As Fall Out Boy, Weezer, and Green Day are getting ready to embark on their 2020 joint Hella Mega global stadium tour together, Billboard sat down with Pete Wentz, Rivers Cuomo and Billie Joe Armstrong to play “Fishing For Answers.”
The guys chatted about meeting one another for the very first time, how the music making process has changed over the years, and that time Wentz and Cuomo appeared — in their underwear — in a commercial with Taylor Swift.
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Pulling questions out of a fish bowl, the trio are first prompted to remember how they first met each other. Armstrong tells Billboard that he first met Wentz at the MTV Music Awards in 2004, while Cuomo notes that they met at a show in Florida in 2014.
“We showed up, and we in Weezer realized we were opening for you and Fall Out Boy and we were like, ‘Wow, alright,’” he says, as the three burst out laughing. “So, it was like okay, we need a new manager!”
As for how Wentz first met Cuomo, the two recall that they actually once appeared in an ad together (which you can watch below). “I met you on the set of this commercial, TV commercial that we shot for Band Hero,” he says. “In our underwear…with Taylor Swift…you can definitely see it online…but you were knitting a blanket. That’s what my takeaway from that was.”
Asked what has changed the most about recording new music today, versus when they first started out, Armstrong replies that everything is much faster now. “You don’t watch the wheels go running around, and round, and round, anymore,” he explains. “The speed, that’s the one thing I’ve noticed.”
Cuomo adds that now, artists have the ability create an infinite number of tracks. “You can just keep trying a zillion different ideas,” he shares. “Sometimes it’s hard to pick. Back in the day, you got 24 tracks. That means by the time you get all the drums and bass, basic guitars done, there’s only a few tracks left. You kinda have to figure out exactly what you want to do before you record it on the last few remaining tracks.”
In the interview, which you can watch in full above, Cuomo, Armstrong, and Wentz also reveal what they would be doing if they weren’t musicians and what their backup band names were.
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Plus, you can check out the trio’s Billboard cover story here, and take a behind-the-scenes look at their cover shoot below.