Patrick Stump Comments on Fall Out Boy Blender Article, Blender Comments Back
Buzznet already reported on Andy Hurley and Pete Wentz‘s reactions to the new article in Blender about Fall Out Boy. And now, Patrick Stump, whom the article claimed had quit the band in anger during an Australian Tour, has commented on the article and the portrayal of the band.
The article mentions that Stump quit Fall Out Boy after Wentz made a business decision Stump disagreed with, which led to Stump working on material for a solo album. And Stump says that much at least is true. In an e-mail to MTV.com he clarified “Did I quit the band? Did I say what appeared in the article? Of course. But followed immediately by it was something to the tune of this: I quit, until I started writing my solo songs and I realized how much I need him. My songs sucked without Pete and they were less fun to write.”
“I love the guy, he’s my best friend, and I realized that for all the decisions I’d ever gotten mad at him about, I likely would’ve done exactly the same in his position. I quit the band (as we all have, by the way, that’s part of being in bands) and when I returned I resolved to keep doing this as long as all four of us were having fun.”
Stump, like drummer Andy Hurley, seems to feel that Wentz took the brunt of the bad press from the article. In a post to Twitter late last night, Hurley said “ it is misrepresenting us GROSSLY. but, mainly just pete. and that infuriates me.” Stump’s take on the situation is, “It’s an entertaining article that manages to take its hero from the heights of superstardom to the depths of narcissism. But it never redeems him and it does so at the cost of fact.” He compares Pete’s treatment to the treatment that he and guitarist Joe Trohman (whoalso had quotes taken massively out of context, according to Hurley) recieved, saying “at the end of both my and Joe’s quotes you can almost hear the context fading in the distance.”
A spokesperson from Blender has stated “We stand by our reporting. Anyone who reads the entire article will see that it is not only fair but essentially positive.” However, this is the second time in recent history that the magazine has been accused of taking quotes out of context for the sake of sensationalism. The other instance was one last April involing singer Alicia Keys. The magazine quoted her as saying “`Gangsta rap’ was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. `Gangsta rap’ didn’t exist.” The article also claimed that an AK-47 pendant Keys wears around her neck was “to symbolize strength, power and killing ’em dead.”
Keys’ official reponse to the gangsta rap quote was “My comments about `gangsta rap’ were in no way trying to suggest that the government is responsible for creating this genre of rap music. The point that I was trying to make was that the term was oversloganized by some of the media causing reactions that were not always positive. Many of the `gangsta rap’ lyrics articulate the problems of the artists’ experiences and I think all of us, including our leaders, could be doing more to address these problems including drugs, gang violence, crime, and other related social issues.” She also said that the AK-47 pendant is a reference to a nickname her friends gave her “as an acronym for Alicia Keys and a metaphor for wowing people with my music and performances, `killing ’em dead’ on stage. The reference was in no way meant to have a literal, political or negative connotation.”
Blender stood by their reporting in that instance too.
