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turnstileskyline · 4 months

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The Oral History of Take This To Your Grave – transcription under the cut

The pages that are just photographs, I haven't included. This post is already long enough.

Things that happened in 2003: Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California. Teen Vogue published its first issue. The world lost Johnny Cash. Johnny Depp appeared as Captain Jack Sparrow for the first time. A third Lord of the Rings movie arrived. Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, and Andy Hurley released Take This To Your Grave.

"About 21 years ago or so, as I was applying to colleges I would ultimately never go to, Fall Out Boy began as a little pop-punk side project of what we assumed was Pete's more serious band, Arma Angelus," Patrick wrote in a May 2023 social media post.

"We were sloppy and couldn't solidify a lineup, but the three of us (Pete, Joe, and I) were having way too much fun to give up on it."

"We were really rough around the edges. As an example of how rough, one of my favorite teachers pulled me aside after hearing the recording that would eventually become Evening Out With Your Girlfriend and tactfully said, 'What do you think your best instrument is, Patrick? Drums. It's drums. Probably not singing, Patrick.'"

"We went into Smart Studios with the Sean O'Keefe... So, there we were, 3/5 of a band with a singer who'd only been singing a year, no drummer, and one out of two guitarists. But we had the opportunity to record with Sean at Butch Vig's legendary studio.

"Eight or so months later, Fueled by Ramen would give us a contract to record the remaining songs. We'd sleep on floors, eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly, live in a van for the next three years, and somehow despite that, eventually play with Elton John and Taylor Swift and Jay-Z and for President Obama and the NFC championship, and all these other wildly unpredictable things. But none of that would ever come close to happening if Andy hadn't made it to the session and Joe hadn't dragged us kicking and screaming into being a band."

Two decades after its release, Take This To Your Grave sits comfortable in the Top 10 of Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums, edging out landmark records from Buzzcocks, Generation X, Green Day, The Offspring, Blink-182, and The Ramones.

It even ranked higher than Through Being Cool by Saves The Day and Jersey's Best Dancers from Lifetime, two records the guys in Fall Out Boy particularly revere.

Fall Out Boy's proper full-length debut on Fueled by Ramen is a deceptively smart, sugar-sweet, raw, energetic masterpiece owing as much to the bass player's pop culture passions, the singers deep love of R&B and soul, and their shared history in the hardcore scene as any pioneering punk band. Fall Out Boy's creative and commercial heights were still ahead, but Take This To Your Grave kicked it off, a harbinger for the enduring songwriting partnership between Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz, the eclectic contributions from Joe Trohman, and the propulsive powerhouse that is Andy Hurley.

The recordings document a special moment when Fall Out Boy was big in "the scene" but a "secret" from the mainstream. The band (and some of their friends) first sat down for an Oral History (which doubled as an Oral History of their origin story) with their old friend Ryan J. Downey, then Senior Editor for Alternative Press, upon the occasion of the album's 10th anniversary. What follows is an updated, sharper, and expanded version of that story, newly re-edited in 2023. As Patrick eloquently said: "Happy 20th birthday, Take This To Your Grave, you weird brilliant lightning strike accident of a record."

– Ryan J. Downey.

A Weird, Brilliant Lightning Strike Of A Record. The Oral History Of Fall Out Boy's Take This To Your Grave.

As told by:

Patrick Stump

Pete Wentz

Joe Trohman

Andy Hurley

Bob McLynn - Crush Music

Sean O'Keefe - Producer/Mixer

John Janick - Fueled By Ramen

Tim McIlrath - Rise Against

Mani Mostofi - Racetraitor

Chris Gutierrez - Arma Angelus

Mark Rose - Spitalfield

Sean Muttaqi - Uprising Records

Rory Felton - The Militia Group

Richard Reines - Drive-Thru Records

"To Feel No More Bitterness Forever" - From Hardcore to Softcore, 1998-2000

PETE WENTZ: When I got into hardcore, it was about discovering the world beyond yourself. There was a culture of trying to be a better person. That was part of what was so alluring about hardcore and punk for me. But for whatever reason, it shifted. Maybe this was just in Chicago, but it became less about the thought process behind it and more about moshing and breakdowns. There was a close-mindedness that felt very reactive.

TIM MCILRITH: I saw First Born many years ago, which was the first time I saw Pete and met him around then. This was '90s hardcore - p.c., vegan, activist kind of hardcore music. Pete was in many of those bands doing that kind of thing, and I was at many of those shows. The hardcore scene in Chicago was pretty small, so everyone kind of knew each other. I knew Andy Hurley as the drummer in Racetraitor. I was in a band called Baxter, so Pete always called me 'Baxter.' I was just 'Baxter' to a lot of those guys.

JOE TROHMAN: I was a young hardcore kid coming to the shows. The same way we all started doing bands. You're a shitty kid who goes to punk and hardcore shows, and you see the other bands playing, and you want to make friends with those guys because you want to play in bands too. Pete and I had a bit of a connection because we're from the same area. I was the youngest dude at most shows. I would see Extinction, Racetraitor, Burn It Down, and all the bands of that era.

WENTZ: My driver's license was suspended then, so Joe drove me everywhere. We listened to either Metalcore like Shai Hulud or pop-punk stuff like Screeching Weasel.

MCILRITH: I was in a band with Pete called Arma Angelus. I was like their fifth or sixth bass player. I wasn't doing anything musically when they hit me up to play bass, so I said, 'Of course.' I liked everyone in the band. We were rehearsing, playing a few shows here and there, with an ever-revolving cast of characters. We recorded a record together at the time. I even sing on that record, believe it or not, they gave me a vocal part. Around that same time, I began meeting with [bassist] Joe [Principe] about starting what would become Rise Against.

CHRIS GUTIERREZ: Wentz played me the Arma Angelus demo in the car. He said he wanted it to be a mix of Despair, Buried Alive, and Damnation A.D. He told me Tim was leaving to start another band - which ended up being Rise Against - and asked if I wanted to play bass.

TROHMAN: Pete asked me to fill in for a tour when I was 15. Pete had to call my dad to convince him to let me go. He did it, too. It was my first tour, in a shitty cargo van, with those dudes. They hazed the shit out of me. It was the best and worst experience. Best overall, worst at the time.

GUTIERREZ: Enthusiasm was starting to wane in Arma Angelus. Our drummer was really into cock-rock. It wasn't an ironic thing. He loved L.A. Guns, Whitesnake, and Hanoi Rocks. It drove Pete nuts because the scene was about Bleeding Through and Throwdown, not cock rock. He was frustrated that things weren't panning out for the band, and of course, there's a ceiling for how big a metalcore band can get, anyway.

MANI MOSTOFI: Pete had honed this tough guy persona, which I think was a defense mechanism. He had some volatile moments in his childhood. Underneath, he was a pretty sensitive and vulnerable person. After playing in every mosh-metal band in the Midwest and listening exclusively to Earth Crisis, Damnation A.D., Chokehold, and stuff like that for a long time, I think Pete wanted to do something fresh. He had gotten into Lifetime, Saves The Day, The Get Up Kids, and bands like that. Pete was at that moment where the softer side of him needed an outlet, and didn't want to hide behind mosh-machismo. I remember him telling me he wanted to start a band that more girls could listen to.

MCILRATH: Pete was talking about starting a pop-punk band. Bands like New Found Glory and Saves The Day were successful then. The whole pop-punk sound was accessible. Pete was just one of those guys destined for bigger things than screaming for mediocre hardcore bands in Chicago. He's a smart guy, a brilliant guy. All the endeavors he had taken on, even in the microcosm of the 1990s Chicago hardcore world, he put a lot of though into it. You could tell that if he were given a bigger receptacle to put that thought into, it could become something huge. He was always talented: lyrics, imagery, that whole thing. He was ahead of the curve. We were in this hardcore band from Chicago together, but we were both talking about endeavors beyond it.

TROHMAN: The drummer for Arma Angelus was moving. Pete and I talked about doing something different. It was just Pete and me at first. There was this thuggishness happening in the Chicago hardcore scene at that time that wasn't part of our vibe. It was cool, but it wasn't our thing.

MCILRITH: One day at Arma Angelus practice, Pete asked me, 'Are you going to do that thing with Joe?' I was like, 'Yeah, I think so.' He was like, 'You should do that, dude. Don't let this band hold you back. I'll be doing something else, too. We should be doing other things.' He was really ambitious. It was so amazing to me, too, because Pete was a guy who, at the time, was kind of learning how to play the bass. A guy who didn't really play an instrument will do down in history as one of the more brilliant musicians in Chicago. He had everything else in his corner. He knew how to do everything else. He needed to get some guys behind him because he had the rest covered. He had topics, themes, lyrics, artwork, this whole image he wanted to do, and he was uncompromising. He also tapped into something the rest of us were just waking up to: the advent of the internet. I mean, the internet wasn't new, but higher-speed internet was.

MOSTOFI: Joe was excited to be invited by Pete to do a band. Joe was the youngest in our crew by far, and Pete was the 'coolest' in a Fonzie sort of way. Joe deferred to Pete's judgement for years. But eventually, his whole life centered around bossy big-brother Pete. I think doing The Damned Things was for Joe what Fall Out Boy was for Pete, in a way. It was a way to find his own space within the group of friends. Unsurprisingly, Joe now plays a much more significant role in Fall Out Boy's music.

WENTZ: I wanted to do something easy and escapist. When Joe and I started the band, it was the worst band of all time. I feel like people said, 'Oh, yeah, you started Fall Out Boy to get big.' Dude, there was way more of a chance of every other band getting big in my head than Fall Out Boy. It was a side thing that was fun to do. Racetraitor and Extinction were big bands to me. We wanted to do pop-punk because it would be fun and hilarious. It was definitely on a lark. We weren't good. If it was an attempt at selling out, it was a very poor attempt.

MCILRITH: It was such a thing for people to move from hardcore bands to bands called 'emo' or pop-punk, as those bands were starting to get some radio play and signed to major labels. Everyone thought it was easy, but it's not as easy as that. Most guys we knew who tried it never did anything more successful than their hardcore bands. But Pete did it! And if anyone was going to, it was going to be him. He never did anything half-assed. He ended up playing bass in so many bands in Chicago, even though he could barely play the bass then, because simply putting him in your band meant you'd have a better show. He was just more into it. He knew more about dynamics, about getting a crowd to react to what you're doing than most people. Putting Pete in your band put you up a few notches.

"I'm Writing You A Chorus And Here Is Your Verse" - When Pete met Patrick, early 2001.

MARK ROSE: Patrick Stump played drums in this grindcore band called Grinding Process. They had put out a live split cassette tape.

PATRICK STUMP: My ambition always outweighed my ability or actual place in the world. I was a drummer and played in many bands and tried to finagle my way into better ones but never really managed. I was usually outgunned by the same two guys: this guy Rocky Senesce; I'm not sure if he's playing anymore, but he was amazing. And this other guy, De'Mar Hamilton, who is now in Plain White T's. We'd always go out for the same bands. I felt like I was pretty good, but then those guys just mopped the floor with me. I hadn't been playing music for a few months. I think my girlfriend dumped me. I was feeling down. I wasn't really into pop-punk or emo. I think at the time I was into Rhino Records box sets.

TROHMAN: I was at the Borders in Eden's Plaza in Wilmette, Illinois. My friend Arthur was asking me about Neurosis. Patrick just walked up and started talking to me.

STUMP: I was a bit arrogant and cocky, like a lot of young musicians. Joe was talking kind of loudly and I overheard him say something about Neurosis, and I think I came in kind of snotty, kind of correcting whatever they had said.

TROHMAN: We just started talking about music, and my buddy Arthur got shoved out of the conversation. I told him about the band we were starting. Pete was this local hardcore celebrity, which intrigued Patrick.

STUMP: I had similar conversations with any number of kids my age. This conversation didn't feel crazy special. That's one of the things that's real about [Joe and I meeting], and that's honest about it, that's it's not some 'love at first sight' thing where we started talking about music and 'Holy smokes, we're going to have the best band ever!' I had been in a lot of bands up until then. Hardcore was a couple of years away from me at that point. I was over it, but Pete was in real bands; that was interesting. Now I'm curious and I want to do this thing, or at least see what happens. Joe said they needed a drummer, guitar player, or singer, and I kind of bluffed and said I could do any one of those things for a pop-punk band. I'd had a lot of conversations about starting bands where I meet up with somebody and maybe try to figure out some songs and then we'd never see each other again. There were a lot of false starts and I assumed this would be just another one of those, but it would be fun for this one to be with the guy from Racetraitor and Extinction.

TROHMAN: He gave me the link to his MP3.com page. There were a few songs of him just playing acoustic and singing. He was awesome.

WENTZ: Joe told me we were going to this kid's house who would probably be our drummer but could also sing. He sent me a link to Patrick singing some acoustic thing, but the quality was so horrible it was hard to tell what it was. Patrick answered the door in some wild outfit. He looked like an emo kid but from the Endpoint era - dorky and cool. We went into the basement, and he was like, trying to set up his drums.

TROHMAN: Patrick has said many times that he intended to try out on drums. I was pushing for him to sing after hearing his demos. 'Hey! Sing for us!' I asked him to take out his acoustic guitar. He played songs from Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. I think he sang most of the record to us. We were thrilled. We had never been around someone who could sing like that.

WENTZ: I don't think Patrick thought we were cool at all. We were hanging out, and he started playing acoustic guitar. He started singing, and I realized he could sing any Saves The Day song. I was like, 'Wow, that's the way those bands sound! We should just have you sing.' It had to be serendipity because Patrick drumming and Joe singing is not the same band. I never thought about singing. It wasn't the type of thing I could sing. I knew I'd be playing bass. I didn't think it'd even go beyond a few practices. It didn't seem like the thing I was setting myself up to do for the next several years of my life in any way. I was going to college. It was just a fun getaway from the rest of life kind of thing to do.

STUMP: Andy was the first person we asked to play drums. Joe even brought him up in the Borders conversation. But Andy was too busy. He wasn't really interested, either, because we kind of sucked.

WENTZ: I wanted Hurley in the band, I was closest to him at the time, I had known him for a long time. I identified with him in the way that we were the younger dudes in our larger group. I tried to get him, but he was doing another band at the time, or multiple bands. He was Mani's go-to guy to play drums, always. I had asked him a few times. That should clue people into the fact that we weren't that good.

ANDY HURLEY: I knew Joe as 'Number One Fan.' We called him that because he was a huge fan of a band I was in, Kill The Slavemaster. When Fall Out Boy started, I was going to college full-time. I was in the band Project Rocket and I think The Kill Pill then, too.

MOSTOFI: After they got together the first or second time, Pete played me a recording and said, 'This is going to be big.' They had no songs, no name, no drummer. They could barely play their instruments. But Pete knew, and we believed him because we could see his drive and Patrick's potential. Patrick was prodigy. I imagine the first moment Pete heard him sing was probably like when I heard 15-year-old Andy Hurley play drums.

GUTIERREZ: One day at practice, Pete told me he had met some dudes with whom he was starting a pop-punk band. He said it would sound like a cross between New Found Glory and Lifetime. Then the more Fall Out Boy started to practice, the less active Arma Angelus became.

TROHMAN: We got hooked up with a friend named Ben Rose, who became our original drummer. We would practice in his parents' basement. We eventually wrote some pretty bad songs. I don't even have the demo. I have copies of Arma's demo, but I don't have that one.

MOSTOFI: We all knew that hardcore kids write better pop-punk songs than actual pop-punk kids. It had been proven. An experienced hardcore musician could bring a sense of aggression and urgency to the pop hooks in a way that a band like Yellowcard could never achieve. Pete and I had many conversations about this. He jokingly called it 'Softcore,' but that's precisely what it was. It's what he was going for. Take This To Your Grave sounds like Hot Topic, but it feels like CBGBs.

MCILRITH: Many hardcore guys who transitioned into pop-punk bands dumbed it down musically and lyrically. Fall Out Boy found a way to do it that wasn't dumbed down. They wrote music and lyrics that, if you listened closely, you could tell came from people who grew up into hardcore. Pete seemed to approach the song titles and lyrics the same way he attacked hardcore songs. You could see his signature on all of that.

STUMP: We all had very different ideas of what it should sound like. I signed up for Kid Dynamite, Strike Anywhere, or Dillinger Four. Pete was very into Lifetime and Saves The Day. I think both he and Joe were into New Found Glory and Blink-182. I still hadn't heard a lot of stuff. I was arrogant; I was a rock snob. I was over most pop-punk. But then I had this renaissance week where I was like, 'Man, you know what? I really do like The Descendents.' Like, the specific week I met Joe, it just happened to be that I was listening to a lot of Descendents. So, there was a part of me that was tickled by that idea. 'You know what? I'll try a pop-punk band. Why not?'

MOSTOFI: To be clear, they were trying to become a big band. But they did it by elevating radio-friendly pop punk, not debasing themselves for popularity. They were closely studying Drive-Thru Records bands like The Starting Line, who I couldn't stand. But they knew what they were doing. They extracted a few good elements from those bands and combined them with their other influences. Patrick never needed to be auto-tuned. He can sing. Pete never had to contrive this emotional depth. He always had it.

STUMP: The ideas for band names were obnoxious. At some point, Pete and I were arguing over it, and I think our first drummer, Ben Rose, who was in the hardcore band Strength In Numbers, suggested Fall Out Boy. Pete and I were like, 'Well, we don't hate that one. We'll keep it on the list.' But we never voted on a name.

"Fake It Like You Matter" - The Early Shows, 2001

The name Fall Out Boy made their shortlist, but their friends ultimately chose it for them. The line-up at the band's first show was Patrick Stump (sans guitar), Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, drummer Ben Rose, and guitarist John Flamandan in his only FOB appearance.

STUMP: We didn't have a name at our two or three shows. We were basically booked as 'Pete's new band' as he was the most known of any of us. Pete and I were the artsy two.

TROHMAN: The rest of us had no idea what we were doing onstage.

STUMP: We took ourselves very seriously and completely different ideas on what was 'cool.' Pete at the time was somewhere between maybe Chuck Palahniuk and Charles Bukowski, and kind of New Romantic and Manchester stuff, so he had that in mind. The band names he suggested were long and verbose, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I was pretty much only into Tom Waits, so I wanted everything to be a reference to Tom Waits. The first show was at DePaul [University] in some cafeteria. The room looked a lot nicer than punk rock shows are supposed to look, like a room where you couldn't jump off the walls. We played with a band called Stillwell. I want to say one of the other bands played Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath in its entirety. We were out of place. We were tossing a few different names around. The singer for Stillwell was in earshot of the conversation so I was like 'Hey, settle this for us,' and told him whatever name it was, which I can't remember. 'What do you think of this name?' He goes, 'It sucks.' And the way he said it, there was this element to it, like, 'You guys probably suck, too, so whatever.' That was our first show. We played first and only had three songs. That was John's only show with us, and I never saw him again. I was just singing without a guitar, and I had never just sung before; that was horrifying. We blazed through those songs.

