Fall Out Boy is an American rock band formed in Wilmette, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist Pete Wentz, lead guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hurley. The band originated from Chicago's hardcore punk scene, with which all members were involved at one point. The group was formed by Wentz and Trohman as a pop punk side project of the members' respective hardcore bands, and Stump joined shortly thereafter.

By the time the break began, Stump was the heaviest he had ever been and loathed the band's image as an "emo" band. Coming home from tour, drummer Andy Hurley "went through the darkest depression [I've] ever felt. I looked at my calendar and it was just empty." Wentz, who had been abusing Xanax and Klonopin, was divorced by his wife Ashlee Simpson and returned to therapy. "I'd basically gone from being the guy in Fall Out Boy to being the guy who, like, hangs out all day", Wentz recalled. Previously known as the "overexposed, despised" leader of the band, Wentz "simply grew up", sharing custody of his son and embracing maturity: "There was a jump-cut in my life. I started thinking - like, being old would be cool."  During the hiatus, the band members each pursued individual musical interests, which were met with "varying degrees of failure". Stump was the only member of the quartet to take on a solo project while Fall Out Boy was on hiatus, recording debut album Soul Punk entirely on his own: he wrote, produced, and played every instrument for all tracks on the record. In addition, he married his longtime girlfriend and lost over sixty pounds through portion control and exercise. Stump blew through most of his savings putting together a large band to tour behind Soul Punk, but ticket sales were sparse and the album stalled commercially. During a particularly dark moment in February 2012, Stump poured his heart out in a 1500-word blog entry called "We Liked You Better Fat: Confessions of a Pariah". In the post, Stump lamented the harsh reception of the record and his status as a "has-been" at 27. Stump revealed that fans harassed him on his solo tour, hurling insults such as "We liked you better fat", and noted that "Whatever notoriety Fall Out Boy used to have prevents me from having the ability to start over from the bottom again." Aside from Soul Punk and personal developments, Stump moonlighted as a professional songwriter/producer, co-writing tracks with Bruno Mars and All Time Low, and pursued acting.  Wentz formed electronic duo Black Cards with vocalist Bebe Rexha in July 2010. The project released one single before album delays led to Rexha's departure in 2011. Black Cards added Spencer Peterson to complete the Use Your Disillusion EP in 2012. Wentz also completed writing a novel, Gray, that he had been working on for six years outside the band, and began hosting the reality tattoo competition show Best Ink. Hurley ventured farther into rock during the hiatus, drumming with multiple bands over the three-year period. He continued to manage his record label, Fuck City, and drummed for bands Burning Empires and Enabler. He also formed heavy metal outfit The Damned Things with Trohman, Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano of Anthrax, and Keith Buckley of Every Time I Die. Despite this, the members all remained cordial to one another; Wentz was Stump's best man at his wedding. The hiatus was, all things considered, beneficial for the group and its members, according to Hurley. "The hiatus helped them all kind of figure themselves out", he explained in 2013. "Especially Joe and Patrick, who were so young. And Pete is a million times better."

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