KEY POINTS:
All Pete Wentz wants to do is talk about his dog. Great. You get to talk to the guy from Chicago punk/pop/emo band Fall Out Boy, who are responsible for the year's hottest new album so far - it's No 1 in New Zealand for the second week
running - and he's preoccupied with Hemingway, his bulldog.
"He gets nose bleeds a lot. The day I moved into this house Hemingway ran into the door because the door is clear and he'd never seen a clear door before. He's eight months old and he's a monster now.
"He pretty much tears the house apart, and all my friends' clothes, and he's being pushed across the floor at the moment like a mop," sniggers Wentz.
He isn't too keen to talk about FOB's new album, Infinity On High, or about the band's rise to superstardom since the release of their breakthrough third album, From Under the Cork Tree, in 2005.
At least he's having fun. It wasn't all like this two years ago. In February 2005, just as FOB were recording From Under the Cork Tree, Wentz went into emotional meltdown.
In a supermarket parking lot in Chicago he swallowed a handful of anti-anxiety pills in an act he calls "hyper-medicating".
Suffering from depression - "black clouds" he calls them - Wentz has described his moods as "oil and water and they never mix together, right".
Last year, the bass player and lyricist who admits to a fascination with the suicides of Elliott Smith and Joy Division's Ian Curtis, said: "It was overwhelming. I was either totally anxious or totally depressed.
"It is particularly overwhelming when you are on the cusp of doing something very big and thinking that it will be a big flop.
"My head was racing with self doubt and negative thoughts.
"I just wanted to have my head shut up," he remembers. "I didn't really think about whether I slept or died."
After the near-death episode - he had his stomach pumped - Wentz moved back into his parents' house in the posh Chicago suburb of Wilmette ("A place straight out of one of those 80s movies like The Breakfast Club," he says), leaving the band to tour Britain without him.
Now, he has moved out of his folks' place, into his own house in Los Angeles, and FOB have just released Infinity On High.
No wonder he's chirpy.
Although, he avoids the question about his well-being by substituting "How's the health?" with "How's the house?".
"The house is good," he says quickly.
"Still decorating. It's a little bare so I'm getting a few paintings. It's my first place after leaving my parents' house. It's like my parents' house with a view, and less real food and more snacks.
"All my friends like coming over and sitting on the balcony. It's good times."
With this he asks if I can hold on a minute. In the background he asks someone to take Hemingway outside. He rustles round and he's back, seemingly ready to get down to business - for a short time, at least.
"After the success of the last record we were able to go nuts," he says. "I don't feel like we had any limitations at all. We had free rein and we took it.
"I think on our earlier records we let ourselves, our sound and our ideas be limited. On this one we are having a lot of fun.
"We let loose, and you can hear the party in the songs."
He's right, kind of. You see, the album moves away from the emo and hardcore sound with which FOB made their name and takes bold and cocky steps into the world of pure pop music.
Hardly boundary-pushing, you might say, but there's no denying the addictive hooks of Thriller and sing-a-long hits like This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race.
Add to this that the album starts with a shout out from hip-hop king, Jay Z ("I don't think it was a matter of proving ourselves having Jay Z on the record, we're just good friends ... ") and includes contributions by everyone from smooth R&B producer Babyface to Wesley Eisold from extreme hardcore act Some Girls, and FOB can't be accused of musical mundanity.
"There were no boundaries at all and that comes from a combination of everything, from growing up, to what we listen to now, and just throwing it all together, putting some ice in the blender and turning it on to high."
And we move on to the third stage of the interview where he gives direct, quick-fire answers.
Like, music as an escape: "Music has always been a place to go for me and it still is. It's always had the same meaning.
"As you go through your life your perspectives change, and you grow up a little.
"You can't be Peter Pan forever, but music is always there."
Devoted fans: "Dedication's a weird thing because it quickly becomes an obsession and people always take things beyond where it feels comfortable. It's a bummer, but what are you gonna do, I can't change who I am because of that."
The state of the hardcore scene: "Hardcore is such a convoluted and big thing that sometimes it can be more about an aesthetic rather than anything else, which is kind of disheartening."
And finally, what the live show in New Zealand will be like: "We pretty much play as a hardcore band, the way we grew up, and that's how it will always be."
Pop music played by a hardcore band? Sounds like one to see.
Fall Out Boy
Formed: Chicago, Illinois, in 2001.
Line up: Pete Wentz (bass/lyrics); Patrick Stump (lead vocals, guitar); Joe Trohman (lead guitar); Andy Hurley (drums).
Key albums: Take This To Your Grave (2003); From Under the Cork Tree (2005).
Latest album: Infinity On High, out now.
Where & when: March 5, TelstraClear Pacific Stadium, Manukau.
- Additional reporting THE INDEPENDENT