ROSE: Patrick had this shoulder-length hair. Watching these guys who were known for heavier stuff play pop-punk was strange. Pete was hopping around with the X's on his hands. Spitalfield was similar; we were kids playing another style of music who heard Texas Is The Reason and Get Up Kids and said, 'We have to start a band like this.'

MOSTOFI: The first show was a lot of fun. The musical side wasn't there, but Pete and Patrick's humor and charisma were front and center.

TROHMAN: I remember having a conversation with Mani about stage presence. He was telling me how important it was. Coalesce and The Dillinger Escape Plan would throw mic stands and cabinets. We loved that visual excitement and appeal. Years later, Patrick sang a Fall Out Boy song with Taylor Swift at Giants Stadium. It was such a great show to watch that I was reminded of how wise Mani was to give me that advice back then. Mani was like a mentor for me, honestly. He would always guide me through stuff.

MOSTOFI: Those guys grew up in Chicago, either playing in or seeing Extinction, Racetraitor, Los Crudos, and other bands that liked to talk and talk between songs. Fall Out Boy did that, and it was amazing. Patrick was awkward in a knowing and hilarious way. He'd say something odd, and then Pete would zing him. Or Pete would try to say something too cool, and Patrick would remind him they were nerds. These are very personal memories for me. Millions of people have seen the well-oiled machine, but so few of us saw those guys when they were so carefree.

TROHMAN: We had this goofy, bad first show, but all I can tell you was that I was determined to make this band work, no matter what.

STUMP: I kind of assumed that was the end of that. 'Whatever, on with our lives.' But Joe was very determined. He was going to pick us up for practice and we were going to keep playing shows. He was going to make the band happen whether the rest of us wanted to or not. That's how we got past show number one. John left the band because we only had three songs and he wasn't very interested. In the interim, I filled in on guitar. I didn't consider myself a guitar player. Our second show was a college show in Southern Illinois or something.

MCILRITH: That show was with my other band, The Killing Tree.

STUMP: We showed up late and played before The Killing Tree. There was no one there besides the bands and our friends. I think we had voted on some names. Pete said 'Hey, we're whatever!'; probably something very long. And someone yells out, 'Fuck that, no, you're Fall Out Boy!' Then when The Killing Tree was playing, Tim said, 'I want to thank Fall Out Boy.' Everyone looked up to Tim, so when he forced the name on us, it was fine. I was a diehard Simpsons fan, without question. I go pretty deep on The Simpsons. Joe and I would just rattle off Simpsons quotes. I used to do a lot of Simpsons impressions. Ben was very into Simpsons; he had a whole closet full of Simpsons action figures.

"If Only You Knew I Was Terrified" - The Early Recordings, 2002-2003

Wentz's relationships in the hardcore scene led to Fall Out Boy's first official releases. A convoluted and rarely properly explained chain of events resulted in the Fall Out Boy/Project Rocket split EP and Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend. Both were issued by California's Uprising Records, whose discography included Racetraitor's first album and the debut EP by Burn It Down. The band traveled to Wisconsin to record their first proper demo with engineer Jared Logan, drummer for Uprising's 7 Angels 7 Plagues.

TROHMAN: This isn't to be confused with the demo we did in Ben's basement, which was like a tape demo. This was our first real demo.

STUMP: Between booking the demo and recording it, we lost Ben Rose. He was the greatest guy, but it wasn't working out musically. Pete and Joe decided I should play drums on the demo. But Jared is a sick drummer, so he just did it.

TROHMAN: We had gotten this great singer but went through a series of drummers that didn't work out. I had to be the one who kicked Ben out. Not long after, our friend Brett Bunting played with us. I don't think he really wanted to do it, which was a bummer.

STUMP: I showed up to record that demo, feeling pulled into it. I liked hanging out with the guys, but I was a rock snob who didn't really want to be making that type of music. The first few songs were really rough. We were sloppy. We barely practiced. Pete was in Arma Angelus. Joe was the guy determined to make it happen. We couldn't keep a drummer or guitar player, and I could barely play guitar. I didn't really want to be in Fall Out Boy. We had these crappy songs that kind of happened; it didn't feel like anything. Joe did the guitars. I go in to do the vocals, I put on the headphones, and it starts playing and was kind of not bad! It was pretty good, actually. I was shocked. That was the first time I was like, 'Maybe I am supposed to be in this band.' I enjoyed hearing it back.

SEAN MUTTAQI: Wentz and I were pretty tight. He sent me some demos, and while I didn't know it would get as big as it did, I knew it was special. Wentz had a clear vision. Of all the guys from that scene, he was the most singularly focused on taking things to the next level. He was ahead of the game with promotion and the early days of social media.

STUMP: Arma Angelus had been on Eulogy. We talked to them a bit and spoke to Uprising because they had put out Racetraitor. At some point, the demo got to Sean, and he decided to make it half of a split with Andy's band, Project Rocket. We were pretty happy with that.

HURLEY: It was kind of competitive for me at the time. Project Rocket and Fall Out Boy were both doing pop-punk/pop-rock, I met Patrick through the band. I didn't really know him before Fall Out Boy.

TROHMAN: We got this drummer, Mike Pareskuwicz, who had been in a hardcore band from Central Illinois called Subsist.

STUMP: Uprising wanted us to make an album. We thought that was cool, but we only had those three songs that were on the split. We were still figuring ourselves out. One of the times we were recording with Jared in the studio, for the split or the album, this guy T.J. Kunasch was there. He was like, 'Hey, do you guys need a guitarist?' And he joined.

MUTTAQI: I borrowed some money to get them back in the studio. The songwriting was cool on that record, but it was all rushed. The urgency to get something out led to the recording being subpar. Their new drummer looked the part but couldn't really play. They had already tracked the drums before they realized it didn't sound so hot.

STUMP: The recording experience was not fun. We had two days to do an entire album. Mike was an awesome dude, but he lived crazy far away, in Kanakee, Illinois, so the drive to Milwaukee wasn't easy for him. He had to work or something the next day. So, he did everything in one take and left. He played alone, without a click, so it was a ness to figure out. We had to guess where the guitar was supposed to go. None of us liked the songs because we had slapped them together. We thought it all sucked. But I thought, 'Well, at least it'll be cool to have something out.' Then a lot of time went by. Smaller labels were at the mercy of money, and it was crazy expensive to put out a record back then.

MUTTAQI: Our record was being rushed out to help generate some interest, but that interest was building before we could even get the record out. We were beholden to finances while changing distribution partners and dealing with other delays. The buck stops with me, yes, but I didn't have that much control over the scheduling.

WENTZ: It's not what I would consider the first Fall Out Boy record. Hurley isn't on it and he's an integral part of the Fall Out Boy sound. But it is part of the history, the legacy. NASA didn't go right to the moon. They did test flights in the desert. Those are our test flights in the desert. It's not something I'm ashamed of or have weird feelings about.

STUMP: It's kind of embarrassing to me. Evening Out... isn't representative of the band we became. I liked Sean a lot, so it's nothing against him. If anybody wants to check out the band in that era, I think the split EP is a lot cooler. Plus, Andy is on that one.

TROHMAN: T.J. was the guy who showed up to the show without a guitar. He was the guy that could never get it right, but he was in the band for a while because we wanted a second guitar player. He's a nice dude but wasn't great to be in a band with back then. One day he drove unprompted from Racine to Chicago to pick up some gear. I don't know how he got into my parents' house, but the next thing I knew, he was in my bedroom. I didn't like being woken up and kicked him out of the band from bed.

STUMP: Our friend Brian Bennance asked us to do a split 7" with 504 Plan, which was a big band to us. Brian offered to pay for us to record with Sean O'Keefe, which was also a big deal. Mike couldn't get the time off work to record with us. We asked Andy to play on the songs. He agreed to do it, but only if he could make it in time after recording an entire EP with his band, The Kill Pill, in Chicago, on the same day.

MOSTOFI: Andy and I started The Kill Pill shortly after Racetraitor split up, not long after Fall Out Boy had formed. We played a bunch of local shows together. The minute Andy finished tracking drums for our EP in Chicago, he raced to the other studio in Madison.

STUMP: I'm getting ready to record the drums myself, getting levels and checking the drums, pretty much ready to go. And then in walks Andy Hurley. I was a little bummed because I really wanted to play drums that day. But then Andy goes through it all in like two takes and fucking nailed the entire thing. He just knocked it out of the park. All of us were like, 'That's crazy!'

WENTZ: When Andy came in, It just felt different. It was one of those 'a-ha' moments.

STUMP: Sean leaned over to us and said, 'You need to get this guy in the band.'

SEAN O'KEEFE: We had a blast. We pumped It out. We did it fast and to analog tape. People believe it was very Pro Tools oriented, but it really was done to 24-track tape. Patrick sang his ass off.

STUMP: The songs we had were 'Dead On Arrival,' 'Saturday,' and 'Homesick at Space Camp. There are quite a few songs that ended up on Take This To You Grave where I wrote most of the lyrics but Pete titled them.

WENTZ: 'Space Camp' was a reference to the 1986 movie, SpaceCamp, and the idea of space camp. Space camp wasn't something anyone in my area went to. Maybe they did, but it was never an option for me. It seems like the little kid version of meeting Jay-Z. The idea was also: what if you, like Joaquin Phoenix in the movie, took off to outer space and wanted to get home? 'I made it to space and now I'm just homesick and want to hang out with my friends.' In the greater sense, it's about having it all, but it's still not enough. There's a pop culture reference in 'Saturday' that a lot of people miss. 'Pete and I attack the lost Astoria' was a reference to The Goonies, which was filmed in Astoria, Oregon.

HURLEY: I remember hearing those recordings, especially 'Dead on Arrival,' and Patrick's voice and how well written those songs were, especially relative to anything else I had done - I had a feeling that this could do something.

WENTZ: It seemed like it would stall out if we didn't get a solid drummer in the band soon. That was the link that we couldn't nail down. Patrick was always a big musical presence. He thinks and writes rhythmi-cally, and we couldn't get a drummer to do what he wanted or speak his language. Hurley was the first one that could. It's like hearing two drummers talk together when they really get it. It sounds like a foreign language because it's not something I'm keyed into. Patrick needed someone on a similar musical plane. I wasn't there. Joe was younger and was probably headed there.

HURLEY: When Patrick was doing harmonies, it was like Queen. He's such a brilliant dude. I was always in bands that did a record and then broke up. I felt like this was a band that could tour a lot like the hardcore bands we loved, even if we had to have day jobs, too.

"(Four) Tired Boys And A Broken Down Van" - The Early Tours, 2002-2003

STUMP: We booked a tour with Spitalfield, another Chicago band, who had records out, so they were a big deal to us. We replaced T.J. with a guy named Brandon Hamm. He was never officially in the band. He quit when we were practicing 'Saturday.' He goes, 'I don't like that. I don't want to do this anymore.' Pete talked with guitarist Chris Envy from Showoff, who had just broken up. Chris said, 'Yeah, I'll play in your band.' He came to two practices, then quit like two days before the tour. It was only a two-week tour, but Mike couldn't get the time off work from Best Buy, or maybe it was Blockbuster. We had to lose Mike, which was the hardest member change for me. It was unpleasant.

TROHMAN: We had been trying to get Andy to join the band for a while. Even back at that first Borders conversation, we talked about him, but he was too busy at the time.

STUMP: I borrowed one of Joe's guitars and jumped in the fire. We were in this legendarily shitty used van Pete had gotten. It belonged to some flower shop, so it had this ominously worn-out flower decal outside and no windows [except in the front]. Crappy brakes, no A/C, missing the rearview mirror, no seats in the back, only the driver's seat. About 10 minutes into the tour, we hit something. A tire exploded and slingshot into the passenger side mirror, sending glass flying into the van. We pulled over into some weird animal petting zoo. I remember thinking, 'This is a bad omen for this tour.' Spitalfield was awesome, and we became tight with them. Drew Brown, who was later in Weekend Nachos, was out with them, too. But most of the shows were canceled.

WENTZ: We'd end up in a town, and our show was canceled, or we'd have three days off. 'Let's just get on whatever show we can. Whatever, you can pay us in pizza.'

STUMP: We played in a pizza place. We basically blocked the line of people trying to order pizza, maybe a foot away from the shitty tables. Nobody is trying to watch a band. They're just there to eat pizza. And that was perhaps the biggest show we played on that tour. One of the best moments on the Spitalfied tour was in Lincoln, Nebraska. The local opener wasn't even there - they were at the bar across the street and showed up later with two people. Fall Out Boy played for Spitalfield, and Spitalfield played for Fall Out Boy. Even the sound guy had left. It was basically an empty room. It was miserable.

HURLEY: Even though we played a ton of shows in front of just the other bands, it was awesome. I've known Pete forever and always loved being in bands with him. After that tour, it was pretty much agreed that I would be in the band. I wanted to be in the band.

WENTZ: We would play literally any show in those days for free. We played Chain Reaction in Orange County with a bunch of metalcore bands. I want to say Underoath was one of them. I remember a lot of black shirts and crossed arms at those kinds of shows. STUMP: One thing that gets lost in the annals of history is Fall Out Boy, the discarded hardcore band. We played so many hardcore shows! The audiences were cool, but they were just like, 'This is OK, but we'd really rather be moshing right now.' Which was better than many of the receptions we got from pop-punk kids.

MOSTOFI: Pete made sure there was little division between the band and the audience. In hardcore, kids are encouraged to grab the mic. Pete was very conscious about making the crowd feel like friends. I saw them in Austin, Texas, in front of maybe ten kids. But it was very clear all ten of those kids felt like Pete's best friends. And they were, in a way.

MCILRITH: People started to get into social networking. That kind of thing was all new to us, and they were way ahead. They networked with their fans before any of us.

MOSTOFI: Pete shared a lot about his life online and was intimate as hell. It was a new type of scene. Pete extended the band's community as far as fiber optics let him.

ROSE: Pete was extremely driven. Looking back, I wish I had that killer instinct. During that tour; we played a show in Colorado. On the day of the show, we went to Kinko's to make flyers to hand out to college kids. Pete put ‘members of Saves The Day and Screeching Weasel’ on the flyer. He was just like, 'This will get people in.'

WENTZ: We booked a lot of our early shows through hardcore connections, and to some extent, that carries through to what Fall Out Boy shows are like today. If you come to see us play live, we're basically Slayer compared to everyone else when we play these pop radio shows. Some of that carries back to what you must do to avoid being heckled at hardcore shows. You may not like our music, but you will leave here respecting us. Not everyone is going to love you. Not everyone is going to give a shit. But you need to earn a crowd's respect. That was an important way for us to learn that.

MOSTOFI: All those dudes, except Andy, lived in this great apartment with our friend Brett Bunting, who was almost their drummer at one point. The proximity helped them gel.

STUMP: There were a lot of renegade last-minute shows where we'd just call and get added. We somehow ended up on a show with Head Automatica that way.

MCILRITH: At some point early on, they opened for Rise Against in a church basement in Downers Grove. We were doing well then; headlining that place was a big deal. Then Pete's band was coming up right behind us, and you could tell there was a lot of chatter about Fall Out Boy. I remember getting to the show, and there were many people there, many of whom I had never seen in the scene before. A lot of unfamiliar faces. A lot of people that wouldn't have normally found their way to the seedy Fireside Bowl in Chicago. These were young kids, and I was 21 then, so when I say young, I mean really young. Clearly, Fall Out Boy had tapped into something the rest of us had not. People were super excited to see them play and freaked out; there was a lot of enthusiasm at that show. After they finished, their fans bailed. They were dedicated. They wanted to see Fall Out Boy. They didn't necessarily want to see Rise Against play. That was my first clue that, 'Whoa, what Pete told me that day at Arma Angelus rehearsal is coming true. He was right.' Whatever he was doing was working.

"My Insides Are Copper, And I'd Like To Make Them Gold" - The Record Labels Come Calling, 2002

STUMP: The split EP was going to be a three-way split with 504 Plan, August Premier, and us at one point. But then the record just never happened. Brian backed out of putting it out. We asked him if we could do something else with the three songs and he didn't really seem to care. So, we started shopping the three songs as a demo. Pete ended up framing the rejection letters we got from a lot of pop-punk labels. But some were interested.

HURLEY: We wanted to be on Drive-Thru Records so bad. That was the label.

RICHARD REINES: After we started talking to them, I found the demo they had sent us in the office. I played it for my sister. We decided everything together. She liked them but wasn't as crazy about them as I was. We arranged with Pete to see them practice. We had started a new label called Rushmore. Fall Out Boy wasn't the best live band. We weren't thrilled [by the showcase]. But the songs were great. We both had to love a band to sign them, so my sister said, 'If you love them so much, let's sign them to Rushmore, not Drive Thru.'

HURLEY: We did a showcase for Richard and Stephanie Reines. They were just kind of like, 'Yeah, we have this side label thing. We'd be interested in having you on that.' I remember them saying they passed on Saves The Day and wished they would have put out Through Being Cool. But then they [basically] passed on us by offering to put us on Rushmore. We realized we could settle for that, but we knew it wasn't the right thing.

RORY FELTON: Kevin Knight had a website, TheScout, which always featured great new bands. I believe he shared the demo with us. I flew out to Chicago. Joe and Patrick picked me up at the airport. I saw them play at a VFW hall, Patrick drank an entire bottle of hot sauce on a dare at dinner, and then we all went to see the movie The Ring. I slept on the couch in their apartment, the one featured on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. Chad [Pearson], my partner, also flew out to meet with the band.

STUMP: It was a weird time to be a band because it was feast or famine. At first, no one wanted us. Then as soon as one label said, 'Maybe we'll give 'em a shot,' suddenly there's a frenzy of phone calls from record labels. We were getting our shirts printed by Victory Records. One day, we went to pick up shirts, and someone came downstairs and said, 'Um, guys? [Owner] Tony [Brummel] wants to see you.' We were like, 'Did we forget to pay an invoice?' He made us an offer on the spot. We said, 'That's awesome, but we need to think about it.' It was one of those 'now or never' kinds of things. I think we had even left the van running. It was that kind of sudden; we were overwhelmed by it.

HURLEY: They told me Tony said something like, 'You can be with the Nike of the record industry or the Keds of the record industry.'

STUMP: We'd get random calls at the apartment. 'Hey, I'm a manager with so-and-so.' I talked to some boy band manager who said, 'We think you'll be a good fit.'

TROHMAN: The idea of a manager was a ‘big-time' thing. I answered a call one day, and this guy is like, 'I'm the manager for the Butthole Surfers, and I'd really like to work with you guys.' I just said, Yeah, I really like the Butthole Surfers, but I'll have to call you back.' And I do love that band. But I just knew that wasn't the right thing.

STUMP: Not all the archetypes you always read about are true. The label guys aren't all out to get you. Some are total douchebags. But then there are a lot who are sweet and genuine. It's the same thing with managers. I really liked the Militia Group. They told us it was poor form to talk to us without a manager. They recommended Bob McLynn.

FELTON: We knew the guys at Crush from working with Acceptance and The Beautiful Mistake. We thought they'd be great for Fall Out Boy, so we sent the music to their team.

