore.
Another recurring theme from mutual friends was Pete’s appreciation for Anti-Matter. So, 25 years after our brief initial meeting, Pete Wentz And I finally connected for a long-awaited conversation. “I would feel weird even calling this a fanzine, you know?” he shared. “To me, it was making our thing real. It was making this thing where kids who were playing on a four-inch stage playing songs where there was no melody to the vocal—this thing that was magical and temporary—very real.”
I hadn’t planned to start here, but the thought just struck me. When was the last time you gave an interview to a hardcore fanzine?
PETE: That’s a great question! I’m not sure I ever really have. Maybe back in my Arma Angelus days there might have been something, but I don’t specifically recall. In the early days of Fall Out Boy, we probably did a couple. But when I was active in bands during the ‘90s zine era, I definitely wasn’t the band’s spokesperson. So, I wouldn’t have been the one answering questions—thankfully [laughs].
Talking to you now, it strikes me that you seem like someone who would have created a zine yourself.
PETE: Yeah, I actually did make zines. Several of them. The one I remember most vividly was called XDarkSideX. I mostly remember it because our drummer, Andy [Hurley], showed me something where I apparently did a “Death of a Zine / Rebirth of a Zine” piece for my readership [laughs]. More often though, I’d create joke zines with the guys from Kill the Slave Master. We made zines about things we found funny, but they were so specific and niche, I doubt anyone else got them. Those were my favorites.
Alright, getting serious now, this interview with Pete Wentz is going to be the last “regular” interview I’m doing for Anti-Matter for a while…
PETE: Death and rebirth! If you need any advice, I’ve done a zine!
I might just take you up on that! [laughs] Anyway, one of the reasons I specifically wanted to interview you is because exactly a year ago, Pitchfork ran a feature on Anti-Matter, and… Well, let me just read you this excerpt*:
[Brannon] embraces finding the connective tissue between the various pockets of the community, and keeps an open mind about which members’ perspectives deserve to be celebrated. That extends to the people he chooses to feature in Anti-Matter, and when asked who’s currently at the top of his interview wishlist, he delivers an answer that’s sure to rile up purists: Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy.
He further quoted me calling you “a dyed-in-the-wool hardcore kid,” which I clarified by saying that being a hardcore kid is “very much a way of being—I can’t define that for anyone else, but I know it when I see it.” So, I wanted to start by asking if you agree with that premise.
PETE: I totally agree with that. There are definitely markers—ethics, aesthetics, a way of standing apart—that scream, That’s hardcore.
I often think back to when I was deeply immersed in hardcore, back in the nineties, when it consumed my thoughts. There was something about that pre-internet, or early internet, era culture, a genuine DIY spirit, but not in the way “DIY” is often used today. Now, DIY sometimes implies something is poorly made because it was “do-it-yourself.” But in nineties hardcore, it was the opposite. It was more like, “I’ll start a record label,” or “I’ll learn tour management,” or “I’ll make a glossy cover,” or “I’ll master Photoshop.” It was aspirational! It was about creating our own world; we don’t need the mainstream. That was a powerful takeaway for me. It felt like Boy Scouts in the woods learning to build a campfire. The hardcore equivalent was Book Your Own Fuckin’ Life. You could figure it out. And that ethos has shaped everything for our band—and how I view other [hardcore] people: “These elements shaped who you’ve become.” I’m not sure if that directly answers your question, but that’s how I see it.
Actually, that resonates deeply with Anti-Matter. The physical zine got attention in 1993 precisely because it looked “pro.” But in reality, it was just my friend and me in his dad’s office late at night, struggling to figure out QuarkXPress[laughs]. Apparently, we did a decent job. But part of it was the lack of external validation, so it was about creating our own. I aimed for a certain aesthetic, hoping that a more “professional” look would lend credibility, and by extension, make the bands I interviewed be taken more seriously.
PETE: Absolutely. And, I mean, this was serious to me. These bands were serious, important to me—to all of us. I wanted the world to recognize that seriousness. I wanted my parents to see an Earth Crisis shirt on me and understand that this band was important and worth discussing.
Looking at Anti-Matter or Second Nature, they felt like real magazines, not just fanzines. That was incredibly cool because it legitimized our scene. It made this magical, temporary thing—kids playing intense music on small stages—tangible and real.
Since this is the last proper interview before the end-of-year chaos and then the hiatus, I wanted to revisit a couple of questions that defined this iteration of Anti-Matter for me. This one is particularly close to my heart. It started early on when I asked Crystal [Pak] from Initiate this question, and it seemed to resonate with people. I told her about starting to go to shows in the eighties, and how I often found myself asking new acquaintances, “So, what fucked you up to be here?”—and there was always an answer. You and I only briefly met in the late ‘90s, but if we had had a real conversation and I’d asked you that, how do you think you would have answered it?
PETE: This is something Patrick [Stump] and I, and the band in general, have discussed on a larger scale. But for me personally, growing up in the Chicago suburbs… The Breakfast Club was my high school; literally, the movies were set there, in that town. Also, I’m biracial. My mom’s parents are from Jamaica, and my dad is white. They were very liberal, and we lived in a fairly conservative area. So, I always felt like I didn’t quite fit in, anywhere.
