What's on Pete Wentz's Playlist?

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Aug. 23, 2007

'The Trapeze Swinger'

At the same time "Fall Out Boy" was making their way onto the mainstream music circuit, another band was trying to breakthrough with an indie folk sound of its own. Iron & Wine is the stage and recording name for singer-songwriter Sam Fine, and his song, "The Trapeze Swinger," made it onto Wentz' list of listened-to songs. "The Trapeze Swinger" was heard by many in the 2004 film, "In Good Company," and has Beam's signature acoustic guitar sound. "It's a cool narrative that follows these childhood ideas all the way to these metaphors about kind of the pearly gates," says Wentz, "and it's just a great song to listen to in the dark when you're falling asleep. And it reminds me of so many smells and places and summers growing up and, I mean, I can remember the smell of the shampoo on my babysitter's hair, anything, I mean, it's very weird and very specific."

'All Apologies'

This past spring Kurt Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, and the rest of the Nirvana band released a Nirvana box set for collectors and Pete Wentz has been listening to the 4-disc set ever since. "I always listen to 'All Apologies' for the most part, which is, um, a great song," Wentz said. "I think Kurt Cobain and Nirvana represent this giant wave that came crashing in and turned music on its head again, and there's definitely something to be said for that." The song "All Apologies" was written by Cobain in 1990, four years before he committed suicide, and became a sort of swan song for Nirvana. "Beneath all the angst and beneath all of this, um, attempt to kind of sabotage music or the state of music at the time, there was this very simple notion of verse-chorus, verse-chorus, bridge-chorus, and 90 percent of Nirvana songs have them," said Wentz. "Kurt was writing anti-pop pop songs."

Cab Calloway

Pete Wentz' musical taste isn't all pop and rock. He also listens to American jazz singer and bandleader, Cab Calloway, made most famous for his recordings that accompanied 1930s Betty Boop animated shorts. Calloway not only performed for the cartoons, but he also leant his dance steps. One of his most famous performances was in Betty Boop's "Minnie the Moocher." Wentz explains that when Calloway "sings over those Betty Boop loops, I just go, my God, this guy is singing about drugs right now, this guy is singing about the situation in the ghetto right now, and no one knows he's singing over a cartoon.…it's just mind-boggling to me."

'Clothes Off'

"I'm also listening to this band Gym Class Heroes," Wentz said. "They're a live band, hip hop, so they're a little bit too hip hop for rock, and a little bit too rock for hip hop. But they have this song called 'Clothes Off' that is a sample of a 70s song, and it was, uh, the original song was 'We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off to Have a Good Time.' They're version that they've sampled is 'We have to take our clothes off to have a good time.' And I think that one's great." And if you watch the 2007 video of "Clothes Off!!" you can see Pete Wentz himself as he makes a cameo as an Elvis impersonator.