STUMP: They said Crush was their favorite management company and gave us their number. Crush's biggest band at the time was American Hi-Fi. Jonathan Daniels, the guy who started the company, sent a manager to see us. The guy was like, "This band sucks!' But Jonathan liked us and thought someone should do something with us. Bob was his youngest rookie manager. He had never managed anyone, and we had never been managed.

BOB MCLYNN: Someone else from my office who isn't with us anymore had seen them, but I hadn't seen them yet. At the time, we'd tried to manage Brand New; they went elsewhere, and I was bummed. Then we got the Fall Out Boy demo, and I was like, Wow. This sounds even better. This guy can really sing, and these songs are great.' I remember going at it hard after that whole thing. Fall Out Boy was my consolation prize. I don't know if they were talking to other managers or not, but Pete and I clicked.

TROHMAN: In addition to being really creative, Pete is really business savvy. We all have a bullshit detector these days, but Pete already had one back then. We met Bob, and we felt like this dude wouldn't fuck us over.

STUMP: We were the misfit toy that nobody else wanted. Bob really believed in us when nobody else did and when nobody believed in him. What's funny is that all the other managers at Crush were gone within a year. It was just Bob and Jonathan, and now they're partners. Bob was the weird New York Hardcore guy who scared me at the time.

TROHMAN: We felt safe with him. He's a big, hulking dude.

MCLYNN: We tried to make a deal with The Militia Group, but they wouldn't back off on a few things in the agreement. I told them those were deal breakers, opening the door to everyone else. I knew this band needed a shot to do bigger and better things.

TROHMAN: He told us not to sign with the label that recommended him to us. We thought there was something very honest about that.

MCLYNN: They paid all their dues. Those guys worked harder than any band I'd ever seen, and I was all about it. I had been in bands before and had just gotten out. I was getting out of the van just as these guys got into one. They busted their asses.

STUMP: A few labels basically said the same thing: they wanted to hear more. They weren't convinced we could write another song as good as 'Dead On Arrival.' I took that as a challenge. We returned to Sean a few months after those initial three songs, this time at Gravity Studios in Chicago. We recorded ‘Grenade Jumper' and 'Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy' in a night or two. 'Where is Your Boy' was my, 'Fine, you don't think I can write a fucking song? Here's your hit song, jerks!' But I must have pushed Pete pretty hard [arguing about the songs]. One night, as he and I drove with Joe, Pete said, 'Guys, I don't think I want to do this band anymore.' We talked about it for the rest of the ride home. I didn't want to be in the band in the first place! I was like, 'No! That's not fair! Don't leave me with this band! Don't make me kind of like this band, and then leave it! That's bullshit!' Pete didn't stay at the apartment that night. I called him at his parent's house. I told him I wasn't going to do the band without him. He was like, 'Don't break up your band over it.' I said, 'It's not my band. It's a band that you, Joe, and I started.' He was like, 'OK, I'll stick around.' And he came back with a vengeance.

WENTZ: It was maybe the first time we realized we could do these songs titles that didn't have much do with the song from the outside. Grand Theft Auto was such a big pop culture franchise. If you said the phrase back then, everyone recognized it. The play on words was about someone stealing your time in the fall. It was the earliest experimentation with that so it was a little simplistic compared to the stuff we did later. At the time, we'd tell someone the song title, and they'd say, 'You mean "Auto"'?

JOHN JANICK: I saw their name on fliers and thought it was strange. But I remembered it. Then I saw them on a flyer with one of our bands from Chicago, August Premier. I called them and asked about this band whose name I had seen on a few flyers now. They told me they were good and I should check it out. I heard an early version of a song online and instantly fell in love with it. Drive-Thru, The Militia Group, and a few majors tried to sign them. I was the odd man out. But I knew I wanted them right away.

HURLEY: Fueled By Ramen was co-owned by Vinnie [Fiorello] from Less Than Jake. It wasn't necessarily a band I grew up loving, but I had so much respect for them and what they had done and were doing.

JANICK: I randomly cold-called them at the apartment and spoke to Patrick. He told me I had to talk to Pete. I spoke to Pete later that day. We ended up talking on the phone for an hour. It was crazy. I never flew out there. I just got to know them over the phone.

MCLYNN: There were majors [interested], but I didn't want the band on a major right away. I knew they wouldn't understand the band. Rob Stevenson from Island Records knew all the indie labels were trying to sign Fall Out Boy. We did this first-ever incubator sort of deal. I also didn't want to stay on an indie forever; I felt we needed to develop and have a chance to do bigger and better things, but these indies didn't necessarily have radio staff. It was sort of the perfect scenario. Island gave us money to go on Fueled By Ramen, with whom we did a one-off. No one else would offer a one-off on an indie.

STUMP: They were the smallest of the labels involved, with the least 'gloss.' I said, 'I don't know about this, Pete.' Pete was the one who thought it was the smartest move. He pointed out that we could be a big fish in a small pond. So, we rolled the dice.

HURLEY: It was a one-record deal with Fueled By Ramen. We didn't necessarily get signed to Island, but they had the 'right of first refusal' [for the album following Take This To Your Grave]. It was an awesome deal. It was kind of unheard of, maybe, but there was a bunch of money coming from Island that we didn't have to recoup for promo type of things.

JANICK: The company was so focused on making sure we broke Fall Out Boy; any other label probably wouldn't have had that dedication. Pete and I talked for at least an hour every day. Pete and I became so close, so much so that we started Decaydance. It was his thing, but we ended up signing Panic! At The Disco, Gym Class Heroes, Cobra Starship.

GUTIERREZ: Who could predict Pete would A&R all those bands? There's no Panic! At The Disco or Gym Class Heroes without Wentz. He made them into celebrities.

"Turn This Up And I'll Tune You Out" - The Making of Take This To You Grave, 2003

The versions of "Dead on Arrival," "Saturday," and "Homesick at Space Camp" from the first sessions with Andy on drums are what appear on the album. "Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy" and "Grenade Jumper" are the demo versions recorded later in Chicago. O'Keefe recorded the music for the rest of the songs at Smart Studios once again. They knocked out the remaining songs in just nine days. Sean and Patrick snuck into Gravity Studios in the middle of the night to track vocals in the dead of winter. Patrick sang those seven songs from two to five in the morning in those sessions.

STUMP: John Janick basically said, ‘I'll buy those five songs and we'll make them part of the album, and here's some money to go record seven more.'

MCLYNN: It was a true indie deal with Fueled by Ramen. I think we got between $15,000 and $18,000 all-in to make the album. The band slept on the studio floor some nights.

STUMP: From a recording standpoint, it was amazing. It was very pro, we had Sean, all this gear, the fun studio accoutrements were there. It was competitive with anything we did afterward. But meanwhile, we're still four broke idiots.

WENTZ: We fibbed to our parents about what we were doing. I was supposed to be in school. I didn't have access to money or a credit card. I don't think any of us did.

STUMP: I don't think we slept anywhere we could shower, which was horrifying. There was a girl that Andy's girlfriend at the time went to school with who let us sleep on her floor, but we'd be there for maybe four hours at a time. It was crazy.

HURLEY: Once, Patrick thought it would be a good idea to spray this citrus bathroom spray under his arms like deodorant. It just destroyed him because it's not made for that. But it was all an awesome adventure.

WENTZ: We were so green we didn't really know how studios worked. Every day there was soda for the band. We asked, 'Could you take that soda money and buy us peanut butter, jelly, and bread?' which they did. I hear that stuff in some ways when I listen to that album.

HURLEY: Sean pushed us. He was such a perfectionist, which was awesome. I felt like, ‘This is what a real professional band does.' It was our first real studio experience.

WENTZ: Seeing the Nirvana Nevermind plaque on the wall was mind-blowing. They showed us the mic that had been used on that album.

HURLEY: The mic that Kurt Cobain used, that was pretty awesome, crazy, legendary, and cool. But we didn't get to use it.

WENTZ: They said only Shirley Manson] from Garbage could use it.

O'KEEFE: Those dudes were all straight edge at the time. It came up in conversation that I had smoked weed once a few months before. That started this joke that I was this huge stoner, which obviously I wasn't. They'd call me 'Scoobie Snacks O'Keefe' and all these things. When they turned in the art for the record, they thanked me with like ten different stoner nicknames - 'Dimebag O'Keefe' and stuff like that. The record company made Pete take like seven of them out because they said it was excessively ridiculous.

WENTZ: Sean was very helpful. He worked within the budget and took us more seriously than anyone else other than Patrick. There were no cameras around. There was no documentation. There was nothing to indicate this would be some ‘legendary' session. There are 12 songs on the album because those were all the songs we had. There was no pomp or circumstance or anything to suggest it would be an 'important’ record.

STUMP: Pete and I were starting to carve out our niches. When Pete [re-committed himself to the band], it felt like he had a list of things in his head he wanted to do right. Lyrics were on that list. He wasn't playing around anymore. I wrote the majority of the lyrics up to that point - ‘Saturday,' 'Dead on Arrival,' ‘Where's Your Boy?,’ ‘Grenade Jumper,' and ‘Homesick at Space Camp.' I was an artsy-fartsy dude who didn't want to be in a pop-punk band, so I was going really easy on the lyrics. I wasn't taking them seriously. When I look back on it, I did write some alright stuff. But I wasn't trying. Pete doesn't fuck around like that, and he does not take that kindly. When we returned to the studio, he started picking apart every word, every syllable. He started giving me [notes]. I got so exasperated at one point I was like, ‘You just write the fucking lyrics, dude. Just give me your lyrics, and I'll write around them.' Kind of angrily. So, he did. We hadn't quite figured out how to do it, though. I would write a song, scrap my lyrics, and try to fit his into where mine had been. It was exhausting. It was a rough process. It made both of us unhappy.

MCLYNN: I came from the post-hardcore scene in New York and wasn't a big fan of the pop-punk stuff happening. What struck me with these guys was the phenomenal lyrics and Patrick's insane voice. Many guys in these kinds of bands can sing alright, but Patrick was like a real singer. This guy had soul. He'd take these great lyrics Pete wrote and combine it with that soul, and that's what made their unique sound. They both put their hearts on their sleeves when they wrote together.

STUMP: We had a massive fight over 'Chicago is So Two Years Ago.' I didn't even want to record that song. I was being precious with things that were mine. Part of me thought the band wouldn't work out, and I'd go to college and do some music alone. I had a skeletal version of 'Chicago...'. I was playing it to myself in the lobby of the studio. I didn't know anyone was listening. Sean was walking by and wanted to [introduce it to the others]. I kind of lost my song. I was very precious about it. Pete didn't like some of the lyrics, so we fought. We argued over each word, one at a time. 'Tell That Mick...' was also a pretty big fight. Pete ended up throwing out all my words on that one. That was the first song where he wrote the entire set of lyrics. My only change was light that smoke' instead of ‘cigarette' because I didn't have enough syllables to say 'cigarette.' Everything else was verbatim what he handed to me. I realized I must really want to be in this band at this point if I'm willing to put up with this much fuss. The sound was always more important to me - the rhythm of the words, alliteration, syncopation - was all very exciting. Pete didn't care about any of that. He was all meaning. He didn't care how good the words sounded if they weren't amazing when you read them. Man, did we fight about that. We fought for nine days straight while not sleeping and smelling like shit. It was one long argument, but I think some of the best moments resulted from that.

WENTZ: In 'Calm Before the Storm,' Patrick wrote the line, 'There's a song on the radio that says, 'Let's Get This Party Started' which is a direct reference to Pink's 2001 song 'Get the Party Started.' 'Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today' is a line from the movie Rushmore. I thought we'd catch a little more flack for that, but even when we played it in Ireland, there was none of that. It's embraced, more like a shoutout.

STUMP: Pete and I met up on a lot of the same pop culture. He was more into '80s stuff than I was. One of the first things we talked about were Wes Anderson movies.

WENTZ: Another thing driving that song title was the knowledge that our fanbase wouldn't necessarily be familiar with Wes Anderson. It could be something that not only inspired us but something fans could also go check out. People don't ask us about that song so much now, but in that era, we'd answer and tell them to go watch Rushmore. You gotta see this movie. This line is a hilarious part of it.' Hopefully some people did. I encountered Jason Schwartzman at a party once. We didn't get to talk about the movie, but he was the sweetest human, and I was just geeking out. He told me he was writing a film with Wes Anderson about a train trip in India. I wanted to know about the writing process. He was like, 'Well, he's in New York City, I'm in LA. It's crazy because I'm on the phone all the time and my ear gets really hot.' That's the anecdote I got, and I loved it.

O'KEEFE: They're totally different people who approach making music from entirely different angles. It's cool to see them work. Pete would want a certain lyric. Patrick was focused on the phrasing. Pete would say the words were stupid and hand Patrick a revision, and Patrick would say I can't sing those the way I need to sing this. They would go through ten revisions for one song. I thought I would lose my mind with both of them, but then they would find it, and it would be fantastic. When they work together, it lights up. It takes on a life of its own. It's not always happy. There's a lot of push and pull, and each is trying to get their thing. With Take This To Your Grave, we never let anything go until all three of us were happy. Those guys were made to do this together.

WENTZ: A lot of the little things weren't a big deal, but those were things that [felt like] major decisions. I didn't want 'Where Is Your Boy' on Take This To Your Grave.

JANICK: I freaked out. I called Bob and said, 'We must put this song on the album! It's one of the biggest songs.' He agreed. We called Pete and talked about it; he was cool about it and heard us out.

WENTZ: I thought many things were humongous, and they just weren't. They didn't matter one way or another.

"Our Lawyer Made Us Change The (Album Cover)" - That Photo On Take This To Your Grave, 2003

STUMP: The band was rooted in nostalgia from early on. The '80s references were very much Pete's aesthetic. He had an idea for the cover. It ended up being his girlfriend at the time, face down on the bed, exhausted, in his bedroom. That was his bedroom in our apartment. His room was full of toys, '80s cereals. If we ended up with the Abbey Road cover of pop-punk, that original one was Sgt. Pepper's. But we couldn't legally clear any of the stuff in the photo. Darth Vader, Count Chocula…

WENTZ: There's a bunch of junk in there: a Morrissey poster, I think a Cher poster, Edward Scissorhands. We submitted it to Fueled by Ramen, and they were like, 'We can't clear any of this stuff.’ The original album cover did eventually come out on the vinyl version.

STUMP: The photo that ended up being the cover was simply a promo photo for that album cycle. We had to scramble. I was pushing the Blue Note jazz records feel. That's why the CD looks a bit like vinyl and why our names are listed on the front. I wanted a live photo on the cover. Pete liked the Blue Note idea but didn't like the live photo idea. I also made the fateful decision to have my name listed as 'Stump' rather than Stumph.

WENTZ: What we used was initially supposed to be the back cover. I remember someone in the band being pissed about it forever. Not everyone was into having our names on the cover. It was a strange thing to do at the time. But had the original cover been used, it wouldn't have been as iconic as what we ended up with. It wouldn't have been a conversation piece. That stupid futon in our house was busted in the middle. We're sitting close to each other because the futon was broken. The exposed brick wall was because it was the worst apartment ever. It makes me wonder: How many of these are accidental moments? At the time, there was nothing iconic about it. If we had a bigger budget, we probably would have ended up with a goofier cover that no one would have cared about.

STUMP: One of the things I liked about the cover was that it went along with something Pete had always said. I'm sure people will find this ironic, but Pete had always wanted to create a culture with the band where it was about all four guys and not just one guy. He had the foresight to even think about things like that. I didn't think anyone would give a fuck about our band! At the time, it was The Pete Wentz Band to most people. With that album cover, he was trying to reject that and [demonstrate] that all four of us mattered. A lot of people still don't get that, but whatever. I liked that element of the cover. It felt like a team. It felt like Voltron. It wasn't what I like to call 'the flying V photo' where the singer is squarely in the center, the most important, and everyone else is nearest the camera in order of 'importance.' The drummer would be in the very back. Maybe the DJ guy who scratches records was behind the drummer.

"You Need Him. I Could Be Him. Where Is Your Boy Tonight?" - The Dynamics of Punk Pop's Fab 4, 2003

Patrick seemed like something of the anti-frontman, never hogging the spotlight and often shrinking underneath his baseball hat. Wentz was more talkative, more out front on stage and in interviews, in a way that felt unprecedented for a bass player who wasn't also singing. In some ways, Fall Out Boy operated as a two-headed dictatorship. Wentz and Stump are in the car's front seat while Joe and Andy ride in the back.

STUMP: There is a lot of truth to that. Somebody must be in the front seat, no question. But the analogy doesn't really work for us; were more like a Swiss Army knife. You've got all these different attachments, but they are all part of the same thing. When you need one specific tool, the rest go back into the handle. That was how the band functioned and still does in many ways. Pete didn't want anyone to get screwed. Some things we've done might not have been the best business decision but were the right human decision. That was very much Pete's thing. I was 19 and very reactionary. If someone pissed me off, I'd be like, 'Screw them forever!' But Pete was very tactful. He was the business guy. Joe was active on the internet. He wouldn't stop believing in this band. He was the promotions guy. Andy was an honest instrumentalist: ‘I'm a drummer, and I'm going to be the best fucking drummer I can be.' He is very disciplined. None of us were that way aside from him. I was the dictator in the studio. I didn't know what producing was at the time or how it worked, but in retrospect, I've produced a lot of records because I'm an asshole in the studio. I'm a nice guy, but I'm not the nicest guy in the studio. It's a lot easier to know what you don't want. We carved out those roles early. We were very dependent on each other.

MCLYNN: I remember sitting in Japan with those guys. None of them were drinking then, but I was drinking plenty. It was happening there, their first time over, and all the shows were sold out. I remember looking at Pete and Patrick and telling Pete, ‘You're the luckiest guy in the world because you found this guy.' Patrick laughed. Then I turned to Patrick and said the same thing to him. Because really, they're yin and yang. They fit together so perfectly. The fact that Patrick found this guy with this vision, Pete had everything for the band laid out in his mind. Patrick, how he can sing, and what he did with Pete's lyrics - no one else could have done that. We tried it, even with the Black Cards project in 2010. We'd find these vocalists. Pete would write lyrics, and they'd try to form them into songs, but they just couldn't do it the way Patrick could. Pete has notebooks full of stuff that Patrick turns into songs. Not only can he sing like that, but how he turns those into songs is an art unto itself. It's really the combination of those two guys that make Fall Out Boy what it is. They're fortunate they found each other.

"I Could Walk This Fine Line Between Elation And Success. We All Know Which Way I'm Going To Strike The Stake Between My Chest" - Fall Out Boy Hits the Mainstream, 2003

Released on May 6, 2003, Take This To Your Grave massively connected with fans. (Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend arrived in stores less than two months earlier.) While Take This To Your Grave didn't crack the Billboard 200 upon its release, it eventually spent 30 weeks on the charts. From Under the Cork Tree debuted in the Top 10 just two years later, largely on Grave's momentum. 2007's Infinity on High bowed at #1.

