Fall Out Boy back in action with new single, album, tour

By Mikael Wood

Feb. 4, 2013 1:04 PM PT

Fall Out Boy is back.

Ending a three-year hiatus that commenced following a 2009 greatest-hits set, the popular emo-rock band announced Monday that it would release a new album and launch a North American tour in May.

“This isn’t a reunion, because we never broke up,” the group said in a statement. “We needed to plug back in and make some music that matters to us.”

Fall Out Boy -- singer-guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist Pete Wentz, guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley -- is scheduled to release “Save Rock and Roll” on May 7; it will be the band’s first studio disc since “Folie a Deux” in 2008. The album’s lead single, “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up),” was released to iTunes on Monday and is available to stream via YouTube below.

On May 14, the group -- which after forming in 2001 went on to platinum sales and a nomination for the new artist Grammy Award -- is to begin a six-week tour in Milwaukee. First, though, it’ll return to the stage this week with three small-scale club gigs: Monday night in Fall Out Boy’s hometown of Chicago, Tuesday in New York and Thursday at L.A.’s Roxy. (Tickets for the Roxy show appeared to be sold out early Monday afternoon.) The band is set to return to L.A. for a concert at the Wiltern on June 13.

During their time apart, Fall Out Boy’s members pursued a variety of side projects. Wentz led the electronic outfit Black Cards, while Trohman and Hurley played with the Damned Things, a heavy-metal supergroup also featuring members of Anthrax and Every Time I Die. Most promisingly, Stump released an excellent solo album, 2011’s “Soul Punk,” that nonetheless sank without a trace.