You would think, given recent events, that Fall Out Boy would be shying away from making grand proclamations.
But that's just not the FOB way. Despite the whole Antarctic fiasco, they're at it again, this time telling MTV News that they're planning to spend their summer vacation working on a new album, the follow-up to last year's Infinity on High and their third studio effort in less than three years.
"It was sort of a plan of ours to downplay the fact we are recording a new record soon. Not that we don't care or don't want people to know, but I think we were a little swamped with the press surrounding Infinity on High," guitarist Joe Trohman wrote in an e-mail. "So we wanted to slightly scale that aspect back, make it somewhat more of a surprise so that people would all of a sudden get hit with our new record one of these days.
"As far as when/where we are going to record, the 'when' will be sometime in the next couple of months, the 'where' will be in the Los Angeles/ Burbank [California] area, but we have not chosen an exact date to start preproduction and we have not chosen a studio," he continued. "We have talked about revisiting Ocean Studios in Burbank, where we did From Under the Cork Tree, but honestly, we haven't locked anything down. ... As far as a release date? No f---ing clue."
Trohman added that while the band hasn't decided on a producer for the project, Neil Avron, who worked on both Infinity and Cork Tree, "would be present during the sessions."
Though the band has yet to record a single note, the follow-up to Infinity already has a fairly long — and factually spotty — history. The album was first reported to be heavily influenced by folk music, reports the band spent much of last year trying to live down. It was then described by bassist Pete Wentz as being inspired by the "distorted, awesome riffs" of Oasis. So what's the latest take on how it will sound?
"We've said time and time again that we derive our songs from many different sources. Have you ever heard Patrick [Stump] sing? There's the bulk of the R&B right there. Folk? I think that was more of a lyricism aspect, though there is something musically reminiscent in some of the demos," Trohman wrote. "The riffs I've sent to Patrick have had somewhat of an Iggy Pop feel, as he's an obsession of mine. Others [have a] somewhat Smiths-y/ late-'70s-to-early-'80s Manchester sound."
Of course, FOB's summer plans could very well have changed by the time you read this. In a separate e-mail to MTV News, Wentz admitted that Fall Out Boy fully intend to hit the studio in June or July, but things could be different now, given the success of their cover of Michael Jackson's "Beat It," which has quickly become a mainstay in the iTunes top 10. Seems they're now planning to promote that (Wentz said they'll shoot a video for the track next week) rather than gearing up to enter the studio.
"It's been an interesting back-and-forth. Before Chile, we weren't sure when we were going to record. Then during the process, we felt a new energy and planned for the summer," Wentz wrote. "Now we are back in limbo, especially with 'Beat It' kind of taking on a life of its own. There's a part of us that just wants to go to another country and lay something down and see how it goes, but right now we are just kind of on autopilot trying to figure out the next move."
Wentz did go on to say that FOB still hope to have a new album in stores by "late fall," and he added that they have plenty of songs ready to go, though it's still too early to talk about them in any great detail, lest we have a repeat of the whole "folk" thing.
"It's so interesting how whatever comment you make about new music becomes the 'set-in-stone' description of your new music. ... It's too early to tell what it will sound like, but my only guess would be a progression again," he wrote. "Also, it's so early that we don't really have any names for the songs. They all have joke titles like 'MC Hammer and Ms. Piggy Bank.' "
