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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.
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Whatever notoriety Fall Out Boy used to have prevents me from having the ability to start over from the bottom again.
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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 moved to L.A. and really didn't dig living there until I found places like Koreatown and Little Tokyo. I really like hanging out in the grocery stores and restaurants.
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I used to work in a record store. I'm kind of a record nerd.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Quiet is the new loud.
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I definitely love kimchi. The biggest influence that eating so much Korean food growing up had on me was that I have no limit for spiciness. The hotter the better.
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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.'
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I think you can totally be a totally normal kid from the suburbs of Chicago and go off and play shows. It's one of those things that when you go home, you're still the nerd you were when you left, and your parents still get to yell at you about cleaning up your room, and your girlfriend still drags you to the pet store.
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I don't mind if someone thinks I'm a sell out. I go to bed happy knowing I do what I do and I'm not doing anything for reasons of money, and if I were trying to pick up chicks, I'm doing a horrible job. And if I wanted to drive awesome cars, I'm doing a really bad job there too.
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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.
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I always thought 'Stump' was kind of like, you dropped something on your foot. It's not the most exotic rock-star name.
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What you want if you're asking that question is a specific time in your life to come back to you, and that will never happen. You will never be 15 years old again. I could write, verbatim, another Take This To Your Grave, and you won't feel the same way. It's not going to mean anything to you because it wouldn't mean anything to me.
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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.
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I wasn't necessarily frustrated in Fall Out Boy, but there were things that didn't get satisfied, desires left wanting. We didn't all meet on the same kind of music. When bands break up, there are all these buzz words that get tossed around to maintain a front for the audience, but in this case there literally were creative differences.
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When you're a little kid, you just like music that makes you happy and is fun. As you get older, you reach college or your 20s and you decide that music should be challenging and all art should be smart. So you start to think it makes you like high art more to put down things you consider low art. I don't even think things are low art.
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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.
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Pete's my best friend, I was the best man at his wedding, I love that man to death. I'd take a bullet for him.
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Steven Tyler isn't in Aerosmith anymore, but his gravestone will probably say something about Aerosmith.
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There's something really personal about your voice, where if people talk shit on your guitar, 'Ugh, he played out of tune,' etc., you can, in your head, blame it on something else, but when you fuck up with your singing, that's part of you ... So I guess I'm an insecure enough dude that I just went back and really studied and tried to sing better.
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I'm not a drummer anymore, on my gravestone, if there is one, if anyone writes anything about me besides hopefully being a dad, it would be that I sang in my band when I was in my 20s. So I was like, 'Yeah, I should probably focus on this a little more,' so I just practiced a lot. (When asked about his singing.)