[Image Description:] transcript of an interview (interviewer is abbreviated as HP) with Pete Wentz (abbreviated PW) and Patrick Stump (abbreviated PS), which reads as follows:
PW: The interesting thing with the first song 'Our Lawyer...' can be taken so many different ways; it is tongue in cheek whilst watching yourself from a distance. The whole album is very voyeuristic and all about watching this thing happen. On the last record we just wanted anybody to listen. Anybody. We were just dudes from the suburbs of Chicago and we had put out a sticky mess of a record that some people had latched on to and dissected. Before we put out this record, we knew that people would pick apart every single word. There are these two sets of songs on the record, but rather than it being two different people it is the dichotomy within one person. The idea of this hyper arrogance versus hyper shyness, or this person who is addicted to the truth versus this person who considers himself a liar. These two are fighting within one person.
HP: Narcissistic as it depreciates the object and the owner for his choice of subject.
PW: Absolutely. That is the interesting thing, if you are willing to sit here and tear every single person you know apart then you should be able to tear yourself apart too. The best writers of all time engage in that activity. People like Bukowski, you can watch them just shred themselves right before your eyes. And then shred everyone else too. It's like the murder suicide with the pen where everybody goes.
PS: This record is self referential to the point where the first song on the record is musically a stab [at] what was our biggest hit before then, "Where Is Your Boy". It is pretty hidden but I arranged it so it is an alternate universe version of it. My reasoning for doing that was that the lyric was so great at lambasting everything we had been up to that point.
PW: There is also a part on that song that says "Hey, here is everything you are going to say about us next year, fuck you, we just said it.
PS: Totally, so I thought, give it the right backbone and make it like our biggest song but not.
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