Patrick Stump Quotes

There’s a certain fear of simplicity. I think that’s the thing, when you‘re younger as an artist, you get this idea in your head that complexity equals quality. The more notes you’re playing, the better.

In Fall Out Boy, I noticed that I wasn’t putting all that much soul into it. It was just kind of screaming, I guess. I was just dying to get out of there!

Lyrically, I personally lean towards venting.

In Fall Out Boy, we were all playing with our pop punk influences, so that was always within that kind of framework.

I didn’t want to give up my Illinois driver‘s license and was unaware that was a crime. It is, by the way, in the state of California. Lesson learned. I technically broke a law, so technically I deserve whatever I get.

Steven Tyler isn’t in Aerosmith anymore, but his gravestone will probably say something about Aerosmith.

I was going to record a solo album when I was 15 on a four-track. I started working on it, but then Fall Out Boy happened. The band was awesome and took me in a totally different direction. I don’t regret it at all, but the band delayed the record I had been planning.

Good music is good music, regardless of where it comes from. I think that’s a really important thing to carry with you.

We’re so busy broadcasting our latest cultural disdain that we scantly notice anything we enjoy. ‘Oh man, this Rebecca Black kid is terrible! Let’s laugh at her!’ has become more culturally relevant than, ‘I really love this new Bilal record.’

Touring on ‘Folie’ was like being the last act at the vaudeville show: We were rotten vegetable targets in clandestine hoods.

‘As Long As I Know I’m Getting Paid‘ is a satire. Lyrically, I want to be direct. With my history in Fall Out Boy, there’s some expectation that I’m going to be lyrically obtuse. But that song is a straight-faced satire of consumerism.

When I eat something like vegetable bibimbap, I get that warm and fuzzy feeling of eating stuff that I grew up with.

As far as criticism, I don’t mind critics. I mean, I wrote for ‘Rolling Stone‘ for a hot minute. I like criticism. I enjoy criticism. The thing I don’t like is cruelty for cruelty’s sake. You don’t have to be a jerk to say something negative. You can say something in the negative sense and have class.

The song that’s affected me the most profoundly is probably Michael Jackson‘s ‘Thriller,’ or, more specifically, the couple seconds of instrumental break before Vincent Price starts ‘rapping.’

There’s no first impressions anymore. You go to a job interview, and they’ll probably Google you. It’s a shame – people should play it a little closer to the chest as far as what information they release to the world. If I’m angry about something, I’m not going to take to my Twitter.

Written by the ancient Chinese philosopher of the same name, the ‘Zhuangzi’ is one long perplexing puzzle of a rambling collection of enigmatic short stories. It’s a strange feeling to laugh at a joke written by someone in the 4th century B.C.

Yoko Ono never deserved any of the hate she got. Paul McCartney and John Lennon weren’t getting along.

Everyone wants to pretend like they sprang out of the ground with an Animal Collective record in their hands and a David Bowie haircut, and that’s just not the case. You discover these things gradually.

When you make art, you get really invested in it. When art happens by accident and you were just along for the ride? It’s way more fun.

All of the agreed-upon pariahs throughout pop-culture history put their identities into the thing we decry. And yet we derive our own identities from the act of hating. We connect on the things we are disappointed in. Some may argue that nothing in history gathers a crowd like complaining about Lady Gaga‘s meat dress.

Whatever notoriety Fall Out Boy used to have prevents me from having the ability to start over from the bottom again.

I never really ate that bad, I just ate too much. It wasn’t like I had to switch to whole wheat bread or something like that. I really just had to eat less of what I was eating, and I had to exercise more.

Why do we make records? Because we want to say something. Why are you in art? Because you want to say something. The second you don’t have anything to say, you stop making art – you might start making product. And I’m interested in being an artist.

Drums were my first instrument, my first love. I need rhythm, something that moves.

The music business is one of a few places where everything you’ve heard about it seems entirely cliche, but it’s true.

Between Prince and my dad‘s fusion-jazz records, I didn’t have a choice in being funky.

I write really scathing, angry stuff when I’m in a better mood, and then uplifting and happy stuff when I’m at the absolute bottom.

I am genuinely into soul, R&B and hip hop – all these genres that get slapped under the ‘soul’ genre. That spoke to me more than it did to my punk-rock friends. And punk spoke more to me than it did to my soul friends. I basically didn’t fit comfortably in either world.

I think when you’re 17 and you’re angry, you’re angry about very short-term things. And there’s nothing wrong about writing that record. It’s a very real record to write; it’s the realest record I could write when I was 17. The problem is, when you’re 28, it’s not the same thing; it can be a put-on.

Gym Class is a band I am more directly involved with than any other band except for Fall Out Boy.