Al Stump Quotes

Every band always tells you to raise your middle finger.

When you have a bad day, a really bad day, try to treat the world better than it treated you.

No one's busy thinking bad things about you. They're all too busy thinking bad things about themselves.

Sometimes before it gets better, the darkness gets bigger. The person that you'd take a bullet for is behind the trigger.

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

I'm very much a night person. Morning is a thing I only experience because I have to.

You could be your own spotlight!

Good music is good music, regardless of where it comes from. I think that's a really important thing to carry with you.

When you make art, you get really invested in it. When art happens by accident and you were just along for the ride? It's way more fun.

Speed is absolutely key to creativity. The more time it takes to create something, the less likely you are to create something.

My bucket list is pretty much checked off. But oh, we should play in space! Let's do that. We'll play in space, up on a satellite somewhere.

Self-deprecating or arrogant, it's all selfish. Hard as it is, life's better when you spend more time on the rest of the world

Quiet IS the new loud.

You are what you love, not who loves you.

I'm good with telling people what I think, too, but I don't know why people are so content to treat each other poorly.

I always think about opportunity and how you regret the things you don't do.

In Fall Out Boy, I noticed that I wasn't putting all that much soul into it. It was just kind of screaming, I guess. I was just dying to get out of there!

I always thought 'Stump' was kind of like, you dropped something on your foot. It's not the most exotic rock-star name.

I definitely love kimchi. The biggest influence that eating so much Korean food growing up had on me was that I have no limit for spiciness. The hotter the better.

I've learned a lot about things because of the Internet. I'm happy with it, but it's a long road for me. I'm still definitely a little anti.

Stray thought for the day: Putting boundaries on how punk should sound/look is the least punk rock thing one can do. Be yourself=Very punk.

Good! Hang in there! It's normal! [Low self-esteem] Often it's a sign of intelligence (but don't let that go to your head haha)

I love playing our older songs along with newer ones but If all I have is my old stuff, I quit. Creating is more rewarding.

I think writing is a much more personal thing.

I write really scathing, angry stuff when I'm in a better mood, and then uplifting and happy stuff when I'm at the absolute bottom.

For some people, home is family and their mom's house or their girl or whatever, and I have those experiences as well, but the biggest thing for me is Chicago. I don't know how to explain it.

I don't like to Google myself. I try and avoid it whenever I can.

Steven Tyler isn't in Aerosmith anymore, but his gravestone will probably say something about Aerosmith.

I'd hate wearing suits every day.

Eh. Hipster's not really a thing anymore. Plus, hipster or out of touch old dude? Same uniform really.

The song that's affected me the most profoundly is probably Michael Jackson's 'Thriller,' or, more specifically, the couple seconds of instrumental break before Vincent Price starts 'rapping.'

In reply to 'how do I flirt with people?': Just be yourself and not want anything out of anybody. Desire is the killer of all smoothness.

When you're No. 1 or No. 300, you still get to play and write the songs.

We got nominated for a Grammy, that was really crazy, and I was sitting there and Stevie Wonder was on stage and I remember thinking "Wow, I really need to take [singing] more seriously!"

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

Lyrically, I personally lean towards venting.

One of the things that always was Fall Out Boy was trying new things and kind of pushing ourselves in different directions.

The music that I made in my band wasn't the expression of everything I was into. Bands are based on compromise.

I think any good artist - and I'm not saying that I am one - takes notes and should first emulate their heroes and then try to move beyond them.

Be yourself! Love your mom, but if she's trying to get you to be someone you're not, she's in the wrong

I look at albums like novels. If you write a really good scene or a really good moment, just because you wrote it, doesn't mean that it fits with the story that you're writing.

Was Ty Cobb psychotic throughout his baseball career? The answer is yes.

In Fall Out Boy, we were all playing with our pop punk influences, so that was always within that kind of framework.

'Punk' doesn't mean Mohawks and safety pins. It's about not conforming.

We wanted to wait until the music felt right. We didn't want to do it, just to do it. We didn't want to do it for money, I guess, is the thing that would have just bummed me out so much.

Between Prince and my dad's fusion-jazz records, I didn't have a choice in being funky.

Most producers get into it because they were just never handsome or charismatic or talented enough to be the star.

Drums were my first instrument, my first love. I need rhythm, something that moves.

I used to work in a record store. I'm kind of a record nerd.

Yoko Ono never deserved any of the hate she got. Paul McCartney and John Lennon weren't getting along.