At one point, I got really into death metal. A friend’s older brother had a Metallica mixtape—it’s always the older brother’s mixtape, right?—and in that skate-metal culture, it was all about “What’s the most extreme?” That mixtape led to Cannibal Corpse and Sepultura and all of that. One day in freshman class, wearing a Sepultura shirt, a kid asked, “Yeah, but can you do a hardcore growl?” [laughs]. I was like, “I have no idea what that is!” So, we went to a show in a garage in Kenworth [Illinois]. I think it was a band called Everlast. I remember people singing into the mic instead of the singer, grabbing the mic, and thinking, “What is this?” It felt profound and completely unknown. Like peering into an ant colony, with layers upon layers, none of it making sense.
From there, I realized that in the Chicago scene, there were so many different kinds of people that it felt like, maybe you didn’t fit in, but we could all not fit in—together. It wasn’t a specific trauma, but the feeling of being placeless and then finding a place. A place for discourse, for participation. For me, nineties hardcore was unique in its depth of discussion and ideas. Good and bad ideas, clashing in rooms, but a place where you could belong and speak your mind. It all felt very thoughtful.
I want to circle back to your point about being biracial, but first, did you read the essay I wrote for Amy Madden’s book [Negatives]?*
PETE: I don’t think I have.
You’re kind of the star of it in some ways [laughs].
PETE: Oh damn, OK!
The book is really well done. In essence, my essay addresses the erasure of people of color, women, and queer people in second- and third-wave emo, which is the book’s focus. I emphasize our significant contributions not just to those waves, but also to the first wave. I framed the essay with two stories: one about a magazine editor who, after meeting me, blogged about how he “never knew Norm wasn’t caucasian!”—highlighting the assumption of whiteness in this music scene. The second story was about 2020, when you trended on Twitter after Fall Out Boy’s [Black Lives Matter] post, and it seemed like many were just discovering you were biracial, a huge shock to many. Again, the assumption of whiteness. I was like, “I feel you, Pete!” [laughs] Have you ever grappled with being misperceived in this way?
PETE: It’s a complex question for me. Being biracial, I just felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. Never quite white enough, never Black enough, never Jamaican enough, you know?
I think I understand. My family were immigrants, obsessed with the American Dream, forbidding me to speak Spanish. I feel disconnected from parts of my culture because of that. Does that make me “less” Latino? No, I don’t think so.
PETE: Growing up, my family was “weird.” We’d eat Ethiopian food then go to a musical. I just wanted McDonald’s, the “normal” things [laughs]. Now, I appreciate it. Back then, I didn’t want to stand out. I wanted the basic experiences my neighbors had.
In a way, one thing I loved—and I know I keep referencing nineties hardcore nostalgically—was that Chicago shows had ska bands, punk bands, pop-punk bands, hardcore bands. Political, non-political, diverse people and cultures. While you might not find someone exactly like you if you weren’t white, there were other “others.” That was what I loved. At those shows, I didn’t think about race much. Maybe when filling out standardized tests: “What race are you?” I’d think, “I don’t know! What do you want me to be?” [laughs]
I’ve struggled with that question on forms too.
PETE: Right?
This is related to “being perceived.” As I wind down this zine, I’ve been thinking about “being perceived.” Doing this public-facing thing weekly makes me feel exposed. I’ve realized over 30 years I’m not good at receiving attention. I might be attention-seeking and simultaneously cringe at it. I can’t reconcile the two.
PETE: Yeah, totally.
Honestly, watching friends become famous, I knew I didn’t want that. What was your initial reaction to that intense level of being perceived?
PETE: It might not seem like it, but it was gradual. Initially, touring meant playing to empty rooms, maybe the local band watching. Then people started singing along. It wasn’t until fire marshals started shutting down shows due to overcrowding that we realized, “This is a thing.” Summer 2005, on Warped Tour with My Chemical Romance, felt like a cultural void of boy-bands. We seemed to fill that space for a couple of years. That summer, I remember the shift from normal catering experiences to stepping off the bus and facing crowds. That was the explosion.
There was validation – believing in something so strongly that you drop out of college, betting everything. Validation that others saw it too; it wasn’t just a pipe dream. We worked incredibly hard, against the odds, facing rejection, so that recognition felt validating. My memories are compressed because we did so much, but maybe the next year, things escalated. We couldn’t leave hotels, needing kitchen entrances. That level—closest our band got to a boy-band level—I disliked. I appreciate people’s love for the art, but to be confined to a hotel room… that’s isolating.
Beyond the art—the most important thing—being able to call a restaurant for a reservation is a great level of fame. Anything more is excessive. The gains don’t outweigh the losses.
In 2009, Fall Out Boy went on hiatus. You famously said, “I think the world needs a little less Pete Wentz right now”—a brilliant line [laughs]. You retreated for a while after that. How did you use that time? Did you do personal work to process everything that had happened?*
PETE: I did a lot of work. Honestly, my whole life imploded. Divorce, a child. You’ve been in bands, maybe you’ve experienced this—or with the zine—your identity gets intertwined with what people know you for. When that disappears, it’s like, who am I? What am I? So much time and thought invested, you question your separate identity.
