Pete Wentz is best known as the bassist, lyricist, and prominent personality of Fall Out Boy, the band that soared from the underground to become a global stadium act, selling over 30 million albums. But before the fame and the chart-topping hits, Pete Wentz was deeply embedded in the Chicago hardcore scene of the 1990s. Even as Fall Out Boy achieved mainstream success, those who knew Pete from his hardcore days remember him as fundamentally unchanged, grounded in the values and community of that formative scene. This interview delves into Pete Wentz’s journey, exploring his hardcore origins, his perspective on fame, and how those early experiences continue to shape his life and music.
Pete Wentz, bassist for Fall Out Boy, performing live at Ruoff Music Center, Noblesville, IN, July 16, 2023.
Before Fall Out Boy’s ascent to mainstream prominence, my only prior encounter with Pete Wentz was in the late 1990s Chicago hardcore scene. Post-Texas is the Reason breakup, I found myself amidst a group of hardcore enthusiasts, mostly suburban natives with shared histories. One evening, accompanying them to a show at the Metro, we later convened at Pick Me Up, a vegan café and haven for straight-edge individuals. Pete was already there. We exchanged greetings, but conversation remained minimal. Despite Pete’s active presence in bands like Firstborn, Extinction, Birthright, Racetraitor, and Arma Angelus, making him a familiar face, we both remained reserved that night.
Decades later, Pete Wentz became synonymous with Fall Out Boy, a band that conquered stadiums and sold millions of records. Yet, among those who knew Pete in his hardcore days, the conversation often circled back to his roots. Mike D.C. of Damnation A.D. recounted taking his child to a Fall Out Boy concert and reconnecting with Pete. D.J. Rose, a key figure in the Syracuse hardcore scene of the 90s, shared how Pete had offered crucial support during a difficult time. The recurring theme was a portrait of Pete Wentz as someone who remained deeply connected to his friends and the community that shaped him, irrespective of fame’s complexities. This enduring loyalty and connection, many agree, is inherently hardcore.
Adding another layer to this narrative, I learned from mutual friends that Pete was a reader of Anti-Matter. Thus, twenty-five 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?” Pete remarked about Anti-Matter. “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.”
To begin, and somewhat spontaneously, when was the last time you actually engaged in an interview with a hardcore fanzine?
PETE: That’s a great question! I’m honestly not sure if I ever truly have. Perhaps during my Arma Angelus days there might have been something, but no specific instance comes to mind. In the early Fall Out Boy era, we probably did a couple. But back in the peak of 90s zines, when I was in bands, I was definitely not the spokesperson. So, thankfully, I wouldn’t have been the one answering questions [laughs].
Speaking with you now, it seems like you would have been someone who created a zine.
PETE: Actually, I did. I created several zines. The one I remember most vividly was called XDarkSideX. I recall it mainly because our drummer, Andy [Hurley], showed me this piece where I apparently announced a “Death of a Zine / Rebirth of a Zine” concept for my readership [laughs]. More often, though, I would create joke zines with the guys from Kill the Slave Master. We made zines about things we found funny, incredibly niche and specific, so I doubt many people read them. But those were the ones I enjoyed the most.
Okay, shifting to a more serious note, this marks the last “normal” interview I’m conducting for Anti-Matter for the foreseeable future…
PETE: Death and rebirth! If you need any guidance, I have zine experience!
I might just take you up on that! [laughs] One of the reasons I specifically wanted to interview you is because exactly a year ago, Pitchfork featured Anti-Matter, and… let me read you an 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.
The article then quoted me calling you “a dyed-in-the-wool hardcore kid,” clarifying that being hardcore is “very much a way of being—I can’t define that for anybody else, but I know it when I see it.” So, I wanted to start by asking if you agree with that premise.
PETE: I absolutely subscribe to that idea. There are definitely markers—ethics, aesthetics, a rejection of the mainstream—that instantly resonate as hardcore. You just know it when you see it.
