Rolling Stone: Do fans now relate to their music heroes in the same way that you related to yours?
Pete Wentz: No way. Before, it was the Wizard of Oz, and now, you see the man behind the curtain. If you could have gone onto a Web site and asked Axl Rose a question, it would have totally demystified him. Axl Rose was able to go back to his hotel room and become William Rose. Nowadays, you can’t do that. You always have to be on. You have to live your art. You can’t ever stop being the person everyone thinks you are, and eventually, you just get confused and become that person.
Rolling Stone: What has music done for you, for better or for worse?
Pete Wentz: For better, it’s made it so I’m not dead right now. Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” definitely stopped me from killing myself. I was in a parking lot of a Best Buy, and I’d swallowed a bottle of Ativan. It wasn’t really a suicide attempt. I did it more in an “I want to shut my brain off” moment. But then, “Hallelujah” came on, and I called my family and I called my manager, and I was like, “I’m doing stupid stuff,” but in more slurred and less eloquent words. Also, Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”: I’ve sat in my room in the dark with a blanket over my head, pretending to be dead and listening to that song – and then realized that that’s cool to do when you’re fourteen, but when you’re 26, it’s a little bit weird.
Rolling Stone: And for worse?
Pete Wentz: For worse, music has projected me into the biggest asshole on the planet. I’m the king of Internet assholes. Because who you are isn’t who they think you are, but the only time I ever get to really talk about who I am is when we put out a record once every two years.
Rolling Stone: How will the music business change over the next ten years?
Pete Wentz: I think that record companies, or major labels, at least, are becoming obsolete. Let’s put it this way: The meteor’s hit and the dust cloud is in the air, and now, we’re just waiting for the dinosaurs to die, and then, you wait for the new breed. It’s the Wild West – no one has any clue what to do. People are trying to force viral ideas, which doesn’t make any sense. But I don’t have any clue of what the future of it should be, or else I would quit my band and I’d go be a billionaire in some glass tower somewhere.
Rolling Stone: Do you think it’s a mistake for new bands to sign to major labels?
Pete Wentz: Unsigned bands are so hungry to be a part of anything that they sign themselves into very bad deals. Most major labels are trying to operate as indie labels and are going out and being like, “Hey, check out this new thing, YouTube – we’ll do a video where you guys are playing, and we’ll have snowboarders,” and you’re like, “Dude, can you stop getting on the train ten years late? Because it fucking sucks, and it’s boring.” And then, most indie labels are trying to be major labels by taking bands’ auxiliary income and bullshit like that: “Oh, we don’t know how to run our business anymore, so we need to take your merch deal." |