WENTZ: I remember noticing it was getting insane when we would do in-stores. We'd still play anywhere. That was our deal. We liked being able to sell our stuff in the stores, too. It would turn into a riot. We played a Hollister at the mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. A lot of these stores were pretty corporate with a lot of rules, but Hollister would let us rip. Our merch guy was wearing board shorts, took this surfboard off the wall, and started crowd-surfing with it during the last song. I remember thinking things had gotten insane right at that moment.

HURLEY: When we toured with Less Than Jake, there were these samplers with two of their songs and two of ours. Giving those out was a surreal moment. To have real promotion for a record... It wasn't just an ad in a 'zine or something. It was awesome.

MCLYNN: They toured with The Reunion Show, Knockout, and Punch-line. One of their first big tours as an opening act was with MEST. There would be sold-out shows with 1,000 kids, and they would be singing along to Fall Out Boy much louder than to MEST. It was like, 'What's going on here?' It was the same deal with Less Than Jake. It really started catching fire months into the album being out. You just knew something was happening. As a headliner, they went from 500-capacity clubs to 1500 - 2000 capacity venues.

WENTZ: We always wanted to play The Metro in Chicago. It got awkward when they started asking us to play after this band or that band. There were bands we grew up with that were now smaller than us. Headlining The Metro was just wild. My parents came.

MCLYNN: There was a week on Warped Tour, and there was some beel because these guys were up-and-comers, and some of the bands that were a little more established weren't too happy. They were getting a little shit on Warped Tour that week, sort of their initiation. They were on this little, shitty stage. So many kids showed up to watch them in Detroit, and the kids rushed the stage, and it collapsed. The PA failed after like three songs. They finished with an acapella, 'Where is Your Boy,’ and the whole crowd sang along.

WENTZ: That's when every show started ending in a riot because it couldn't be contained. We ended up getting banned from a lot of venues because the entire crowd would end up onstage. It was pure energy. We'd be billed on tour as the opening band, and the promoter would tell us we had to close the show or else everyone would leave after we played. We were a good band to have that happen to because there wasn't any ego. We were just like, "Oh, that's weird.' It was just bizarre. When my parents saw it was this wid thing, they said, 'OK, yeah, maybe take a year off from college.' That year is still going on.

MCLYNN: That Warped Tour was when the band's first big magazine cover, by far, hit the stands. I give a lot of credit to Norman Wonderly and Mike Shea at Alternative Press. They saw what was happening with Fall Out Boy and were like, 'We know it's early with you guys, but we want to give you a cover.' It was the biggest thing to happen to any of us. It really helped kick it to another level. It helped stoke the fires that were burning. This is back when bands like Green Day, Blink-182, and No Doubt still sold millions of records left and right. It was a leap of faith for AP to step out on Fall Out Boy the way they did.

STUMP: That was our first big cover. It was crazy. My parents flipped out. That wasn't a small zine. It was a magazine my mom could find in a bookstore and tell her friends. It was a shocking time. It's still like that. Once the surrealism starts, it never ends. I was onstage with Taylor Swift ten years later. That statement just sounds insane. It's fucking crazy. But when I was onstage, I just fell into it. I wasn't thinking about how crazy it was until afterward. It was the same thing with the AP cover. We were so busy that it was just another one of those things we were doing that day. When we left, I was like, 'Holy fuck! We're on the cover of a magazine! One that I read! I have a subscription to that!'

HURLEY: Getting an 'In The Studio' blurb was a big deal. I remember seeing bands 'in the studio' and thinking, Man, I would love to be in that and have people care that we're in the studio.' There were more minor things, but that was our first big cover.

STUMP: One thing I remember about the photo shoot is I was asked to take off my hat. I was forced to take it off and had been wearing that hat for a while. I never wanted to be the lead singer. I always hoped to be a second guitarist with a backup singer role. I lobbied to find someone else to be the proper singer. But here I was, being the lead singer, and I fucking hated it. When I was a drummer, I was always behind something. Somehow the hat thing started. Pete gave me a hat instead of throwing it away - I think it's the one I'm wearing on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. It became like my Linus blanket. I had my hat, and I could permanently hide. You couldn't see my eyes or much of me, and I was very comfortable that way. The AP cover shoot was the first time someone asked me to remove it. My mom has a poster of that cover in her house, and every time I see it, I see the fear on my face - just trying to maintain composure while filled with terror and insecurity. ‘Why is there a camera on me?'

JANICK: We pounded the pavement every week for two years. We believed early on that something great was going to happen. As we moved to 100,000 and 200,000 albums, there were points where everything was tipping. When they were on the cover of Alternative Press. When they did Warped for five days, and the stage collapsed. We went into Christmas with the band selling 2000 to 3000 a week and in the listening stations at Hot Topic. Fueled By Ramen had never had anything like that before.

MOSTOFI: Pete and I used to joke that if he weren't straight edge, he would have likely been sent to prison or worse at some point before Fall Out Boy. Pete has a predisposition to addictive behavior and chemical dependency. This is something we talked about a lot back in the day. Straight Edge helped him avoid some of the traps of adolescence.

WENTZ: I was straight edge at the time. I don't think our band would have been so successful without that. The bands we were touring with were partying like crazy. Straight Edge helped solidify the relationship between the four of us. We were playing for the love of music, not for partying or girls or stuff like that. We liked being little maniacs running around. Hurley and I were kind of the younger brothers of the hardcore kids we were in bands with. This was an attempt to get out of that shadow a little bit. Nobody is going to compare this band to Racetraitor. You know when you don't want to do exactly what your dad or older brother does? There was a little bit of that.

"Take This To Your Grave, And I'll Take It To Mine" - The Legacy of Take This To Your Grave, 2003-2023

Take This To Your Grave represents a time before the paparazzi followed Wentz to Starbucks, before marriages and children, Disney soundtracks, and all the highs and lows of an illustrious career. The album altered the course for everyone involved with its creation. Crush Music added Miley Cyrus, Green Day, and Weezer to their roster. Fueled By Ramen signed Twenty One Pilots, Paramore, A Day To Remember, and All Time Low.

STUMP: I'm so proud of Take This To Your Grave. I had no idea how much people were going to react to it. I didn't know Fall Out Boy was that good of a band. We were this shitty post-hardcore band that decided to do a bunch of pop-punk before I went to college, and Pete went back to opening for Hatebreed. That was the plan. Somehow this record happened. To explain to people now how beautiful and accidental that record was is difficult. It seems like it had to have been planned, but no, we were that shitty band that opened for 25 Ta Life.

HURLEY: We wanted to make a record as perfect as Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. A front-to-back perfect collection of songs. That was our obsession with Take This To Your Grave. We were just trying to make a record that could be compared in any way to that record. There's just something special about when the four of us came together.

WENTZ: It blows my mind when I hear people talking about Take This To Your Grave or see people including it on lists because it was just this tiny personal thing. It was very barebones. That was all we had, and we gave everything we had to it. Maybe that's how these big iconic bands feel about those records, too. Perhaps that's how James Hetfield feels when we talk about Kill 'Em All. That album was probably the last moment many people had of having us as their band that their little brother didn't know about. I have those feelings about certain bands, too. 'This band was mine. That was the last time I could talk about them at school without anyone knowing who the fuck I was talking about.' That was the case with Take This To Your Grave.

TROHMAN: Before Save Rock N' Roll, there was a rumor that we would come back with one new song and then do a Take This To Your Grave tenth-anniversary tour. But we weren't going to do what people thought we would do. We weren't going to [wear out] our old material by just returning from the hiatus with a Take This To Your Grave tour.

WENTZ: We've been asked why we haven't done a Take This To Your Grave tour. In some ways, it's more respectful not to do that. It would feel like we were taking advantage of where that record sits, what it means to people and us.

HURLEY: When Metallica released Death Magnetic, I loved the record, but I feel like Load and Reload were better in a way, because you knew that's what they wanted to do.

TROHMAN: Some people want us to make Grave again, but I'm not 17. It would be hard to do something like that without it being contrived. Were proud of those songs. We know that’s where we came from. We know the album is an important part of our history.

STUMP: There's always going to be a Take This To Your Grave purist fan who wants that forever: But no matter what we do, we cannot give you 2003. It'll never happen again. I know the feeling, because I've lived it with my favorite bands, too. But there's a whole other chunk of our fans who have grown with us and followed this journey we're on. We were this happy accident that somehow came together. It’s tempting to plagarize yourself. But it’s way more satisfying and exciting to surprise yourself.

MCILRITH: Fall Out Boy is an important band for so many reasons. I know people don't expect the singer of Rise Against to say that, but they really are. If nothing else, they created so much dialog and conversation within not just a scene but an international scene. They were smart. They got accused of being this kiddie pop punk band, but they did smart things with their success. I say that, especially as a guy who grew up playing in the same Chicago hardcore bands that would go on and confront be-ing a part of mainstream music. Mainstream music and the mainstream world are machines that can chew your band up if you don't have your head on straight when you get into it. It's a fast-moving river, and you need to know what direction you're going in before you get into it. If you don't and you hesitate, it'll take you for a ride. Knowing those guys, they went into it with a really good idea. That's something that the hardcore instilled in all of us. Knowing where you stand on those things, we cut our teeth on the hardcore scene, and it made us ready for anything that the world could throw at us, including the giant music industry.

#long post #lke. VERY long post #fall out boy #fob #take this to your grave #tttyg #patrick stump #pete wentz #joe trohman #andy hurley #if theres any typos lmk and i'll fix em this. hust took fucking forever to transcribe.

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islib · 4 months

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I've slept, I've eaten, I've touched grass. My thoughts are a little more ordered. Let's do this:

On Railroading, Roleplay, the Social Contract and the QSMP

aka I Need To Get This Off My Chest Even Though I Want All Of Us To Move On As Quickly As Possible

So. Let's establish the narrative events as a baseline.

Since the first Purgatory event, Quesadilla Island has been plagued by visits of "Eye Workers/Eye Soldiers" - at first investigative, more recently aggressive ones.

(Side note - it appears that most characters have forgotten about this, but this is an ongoing war. As seen in Philza's [20.12.2023 - Hardcore Boi & QSMP - Xmas Event & a New threat?]:

Idk about you, this looks like a declaration of war to me. They don't care about retrieving Luffy at this point, they're just being destructive.)

This has lead to character actions. We have seen the rise of new safe rooms, fight metas, inventory prep. There's been serious parent-child talks about what to do when a fight breaks out. The characters have reacted to the threat accordingly - as a threat.

The fights have been getting harder. From the start, the Eye's minions were framed as dangerous, and perceived as such, but as time went on, they began to return with outrageously strong weapons, potion effects and health amounts that were essentially unbeatable, and unreasonable fight stamina. Still, thanks to the characters' preparations and the characters' relationships, no one lost a permanent life.

Yesterday (morning crew streams of 11.1.2023), Empanada lost a life.

The fight broke out in the Favela. The Eye Soldiers were using enchanted sticks, enchanted axes, potions, explosives and lassos. (In contrast to previous fights, which were generally only conducted with melee weapons.)

As soon as the players notice the attackers, they shout at the Eggs to get out of there. At first, the Eggs seem to ignore the shouts, wanting to help their parents. Understandable, if frustrating - both Empanada and Ramon have been on a "I need to protect everyone" kick lately, so it makes some sense.

It stops making sense very soon, though. Both the Eggs get downed multiple times, while their parents scream and plead with them to leave. Empanada gets lassoed by the workers, making her escape next to impossible - but we have proof that she got away at some point: you can see her teleporting away at 0:29:43-45 of Fit's stream and later we see her signs in Ramon's room at the bunker:

(slightly meta, forgive, it's still narratively relevant to have the proof)

The fight moves from the Favela to Spawn, Em returns to it, and dies (when she does, btw, there's no time between her getting downed and her dying. a fraction of a second at most.). The fight dies down with some curious events irrelevant to this post, scene ends.

Now that we've established narrative context, here's for a touch of the meta-narrative stuff.

The attacks haven't been ramping up linearly - they started very strong, and then alternated in strength with repeated attacks on a single day wildly varying in power levels. This attack was clearly the strongest yet - Fit's VOD shows some attacks doing minimum of 3 hearts of damage through a decent slime/diamond+high prot armor set.

The use of lassos is new - potentially a narrative show of how the Eye Soldiers are learning Player tactics? It's the main reason for why Em's death was mechanically possible.

There's been narrative in the past arcs of the server where egg death was the point of a fight encounter. It has always been possible to prevent the death in those scenarios.

There have been narrative fights that were unwinnable in the server past.

Ramon wasn't supposed to be on - his admin is sick (or otherwise indisposed and using sickness as a narrative reason for not playing) and had left a message that he wouldn't be on, only to later join anyway, likely due to the event needing Eggs to be present.

As far as I'm aware, this is the first time a player has hard-pulled themselves out of RP. (more on this in a bit)

All on the same page? Let's get to my criticism.

In roleplay, players and game facilitators enter a social contract. Very often it's an implicit one, just "don't be an idiot" and stuff, but sometimes it's more hard coded: what are the rules, what are the expectations, what are the lines we don't cross.

Now, as an audience of the QSMP, we don't know what the details of this contract are - only the players and the admins do. We can implicitly understand that parts of it contain expectations of activity on both player and admin sides, expectations of medium (i.e. Minecraft), expectations of who's participating, etc.

We've rarely seen anyone employ any sort of safety tools, although I expect at least some of the creators have some amongst themselves (think safewords mostly). The extreme safety tool that all of the streamers have access to is logging off, but I don't think we've seen that mid-encounter, ever.

Fit employed a softer safety tool yesterday, when he decided to stick with Ramon in the bunker. At 0:33:30, Fit notices footsteps outside the reinforced door. We don't get to figure out who it is, but he says: "Oh I hear you! If you're an admin, I'm fucking done. [...] We are not fucking moving." Now, some of you will argue this is in character - I disagree. It's semi-in character, simply thanks to the word "admin". Fit keeps some semblance of his roleplay, for any number of reasons, but addresses the admin, taking himself out of roleplay in order to declare he didn't wish to continue in the encounter.

The fact that he partially stays in character makes it easier for both him and the audience to rejoin the character later.

What's really important here is that the admin - whoever it was (I think at that point it may have been Em - backs off. Fit declares he's not playing, and the admin hears that and leaves. Even if it was Em, and whatever was going to happen wasn't going to be in the same tome as the fight encounter, they backed off. That is very good.

Now to the more narrative points.

These Eye Soldier attacks have been clear in their motives: hurt everyone on Quesadilla. Narratively, the characters responded appropriately, by gearing up and protecting the fragile Eggs.

How did the server lore respond? Well, it didn't.

The attacks continue on some invisible timeline, getting superpowered out of nowhere when the players preparations pay off, and the Eggs, despite their general agreements and character motivations, keep running head first into danger.

The only reason I'm not trying to push into a riot over Em's death is the lassos, because those make it mechanically difficult for her to stay away.

In conclusion, the main issue I have with yesterday is the consequences. If the only way to protect your child is to literally pull yourself out of the encounter - because clearly the narrative implication of yesterday is not only will the Eye Soldiers keep going until an Egg is dead, but also that Eggs will be coming back to fight unless they're actually restrained - then who's going to be playing in this arc? Why would anyone, when temporary victory only means more Soldiers with more power, and Eggs that are less likely to leave the fight?

If there was a clear narrative indication that these attacks can be stopped - a clue towards Luffy, or a conversation with the Federation on defences, or a clear sense of what can protect someone against the Eyes - I would be fine with what happened yesterday.

But there isn't. Nothing that's been done has had ANY effect on the events.

I've seen people going "well we've seen this coming" and to them I say: how does that make anything better? That just means there's been time to notice that the narrative line ignored player agency!

I've seen people going "well the players don't take anything seriously until an Egg dies" and to them I say: Morning Crew went out to look for Luffy literally yesterday, trying to move the story along. People have been building safe rooms and preparing fight supplies and player metas so they could defend themselves and their families, they've been taking this very seriously.

I've seen people going "even interactive stories have scripted beats" and to them I say: not at the expense of player agency, not in something as freeform as QSMP. This is not a Telltale game.

I don't think my criticisms are unreasonable - all I want is for the narrative to be actually interactive. To even a little bit allow for players to play, rather than act out someone's unwritten script.

That's what movies are for.

#qsmp crit #qsmp neg #cw child death

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try-set-me-on-fire · 5 months

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@devirnis @eddiebabygirldiaz @rewritetheending @wildlife4life @lover-of-mine @daffi-990 all tagged me for fuck it Friday and I wasn't going to post anything but then as I climbed into bed the opening of a buddie supernatural au popped into my head and then tapped it's way into a google doc. I'm not actually going to write a full fic for this (probably) but sharing this little scrap feels in the nature of this tag game. It's not even Friday anymore so not going to tag anyone unless you, dear reader, see this and feel compelled to share something kicking around in a document somewhere. Fuck it! It's always Friday somewhere (if you forget how days work)! Uhhh canon typical violence warning....

Eddie isn’t a stranger to being called a miracle. A miracle baby, he was; born almost two months early when a ghoul out for revenge had tried to snack on Helena’s gray matter. Neither of them should have survived it, but a few weeks later she brought her little bundle of joy home from the hospital, wailing real loud from his big strong lungs. "It was a miracle you were there, mijo," his father told him when he was six years old and shot a man dead, a man with black eyes who’d broke into the house when he was there alone with Sophia, three years old and screaming, Ramon out on a hunt and Helena at the doctor with the baby. "You’re a miracle worker, Diaz," hunters all over the country have told him with a gritty handshake when he’s helped them put something terrible in the ground. (When Shannon had kissed him under the bleachers for the first time, that had felt like a miracle, too. Her lips were soft and her hands had the same calluses as his, she had the same faint lines across the back of her arm from the testing bite of silver blades. Here was someone who knew, who he didn’t have to lie to, who liked him enough to press all that scarred and unscarred skin together with his. Things fell apart, over and over, in the years after that, but still. That first kiss. Not feeling lonely for maybe the first time ever in his life. Was it not a divine act?) He's 28 when he crawls out of his own grave, dirt clinging to clothes and flesh and coating his mouth, his teeth, stinging his eyes. He stumbles home on wobbly legs like a newborn thing, and maybe he is one, freshly alive as he is. He knocks on his front door however many days it's been since he'd watched his own blood mix with Shannon's on the floor of some old and haunted house — clinging to life long enough to see it start to coagulate because please, god, please, they have a kid at home — and after the holy water and the silver and iron and any other test anyone in the family can think of his abuela takes his face between her hands and weeps “Es un milagro! A miracle! A miracle!” And in a week, in a barn somewhere outside El Paso, he will learn that this time she is right.

#tag games #fuck it friday

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weneverlearn · 24 days

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Kurt Bloch: An Awesome Guy Who Awesome People Like

Rocking with the Fastbacks and recording all your favorite bands since 1979

Fastbacks, 1988; Kurt Bloch far left, Gumby t-shirt

“There truly is something about inspiration and enthusiasm that really is inspiring and enthusiastic!” - Kurt Bloch

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By: Eric Davidson

I’ve been thinking a lot about joy of late. Like pure, eyes-to-the-sky, skipping down the street joy. There is a paucity of it around right now.

