Fall Out Boy guitarist Joe Trohman tells the origin story of the band in his new memoir, None of This Rocks.
In an excerpt posted by Rolling Stone, Trohman recalls how he and bassist Pete Wentz had wanted to start a pop-punk band together in Chicago. In the midst of looking for a vocalist, Trohman ran into a "fair-skinned waif of a teen with thick glasses and enormous sideburns" by the name of Patrick Stump while looking through CDs at a Borders bookstore.
"We both liked to talk, that was evident," Trohman recalls of the meeting. "We both liked to talk about music, too. And we both seemed to like each other. We also both liked to hear ourselves talk."
Before recruiting Andy Hurley, Trohman, Wentz and Stump went through a revolving door of drummers. At the time, Trohman described himself as the "glue guy" in the band, who'd be "keeping us together, making us rehearse when no one wanted to, trying to push us forward when all felt hopeless, trying to make our terrible band good through sheer brute force."
After Hurley joined, Fall Out Boy recorded their proper debut, 2003's Take This to Your Grave. Its underground success eventually led Fall Out Boy to signing to a major label for 2005's breakout effort, From Under the Cork Tree.
"As things began to grow out of the DIY and into the mainstream machine, my role in the band, as the person who kept us together and pushed us forward, was becoming obsolete," Trohman writes.
Trohman describes his behavior during the Cork Tree era as "rough" and "even more foul" during the recording of 2007's Infinity on High. As for what happens next, you can read None of This Rocks, which is out now.