Black Cards proves Pete Wentz has many tricks still up his sleeve

Pete Wentz has become synonymous with energetic, slightly emo pop-punk–not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s not difficult to understand why. As bassist and lyricist for Fall Out Boy, Wentz helped pen songs such as “Sugar, We’re Going Down” and “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” that propelled his band’s albums into top 10 rankings on the Billboard charts and garnered the band some hard-earned Platinum. Since 2009, however, Fall Out Boy has been on an indefinite hiatus, leaving Wentz to focus on other things, such as being a label owner, entrepreneur and father. Black Cards is Wentz’s first foray back into music since Fall Out Boy took a vacation, and taking his prior output into consideration, it would logically follow that his new band’s music would be reggae-tinged British-style electro-pop music. Wait…you mean it wouldn’t? Well, I don’t know what to tell you. That’s how this shit works out sometimes.

Wentz started Black Cards out of a desire to do something different. He said in a recent interview with Alternative Press, “I’ve watched people when their bands are on hiatus or whatever it is, and they have the itch to do something, but they don’t really do anything that differently. It makes it all the more easy for people to be like, ‘Well, why doesn’t he just do his [main] band, then?’” But the desire to do something people wouldn’t expect from you and actually pull it off are two entirely different things. Wentz had to go outside himself in order to make it a reality.

The first piece of the Black Cards puzzle was Sam Hollander. A producer and songwriter, Hollander has worked with a wide array of artists from Coheed and Cambria to rap group Arrested Development (he also worked with Gym Class Heroes, who were signed to Wentz’s label Decaydance). Wentz told Submerge that it was Hollander’s encouragement that got him into the studio in the first place post-Fall Out Boy.

“After FOB went on ‘hiatus’ I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do,” Wentz shared via e-mail. “Sam hounded me to come into the studio over and over, but I thought I wasn’t ready. He just convinced me that even if nothing came out of the process I should have a place to let out my energy. As soon as we got in the studio together, it felt right and Black Cards stemmed from that. Sam’s a good friend who knows how to spark my creative side without me even realizing it.”

This new “spark” urged Wentz down a decidedly different path. Instead of penning anthemic rock choruses, he was at work creating his take on Jamaican roots reggae mashed up with the electro pop sensibilities of artists like Lily Allen. Under the guise of Black Cards, he said he’d have the freedom to express things he may have not felt comfortable doing with Fall Out Boy.

“Well after doing something for a number of years–especially with people watching–things are expected of you, and I really feel FOB fans came to expect those type of lyrics and songs from us,” Wentz said. “With Black Cards I really get to start over, be all over the place and it’s OK. I hope fans just take to that and enjoy something new.”

Lyrically, Wentz was looking to get out of his own head. Fall Out Boy’s lyrics tended to be personal. With Black Cards, Wentz is able to look outside himself, and he said that the experience so far has been liberating.

“It’s fun to escape and just be creative,” he said. “You are always the party and everyone isn’t invited: that’s been a hard concept for me to understand. Sometimes I have to learn to give myself a chance to just be me and not worry so much if everyone else is doing OK.”

With a new direction musically and lyrically in place, Wentz needed to find a new voice. Enter unknown Staten Island, N.Y., singer/songwriter Bebe Rexha, whom Wentz heard singing by chance at Hollander’s New York City studio.

“It just clicked when I heard her singing,” Wentz recalled of his first encounter with the young vocalist. “I told Sam that she’s the one we had to work with.” 

Wentz said that Rexha is sort of like his “battery sometimes.” Her youthful energy hasn’t been bogged down by years in the spotlight. Not only is she a fresh voice for Wentz, but a fresh perspective.

“It’s impossible for her curiosity and excitement about everything not to rub off on me,” Wentz explained. “I definitely feel like the big bro teaching her the ropes and she’s a sponge.”

Writing for a female vocalist also provides Wentz with a new challenge–albeit an enjoyable one.

“Its hard to picture myself outside of my own mind in general,” He said. “It’s especially hard to think as a girl from Staten Island. It’s been a fun challenge that is different than anything I have ever done.”

As of now, no release date has been set for Black Cards’ debut album. Though the band has unveiled a few songs here and there, including “Club Called Heaven” and its accompanying Bonnie and Clyde style video. Wentz has hinted in the past that the album is done, but it seemed from our correspondence that nothing is entirely set in stone just yet.