We could follow a zillion trails to and from how we got here, but this is ostensibly a music blog, so I’m going to make a quick stab at the roots of this unenviably joyless position we’re sitting in, rock-wise.

The Fastbacks were joyful. Starting out in 1979 in the dawning days of Seattle’s punk scene, they became a local fave on the basis of action-packed shows stuffed with careening pop hooks, irked energy, and a friendly, guffaw around onstage demeanor that didn’t exactly scream “pre-hardcore era.”

Fastbacks retreated for a few years, circa 1988, and when kicked back into gear a couple years later, found themselves being a preferred opener for a load of grumpy grunge bands who I’m guessing hoped to absorb some of the Fastbacks positive energy to counteract their mope – which the Fastbacks were more than ready to supply.

A mélange of metal volume, fleeting bouts of prog whimsy, Ramones tempos, and BubbleYum stickiness, the Fastbacks created a singular sound. Like most great bands, they never fit into any particular zeitgeist – too raggedy for the pop punk contingent, too peppy for the grunge trend, they nonetheless retained a respected status among bands who appreciated their consistently grabby tunes and fun live show.

Despite any remaining expectations of what “success” was supposed to be, by the turn of the millennium the Fastbacks became that precious thing – one of those awesome bands that awesome bands like.

It should be noted that, while grunge soon gained a definition as a downer genre (that has taken root since), Bloch and company palled around with that Seattle scene from the get-go, and knew many of them as fun rocker kids just trying their best to get through seven months of rain by rocking.

The Fastbacks kept careening forward right through the ‘Alternative Rock” era that ignored all the fun underground garage punk and instead painted rock as increasingly dreary and grievance-based. The early 2000s came, and the Fastbacks took their leave.

They’ve recently gotten back together for occasional reunion shows. Always holding them together throughout their stop/start whirlwind of a career was ace guitarist/producer and philosophical center of the band, Kurt Bloch.

Bloch, who began his career as a recording studio whizz with Fastbacks, never stopped twiddling the knobs for lots of your favorite bands and/or underrated acts. We checked in with him on his ongoing mission to bring fun to the fringes despite the mainstream consistently choosing incorrectly.

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Kurt Bloch, rockin', 1990 (Fuck the NRA. I will assume Kurt's t-shirt here was de rigueur '90s irony.)

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What was the first album you loved; and what was the first album you loved because of its production?

Good question, hard to answer. I think it was 45s and AM radio that got me going on recording qualities, how loud some of the great hits of the early-’70s sounded. How some records sounded like they were a band playing inside your head. I think I was aware of EQ and compression sounds early on, how the drum fills would sort of obliterate everything behind it on some songs. How the guitar would be so loud in the breaks. How, if the record didn’t have enough treble, it would be unexciting; if there was too much then it’d sound wimpy.

Then getting into albums, and FM radio, you’d listen to Larks’ Tongues In Aspic or Dark Side Of The Moon, and they had this spacious quality that was rad; the Scorpions’ Fly To The Rainbow was right in your face, really up-front and close. Then, going to see bands live, we’d see the coliseum style shows – that was so cool, but then getting to see bands in smaller spaces where you could hear the amps on stage, and feel the sound pressure in the room –now that was a mind-opener. You could feel the Marshalls and the actual sound coming off of the stage.

Then when punk bands started playing, that’s when it started getting interesting. You know, like I just saw this killer band that sounded so great at the show, and their record sounds like a bowlful of shit. Why?! That leads to one-track, two-track, four-track tape recorders, and each time you record something, you have a whole book of revelations of what to do and what not to do. So many great recordings from that early punk era without a bunch of reverb. It was another revelation. A lot of those early digital reverbs that everyone had, I just hated that fake trebly, scritchy sound. Rather just not use any reverb than that icky sound.

How did the Fastbacks form?

Kim and Lulu were high school friends of ours, The Cheaters was our neighborhood band; only lasted a couple years but they were good ones! When that band disintegrated on-stage, there was still band gear in my parents’ basement. Kim (Warnick, bass/vocals) had been in a band, The Radios, and Lulu (Gargiulo) wanted to play guitar and sing. Somehow my parents didn’t put a stop to it all, so we started playing a couple times a week. Not saying we got good, but we got better.

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How long before you felt you had locked into the Fastbacks’ sound?

I reckon whatever “sound” we had was pretty well established early on; it was just whatever we wanted to do. Of course we loved the punk bands of the era first and foremost, but also the ’60s and ’70s pop music we grew up with; and the hard rock bands of the ’70s too! And I always was a fan of the wonderful arrangements and sound of the ’70s prog bands, once I started writing most of the songs, these things would creep in.

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Live, 1986

I have this romantic vision of Kim Warnick as a long-haired rocker teen crashing parties and such. Is that correct?

Ha ha ha!! We were all pretty good (bad?) at crashing parties, some of the shit we did makes me wince thinking of it all. But it was 1977, ‘78; things were different back then, a different kind of boredom ran rampant through kids’ minds back then. There was a real disdain for society, maybe not to the degree of the UK bands at the time, but still there nonetheless. Often there was nothing to do other than the proverbial let’s go fuck shit up. And the music was such a part of all that.

So you got a story about something back then that would make you wince now?

Back when we were teenagers in The Cheaters, we would go to pretty desperate lengths to create excitement. The Cheaters singer, Scott Dittman, was maybe the funniest person I’ve ever known, and often in our search for something to do, he would drive a car full of us down to the frats at the University Of Washington. We’d go crash frat parties, rarely did we fit in unnoticed. You’d grab some keg cups and try to hang out, usually immediately, “Would you please leave.” And that didn’t often sit well with Scott. If we were going to “please leave” then we would not leave without exacting some sort of a toll. I guess we could run pretty fast, or we would’ve got our asses kicked pretty well back then. Somehow a few weeks later we’d go back to the same frat house that had a bookcase upended or a row of bikes knocked over, and lo and behold, the same thing would happen again. Of course we were never hired to play any frat parties.

Scott also loved to fight. He took boxing lessons and was always trying to teach us how to fight too. You knew when the gloves came out it was time to find something else to do. “Come on, you just gotta keep your guard up.” (smash smash smash) “You said you weren’t gonna hit us in the face.” Yeah right.

The Cheaters and The Accident (another erstwhile punk outfit) set up a show at a non-punk bar, somewhere down by Olympia. This would’ve been 1979 maybe. There were no roadmaps for like-minded or “friendly” places to play, outside of the major cities. But we were trying to do something, anything, and our double bill got the booking. This bar had a dance floor that also was used for bar fighting. There must have been some sort of organization to the fights, but it was sanctioned bar fighting. No-one was on the dance floor or anywhere near it when we started, so Scott tried to solicit a fight or two during our set. This was unfriendly territory, we were all, “Stop this nonsense!” But once you told Scott not to do something, well he was going to double down of course. Fortunately no one took him up on his offers, and we got out unscathed, but the bar owner took me into his office at the end of the night and gave me a rundown on what we needed to do to become successful in the music business, and the first thing was to get rid of that singer.

1978

First Fastbacks show, February, 1980 – any memories of it?

Oh, totally! The first Fastbacks show, it was at a rec center in a quiet neighborhood, it was three bands: The Vains, Psychopop, and The Fastbacks. We were all friends, and it was all three bands’ first shows. Very ramshackle, but we cobbled together a sound system, someone had a few lights, everyone brought what they had, and the show went on. A little rough around the edges, but the power didn’t go out, no cops were called, nothing was ruined – an early triumph for sure.

Was the power pop zeitgeist of that time a thing for Fastbacks? Did you feel a part of it?

No! For sure the New Wave was hitting strong at that point, but we were certainly not embraced by the new wavers at all. I suppose for that first year, we were pretty terrible, but we had some friends and people who wanted to give us a chance. Getting Duff (McKagan – yes, that one from Guns ‘N Roses) to play drums was the first step into making the band more listenable, but we were still a long ways off of what the general public would consider valuable music. We got kicked off of a show after our first set (of two). “That’s okay, you guys don’t have to play another set.” And I was all, “What do you mean we don’t have to?!” Oh, I get it.

Then when the hardcore bands cropped up, we were pals with some of them, but we weren’t furious enough for them really. I recall some sort of fury at a DOA/The Fartz/Fastbacks show. It required some foresight, which many didn’t possess, to support any kind of music that wasn’t 100% punk. Conversely, the proper power pop bands, well, we were a little too power and not enough pop, I reckon. We wanted to be that, but it’d take a bit still to hone those chops.

Had Duff McKagen played in any band before that?

Duff was the bass player in The Vains, who played that Laurelhurst Rec Center show. That was his first show. He must’ve been 15, barely 16?

Did he exhibit behaviors that would later align with Guns ‘N Roses’ infamous lifestyle?

We were still pretty reeled-in at that point, no one really even got plastered, no one started doing drugs yet. Might’ve been some Budweisers around, but nothing stronger yet.

Guns 'N Roses 2nd show, 1985

Got any Vains stories, recollections of a show, or the general scene from whence they came/played? Was there a good raw, original punk scene in Seattle in late '70s? I'm aware of Soldier and some other bands, but I wanna get it from the horse’s mouth.

The Vains only played three, maybe four shows total. In the late ’70s into early ’80s it was pretty hard to keep something going if you were any sort of impatient. Most bands never got the chance to play enough to iron out any difficulties, or taste any sort of real success. Lots of arguing over what direction to take, stick to your punk rock guns, and play to a rental hall of your friends; or try to get “jobs” in the bars, which would mean being stricken with the “cover band” tag, which was NOT punk.

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1978

The Enemy worked the hardest, yet still couldn’t crack the code in 1979. The Telepaths, The Blackouts, The Lewd – everyone broke up, or moved away and then broke up. The Fartz made a pretty good go of it, but even they sorta morphed into Ten Minute Warning, and then morphed into an art band… The Silly Killers stayed pretty punk. The Living ripped it up for their short lifespan. But they were all in that 1982 dilemma, you can almost see a line in the sand, drawn in the summer of 1982. Not a lot of bands made it across that line that summer.

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The Enemy live, 1980

If I remember it was some sort of divine intervention that The Fastbacks reconvened in 1983 to fire it up again, it was nearly the end of the line. But it was also clearly a new beginning, a new lease on life, a new crop of kids started bands in those Metropolis years; the Metropolis was a new all-ages venue that I would consider the petri dish of the next bundle of bands.

As the ‘80s took hold and punk rock hall shows were sort of the only stage for many of our bands, after a couple years of not getting to any sort of next level, it was clear that there needed to be a re-grouping of some sort. We’d see our friends’ bands get actual paying gigs in bars – if they were non-punk sounding. Of course many of the punk bands went to the dark side of ’80s metal. Everyone was looking to do something that could “go somewhere.”

Somewhere right in that 1982 corridor, drugs started flourishing, stupidity set in. Duff came with us Fastbacks as a “roadie” in 1984 down to L.A., and when we came back I reckon he moved to L.A. to escape that whole rigamarole. No one was getting anywhere here anyway. A bold move at that time, at the advanced age of 20!

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1987

Word is Fastbacks have had between 12 and 20 drummers. Short of naming every single drummer, are there a few you’d like to point to as having had a particularly interesting stint; or who went on to other bands?

Gosh, all the Fastbacks drummers had something great about them. There were a few who only did one show. I publicly apologize to those who didn’t last. Those were strange times. I don’t think there are any unsolved mysteries in the Fastbacks drummer world, Dan Peters, who recorded a couple songs with us but no shows, Tad Hutchison, and Tom Hendrikson, who each did one show…. Some convoluted moments for sure, and all killer drummers!

Do you think if you would have remained drummer for Fastbacks that you would have still gotten into production?

Yeah, I think the fascination with recording was parallel to the live playing side of things, it was always there in my constitution. Wanting to learn, wanting to figure out how to make records that captured how killer bands sounded. It was such a tall order back then. Seemed like the old guard [engineers] didn’t “get it,” or were prohibitively expensive; and so many of the others didn’t sound kickass like we wanted. Of course this comes from the actual band, first and foremost; that is learned the hard way! But if the band blazes at their show, it seemed that their records should sound blazing too, but that wasn’t often the case.

1988

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1989

From what I remember, the Fastbacks rep was that of the favorite local band of all the Seattle bands, and hence got on as openers for bands who would soon get huge during that whole grunge thing…

Pretty hard to say from the inside view. We had the unfortunate hurdle of being broken up from late-1988 till mid-1990. A lot of opportunity probably squandered during those times. But, unlike anyone else I can think of, we did get a second chance via Sub Pop, and another decade of rock. I know we were quite lucky in that department. We never did gigs large or small with Nirvana, Soundgarden, sort of the class of ’89. We did share a slightly miserable practice space with Green River and later Mother Love Bone. Always pals with those cats, so we did do opening stints with Pearl Jam in 1996, all around the world.

What was miserableness about it?

Oh man, that place… It was in a basement in Pioneer Square, the old, original downtown Seattle. The Great Seattle Fire devastated downtown in like 1889, and they rebuilt the city on top of the old city, one floor higher. So our basement was on the level with the old, original city; some rooting around could be done. There was no bathroom or running water down there, so you had to go to the bar a block away to use the facilities, but often you just couldn’t be bothered. In the space next to ours, it was a smashed up, decrepit old room that we moved all the garbage from our side into. No lighting of any sort, so it was all flashlights if you had them, and filling up bottles of pee and putting them where ever we could find room.

But of course we raged supreme down there, some epic parties, bands playing, and whatnot; of course no water or facilities, but grand times in the ’80s. Somehow, I ended up being in charge of paying rent, not the best job for me to take on. It meant tracking down Andrew Wood once a month and trying to get him to pay his share of their rent. First it was Malfunkshun, and Green River was there too. We might’ve blown up before Mother Love Bone started? I think I remember Green River blowing up too, after their California trek; it would’ve been not too long after that that The Fastbacks unceremoniously imploded. But for a while it was definitely a rager.

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Nifty, random link I stumbled on with some cool early Fastbacks fliers, stories, and live stuff.

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1992

While you didn't play with the "biggies" of the scene as much as I thought, got any early Nirvana or Soundgarden tale of any sort you'd like to share?

Our fabled practice basement was just a couple blocks from The Central, a venue that was sort of home base for a lot of stuff. The Vogue as well, it was on the north end of downtown, we were on the south end. Many people had keys to the place, so it was not surprising to duck in between sets at The Central, to have cheap beers or whatnot. I first saw Soundgarden at The Central, and they were certainly mind-blowing. Would’ve been ’87? Quickly became a favorite Seattle band, and when their first 7” came out, my roommates hated me. I had a tendency to play those 45’s over and over and over again. But they played The Central a lot, and just got better and better, heavier and heavier. I remember the first time they played “Beyond The Wheel”, it was at the Vogue. I was standing next to Mark Arm and we looked at each other and just said FUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHH…

The first Nirvana show I saw was also at the Vogue, it was maybe not the greatest Nirvana show, but man I thought that singer was amazing. Shortly after, Jon Poneman (Sub Pop co-founder) was at the bar there and said, “If you buy me a coffee now, I’ll give you a 45 tomorrow that will change your life.” An easy proposition. Sub Pop HQ was half a block away, he gave me a “Love Buzz” 45, and once again, the roommates had a reason to hate. I must’ve played that record 100 times in a row. Might’ve taken them a bit to find their pummeling style, but man they sure did. Then after Bleach had been out a while, all the rumors of major label this and major label that… So exciting and weird.

Who is a favorite Seattle “grunge era” band you really dug and maybe didn’t get the recognition you think it deserved? Mine are the Derelicts and Zipgun.

Of course! Pure Joy, Flop, H-Hour, the Meices – wait they were actually from SF… Huge Spacebird, Once For Kicks…. Have you got an hour or so?!

I know you are no doubt tired of this question, but do you have a late ‘80s/early ‘90s story or show that happened where you thought, “Damn, this Seattle scene thing is getting some real attention? This is fucking weird.”

After the Fastbacks blew up in 1988, I started playing with the Young Fresh Fellows, and we were off and running pretty hard right away. Certainly a parallel path from the Seattle Grunge Explosion, but a decent path it was! I was pals with Jon and Bruce (Pavitt) at Sub Pop when they started, so I’d go hang out at their early HQ/distributor place downtown. It was amazing to see some of these bands blow up when they did.

Young Fresh Fellows, 1989; Kurt Bloch far right

I suppose the thing that sealed it for me was listening to the advance cassette of Nevermind on a Young Fresh Fellows trip. Scott McCaughey had been assigned to review it for local music rag, The Rocket, and I nabbed it from him on a trip out East. It totally blew my doors wide open. Already having been a superfan since that “Love Buzz” 45, and seeing a couple of the shows they did here before going out to record that album, then hearing it for the first time on headphones; then as our tour progressed, seeing the record just going ballistic at every record store, it was just crazy. It never stopped getting bigger and bigger. This is so fucking weird!

Strange feeling of seeing a local band you saw shlubbing around town or peeing next to them at a dive, to hearing them play in a grocery store in Nevada, or whatever....

Soundgarden was the first one I remember blowing up. They went from Sub Pop to SST to A&M – they sorta seemed to have their shit together pretty well. Alice In Chains were kinda off our radar, they were only on the Rock radio stations; it wasn’t until their second album that I noticed that they actually were killer. But Nirvana, they were crazy cool from the get-go, not in the FM Rock station sort of way, but the punk underground sort of way. Plus I didn’t really know them at the beginning, so there was way more mystery about them. A couple legendary Seattle club shows before they went off to start Nevermind; the OK Hotel first playing of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” we were just transfixed – What the fuck is this?! Then the Off Ramp show, they went on really late, and got cut off right before 2am. Somehow the club picked up the empties and let the band play on into the night, and what a show it was. Then… nothing.

Didn’t really hear anything from Nirvana ‘til the advance cassette of Nevermind went out, and of course thinking, if I like this so much, it’s probably never gonna go anywhere. Wrong. It was like a slow ball of fire, radio then record stores, like every record store playing it, every magazine… It would’ve made you hate a lesser band, but it really was great so there was a sense of pride attached to it all. Finally something we loved is big. But then how big? There seemed to be no end to it. It was everywhere. And so weird to think that kids dug something that was blazing and amazing.

Were you defacto producer of Fastbacks from the get-go of recording?

Oh for sure. Not by strong-arming anyone, but just because there was no money, and no one else could be bothered! Our first 45 was with Neil Hubbard and Jack Weaver, as we were doing a song for a Seattle comp LP, and as per the usual, just recorded some extra songs in our allotted time. The first EP was Peter Barnes, drummer for The Enemy, killer Seattle band and very much an inspiration to all the bands in the late-’70s in Seattle. Then after that, it was trial by fire.

Can you tell me more about The Enemy, and their local import?

The Enemy pretty much initiated the punk “scene” in Seattle. There were a few bands, but they started a club, it was all ages, March, 1978. Otherwise it would’ve been hall shows, but The Bird brought everyone together. Originally only open for a few months, but there were shows there every Friday and Saturday, it really did give us something to do.

