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I think any good artist - and I'm not saying that I am one - takes notes and should first emulate their heroes and then try to move beyond them.
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I must confess Im in love with my own sins.
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Good music is good music, regardless of where it comes from. I think that's a really important thing to carry with you.
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Lyrically, I personally lean towards venting.
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Yoko Ono never deserved any of the hate she got. Paul McCartney and John Lennon weren't getting along.
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One of the things that always was Fall Out Boy was trying new things and kind of pushing ourselves in different directions.
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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.
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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.
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In Fall Out Boy, we were all playing with our pop punk influences, so that was always within that kind of framework.
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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.
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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.
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Between Prince and my dad's fusion-jazz records, I didn't have a choice in being funky.
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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.
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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.
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There was a weird moment where-I was still a drummer, I always saw myself as a drummer-and we got nominated for a Grammy, that was really crazy, and I was sitting there and Stevie Wonder was on stage and I remember thinking 'Wow, I really need to take singing more seriously!'
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Gym Class is a band I am more directly involved with than any other band except for Fall Out Boy.
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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.
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I lost about 60 pounds. I don't really have a moment specifically that made me do it. I remember little things, like, when I was in Japan, I remember looking around at the portion sizes of a fast food restaurant and being like, 'Well, this has something to do with it.' Americans definitely eat too much.
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'Punk' doesn't mean Mohawks and safety pins. It's about not conforming.
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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.
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Drums were my first instrument, my first love. I need rhythm, something that moves.
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'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.
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I don't like to Google myself. I try and avoid it whenever I can.
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When I eat something like vegetable bibimbap, I get that warm and fuzzy feeling of eating stuff that I grew up with.