“Every day we think we’re finally done and every day we think of a way to make a line or melody better,” he said. “We’re still getting to know each other so we’re constantly finding differently ways to execute a lyric or switch up a beat. We just want to make sure the album is 100 percent what we want it to be so I can’t make any promises on when it’ll come out.”

Even the title is up in the air as Wentz said he comes up with a new title each day. However, given the serendipitous way Black Cards was formed, you should shed any expectations of how it should turn out and just enjoy the result, whatever it may be.

Black Cards will play District 30 in Sacramento on July 3, 2011. The event will feature a live performance from the band and a special DJ set by Pete Wentz. There is no cover charge if you arrive before 11 p.m., and drinks are also half-off before then. For more info, go to District30sacramento.com.

Gym Class Heroes’ Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo on His Quiet Life in the Spotlight

Often the inception story of Gym Class Heroes revolves around its founding members, drummer Matt McGinley and frontman Travis McCoy. It’s the fabled story of high school friends who met in gym class, started a band and kept at it despite rotating members, until they received the Pete Wentz seal of approval. They started the band, so they get the fame, right? Read the biography on the Gym Class Heroes Web site and it’s McCoy and McGinley who won the MTV Best New Artist award.

Before their breakthrough record Cupid’s Chokehold had teenyboppers singing a Supertramp melody while their parents suffered acid flashbacks, Gym Class Heroes was down a guitarist. The band was in upstate New York, Ithaca to be exact, recording with Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy. The missing piece was in town as well, attending Cornell University, but fussy with the academia status quo.

Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo has a name that challenges promoters, reporters, industry execs and fans alike, to a point that he tries to make them more comfortable by shortening it to “Sashi.” His name derives from the African Congo. “I’ve heard so many variations of my name,” he said. “Luckily I had plenty of practice with explaining my name growing up that when I joined a band I was used to it. Lately though, I’ve overheard people using my name in conversations and it always surprises me when they pronounce it or spell it correctly.” But, do not call him “D.” “That’s the only thing that irks me,” he said. “There was this one lady who couldn’t get my name and said, ‘I’m going to call you D.’ I feel like that’s disrespectful because she decided to just not put the effort in.”

Two years prior to joining GCH, guitarist Disashi’s pop-punk band played a show with his future band mates, unaware that the impression he made that day would lead to a life-changing phone call. “I was no longer playing regular shows with that band when [Gym Class Heroes] called,” Disashi said. On the same day he joined the band in the studio, groundwork for Cupid’s Chokehold was laid down. GCH previously spent several stints on Warped Tours and built a respectable fan base in upstate New York, but the inclusion of Disashi on guitar seems tantamount to the pop success it would achieve with one song.

With McCoy rapping and singing lead vocals, GCH was already pushing rap/rock boundaries, causing headaches for record store clerks trying to categorize their albums. The band’s aversion to narrowing its scope or ruling out genre influences forced Disashi to jog his memory for inspiration. “Learning how to use the different styles I had learned over the years was the biggest challenge,” he said. His previous band played with a heavier edge. Disashi said he had to learn how to play “clean guitar.”

Life speeds up when you have a hit single. Disashi admits it’s a welcome change, one of those good problems, to be constantly touring in front of hundreds to thousands of fans. But with the release of GCH’s fourth studio album, The Quilt, attention toward the band was less about the music, more about McCoy’s affairs.

With the spotlight fixed on McCoy and his breakup with pop star Katy Perry, the rest of the band was free to create without distractions. “Whether it’s people I’m meeting for the first time or people I haven’t seen in a while, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, I’m surprised you’re down to earth,’ or say things like that,” he said. “They do expect you to act a certain way, but that’s the overall perspective of how this industry works.”

Outside of GCH, Disashi quietly works on his solo project Soul. Soul is still in the bedroom stages, with Disashi acting as a one-man band. But Soul is not a backup plan should GCH dissolve; instead, his solo work suffers from a commitment to his band mates. Two of The Quilt‘s most critically acclaimed songs were originally meant for his Soul project, but once McCoy heard “Live a Little” and “No Place to Run” Disashi was coaxed into giving up two of his coveted babies. “At the time that I wrote those songs, they were my songs,” he said. “It was tough to give them up once Travis heard them, but it’s a cool thing that I was able to share these special songs with my band and play them every night in front of our fans.”

In reviews, The Quilt is often negatively critiqued for a lack of cohesive flow as purely hip-hop tracks featuring Busta Rhymes and The Dream, drenched in bravado and deviancy, are followed by power pop songs of urgency. “One thing that is challenging in working with other producers is we have our own thing going,” he said. “But I do think when we focus as a core group, it’s when we’re at our best.” While the singles that broke GCH into the mainstream were not fully appreciated until a year and an album late, the marginal success of the The Quilt and its singles, coupled with Disashi expressing no plans to push another single, suggests a band ready to move on.