My first band, The Cheaters, might not have actually played anywhere if not for them. We could have languished in my parents’ basement forever if not for being stopped by The Enemy members at a Ramones show: “Hey! Are you guys in a band? Would you want to play at our club we’re opening up in a few months?” Of course we said yes, we didn’t tell them that we were just barely a band, we’d never actually played a show, nor would we maybe ever had if not for their offer. We were just teenagers, my brother Al was still in High School. But they took us in and let us play shows. The drummer, Peter Barnes, filled in for a night our real drummer couldn’t play.

Everyone knew each other, when it was time to record what was to be The Fastbacks’ first EP, Peter volunteered to be our producer. He figured out how to get cool, kickass sounds and make things happen. No one had any money or experience so it had to be on a budget, but he made it happen. The record turned out great. “In America” was on the commercial new wave station, we thought we had it made!

I thought I knew what to do, to various degrees of success. Conrad Uno at Egg Studio did much of our first album. He was wise beyond words and also a great teacher. After that LP was finished he was all, “You can do all this, I think, I’ll be back at the end of the night to close up!” Then it seemed like the right avenue. So many producers seemed like they just wanted to add stuff in order to have their presence be felt. I always felt, like – what is the least amount of stuff we can have on here to make it happen? Less stuff, but louder. Certainly not against adding things, but also happy to leave things out as much as possible. Always loved the one-guitar bands that didn’t double everything all the time. Makes you think a little harder about what you’re doing.

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1994

Okay, I will name a band, and you give me the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your production gigs with them:

Presidents of the U.S.A.

We’d do several takes of any given song, as the band was learning them, Chris (Ballew, singer) would play his two-string bass flawlessly every take, and sing a scratch vocal that could’ve been used as the keeper. Never a mistake, never less than killer every time.

Robyn Hitchcock

Also just an amazing music machine. Put him in an iso booth with a mic for vocal and one for acoustic guitar. He’d show the band a new song and go into the booth, sometimes it would just be one take and they’d nail it, with the lead vocal included. Never a lyric sheet in sight. A brain that truly works overtime. Peter Buck playing his 12-string on a song that he had just heard, and plays flawlessly the first time. Great Peter quote: “I like to get things right.” Indeed!

Fastbacks

Ha!! Some of the recording we’ve done astounds me to this day. It’s like any idea we had, we’d just do it. I swear, no one ever said, “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Listening back to the early ’90s recordings, there truly is something about inspiration and enthusiasm that really is inspiring and enthusiastic! Some of that music is pretty weird, even some songs that I wrote, I can’t imagine where they came from. I know we did them and all, but what was the impetus, where did they come from?!

Nashville Pussy

Another tale of just trying not to ruin a band that sounded killer. Amazing to think that they all fit in the tiny live room at Egg for that first album. The sheer volume of air pressure in there was unbelievable. A perfect example of what we’d set out to do, just try to not let the recording process get in the way of the recording. And nominated for a Grammy! I went with them to the Awards show – limo, booze, and afterparties. We were scheming all the horrible things that we’d say when we won the award, who we were gonna thank, who we were gonna blame. Of course there’s no way we’d win, they barely could say the name of the band when reading off the nominees! But what an experience. So many laughs.

Mudhoney

Five Dollar Bob’s Mock Cooter Stew (Reprise, 1993) doesn’t get enough props. I think it’s a great record. I really tried to make each song sound different and killer in its own way. Dan Peters (drummer) is always dishing out the quality.

Young Fresh Fellows

It’s easy to work quickly with a band you’re in. You kind of already know what’s going to happen, you know how to set up since you’ve already seen what works and what doesn’t over the last decade or two. We had intended to record maybe four or five songs for Tiempo De Lujo. Somehow we’d crammed all four of us in the basement here; after the two days we’d recorded twelve band tracks – so an album it was! Toxic Youth as well. We’d gone over to Jim Sangster’s living room to learn a few songs before starting recording the next day, and once we got going, they just kept coming and coming. When inspiration strikes, keep the tape rolling!

Can you describe Conrad Uno's Egg Studios; the kind of size or situation you were dealing with? Was there like a famous recording board there you worked with?

Egg Studio, where I and others honed their chops, was a welcome alternative to the “normal” studios of the time. It was truly a basement studio, the performance room was smaller than an ordinary living room. Many bands’ rehearsal spaces were larger than this. But it really did have a relaxed feel to it, and loud bands could all set up in the room and play live and get a good sound. Mudhoney, Nashville Pussy, Supersnazz, Devil Dogs, Supersuckers, Zeke – it was home base for so many great albums.

Conrad Uno moved into the house in maybe 1987, I reckon we finished Fastbacks …And His Orchestra there; and by early 1988, we began Very Very Powerful Motor, then the Sub Pop 7” and Zücker sessions. It began as an 8-track studio. Conrad brought in the Spectrasonics console that was formerly at Stax/Volt studio – rumored to once be owned by Paul McCartney, under whose purview a varispeed knob was installed. The knob remains, it’s Paul’s Knob. The console is now at Crackle And Pop studio here in Seattle, and is working better than ever.

Before Mudhoney began their third album, Piece of Cake, their second at Egg, they bought a 16-track machine for the studio, and that was the classic setup for so many records there in the ‘90s.

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1996

I personally would love to hear about making the classic Devil Dogs album, Saturday Night Fever (Crypt/Sympathy for the Record Industry, 1994). Whose idea was it to make it kind of like a party, with friends and fans whopping it up in the studio between songs?

It was their idea from the beginning to make it a party album, “You have been invited… to a party!” Another band that didn’t need any fancy fussing about, they already sounded like a house on fire. Just tried to record them and not get in the way, make sure that the playback sounded like it did in the room with them.

Definitely the last night of the session, they invited all their Seattle friends over for a party, and we played the songs from the album through twice, if I remember, and just had a mic in the room while they were going. All the bottles clinking and all the blabbering was totally what happened. There was so little time to get everything done while we were there. They had booked two gigs on recording days – one out of town in Bellingham! Basically it was like wrangling the Three Stooges to record and mix a full album and an EP in like five days. Let’s just say that the morning hours were not particularly productive. But fortunately, when they were on, they were unstoppable. And so fuckin’ funny! What a fucking great record!

Oh yeah, definitely the most hilarious band to tour with too! We did a month with them once in Europe, traveling in the same packed little van. And even the bad hungover mornings in the van drives would lead to so much cracking up. Singer Andy G. sometimes stood up and imitated Tom Jones live. Anyway, can you recall who all was in the “crowd” on that record?

Honestly, I don’t! The studio was in a neighborhood, so all sessions had to be finished by 10pm. I loved the idea of recording a loud listening party and then mixing that in with the album, but it was so precarious to cram a bunch of drunks in the tiny studio and try to not let any gear get ruined, while still egging on loud misbehavior. Then getting all the cats out of there by 10 and not annoying Conrad or his neighbors in the process.

You must have some fun Andy G. stories too.

All three of those guys had their moments! Andy, Steve, Mighty Joe. Someone should’ve given them their own TV series. It might not have lasted very long, but what a show it would’ve been. I’ve never seen a group rile each other up the way they did. Should’ve had a room mic going constantly while they tried to make a group decision. There was way more work than we had time for. Somehow we got it all done, but just barely.

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Crypt Records, 1993

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And here’s where I decided to check in with Devil Dogs drummer, Mighty Joe Vincent, to get some more details on their Bloch party: "So, in the friends crowd [on the Saturday Night Fever album] was Eddie and Dan Bolton from the Supersuckers, James Burdyshaw and the rest of the Sinister Six, and a bunch of really cool women whose names have escaped my memory banks.

We def recorded on the Stax board. I remember because we had hopes that there was some soul residue left in the cables that might coat our tracks.

We totally loved Kurt. What’s not to love? I do remember that it was a Crypt budget recording so we had to make every minute count, so we were mixing until we were all so tired we were delirious. I’m pretty sure we went ‘til 2a.m. or something like that, but that was mixing. We did that in the middle of a tour, so we did about two weeks of gigs from NYC across this great nation of ours as well as that other great nation to our north, then out to Seattle. While we were doing it , we had a gig up in Bellingham, so we took a day off to drive up there.

I remember Scott Mccaughy was working there at Egg. I was talking to him one day and he told me his days of playing out on the road were over as his wife just had a kid and he had to be a good dad and provide a steady paycheck. I really felt bad for him. And then of course, a short time after that, Pete Buck asked him to come on the road with R.E.M. and said he would pay him a million dollars. Like an actual million dollars. That always made me happy to hear."

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And now, back to Kurt Bloch!

Who were bands you liked to tour with? And/or, a classic Fastbacks tour story?

We had some great west coast tours with DOA in the early-to-mid ’80s, they were definitely an early inspiration to go head-on and charge through best you can. They certainly blazed a trail for the rest of us to follow, doing everything themselves, like Black Flag did from Southern California. The ’80s were a rocky road for the Fastbacks. We played a lot of shows in Vancouver, BC, as well as Seattle, but it was a lot of problems and fighting, ha, and it wasn’t until the ’90s that we actually went out for any length of time – certainly getting into occasional serious trouble with The Meices, Motocaster, Gaunt, and even the New Bomb Turks!

Pearl Jam asked you to do some stadium shows in 1995, arguably the peak grunge year. How did you relate to the whole fame/stadium situation surrounding those shows?

It was January ’95, Pearl Jam asked us to play a radio show from their rehearsal space. I kinda didn’t know what they were talking about, and maybe sort of blew it off. I was trying to finish a Sicko record that night, couldn’t be bothered. I did like their Vitalogy record, “Not For You,” “Spin The Black Circle.” The rest of the Fastbacks were all, “C’mon, we’re doing this!” And I grudgingly told Sicko I was going to have to leave early. I didn’t even bring a guitar, I knew that Stone had a cool ‘50s Gold Top, maybe I could use that.

Then of course we get there and it’s really fun, just a big party scene, tons of buddies and band cats. We played three songs on the Pearl Jam gear setup, maybe Kim talked on the radio, drank some beers, great time! That was cool enough, but then they asked us to open a few shows at the end of the year, Salt Lake City and San Jose I think, and we’re all like, “Hell yeah!” And everything went well, then, “Would you want to go do a U.S. tour, oh and maybe a Europe tour following that…?” And we were all, “Hellz yeah!” And that all went great, clearly we would be the next big thing, the world is gonna love us, nothing holding us back now! We had a great record out, New Mansions In Sound (Sub Pop, 1996). Man, that was it – lots and lots of fun, great shows. We invented an auxiliary opening band for some of the shows, The What. We played Who tunes with Eddie Vedder incognito with a wrestling mask. We drag Mike McCready out for jams, Stone Gossard to sing one of his PJ songs, Eddie did “Leaving Here” with us a couple times, just great rock times in the giant venues. Somehow it didn’t lead to us being the Next Big Thing, but it was fun to pretend for a few months.

1994

Any good backstage shenanigans stories?

There weren’t a whole lot of super shenanigans. They had an espresso machine onstage every night, so we’d all slug down coffees, blast through our tunes, and then get drunk and watch Pearl Jam. Sometimes we would annoy their wonderful crew by being loud and boisterous aside of the stage, spilling bottles of wine or whatnot, but not much more than that. Everyone got along really well, and it was well-protected against after show bullies or negativity. We’d just keep on our course, often ‘til the huge sports arena closed down and they’d kick us out after everything had been loaded out – and we’d still be back there cranking tunes and running around.

It was totally like an arena-sized version of a living room party most every night. Their crew moved all the gear, we barely had to do anything except play every night.

I know you knew some of their members from earlier in the scene, but did you know Eddie Vedder before he got asked to join Pearl Jam?

I might not have met Eddie until the live radio show we did? He came up from San Diego. Didn’t know him before then at all, but we were fast friends. We would spend hours talking about the Who and riding around on the catering carts and smashing into the walls of the arenas. Come to think of it, we were probably very annoying. But no one, like, smashed up their hotel rooms or anything. It was probably comparatively tame.

Might sound weird, but while playing in the Seattle scene -- which is generally described as kind of serious, or dark, or junkies, or you know, “grungy” – did you and the Fastbacks feel kind of out-of-place; or are those kind of definitions of grunge and that town/time not correct?

The Seattle “thing” certainly was a dark, serious sound. That isn’t to say that every musician was dark and serious, but that darkness prevailed. To say The Fastbacks felt a little out of place at that point would be correct; but I always thought we were here first. It’s not like we didn’t dig lots of the bands, but it also wasn’t like we would try to take them on at their own game. It just wouldn’t’ve happened. We did do a version of “Swallow My Pride” – Green River’s, not The Ramones – on Sub Pop 200 [compilation], after a Soundgarden version too; but it ended up being menacing only in a Blue Öyster Cult sort of way, rather than ala either previous version. Slow and heavy just wasn’t in our DNA.

Columbus, OH, 1993 (Courtesy of Bela Koe-Krompecher)

I remember when Fastbacks stayed with New Bomb Turks while on tour in 1993, you guys, well I think specifically Lulu, made an amazing Thai meal for us. Did you always cook for bands you crashed with, or just for us ‘cuz we’re so awesome and nice?

Ha. I think the wonderful cooking was a bit of a rarity. We weren’t much of a crash on people’s floor kind of band by the ’90s, but sometimes it was great to have a day off and some good ideas! Remember that Metallica VHS box set had just come out, and we watched it ‘til the end because Lulu and I both worked on the film crew for the shows they filmed in Seattle, and we wanted to see if we, several years after the actual shows, got any credits at the end… and sure enough we did. Reason to celebrate!

Columbus seemed to love you. What were some other fave towns you played?

Always a great time in Columbus. Not necessarily Cleveland though. We weren’t the hard-touring road warriors that a lot of the other (more successful) bands were. It was whatever city we had friends in that were the best. Vancouver BC, San Francisco, L.A., NYC, maybe Albany, Columbus, Istanbul…

Contract and ticket for 1993 Columbus, OH show. (Courtesy of Bela Koe-Krompecher)

Highly technical and professional stage diagram implorations, Columbus, OH, 1993 show (Courtesy of Bela Koe-Krompecher)

I could be wrong, but you didn’t go over to Europe a lot, did you? Were you able to procure any production work from Euro bands you met whilst on tour there?

Oddly, not a lot of Euro tours… Seems like we should’ve done more, but there was always something. Young Fresh Fellows did some great trips, especially in Spain. Fastbacks Spanish tour was a bit of a dog’s breakfast. Not because of the people in Spain, no sir. We certainly lit it up in Japan once, though!

I did a couple albums for Les Thugs, the French band. One of them in Seattle and one in Angers. May have been bookended with some music travel. It’s amazing to look back at the old calendars and see that between tours with the Fastbacks and Young Fresh Fellows, recording with those two bands and recording other bands. Man, there were times when there was nary a day off, those ‘90s months were packed! Gotta consider myself pretty lucky. And so many killer records I got to be part of.

As a producer, do you feel you are mainly bringing an “ear” to finding the sounds the band wants, or do you try to gently impose a certain style and sensibility over the whole production?

Always try to keep the kickass factor high. I would never try to impose anything other than to try to keep everyone happy so they could do their best work, and not do the same bit over and over and over. Work hard and play hard, but not to overanalyze every little thing. Not under-analyze either, but if it’s killer, it doesn’t matter if everything “lines up” perfectly, or if the choruses speed up a little bit. Try to capture what is great about a band live in concert, and not dilute that if you can help it. Don’t add a bunch of crap just to put your mark on a project.

It's interesting how you professed a love for prog, but you had an innate sense of not always overdubbing too much – note your comment about loving bands that only had one guitar, etc.

The true exciting prog bands started coming out around 1968 and ’69, Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Van Der Graaf Generator; Pink Floyd and Moody Blues had already been around but maybe weren’t quite included. Recording technique at the time was still fairly straightforward for the most part, there was of course room for overdubbing on an eight-track machine, but most of the first-wave prog bands’ recordings were not overloaded with overdubs. The magic was what they did with their four or five musicians, the arrangements you hear on the record were the same instrumentation as they played live. Some of the songs would have been concocted in a studio, but it wasn’t until later that walls of overdubs became commonplace.

That’s where the greatness of the original bands lies – cool vocal arranging and melding several songs’ worth of ideas into one track. Not a lot of room for squirminess either, it wasn’t so easy punching in on a giant eight-track tape machine in 1968. You made one mistake on that verse? You do the whole thing again!

Okay, gotta ask, with as much exposition as you’d like – what was your favorite recording session(s); and worst recording session(s)?

Pretty much always subverted the disasters. A time or two I told a band, after seeing a live show, that they weren’t quite ready to record yet; play a few more shows and practice a lot, record your practices and actually listen to them constructively. Studio time is expensive, practice time is (or at least was) cheap. You don’t have to have every bit of every song nailed down exactly, but do have most everything pretty well figured out, and be ready for criticism during the recording. If the rhythm isn’t working, be prepared to fine-tune your part so it is; if your harmony vocal is a half-step off, go ahead and adjust!

Some of the great sessions are those where I feel that I learned things, a new piece of gear, a new way of looking at things. Overwhelming Colorfast, Supersuckers, Les Thugs in France, The Meices in Florida… Or the records that just slammed out of nowhere. Devil Dogs, Flop, Supersnazz, Nashville Pussy. So many first albums by bands where they have been playing the songs at shows for a year or two, the tempos are up, the blood is pumping, get rid of the headphones and make it like you’re playing a gig. Play the song three times without stopping. Play three different songs in a row without stopping.

1999 (Courtesy of your's truly)

You’re still actively producing. What have you worked on recently you’d like to highlight? And what’s coming up?

There’s always some great Seattle band records going on – Bürien, 38 Coffin, Once For Kicks, Insect Man, The Drolls, Zack Static. These days, some records take a while to finish, I suppose it’s the nature of the business now. Trying now to clean the slate and get these out the door before starting new ones!

And there’s maybe a new Fastbacks coming, no?

There was no plan of any sort. We were having lunch as we sometimes do, and started talking about a couple songs it would be fun to learn and maybe record. Our pal Joe “Meice” Reineke had recently finished an ambitious and fantastic recording building in his back yard; wouldn’t it be fun to check that out….? Well let’s call him and see what his schedule is. Oh! he’s got a day open, whaddayasay, let’s take it. Well there’s a few other songs we could learn, let’s make it two days… I guess we’d better practice… What if we did enough songs for an album? Maybe we did! Got some band tracks, everyone played their butts off! Now we gotta make more magic. No target completion date nor avenue to release, but everyone is excited to finish it!

------------------------------------

Post Script: This article sprung from an editor at a national mag asking if I wanted to do a story on Kurt Bloch, which of course I said yes to cuz Kurt's a great guy and I've been a Fastbacks fan for a goodly spell. But some months passed and plans changed, and so here it is! Also, I would've put more videos in this piece because the Fastbacks have a ton of great songs, but I guess I just learned there is a 10-video limit for a tumblr post. Who knew?

