Whatever notoriety Fall Out Boy used to have prevents me from having the ability to start over from the bottom again.

There are some bands for whom that works very well and it's no disrespect to them because I'm sure there's something honest and natural about it, but for us I feel like it would be dishonest and kinda disrespectful to that artwork to do that. To be like: "Okay, we're going to go back and only play these songs, even though we have an hour to an hour and a half set and we gotta play more songs, but we'll skimp you on your extra half hour." That's just silly to me.

I don't see the songs as uplifting, but rather as trying to make lemonade from lemons, or whatever. When I listen to them, I understand the context. I don't like to pepper songs with my own experiences, though.

He's writing what I'm singing, and I'm writing what he's playing.

I have always loved David Bowie. When he began to experiment with pop music in the 80's, I really thought there was a really fascinating reverence for it. A lot of people looked at pop music as just idiot music, or dance music, and with this he was giving it a lot of respect.

There's a certain fear of simplicity. I think that's the thing when you're younger as an artist you get this idea in your head that complexity equals quality. The more notes you're playing, the better.

The music business is one of a few places where everything you've heard about it seems entirely cliche, but it's true.