November 26, 2008

Fall Out Boy Ready To Get Back To Work After The Birth Of Pete Wentz's Baby

By James Montgomery (MTV.com)

When MTV News sat down with Fall Out Boy on Monday in Los Angeles, there was obviously one topic we were itching to discuss — you know, the arrival of Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson's brand-new baby boy, Bronx Mowgli. There was only one problem: We were told we couldn't ask Pete about it.

So, instead, we decided to be crafty and ask the guys how they're dealing with their time off. After all, their Folie à Deux album has been pushed back to December 16, and Wentz just became a new pop, so, for the moment at least, the FOB schedule has been pretty clear.

Of course, frontman Patrick Stump, being the good guy he is, obliged us — and even managed to make mention of Mowgli too (that's what we in the industry call "a win").

"Obviously, elephant in the room, Pete just had a kid, so we've been taking a bit of a breather — more so than we normally would. I think an FOB breather is still a lot busier than anybody else's," he laughed. "We've done some surprise shows, because — we've all talked about it — whenever you promise kids an album, and then you push it back, whatever reason, however idealistic, you still feel like you're letting them down a bit.

"So we've gone out and done some surprise shows in really small clubs. And it's been pretty cool, because we haven't been playing a lot of the new material, so we're getting that out there before we start performing the new stuff," Stump continued. "That's kind of been our main thing right now, you know? Obviously, it's more important than anything happening at home."

We're assuming that schedule will be getting a bit, well, fatter in the coming weeks. Because, as it stands right now, Fall Out Boy have only a handful of U.S. shows scheduled around Folie's release, and then they'll head to Japan and Australia in early '09. Their only scheduled gig after that is a May headlining slot at the Bamboozle Festival alongside No Doubt.

And it appears that young Bronx will be joining FOB on the road, too. At least, that's according to Wentz, who talked at length about his new son on Ryan Seacrest's KIIS-FM radio show Tuesday morning (November 25). Wentz called Bronx's birth "pretty surreal" and said that "right before [Ashlee] went into labor, I was like ,'Oh my God, I think I'm having a heart attack!'

"Natural things start going on in your body," he told Seacrest. "My heart started beating really fast."

Wentz also explained his son's rather unique name, saying that they took part of it from "The Jungle Book" because it "is something that me and Ashlee bonded over."

"We'd been throwing it back and forth awhile ago. I feel weird, because all these people have all these ideas on what it means," Wentz said. "I don't think anyone knows the real story of why or how."