All images courtesy of Kurt Bloch, except where noted.

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salty-croissants · 3 months

Note

IM FUCKING GIGGLING KICKING MY FEET SQUIRMING SCREAMING FLUSTER ASF TRAUMATIZED FLUTTERING MY EYES 👀 "WTF" LOOK SHY RED AS A FUCKING APPLE RED AS BLOOD RED LIKE THE COLOR RED ROLLING IN MY BED URGING TO LAUGH SCREAM OF LOVE DANCING OF LOVE MOMMA MIA DVEJDBCHSUBFBD HE ACTING FINEMANIDKWHATELSETOSAY FUCKING PUNCHING MY BED HEAD PILLOW WALL IMOPSTER SYNDROME IM FUCKING DED- The suggestive fanfic u did of rayman/Ramon was a chef kiss 💀👌

AAa - thank you so much :,0 ❣️❣️❣️ Not gonna lie , I wasn’t sure if I got everything right with that one at first , so I’m really happy you enjoyed it !!

I actually had a pretty long day today , been feeling a bit tired and stuff , so finding this sitting in my inbox was a really neat surprise ! Thanks again , your support really means a lot :,) 👍❤️

#rayman x reader #captain laserhawk

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spacefinch · 1 month

Text

Incorrect Quotes: Wild Field Trips edition, part 2:

Ralphie: I'm in my mum's car, vroom vroom.

Dr. Tennelli: Get out of me car!

Ralphie: Awww.

Martin: You have entered RADICAL SATURDAY

Aviva: Today's Friday, though.

Martin: IRRELEVANT

Zach: Oh sorry, I fell asleep while I was waiting on you to make me a sandwich.

Gourmand: Go back to sleep AND STARVE.

Alternatives to “Ladies and gentlemen”:

D.A.: Ladies, gentlemen, and others

Carlos: Ladies and germs

Koki: Beloved friends and tolerated acquaintances

Wanda: Allies, enemies, and those I’m still deciding about

Zach: Fellow scoundrels

Tim: Entities of interest

Jenny: Guys, gals, and non-binary pals

Evan: All y’all

Tim: Folks

Dr. Tennelli: Distinguished guests

Ralphie: Comrades

Martin: My dudes

Chris: A warm welcome to everyone who managed to sneak past the Zachbots

Mikey: Eating chips with chopsticks is unironically galaxy brain. Your fingers don’t get greasy and it lasts for longer.

Ronan: Fork

Mikey: Oh, yeah, I’m going to stab my crunchy foods and make them fall apart like an absolute absentminded dunce, fool, clown, jester, like a monstrous moron, an idiot of Shakespearean proportions, a cretin.

Jimmy: Um, you seem to forget that ‘chips’ can also mean fries. And that’s probably what he was talking about, haha

Mikey: I did not forget anything. I purposely ignore the idea of using British vocabulary to do my part in helping it die out.

Keesha: Really? EVERYBODY was kung fu fighting? I find that hard to believe. Stop feeding me these lies.

Chris: Well it was really hard to see if it was everyone, you see they were as fast as lightning.

Carlos: And to be honest, it was a little bit frightening.

Ralphie: KNOWLEDGE is knowing that a tomato is technically a fruit.

Phoebe: WISDOM is not putting it in a fruit salad.

Ralphie: PHILOSOPHY is wondering if a tomato is a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie?

Dr. Tennelli, about to kick them both out of the kitchen: COMMON SENSE is knowing that ketchup isn't a smoothie.

Martin: I put my Creaturepod down and now I can't find it.

Chris: Want me to call it?

Martin: It's on silent.

Chris: I'll call it anyway.

*Everyone stands around listening for a faint buzzing sound*

Carlos: I'm going to give raccoons the gift of fire and then teach them ceramics and they will make little bowls with their little hands.

Aviva: You cannot give raccoons that kind of power!

Wanda: The opposite of "the elephant in the room" is "the centipede in the room." Something that's not actually an issue, but everyone's freaking out about.

Chris: As someone who has worked with venomous animals, I can assure you that a centipede in the room is in fact a very big issue.

Gavin: If you have knees, you are valid.

Phoebe: Homophobes have knees, too.

Gavin: Not for long.

Carlos: Who is teaching my dad Zoomer slang?

*earlier*

Mr. Ramon (via text message): What do you think? I totally stan it

Carlos: Stop

Keesha: Stop excluding the B from LGBT. I'm sick of it. British people should be proud of who they are. Screw you.

Zach: What means “I hate you” in dinosaur?

Carlos: No. Dinosaur is the language of love.

Katie: I almost dropped my Creaturepod on my soft carpeted floor but thank god I have lightning fast reflexes and was able to slap it into the wall instead.

Wanda: I heard my brother [Henry] say he was going to Dairy Queen, so I snuck in his car and he has no idea I’m here.

Wanda: He asked his friend what he wanted and I popped up from the floor and said “I was thinking about a milkshake." I have never heard two teenage boys scream louder.

Carlos: Do not stand near the open fire when you have a tube of cocoa butter in your thigh pocket.

Jenny: This is so oddly specific. What happened?

Carlos: I am confident in your ability to figure it out from the clues provided.

Aidan: You’ve heard of mom friends. Now get ready for: Anti-mom friend. They suggest every single impulsive thought that runs through their head like, "Hey, what if you jumped in that pond in the middle of the night?" to the group while the mom friend begs them to stop.

Phoebe: Eldest sibling friend.

(Both of them look at Carlos)

Keesha: Hi, could I ask how exactly does one accidentally set a lemon on fire?

Martin: Microwave for 40 minutes

Keesha: Why were you microwaving a lemon??

Martin: I read boiling lemons helps cover up bad smells (I wanted to cover up the scent of burnt oranges), but we don't have a big enough pot on the Tortuga.

Keesha: Did you burn an orange too? How??

Martin: Microwave for 40 minutes

Carlos: Love is dead and never existed. All you did was betray me as I lay sick and festering. You are the definition of dread.

Phoebe: Are you okay?

Carlos: My cat stole my freakign garlic bread.

Carlos: A theif

DA: Thief?

Carlos: Theif

DA: I before e, except after c

Carlos: Thceif

DA: No

Dr. Skeledon: Children, this is dirt.

Arnold, Carlos, and Phoebe: dirt? dirt? dirt? dirt? dirt?

Wanda: My mom is asleep, quick reblog this post with skeletons saying bad words.

Phoebe: 💀Tax evasion

Keesha: 💀Gerrymandering

Carlos: 💀Music piracy

Gavin: 💀Rug burn

Mikey: 💀Frick

#magic school bus #incorrect quotes #wild kratts #wild field trips

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deathclassic · 11 months

Text

i was tagged by @metalheadmickey to do this au tag game and it looked pretty cool!

rules (more or less): use this au generator to assign you an au, this fan fiction trope generator to give you a trope/situation/sometimes another au, feel free to keep clicking until you get something that inspires you.

then try to come up with the title, plot, vibe, and details of a fic including whatever the generators gave you. you don’t actually have to write it, just put the concept into the world! this is basically just a thought experiment.

au generator gave me: 1970s AU

fic trope generator gave me: Have them wear each others' clothes.

The band playing fucking sucks but they're loud and fast and angry and fucking pissed off at the man and the world. The bass is beating in time to his heartbeat and Ian's standing with him, arm draped over his shoulder.

They're both on some random pills that were given to them, fuck knows what they're supposed to do but they feel fucking good even though the world is going to shit. Mickey's mohawk had fallen down ages ago and he feels like he's suffocating in the best way.

Ian's dragging him outside into the alley, it's cold compared to the damp air of the bar venue. There's a few people already out here, some smoking fags, others something stronger, glass littering the ground.

Ian kicks his ratty boots through a puddle, spraying the wall with water and probably piss. He's laughing and shouting, deaf from the shit music. He's gorgeous. Orange hair spiked in different directions and torn hand-made ramones shirt tucked into his pants.

It was Mickey's shirt actually but they're living out of one bag at the moment, couch surfing every other day so who gives a fuck on who's clothes is who.

Mickey's wearing Ian's leather jacket, the one with stains and studs he'd jammed into the shoulders. Safety pins on the sleeves. It hangs over his hands, covering the knuckle tattoos that he's shoved in pigs faces.

Ian yells again and wraps his arms around him. Mickey yells with him and then they're laughing. They stumble out of the alley, nearly dragging each other down to the ground and toppling over into the gutter.

People are staring at them, but when are people not staring at them?

"FUCK YOU" Mickey screams "FUCK YOUR CAPITALIST BULLSHIT"

"YEAH" Ian shouts after him "FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FASCISTS"

one of my favourite things ever is punk gallavich, i feel they would be very good punks and so 1970s au with a loose wearing each others clothes trope lol

im not sure who to tag, i have no idea who’s a writer and who isn’t but i’ll tag

@ardent-fox @energievie @suzy-queued @callivich @creepkinginc @sweetbee78 @twinklyylights @shinygalaxyperson @gallawitchxx @celestialmickey

#tag game #m does fics #mutuals #gallavich

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narcosmx · 2 years

Text

being baby arellano and being into barron would include: the christine incident

author's note:AHHHHHHHHHHH that is all and mention of the shooting and like details about it so if it's triggering pls don't read just for the thirst lol

okay cracks my knuckles let's fuCKING DO THIS

so is this a little off in the timeline with what i've written for baby arellano already in this series? yes. do i care? fuck no

okay wonderful wonderful here we go

so the christine was of course an after party to benjamin's 40th birthday celebration shit

and so of course, never wanting to miss any of the action or free drinks and waltzing around like you own the place you're convinced you're going with the boys

you're not staying home for a quiet night in like all the wifes and babies, you're here to have a good time and you deserve to be able to

just coming out dressed and meeting them at the cars, don't even bother asking benjamin just slip into the car and wait for them

the boys start piling in and ramon is like fuck yeah, now it's a real fucking party and wrapping his arm around you to kiss your forehead

claudio coming in slightly confused, giving you a preplexed look before shaking his head and laughing because he knows better than to get into it with you

pancha and benjamin sliding in at the same time, almost don't notice you

until pancha turns around to tell claudio something and he's like "que chingado" and benjamin wips around, sees you and is like "no, absolutamente no"

and you're like crossing your arms like "ya estoy en el carro, chingao, quiero celebrar mi hermano" essentially if you want me out of this car take me out kicking and screaming i dare you

and benjamin deep sighs and turns around like "pero te comportas, hm, nada de tus pendejadas. los dos" giving you and mon a warning glare before signaling to the driver he can go

let the fucking rager begin ahh

you and mon are the first ones with a drink in your hands obvi

can we just talk about the power move that is walking in to the christine with the arellano felix boys filling in behind you

amazing perfect

anyways

you're having fun but you wanted to go dancing and as you get up to leave benjamin gives you this like ??? raised eyebrow look

before he can yell at you you level with him "me llevo al barron" you offer and benjamin sighs and calls barron over to you

"te la encargo" "sta bien" barron reassures as he's like eyeing all over your body i just

"te comportas" benjamin shouts after you to no avail because you're already giggling and weaving your way past people as barron keeps a cool pace behind you

it isn't until you're out of direct line of sight that barron leans in to grab at your waist and kiss your shoulder "i like the way you think, baby"

and i just dancing up against barron will someone please stop me

grinding on him as he tries to keep his composure and keep aware because he is trying to work here

him grabbing at your waist the second you try to pull away

but it felt like in an instant you were feeling his tug a little bit more urgently as be pulls at your arm

he's pulling you along with you as he gets closer, you're following his line of sight and are like "oh you don't have to worry abou"

he cuts you off, a rare occurence and the honey that is usually dripping fron his voice when he talks to you is filledwith worry now

"take off your heels, get low and stay behind me" he directs in a calm and matter of fact tone which has you following without question

barron turns around to look at you again, making sure you're following along and as you start to say "done" he turns and shoots the two cops in the face

grabbing you instantly, he's like "run" as you go up the stairs, barron doing his best to keep his body in front of you

he leaves you in this little corner against the cement railing of the third floor, a little corner he can defend

"stay here until i come get you, i've got you baby girl"

and while this is going on your brothers are losing their minds, ramon's screaming, benjamin is at the point of throwing up, pancha is looking around frantically but he knows who you're with and if pancha trust anyone it's barron

barron shooting back at chapo, gets back against the wall and sees you there nearly shaking and knows iet's time to go

lets out a few last shots before turning around and barreling towards you "good girl" he praises softly lifting you up to your feet, "lets go"

him again putting his body fully in harms way as he guides you and you're kind of just in this frozen state until you reach the exit and see your brothers making their way down the stairs

instinctually you run over to benjamin and when i say your brothers immediately form this human shield around you i mean fucking in an instant

there's that moment where benjamin is like "pegados" and he means like close against you

sobbing at the idea of that's how pancha got shot in the arm because the boys are absolutely surrounding you making sure nothing touches you

benjamin's leading the charge and won't for a moment let go of your hand even though you're looking behind you feeling this like sense of doom the further away you get from barron

and walking through that like little balcony with your brothers, shots ringing around you and idk why i am like just fascinated with the image of you staring at the top of those stairs as chapo comes around the corner and shoots claudio

you just staring shaking before benjamin is dragging you along and barron comes out the other side giving you this "i got you" look before being pushed down that like kitchen hallway between benjamin and javier who is like holding on to you for support too and you see the first look of like oh shit wtf on benjamin's face you've ever seen

i am just going into the kitchen and they start shooting from the window

ramon fucking tackles you to the floor and is protecting you with his body, i cry covering your ears

the fucking thud at the door as javi and mon put you behind them but fuckING BARRON BARGING IN AHHHH

shooting out the window and yelling instructions at everyone before coming to look you over to make sure you're okay

your brother's yeeting themselves out the window and barron lifting your chin up to look at him because you're shaking and he's like "i told you, i've got you, baby girl" before gently pushing you and like lifting you up out of the window where mon is there to like whisk you off to a car with them

i am just the DEAD SILENCE OF THAT CAR RIDE

ramon is holding on to you, benjamin needed to sit next to you

he's stroking your hair and is like "i'm so sorry, nena. i'm so sorry i let this happen to you" and for the first time in your goddam life you're out here apologizing to min for not understanding why he never let you go to these things

barron driving, looking back at you from the rear view mirror every like 10 seconds to make sure you're okay

i just getting there and everyone jumping out of the car to make sure everyone else gets in and is safe

leaving you there shaking like a fucking leaf in the back sobbing and :(( barron leaping over from the driver's seat and pulling you into his lap

stroking your hair and whispering "i've got you, i've got you. i won't let anything happen to you baby girl"

and i just the moment dina sees you; exchanging that look of pure like terror and grief you're crawling over to sit with you as she's nearly craddling you

dina looking down seeing you sob and shake and her turning to the boys and being like "quiero sus cabezas"

and i just when you guys get to the next safe house the amount of times that ramon thanks barron wow cannot

min pulls him aside and hugs him and is like "gracias por cuidarme a mi angel"

and min assigning him to take care of you as he takes care of his little family and he puts ramon with dina

you asleep in the car, barron coming to pick you up and carry you up to bed

you startle awake in his arms and see it's him :( :( :(

and he's just like "sh, sh don't worry, i'm not going to leave your side. promise"

A LITTLE PINKY PROMISE BYE KILL ME

#narcos mexico fan fic #narcos mexico imagine #narcos mexico imagines #david barron #benjamín arellano félix #ramon arellano felix

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skylarmoon71 · 9 months

Text

Eobard Thawne (Flash) - Oneshot

Word Count: 4k+. This one took me a few hours but I really had fun writing it. I hope you all enjoy! :)

People always said that being too invested in your work wasn’t the best. You needed to have balance. Of course you barely paid mind to that. The best scientist never got anywhere lazing around. Besides, you had a life outside of research. You have a steady stream of cop shows to keep you company.

One of which is the very popular Flash TV series.

It was by far your favorite. It’s not like you didn’t have friends either. You just barely had time to meet with them due to your inventions. This one was going to be the best yet. Being a senior in college meant that this was your last chance to make your name as a scientist. If you could create this, then the sponsorships and press conferences would come blazing through the door. You grin, tighten the last screw.

“Alright!”

All you had to do was connect the plugs and you were set. It sort of made it easier being the only one in the lab at night. No distractions.

“Take that Jimmy.”

You glared at his machine on the other side of the room as you showed it the finger, plugging in your own. Yes, maybe that was a little immature, but he was so conceited. Constantly boasting that he was going to create a device that could stop aging and sell to the highest bidder. He didn’t care about human life.

Just money.

“Moron.”

Your invention was meant to stop terrible illnesses like cancer, cure the sick. You did want the recognition, but also the joy that came with watching a child make it back home to their family, healthy and happy.

Exhaling softly, you moved over to the outlet to plug in your machine. The rumbling of thunder however stopped you. When the lights went out, you cursed. You couldn’t see a thing. Dropping the cord, you moved around feeling for a door. It was weird that the backup generators hadn’t kicked in.

There was a flicker, and you smiled when the lights above your head turned on. Thankfully it hadn’t messed with anything in the lab. You moved to grip the door and maybe find the security guard, but the lights in the building started blaring and you flinched.

The constant flicker of red was not what you expected. Your eyes moved to the glass ceiling, and the sight of a current of lightning should have alerted you to run away. But a part of you knew that if it broke the glass, that would be it. The machine you spent more than six months on would probably turn into a pile of trash.

“Hey kid!! Get the hell out of there!!”

The yell of the guard brought you back for a second. He tried opening the door to come and get you, but you were already bolting in the direction of your machine. You jumped at the last second, just as the streak of lighting broke the glass. The sparks struck every surface in the room and you screamed at the surge that rushed through your body.

Your body was elevated for a second and when the lights finally shut off and turned back on, the guard could only stare at the empty room.

That was how it happened.

A poor choice on your part. But at the time it made sense. You were surprised that you were still alive. You could hear the beeping of machines and the faint smell of disinfectants. Your nose scrunched up and you turned your head, pressing your palm to your forehead.

“GUYS SHE’S AWAKE!!”

That yell really wasn’t helping.

You sat upright groaning at the pain that ran through your body. The sound of feet shuffling finally made you lift your gaze. Your eyes were still trying to adjust to the room.

“We’re relieved that you’re alright.”

“That voice..”

You knew that voice.

Why did you know that voice?

When your focus finally steadies, you were positive that maybe you did in fact die.

“My name is-”

“Harrison Wells..”

He was a bit confused.

“That’s right.”

Your eyes ran over all four of them and you swallowed, stumbling out of the bed.

“Barry Allen, Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon..”

They were fairly puzzled that you seem to know their names.

“The Flash..You’re the Flash. OH MY GOSH I’M IN THE FLASH!!”

You started pacing around in circles as you continued to rant and they all turned to Dr. Wells for some kind of instruction, but he looked just as stumped as everyone else.

“This is crazy. It’s not real. It can’t be real. That lightning, the light that’s what happened! I was struck by lightning and I’m in a coma. I must be in a coma. Either that or I’m dead. Am I dead!!? I didn’t even get the chance to have a boyfriend. I can't be dead!!!” You were sobbing now and Cisco nudged Barry.