I often reflect on my deepest immersion in hardcore culture, during the 90s when it consumed my thoughts. In that pre-internet, or early internet, era, there was a genuine DIY ethos, different from how “DIY” is often perceived today. Now, DIY sometimes implies something is poorly made due to its homemade nature. But in 90s hardcore, it was the opposite. It was about aspiration: “I’ll start a record label,” “I’ll learn tour management,” “I’ll design a glossy cover,” “I’ll master Photoshop.” It was about self-sufficiency and creating our own path, independent of mainstream structures. That was a profound lesson from that time. It was like a hardcore version of Boy Scouts learning to build a campfire, epitomized by Book Your Own Fuckin’ Life. You could figure it all out yourself. This spirit fundamentally shaped our band’s approach and my perspective on other hardcore individuals: these formative experiences shaped who we became. I’m not sure if that directly answers your question, but that’s how I see it.
That really resonates with Anti-Matter. The physical zine gained attention in 1993 precisely because it looked “pro.” But in reality, it was just me and a friend in his father’s office late at night, struggling to learn QuarkXPress [laughs]. We apparently did a decent job. But part of it was driven by a lack of external validation. We were creating our own validation. I aimed for a certain aesthetic, hoping that a more “professional” look would lend credibility to the zine and, by extension, to the bands I was featuring.
PETE: Absolutely. And, to me, this was serious. These bands were important, crucial to us all. 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 significant to me, something we could discuss.
Looking at Anti-Matter or Second Nature, they felt like magazines, not just fanzines. It felt almost strange to call them fanzines because they had the production quality of real magazines. That was incredibly cool, because it legitimized our scene. It made this intense, often ephemeral thing—kids playing raw, melodic-void songs on small stages—tangible and enduring.
Pete Wentz performing live with his band Extinction at Fireside Bowl in Chicago, IL, around 1997.
As this is the last proper interview for a while before the end-of-year and hiatus, I wanted to revisit some defining questions from this iteration of Anti-Matter, particularly one close to my heart. It started with Crystal [Pak] from Initiate, and it seems to have resonated. I told her about how, when I first started attending shows in the 80s and meeting people, I’d often ask, “So, what fucked you up to be here?”—and there was always an answer. We only briefly met in the late 90s, but if we had a real conversation then and I asked you that, what would your answer have been?
PETE: This is something Patrick [Stump] and I, and the band in general, have discussed on a broader level. For me personally, growing up in the Chicago suburbs was formative. The Breakfast Club wasn’t just a movie; it was literally the high school I attended. All those films were set in my town. Also, being of mixed race—my mother’s parents are Jamaican, my father is white—in a predominantly conservative area with very liberal parents, I often felt like I didn’t quite fit in anywhere.
For a while, I was deeply into death metal. A friend’s older brother had a Metallica mixtape—it’s always the older brother’s mixtape, right?—and within that skate-metal culture, the question was always, “What’s the most extreme version?” That led to Cannibal Corpse, Sepultura, and all that. One day in freshman class, wearing a Sepultura shirt, a kid asked, “Yeah, but can you do a hardcore growl?” [laughs]. I was clueless! So, we went to a show in a garage in Kenworth, Illinois, featuring a band called Everlast. I remember people grabbing the mic, singing along, and it felt like entering another world, like peering into an ant colony, complex and incomprehensible at first.
From there, I realized the Chicago scene, specifically, was so diverse. It felt like, okay, maybe I didn’t fit in, but we could all not fit in together, in the same place. It wasn’t a specific trauma, but a feeling of placelessness finding a place. A place for discourse, for participation. Ninety’s hardcore was unique in its depth of discourse and ideas, both good and bad, clashing in rooms. It was a space where you could belong and contribute to the conversation. 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 somewhat of a central figure in it [laughs].
PETE: Oh, wow, okay!
The book is excellent. In essence, my essay discusses the erasure of people of color, women, and queer individuals in second and third-wave emo, highlighting our significant contributions not just to those waves, but to the first wave as well. I framed the essay with two anecdotes. The first was about meeting a magazine editor who, despite being cool, later blogged about meeting me, expressing surprise that “I never knew Norm wasn’t caucasian!”—a moment that highlighted the assumption of whiteness often associated with this music. The second story was about 2020, when you trended on Twitter after Fall Out Boy’s Black Lives Matter post, and seemingly everyone “discovered” you were biracial, reacting with shock. Again, the assumption of whiteness. I thought, “I feel you, Pete!” [laughs]. Have you ever grappled with being misperceived?
