Tomorrow in Anti-Matter: On the surface, an interview with Fall Out Boy should read like any other interview in Anti-Matter. Having come from Chicago’s straightedge hardcore scene, the band essentially evolved out of Arma Angelus—the metalcore band that Pete Wentz sang for whose lineup had included, at any given time, Tim McIlrath (currently of Rise Against), Jay Jancetic (later of Harm’s Way), Dan Binaei (currently of Racetraitor), and all three of his current FOB bandmates. Over the years, the band kept their ties to the hardcore scene: Their first EP, “Fall Out Boy’s Evening Out with Your Girlfriend,” was released by Uprising—the label run by, improbably enough, Sean Muttaqi from Vegan Reich. Drummer Andy Hurley has filled in for Earth Crisis and continues to play with @racetraitor and @sectxvx. Pete and Patrick Stump both contributed vocals to a Damnation A.D. song in 2007, and Pete even managed to convince Lifetime to reunite for one last record—putting it out on his own label, Decaydance, also that year. There’s more, but I’ll leave it at that. Again, totally normal! Except somewhere in the middle of all of that, Fall Out Boy also went on to sell over 30 million albums worldwide. “I think people sometimes use DIY now [to suggest something] looks shitty because it was ‘doing it yourself,’” Pete tells me. “But in the ‘90s, in hardcore, I think it was quite the opposite… It was aspirational! It was like, we’ll just make our own thing; *we don’t need this other thing*. That was a heavy takeaway from that period to me, mentally. It felt like Boy Scouts in the woods learning how to make a campfire… You could figure it out. And that has paved the way for everything for our band—and even for the way I look at other [hardcore] people: ‘These things all fed into what you became.’” It’s a unique conversation that the overwhelming majority of Fall Out Boy fans might find impenetrable, but if you’re a hardcore kid, you will understand. As always, it lands in your inbox on Thursday morning. Subscribe now at antimatter.substack.com and don’t miss a thing. Thank you, friends. ✨ 📸: Pete Wentz, live with Extinction. Fireside Bowl. Chicago, IL. 1997 Photo by Ian Selby