“What! Why me!?” Barry protested.

“You’re the hero dude. Save her or whatever.”

Barry trailed over cautiously, reaching over and patting your arm awkwardly.

“T-There there. It’ll be okay.”

“Noooo it’s not, I’m dead. Why! WHY!!”

Your wails got progressively louder and Barry took a step back to the group.

“I tried.”

Eobard released a heavy sigh. He could already tell that this was a thorn in his plan. The fact that you just appeared in their lab in a burst of light didn’t help at all.

“I need to be calm and deal with this.”

He couldn’t afford the distraction, not right now.

He wheeled over in his chair, plastering the best look of comfort that he could.

“We understand that you’re in a tough position. But if you calm down and explain the situation, we might be able to get you back to where you came from.” You were still crying softly, and when you looked up at him, he almost felt sorry. He held out a hand for you, and you wiped your eyes, nodding slowly as you took his hand.

He almost jolted at the subtle spark he felt run through his hand. When he looks at you, there’s no noticeable change, so he schools his features as he guides you to take a seat.

“Tell us what happened.” He urged.

You finally got yourself to stop crying long enough to fully explain your situation. They sat there very attentively. It was a little hard to believe on both sides. But the alternative was truly considering that you must have died.

“So where you’re from this all a television show?” Barry asked.

“It is. I was working on my machine and then a crazy storm came out of nowhere. I tried to save my tech but I guess I got hit.”

“It was reckless of you to run towards an active storm. “

Dr. Well’s words make you blush. You slide off the chair.

“Y-Yeah you’re right. A-anyway, do you guys have ideas of how to get me back?” You avoid contact with him, and he raises a brow.

“Well your machine must have been the trigger. It might have been struck too.”

You shook your head.

“No, that's impossible. My machine was built to attack cancerous cells in the body.”

“You were trying to cure cancer?” Barry asks.

“Yeah I..I just wanted to help people.” You mutter. Barry smiles.

Now that is all gone. Your machine was probably obliterated and you were stuck wherever this was.

“Was there anything else that could have triggered your transportation here?” Caitlin asks.

You shrug.

“Not that I could think of. The room just had a few minor tech projects and that stupid narcissist Jimmy’s anti-aging machi..” You trail off and it clicks in your head.

“Shit that’s it!!”

“What’s it?” Barry question.

“Jimmy, oh my gosh. I’m a little pissed but he’s actually a genius. He’s been working on an anti-aging programmer. Basically it superchargers the body. It stops the cells that contribute to aging and deterioration.” You run to the board set up at the center of the room as you start marking down equations.

“I’ve been there for most of his upgrades so I know the general layout. I could build his machine and find my way back there!”

You were practically glowing, and Barry stepped forward.

“Whatever we can do to help, we will.” You turned to him.

“Really, you’ll help me?”

“Of course! We’re always down to help a fellow scientist. Besides, you're trying to cure cancer. You’re awesome.” Cisco states.

“I’ll do what I can to help.” Caitlin offers. You can’t stop the smile on your face.

“Thank you, thank you so much!”

You hug Barry, and he laughs patting your back. You go down the line giving them all hugs. When you get to Dr. Wells, you’re still wearing that smile. It slowly fades and you clear your throat.

“W-We should get to work immediately. "

You made a quick turn, heading back to the board.

That was the plan. Rebuild Jimmy’s machine and get back home. For the most part it was fairly easy. Barry of course had to fill Joe in on everything and then create a story to tell Iris of who you were. Everything felt sort of smooth sailing. You crashed at Star Labs working on your project day and night while helping Team Flash with their endeavors. You weren’t exactly hero certified. The more dangerous situations you stood at the sidelines with Dr. Wells, just observing.

It was still weird adjusting to a show you were literally watching on your television screen. They were all just as kind and brave as their characters portrayed. Cisco was an amazing engineer. He’d helped put together the tools to create the machine. While the first few attempts were a fail, you could tell you were getting closer. You knew it wouldn’t be easy trying to invent a machine you didn’t design yourself and you were going off your memory. Whenever you got discouraged or sulk, Barry had a way of helping you regain inspiration to keep going.

Cisco would make jokes of what you would do when you got back and Caitlin had soft affirmations to encourage you. It was nice. You realized then that you were so focused on your tech that you hadn’t given yourself any time to have fun or be with your friends back home. A part of you just always thought they would be there after you finally made it big. It was selfish and immature. Maybe this was the reason you were here. To open your eyes in a sense.

“Any progress Ms. (L/N).” You jumped at the voice at your door. Dr. Wells wheeled in and you swallowed the lump in your throat.

“S-Slow progress.”

You keep your eyes on the board, trying not to give too much of a reaction.

Another issue as of late was avoiding Dr. Wells. See he’d always been your favorite character. A crush if you will. While you really admired the actor, you never truly thought you would meet him. So working in such close quarters wasn’t the best. Your solution was to avoid any and all interactions. There was no point in getting attached when the goal was to ultimately leave. You also couldn’t alter anything too drastically.

“I think we have something that needs to be discussed. “

The click of the lock on your door is what gains your attention. When you turn back, Dr. Wells is no longer seated in his wheelchair, but standing at the entrance. You drop the marker in shock.

“You’re..”

You blink and he has you pressed to the wall. The papers in your room have scattered and you hold your breath. Back against the wall caged between his arms, you can only stare.

“You’ve known who I am this whole time, haven’t you?”

“W-Who you are..”

You’re completely in the dark and it’s starting to scare you. This isn’t the man that was so compassionate on the first day you got here. Not even close.

“Are you still going to play games?”

He tilts his head, raising his hand, and when you see the vibrations, your heart almost stops. Those usually warm eyes light up a treacherous scarlet. You’re beginning to see the bigger picture.

“Y-You’re the evil speedster..the one who killed Barry’s parents..”

“Eobard Thawne, in the flesh.” He smirked.

You feel like an idiot. You literally could have avoided this if you’d just watched the last few episodes. The realization that you might actually die here becomes very real. You sob, and he lowers his hand. You clench your eyes, waiting for the inevitable, but nothing happens. A minute, maybe two passes and you finally open your eyes. He’s no longer vibrating, but he hasn’t moved away.

“So you really didn’t know. That’s a surprise.” He walks back, and you’re still pressed into the wall.

You’re afraid to move.

“Since we’re both in a bind I’d suggest we come to an agreement. You can’t breathe a word of this to Barry or the others, not until I get what I want.”

“W-What makes you think I won’t tell them!! I could give a crap about getting home now. I’m not just going to let you hurt them!”

“How awfully brave of you.” His tone is mocking, and he moves around the room. You know it’s more to intimidate you.

“I’m sure you’ve realized by now that anything you do here could ultimately steer the plot off course. I initially assumed that’s why you’ve been so curt with me. If you even make a ripple, everything here, everyone you know, that you’ve grown to care about could die and it would be all your fault.”

You swallow. He’s right. You know he is. If he’s truly from the future then he has a lot more knowledge.

“So what do you say, partner?”

“We’re not partners!” You hiss.

This is painful. You press your hand to the desk to steady yourself. It’s all so messy now. He’s still standing there looking proud of himself and you stare right at him.

“I hate you.”

There’s so much spite and malice in those words, and Eobard’s smile slowly falls from his lips. He isn’t sure why he feels anything. Those words shouldn’t even phase him. But the look you wear right now is much different from the one you’ve been sending him all those weeks that you’ve been around. He turns his back, unlocking the door and setting himself right back into his chair.

“Have a pleasant night Ms. (L/N).”

That’s what he said. You should have expected life to deal you such a hand. Every time you got comfortable, there just seemed to be a bigger obstacle.

You kept up the secret, even though it hurt to lie to your friends every single day. The thought of them being wiped from existence was much more painful. A part of you just hoped that the heroes would prevail. This was a tv series after all. That small glimmer of hope is what gives you the will to keep going. It was hard to explain, but somehow you knew Barry and the others would come out on top.

One particular afternoon you were having a movie night at Cisco’s place with Barry, and Caitlin.

“Hey, you never really told us who your favorite character was.” Cisco called, tossing popcorn at you.

You leaned into the couch thoughtfully.

“I guess Barry is.” You spoke.

“Really?” He said, clearly flattered.

You nod, playing with your bowl of snacks.

“I guess in a way I related more to you. I’m an orphan too.”

They’re all listening now.

“I’m sorry. We weren’t trying to pry.” Barry apologizes. You shake your head.

“It’s okay. It’s not that bad. It was just a little hard growing up. Everything I have I had to work for. In a way watching your character felt like watching myself. You had a hard start, but you still made something of yourself and that's admirable. I wanted to be just like you. “ Barry smiles. Pulling you into a half hug and you grin.

“Okay, okay we get it.” You laugh at Cisco.

“You’re one of the characters I had a crush on though Cisco.”

“What, girl for real?”

You nod.

“Yep. It’s the long hair. Definitely a weakness.” He begins playing with his hair and Caitlin giggles.

“Please don’t give him a big head.”

“I’ll try not to.”

Cisco grins.

“I kind of wish you had a friend that we could pair Dr. Wells with. Maybe then we could get him to stop being so private and quiet. I bet you if he had a girlfriend he’d come back out of his shell.”

Caitlin smacked his shoulder and Cisco just continued to laugh.

It was just a jab, you knew that. But deep down you wondered if he had someone to be his moral compass, then maybe he would give up this whole master plan.

With that thought, you returned the following morning with a new goal. If you could maybe figure him out, maybe you could flip him for the good. The moments you weren’t running through equations, you would steal glances at him. You try to observe his likes, dislikes. Ticks. Anything that could give you just a hint of his personality. This outer part is just a persona, you know that. But despite that, you know there must be times where his true self slips out.

“Is there something that I can help you with Ms. (L/N).”

His tone is polite for obvious reasons. Caitlin and Cisco turn. It dawns on you that maybe you weren’t being subtle.

“N-No Dr. Wells!” You speed down to your room and Cisco shrugs.

“Wonder what’s up with her?” He says absentmindedly.

Eobard intends to find out just that. He hasn’t been blind to the subtle glances. If you’re planning something, he intends to use any means to discourage you from acting impulsive. When he gets to the door, he doesn’t even knock. He pushes the door open and you flinch. Once inside, the door slams shut. He stands, stretching.

“Planning something I should know about?”

He doesn’t fail to intimidate. When he shows you his true colors, it’s like the air shifted. You stay planted firmly. This time you’re not going to back down like a coward. Maybe if you make your intentions known, you can throw him off his game. You can change his perspective.

“I-I’m going to make you fall in love with me.”

He just stares for a second, because he’s not sure if you’re joking or being serious. His baffled look changes slowly to amusement. Pretty soon he’s laughing and you know why. Eobard speeds right over to you. He doesn’t miss the subtle jump you make, even though you try to hide it when you’re both eye to eye.

“Do you really think such a foolish plan will work? I can see it whenever you look at me, you’re terrified. Even now, you’re quaking in your boots like a frightened little girl.” You swallow, puffing your chest.

“How exactly do you intend to make me fall in love with you?”

It’s a ridiculous statement, but he loves this, pulling your strings.

You don’t say a word, not at first and that smirk on his lips grow wider. When you take a step forward and grab his cheeks, he plans to question it, but you press your lips to his and any thought he’d formulated has disappeared.

You’ve indeed caught him off guard. Your eyes are closed and your heart is hammering to an unknown rhythm. After a few hot seconds, you pull back, licking your lips. You can still taste him.

“Wow..”

That was an impulse move. You were just trying to prove a point, but you can’t deny that it felt good. Before the whole evil speedster ordeal you did have a healthy crush on the man. Eobard is still somewhat gaping at you.

Well that worked, you suppose. You release him, taking a step back.

“You’re not the only one who’s driven. I won’t lose.”

That’s all you say as you walk away from him. Even when the door closes behind him, he doesn’t truly process it. His hand hesitantly moves to his lips. That shouldn’t have phased him. Not in the slightest. But he felt it. That kiss. Your touch. He finds himself licking his lips, just to get another taste.

“Shit.”

He underestimated you.

Following that encounter, Eobard is unsure how to go about intimidating you. It was as if you’d gained the upper hand somehow. In the lab with Barry and the others, you’re unnaturally nice to him. When the both of you are alone, you’ll brush by him or casually blow off the little threats he makes about getting in the way of his plan.

During one particular battle in Star Labs, Barry has managed to subdue the chaotic meta, not before they had released a minor shockwave. It had knocked all of them off their feet before Barry grabbed the cuffs. When the criminal was safely restrained, he bolted to the pipeline. Cisco and Cailtin were still picking themselves off the floor. He hated situations where he had to pretend to be helpless. It was a little degrading. That was the price he had to pay.

By some grace, you’d landed right on top of him. His legs were sprawled on the floor and you were straddling his hips. You looked down for a second, clearly disoriented. When you gathered yourself, you tried to stand and his eyes ended up focused right on your bust that was now in full view.

“Dr. Wells are you okay?”

Your soft voice rang in his ear and he finally made eye contact. He cursed himself for the moment of weakness. Maybe it was the fact that he’d never indulged in those desires that he was now feeling a dull ache in his groin. He covered it well, nodding as he allowed you to help him back into wheelchair.

“I’m fine.” His tone was gruff, and you bent over to inspect him for injuries. Although you knew of his capabilities, he was just like Barry. That meant sustaining an injury was possible.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Caitlin and Cisco seemed otherwise occupied with picking up falling tech and some computers. He groaned, once again being face to face with your cleavage.

Eobard gripped your wrist with a low growl.

“Stop bending over.”

It’s a hiss.

For a moment you’re confused, but then your eyes finally trail to where his eyes lay, your cheeks erupt in color. You pull back quickly, fumbling over your words.

“I-I’m going to help Barry!”

You declared. You were rushing out of the cortex before they could question it and Eobard shifted in his seat, agitated with the problem he now had to deal with.

He was positive that it couldn’t get worse than that. Your little distractions have been driving him up a wall. He’d been so sure that it was a bluff you made that day. Making him fall in love. It wasn’t logical. This wasn’t logical.

The ring at his door tore him away from his thoughts and when he opened the door, he’s a bit irritated at the big smile you wear.

“Hey.”

You sound so casually as you just barge inside. He closes the door behind.

“How long do you think this charade is going to work?” He questions

“I should be asking you the same question. I told you, I won't quit. I won’t stop trying to-”

“To what! Make me develop feelings for you. Do you realize how ridiculous that is? I’m a monster. I could gut you right here and I wouldn’t feel a thing.” He rises from his chair.

“Then why don’t you?” You tilt your head and his brows furrow.

“You seem to think that the only reason I’m doing this is to save Barry and the others. You’re right, a huge part of this is to protect them. I care about them. I won’t just sit here and watch you hurt them.” You walk closer, and he studies you.

“But the other part of me knows that you’re not as heartless as you claimed to be. “ You circle him.

“When you thought that I was on to you, you could have ended it all right there. But you let me live. It didn’t make sense. You know I’m from a different universe, so any harm to me wouldn’t even touch this timeline. Instead of getting rid of me, you made a deal.”

“I didn’t need the extra paperwork.” He says sarcastically.

You stop right in front of him.

“That’s not it. When I came here, you must have felt something. Even if it was just a spark, you felt it.”

“You're wrong.” He holds your gaze, but it isn’t the same.

“You’ve had feelings for me from the very start..” You whisper.

“No..NO!!”

He seems adamant on denying it. You move in, taking his hand and he visibly deflates. You lift his hand placing it right at the center of your chest, much like he’d done when he tried to coerce the truth out of you about his identity. His gaze doesn’t look as sure.

“Do it.”

He gulps. His hand is shaking and for once it’s not due to the vibrations.

“I can’t..”

He couldn’t believe this. How had he let this happen?

You take a step forward and when you hug him, his body is stiff. His hands fall at his side.

“I guess I did win..”

It’s not a boast, you sound just as surprised as he is right now. Your hands gently trail down his shoulders, laying right on his chest. When you leave a kiss on his neck, his eyes close, letting out a staggered breath. You keep trailing kisses along his skin. Along his neck, right on his cheek. Your fingers begin to drift down and that snaps him out of his trance. He grabs your hand, speeding out of the room. Your eyes open and you’re pinned to the bed, staring up at him.

“Stop.”

He warns.

You just grin.

“If you really wanted me to stop, why did you bring me to your bed?”

He’s about to object, but he takes in the space and you can see the shock on his face. You bite your lip, pushing him onto his back as you switch positions. Eobard just gapes.

“I’ve spent most of my life depriving myself of so much because I thought it was the only way to get what I wanted. I’m done with that. From now on I’m going to be honest about what I want. What I need. What I need right now is for you to make love to me.”

He’s not sure how to go about dealing with this situation.

You lean down, sliding your knee between his legs and he holds back a sharp hiss.

“Make love to me..” You coax.

Eobard grits his teeth, pulling you down for a desperate kiss. You smile, responding with just as much urgency.

That night ended with the both of you buried in his sheets. He can’t say for sure if it had truly happened. He vaguely remembers your soft moans of encouragement. His body connected to yours. It felt too real to be an illusion.

He woke the next morning to a note from you to meet him in the lab. It was six in the morning, he knew for a fact that no one else would be there. That’s why he’d discarded his chair and just ran over. You stood at the center with your machine on a trolley. The wind tossing your hair made you smile as you looked down. You didn’t turn to look at him, not at all. But he could hear the smile in your voice.

“I’m going back home. I already left my goodbyes for the rest of the team. If I see their faces I know I’ll lose my nerve. I left instructions for Cisco. After three days, he needs to destroy the machine to protect all of you. “ You finally turned around to face him.

“When I’m gone you have three days. Three days to decide if you want to have a better life, or if you want to be the big bad that Barry faces. I think you know as well as I do that if all that I’ve said is true, in the end, Barry will win.”

Eobard clenches his hand.

“I’m not going to force you, it’s your choice.”

It’s hard for you to deal with, but he needs to make the decision. It doesn’t stop the tears from coming. You move to him, reaching out, you hug him, because it’s possible that this is the last time you’ll ever be this close to him again. Your grip tightens, and you cry when he returns the embrace.

It hurts, more than you thought possible. You’d fallen so hard and fast for someone you should have resented.

Another lesson learned.

You pull back slowly, a bit astonished that there are actual tears in his eyes. You kiss him in hopes that the feeling will stay engraved in your mind. When you finally part, your breath is a bit staggered. You release him completely, moving away from him.

Eobard reaches out for you instinctively, and you shake your head, placing your hand on the button as you turn on the machine. A light sparks into the room, and when he sees the steady stream of lightning now emitting from your body, his eyes grow wide. You just smile.

“Come and find me.”

It’s the last words he hears before the room becomes quiet. Not a sound.

No sight of you anywhere.

#eobard thawne #change #alternate universe #timelines #unlikelylove #barryallen #caitlinsnow #tv #scientists #love #eobard x reader #ciscoramon #longpost #choosinglove #hidden feelings #care

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