My talk with Disashi interrupted a pre-show nap in Connecticut, but after some light conversation he snapped out of his groggy state to discuss the group’s plans after its college tour. “For the next record we’ve already started writing together,” Disashi said. “It was cool to have some other producers on the last record and have songs I had written myself. It was cool to go all different types of places, but with this next one the best way to start is writing songs together, as a band.”

Between tours, GCH retreats to where it all started, upstate New York, living together, demoing and writing new material in an old church basement. Disashi described the output thus far as “organic.” He said they hope to have next record out by mid-2010, but Disashi is not making a concrete quote on that due date. Along with rejuvenating his hit-making band, he’s pushing his Soul project out of the bedroom and onto the stage. Disashi said he has a drummer ready to go, but is still filling out the other members.

Returning to his almost-alma mater, Disashi often crosses paths with former Cornell classmates, most of whom are now alumni. Four years into Cornell, he left to be a full-time musician. When he runs into old college friends, Disashi notices the hesitancy of approval in his aberrant rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle over graduating from a prestigious Ivy League university, but it doesn’t faze him. He has an MTV Best New Artist trophy to acquit him of regret. “When we won the VMAs it was like the whole world was watching us gain acknowledgement,” he said. “Now, everyone can see I’m not just goofing off. Well, I have been, but now I’ve been rewarded for the band.”

Recently, Gym Class Heroes played as backing band for Onyx and DMX for the VH1 Hip Hop Honors ceremony. “DMX introduced me to hip-hop when I was younger, so it was a trip to meet him,” he said. Most would not think DMX, who barks when he raps, could be described as polite, but Disashi said it with earnest that each time they practiced with DMX, he made a point to greet each band member. “The most striking thing was rehearsing for the show,” he said. “There were only eight or so people there, but his energy level, you would have thought he was playing for thousands at Madison Square Garden.”

During the rehearsals, Disashi realized he needed batteries from the Target across the street. He strolled into the store conscious of his incognito, comforted by it. Minutes prior to his errand, he was playing alongside with living legends of hip-hop, but in Target he’s still another casual shopper in need of batteries. “It was funny because I was thinking about how much I value the freedom to be out and not get bombarded,” he said. “But as I was leaving the store, a guy came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I know who you are.'”

Emo Kings or Underdogs?

Ready for more from the “Kings of Emo?” Fall Out Boy’s fifth studio album, Folie à Deux, was released Dec. 16, 2008. Translating to “A madness shared by two,” the album title may be more fitting than intended. It seems their music incites a sort of madness both among fans and critics. Critics love to throw around terms like “sell out” or “overproduced,” claiming either that Fall Out Boy has strayed too far from their characteristic sound, or that they’re simply catering to the masses and aren’t offering anything new. Others feel that Fall Out Boy’s new album demonstrates the courage to take risks and experiment with new sounds. Whatever the reason for their popularity, fans can agree on one thing: bassist Pete Wentz made “guyliner” famous.

The band isn’t worried that the public is completely divided about their music—they embrace the controversy. “I don’t care what you think just as long as it’s about me,” Fall Out Boy declares in their new single. Guitarist Joe Trohman explains, “It’s good to be polarized”¦the love on the one side and the hate on the other side. I think that’s the only way to stir up real thought-provoking conversation and real emotion.”

With roots in the Chicago punk scene, Fall Out Boy formed in 2001. They are Patrick Stump (vocals and guitar), Joe Trohman (guitar), Pete Wentz (bass) and Andy Hurley (drums). They put out their first major release, Take This to Your Grave, through a small-scale Wisconsin production company, but quickly signed with Island Records in ’03 and are now seeing astounding success. Although their music is often referred to as a “guilty pleasure,” these kings of emo are now a musical force to be reckoned with—love ’em or hate ’em.

In the typical way of indie music fans, not everyone was happy when Fall Out Boy left their independent label behind. “It’s a very juvenile way to go about things, but once we got on the major label [some people] were probably like, fuck this band. So I’m sure we lost some people to the wayside,” Trohman explains. The band had little reason to worry, as From Under the Cork Tree—their 2005 major label debut—sold well over 2 million copies.

“Although we’ve been changing musically—and in my opinion organically—from record to record, we’re still the same band,” Trohman explains. “I think most of our fans are smart enough to know that whatever label we’re on doesn’t dictate how ‘cool’ the band is.”

