G ’day, Pete! You’ve made guyliner pretty mainstream. Explain yourself!
Yeah, I have to apologise for that — it was one of those things that I didn’t ever expect to happen.

So you regret it?
Well, everyone made this big deal about it, but to me, it was just an interesting part of performing. I didn’t really mean for it to become what it did.

Feel good being an “emo fashion icon”?
Ha ha! It’s hilarious because most of the time I’m in sneakers and a hoodie.

You’ve cut your hair — does that mean you’ve lost some of your emo cred?
Well, I didn’t even know that anyone who was emo had any cred!

Good point. You have a few songs in the upcoming Band Hero — would you consider yourself a gamer?
I have a strange relationship with video games. I used to be this massive Sonic The Hedgehog fan, but then I started devoting all my energy to girls…

What was your success like pressing female buttons?
Well, I am in a band… but I did get back into all the video games when I got given a Wii — I can rock out pretty hard on Guitar Hero now…

But don’t you already play guitar? Is it really that much of a stretch?
It was a bit of a struggle, but so addictive. You’re right, though — playing before definitely gave me an advantage.


You channelled some old school Tom Cruise from Risky Business for the Band Hero commercial. How hard was it to nail the “sock sliding” scene?
It was really hard to do — I give anyone credit for pulling it off. They make the floor really slippery so being able to stop in a designated place and not look like a complete moron is hard to do. I slid off the stage a few times, and myself and Travis [Blink 182 drummer, Travis Barker] had some heavy collisions a few times. It was great fun, though.

When you were younger, your parents sent you to do time in boot camp. Was that a source of much of your writing?
Absolutely zero... outside of the fact that I wanted to burn that whole place down.

Er, okay…
And pretty much murder everyone who worked there.

Rrright, moving on. Do you get fired up when a critic slams you?
I appreciate that kind of critic — it’s the critics that are more suited to being tabloid writers that do my head in. I see a lot of critiques of our records where the majority of the story is about how I live in Hollywood or what type of lifestyle I live. They leave the actual words about the record for the last line. It’s the only thing that’s really irritating about this line of work, because even though art is a very subjective thing, the reviews are rarely about the actual music at all.

You’ve opened up your new snazzy bar Angels & Kings in New York to much fanfare. Is it becoming the must-be-seen-in joint for all the celeb types?
Well, we wanted a place where my friends and I could hide out when we went to New York. Previously, we would go to a couple of bars where they’d let the guys who were part of the band in, but none of the others. We were like, “Well, f**k this — why don’t we start our own clubhouse?” We then started one in Chicago, because it’s our home town, and then randomly we did one in Barcelona and now New York. I’m about to hook up another one for LA because that’s where I spend most of my time and I need a clubhouse out there, too.

Tell us about your new comic book...
Fall Out Toy Works is this idea we developed with an artist named Dr Romanelli. It’s loosely based on characters from a song of ours called Tiffany Blews. We’re currently in the process of animating it, which I’m pretty excited about because we want to build a culture around this idea, so there’ll be a whole storyline and toys…

How much say do you have in the plot?
I’d have an ultimate veto over something. If, for instance, someone wanted to put Hitler in there, I’d say that’s probably a bad idea…

What about a toy rescuing a damsel in distress from Josef Fritzl’s dungeon?
Again, it’s probably not a subject we’d do. However, I’m not the type of person who thinks I know more than an actual comic book writer.

What’s coolest about being a rock star?
Have you seen my wife?

Yes.
That’s a hell of a perk to my job.

So, when you’re away from the missus, how do you fend off the boredom?
Ha ha! The guys and I get up to some random stuff. The new clip for Alpha Dog pretty much highlights all the ways we kept ourselves entertained…

Like what? Racing midgets? Racing groupies? Racing midget groupies?
You make bets with each other, get tattoos, and get more tattoos. Check it out on our website, we document it all.

Nice casual website plug.
Ha ha! Thanks.

Is there ever massive dust-ups between bands when you’re touring?
We have a whole gang of bands that we’re super tight with, especially Blink 182. But after that very public feud we had with The Killers, I realised, “I’m 30, I have a kid, and I’m passed all that now”. I don’t see art as competition anymore.
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