PETE: It’s a complex issue for me. Being biracial, I often felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere. Never quite white enough, never Black enough, never fully Jamaican, you know?
I think I understand. My complexity stems from my immigrant family’s intense focus on the American Dream. They forbade me from speaking Spanish, for instance. Parts of my culture feel disconnected because they were discouraged. But does that make me “less” Latino? No, I don’t think so.
PETE: Growing up, my family was the “weird” family, going for Ethiopian food then to a musical. I just wanted McDonald’s and “normal” things [laughs]. Now I appreciate it, but then I didn’t want to stand out. I just wanted the basics like the families next door.
One thing I loved about the Chicago scene—and I know I keep returning to 90s hardcore, perhaps nostalgically—but Chicago shows often featured ska bands, punk bands, pop-punk bands, and hardcore bands. Political and non-political. Diverse people and cultures. While you might not find someone of your exact racial archetype if you weren’t white, there were other “others.” At those shows, I didn’t really think about race much. Maybe when filling out standardized tests, facing the “What race are you?” question, and thinking, “I don’t know! What do you want me to be?” [laughs].
I’ve struggled with that question on forms too.
PETE: Right?
Andy Hurley and Pete Wentz during a performance on Good Morning America in New York City, July 27, 2018.
This is somewhat related to my thoughts on winding down this zine and what I call “being perceived.” I’m feeling a sense of relief about stepping back from this public-facing role. Doing this weekly has often felt exposing. Over the last 30 years, I’ve realized I’m not great at handling attention. I can be attention-seeking and simultaneously cringe at it, a contradiction I’ve never reconciled.
PETE: Yeah, totally.
Honestly, watching friends become famous, I knew I didn’t want that. What was your initial reaction to that high level of perception?
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 began shutting down shows due to overcrowding that it really hit us, “Oh, this is happening.” The summer of 2005, on Warped Tour with My Chemical Romance, felt like a turning point. There was a void of boy bands in pop culture, and we seemed to fill that space for a summer, maybe a couple of years. That summer was when I went from casually grabbing catering to stepping off the bus into a crowd of people. That was the explosive moment.
There was validation—believing in something so strongly you drop out of college, risking everything. Validation that someone else sees it; it wasn’t just a pipe dream. We worked incredibly hard, against the odds, constantly told no. My memories are compressed because we did so much so quickly, but maybe the following year, it changed. Suddenly, you couldn’t leave the hotel, having to sneak in through the kitchen. That level, the closest our band ever got to a boy band level, I disliked. I appreciate the love for the art, but when it means being confined to a hotel room… that level of fame breeds loneliness.
Beyond the art—which is paramount—being able to call a restaurant and get a reservation is a great level. Anything beyond that is excessive. What you gain isn’t worth what you lose.
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 stepped back for a while. How did you use that time? Did you do personal work to process everything from the previous decade?
PETE: I did immense work. Honestly, my whole life kind of imploded simultaneously. Divorce, becoming a father. Being in bands, as you know—and maybe you experienced this with the zine—so much of your identity becomes intertwined with what you’re known for. When that disappears, it’s like, “Who am I? What even am I?” So much time and thought invested, do I even exist separately from that thing?
It was heartbreaking that the perception of me had outgrown the band. I think it hurt the band. Patrick’s musicality is extraordinary, and it felt reductive to become tabloid fodder. Personally, I didn’t realize how much you atrophy in certain life skills. I didn’t know how to navigate an airport. I literally followed a backpack through security. I didn’t know to check in, drop bags, find my gate. I’d just follow a backpack with a security guard. Having a child and losing that identity forced me to become an adult. A real adult. No more backpack to follow. Raising a child requires functioning adult skills. That was crucial.
Being in a band—it’s hard to convey to outsiders. It’s like being with siblings at Thanksgiving forever, but also on a submarine together. You can only retreat to the other end of the submarine during conflicts. You push each other’s buttons, but they’re the only ones who share this specific life experience, so you have to communicate. Returning to the band, we aimed for a healthier dynamic—open communication, avoiding button-pushing, a more mature approach. The great thing about saying “the world needs a little less of this” is that the world does move on. Time passes. The second era of Fall Out Boy was far more focused on the songs and the art—as it was initially, too. That was always the band’s core goal.