It was heartbreaking that my public persona overshadowed the band. It hurt the band. Patrick’s musicality is exceptional, and it was damaging to reduce it to tabloid fodder. Personally, I realized how much I’d atrophied in basic life skills. I didn’t know how to navigate an airport. I literally followed a backpack through security. Check-in, baggage, gate—I was clueless. I just followed a backpack with a security guy. Having a child, losing that identity, forced me to become an adult. A real adult. No more backpack-following. Raising a child requires more than atrophied skills. That was crucial.
Being in a band—it’s hard to explain. Like being with siblings at Thanksgiving, forever. But also like being on a submarine with them at Thanksgiving, right? Limited space, friction, but they’re the only ones who share that specific life experience. You have to talk. Returning to the band, we wanted a healthier dynamic—communication, less button-pushing, more maturity. Saying “the world needs less of this” allowed time to pass. The world moves on. Fall Out Boy’s second era became more focused on the songs, the art—like the beginning. That was always the band’s core goal.
Do you think growing up with hardcore idealism complicated your experience of fame?
PETE: That’s a good question. I loved hardcore deeply. Nineties hardcore was formative. But around the band’s formation, its spirit shifted for me. Hardcore, like broader culture, sometimes rebels, sometimes conforms. When it became less idea-driven [early 2000s], I lost interest. That’s why we pursued a melodic band. It was fun. It wasn’t fun when every hardcore show felt the same, focused on moshing. Fall Out Boy’s inception was about creating something fun, not that.
It always fascinated me how Arma Angelus morphed into Fall Out Boy like that.
PETE: On the [Arma Angelus] album, we did a melodic… Cheap Trick cover. It was like, “This is kind of fun. If someone could actually sing it, this would be really fun.”
That version sounds like Negative Approach to me. Has anyone ever told you that?
PETE: No! That’s cool [laughs]. It was just a lark. I just remembered, it was like after band practice when you switch instruments, play Rancid covers, whatever. Fall Out Boy was initially that after-band. But, like we discussed earlier, two big influences were Book Your Own Fuckin’ Life and bands you [and your peers] were in. Bands playing the Metro, with choruses—real bands. That made a huge impression.
Defining the Chicago hardcore scene then, it was like those mix-and-match kids’ books—lion head, giraffe body, rhino legs. Not enough shows for only hardcore shows. So, you’d have the Blue Meanies with Damnation [A.D.] and Lifetime. The takeaway was genres weren’t necessary. The world hadn’t trended that way yet, but it would. We benefited from doing that as the world shifted. It was influential to see musical coexistence.
Early on, you called Fall Out Boy “hardcore kids writing pop music.” Do you still feel hardcore influences your approach?
PETE: Absolutely. In our internal discussions, music or ideas, we draw from hardcore scene experiences. We reference what our hardcore friends did. Musically, we agree on certain things, often rooted in those formative hardcore years. Patrick… This is ridiculous, but he constantly references hardcore snare drums. “Snapcase snare!” Or, “Chokehold snare on the ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ cover, but better recorded!” No one else gets these references! [laughs]
Documenting that era is difficult because hardcore was regionally and personally defined, pre-internet prevalence. Record stores might only have the Insight 7-inch. Or, “You like Frail, I like Honeywell” [laughs]. Everyone’s version was specific, like with our band. We discuss those references.
Okay, last question. I’ve asked this to a few people, only published one answer—Ned [Russin] from Title Fight. But I think you’ll nail this.
PETE: Okay, we’ll see! [laughs]
Tell me something very banal about yourself that you think reveals the most about who you are.
PETE: Oh. Good question… [Pauses] Okay. Recently, I told [my partner] Meagan that I feel most zen driving our kids to school. She said, “No way. You’re in traffic, rushing to feed them, waiting in line for drop-off, then the next activity—which they resist—in LA traffic. It’s the least zen.”
But for me, it’s the most normal thing I do. I’m not thinking about stage pulleys breaking, getting stuck 30 feet up. Not thinking, “Sleep now, lobby call soon, need enough sleep…” No. Just traffic, Taylor Swift, driving my kids. She doesn’t believe it, but it’s my zen. It defines me.
That makes sense. You’re saying it’s the most controlled situation where you have no control. You just have to be there. That’s it.
PETE: Just be there, get my passenger where they need to be. Most of my life is the opposite. I’m the passenger, someone else driving. In this, I’m driving you. I love that.
Perfect, thank you.
PETE: One more thing: Nineties hardcore t-shirts are peaking now. Fabric quality’s never been better [laughs].
I’ve noticed your t-shirt game on Instagram. I confess, people and I have wondered, “Does he really love Mean Season and Billingsgate?”
PETE: I love Mean Season! Exactly! People say, “No one likes that music! You don’t like Brothers Keeper!” But dude. I love Brothers Keeper.
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