Fall Out Boy is enjoying the ride and all that fame brings—in their case, this includes a signature instrument for every band member. If you’re a die-hard Fall Out Boy fan, you have your choice of the Patrick Vaughn Stump Signature Series Gretsch STUMP-O-MATIC Electromatic Corvette Guitar, the Squier by Fender Pete Wentz Signature P Bass, the Vic Firth Signature Series Andy Hurley Drumsticks or the Joe Trohman Washburn Idol (which is rumored to be very difficult to smash onstage).

Trohman also has been experimenting with heavier rock and metal music on the side. “I’m more influenced by the heavier classic rock bands, like Zeppelin and Sabbath and Cream. I think I take a lot from some of their riffs and ideas,” he explains. He’s been interviewed by numerous guitar publications, such as Modern Guitars and Ultimate-Guitar. Despite rumors of an upcoming release, Trohman’s first loyalty is to the band. “One day [my music] will see the light of day, but Fall Out Boy is my main goal, 100 percent”¦ As long as there’s work to be done with Fall Out Boy, that’s where my heart is going to be. ”

As is appropriate for the unofficial Fall Out Boy spokesperson, Wentz has his own record label, Decaydance, and works with bands like Panic at the Disco, Gym Class Heroes and The Academy Is”¦ Although Decaydance is commonly thought of as a Fall Out Boy side project, Trohman explains that it’s mostly Wentz’s venture. “We support it a ton, which is why I think it comes off a lot like we all sit down and find bands for the label,” he explains. “It is kind of part of the Fall Out Boy world, but it’s more Pete’s bag.”

For those who dismissed Fall Out Boy after being bombarded with overplayed emo-pop singles like “Dance Dance” and “Sugar, We’re Goin Down,” it might be wise to give Folie à Deux a fair listen before writing the band off as just another teen icon. “It’s collectively probably our most favorite record, because it’s new and it’s our best collection of songs,” Trohman explains. “We did some experimenting.” In addition to the expected angst-y lyrics and bubblegum beats, Folie à Deux boasts new territory—R&B harmonies, jazz melodies and some heavier guitar riffs. “There are places we meet up and there are a lot of places we differ as far as musical tastes. I think that is what is able to help make Fall Out Boy have a better sound,” Trohman explains.

This album retains much of what Fall Out Boy is famous for, such as catchy tongue-in-cheek lyrics that thrive off of puns: “My head’s in heaven, my soles are in hell,” they write in “W.A.M.S.” They also still love to refer to “the scene,” making light of their own place in the fickle music kingdom.

What is missing from the new album is the ultra-long song titles characteristic of earlier albums, such as the infamous song, “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race.” With the exception of the song “Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet,” these newer songs feature two- or three-word titles.

Still, some fans aren’t going to embrace the new album. Fall Out Boy understands that within the music scene, you simply can’t please everybody. “I feel like sometimes people just complain to complain,” Trohman says. “Your personal art is going to look and/or sound different to you than other people. Some people may interpret it just as the same old thing because it may have that sense of you in it, but those who really pay attention may see the differences. And then there’s other people who see the differences and hate it off the bat because it’s different.”

Luckily they still don’t take themselves too seriously, and pride themselves on a kind of “underdog” approach to fame. Fall Out Boy claims loyalty to their fans and their music first and foremost, refusing to be taken in by the limelight. “It’s weird, we try to really focus on our fans and the music and not necessarily on getting to the top and saying, ‘We’re the best, we’re the most awesome, fuck all you guys,'” Trohman says. “Fans own us, the people that love us own us, basically. No matter where we go, we’re going to definitely kind of cater to our fans.”

True to their word, Fall Out Boy keeps their fans informed of their every move through multiple Web sites, where they answer questions about anything and everything—from wondering why they use the word “Pavlovian” as an adjective in their lyrics, to questions about which of the guys is the funniest when drunk. You can even get a Fall Out Boy widget, if you really want one. They love their non-fans too—make your opinion about Fall Out Boy public at Friendsorenemies.com, where both fans and critics can rant and rave about the band. Also check out Falloutboyrock.com and Myspace.com/falloutboy for the usual band info, and Decaydance.com to learn about Wentz’s production efforts.

With album sales soaring and fans eating up their every word, what do the self-proclaimed underdogs do if they actually make it to the top? Trohman laughs, “I think if we ever make it there, we’ll probably get torn down and have to work our way back up again.”