Do you think growing up with hardcore idealism complicated how you experienced fame?
PETE: That’s a good question. I deeply loved hardcore. The 90s were formative. But around the time Fall Out Boy formed, the spirit shifted for me. Hardcore, like broader culture, sometimes rebels against, sometimes flows with, mainstream trends. When it became less idea-driven in the early 2000s, I lost interest. That’s why we formed a melodic band. It was fun. It wasn’t fun going to shows where every band sounded similar, focused solely on moshing. That’s part of Fall Out Boy’s genesis: creating something fun that was not that.
Pete Wentz performing live with Fall Out Boy at Ruoff Music Center in Noblesville, IN on July 16, 2023.
It always fascinated me how Arma Angelus seemingly morphed into Fall Out Boy.
PETE: On the Arma Angelus album, we included a melodic… Cheap Trick cover. It was like, “Oh, this is kind of fun. If someone could actually sing it, it 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, switching instruments, playing Rancid covers, that’s initially what Fall Out Boy was. The after-band. But, as we discussed earlier, our two biggest influences were the DIY ethos of Book Your Own Fuckin’ Life and bands you and your peers were in. I thought, “These guys play the Metro. They have choruses.” Real bands. It 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 purely hardcore bills. So you’d have the Blue Meanies playing with Damnation A.D., and Lifetime. I realized genres were unnecessary. The world hadn’t trended that way yet, but it would. We had the advantage of doing that as the world shifted. It was influential to see diverse music coexisting.
Early on, you called Fall Out Boy “hardcore kids writing pop music.” Do you still feel hardcore influences your approach?
PETE: Absolutely. Especially in our internal discussions, whether about music or ideas. We draw from our hardcore scene experiences. For our band, certain musical preferences are shared, deeply rooted in those formative years and hardcore. Patrick… this sounds ridiculous, but he’s always referencing hardcore snare drums. “We need the Snapcase snare!” Or, “The Chokehold snare on the ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ cover, but better recorded!” No one else gets these references! [laughs].
One reason documentaries from that era are hard to pin down is because everyone’s hardcore version was regionally specific, and pre-internet. Record stores might only have the Insight 7-inch. Or it was “You like Frail, I like Honeywell” [laughs]. Everyone’s perspective is personal, and that’s true for our band. We’re always referencing those specific things.
Okay, last question, one I’ve asked a few people, but only Ned [Russin] from Title Fight answered correctly. I think you might get this right.
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. That’s a good one… [pauses]. Okay, this is true. Recently, I told my partner Meagan that I feel most zen driving our kids to school. She was incredulous, “No way. You’re in traffic, rushing to feed them, waiting in line for drop-off, then the next activity they resist, LA traffic the whole time. Least zen ever.”
But for me, it’s the most normal thing I do. I’m not thinking about stage pulley failures, being stuck 30 feet in the air. Not thinking, “I need sleep, lobby call is…” Just sitting in traffic, listening to Taylor Swift, driving my kids. She doesn’t believe it, but it’s my zen. And I think that defines me.
It makes sense because you’re saying it’s when you’re in the most controlled situation where you have no control. You just have to be there. That’s it.
PETE: Just get your passenger to their destination. Most of my life is the opposite. I’m the passenger, someone else is driving. But there, I’m the driver, I’m driving you. I truly love that.
That’s perfect, thank you.
PETE: One more thing: 90s hardcore t-shirts are peaking right now. The fabric quality is the best it’s ever been [laughs].
I’ve noticed your t-shirt game on Instagram, and I admit, I’ve had conversations with people wondering, “Does he really love Mean Season and Billingsgate?”
PETE: I love Mean Season! That’s what I mean! People always doubt anyone actually likes that music. “You don’t like Brothers Keeper!” But dude, I love Brothers Keeper.
This interview provides a compelling look into Pete Wentz, revealing the enduring influence of his hardcore roots on his life and career, long after achieving mainstream fame with Fall Out Boy. His story resonates with anyone who understands that hardcore is more than just music; it’s a foundational ethos.
