Patrick Stump talks working on scores compared to Fall Out Boy: "It's still the same motivation"

Following the release of his super-fun theme for Spidey And His Amazing Friends in June, Patrick Stump has spoken about his score work for the whole Disney Junior series, and how it compares with writing for Fall Out Boy.

The musician tells Screen Rant that he doesn't necessarily have a wildly different approach when it comes to each, as it's all about telling the story within music – that's his job.

When asked about maintaining a 'band image' while also wanting to keep things fresh artistically, Patrick explains, "It's kind of been a blessing and a curse, but I just can't seem to do the 'character'. Some artists are really good at being the superhero or being the character. I can kind of do it on stage where, for an hour and a half, I'm not this desperately anxious nerd. I can do it for just that long, and then I'm done as soon as I'm offstage. I've never really had to contrive the thing, in a way, and I think I would suck at it if I had to."

Read this: The 20 greatest Fall Out Boy songs – ranked

He continues of his day job: "In Fall Out Boy, I'm writing the music, but I've always been an interpreter. I'm interpreting Pete [Wentz, bass]'s lyrics. I think that really primed me for score work because you're helping somebody else tell their story. You're using your music to help somebody else tell the story, and that's something that I'm naturally drawn to and want to do.

"Even though, musically, a lot of the things that I do when scoring – whether it's this show or a horror movie or a romantic comedy – sound completely different than Fall Out Boy, it's still the same motivation. Somebody else has a story they want to tell that needs music. And I'm the guy; I'm here to help."

Patrick told Kerrang! back in 2019 that FOB had been having "a lot of talks” about the follow-up to 2018’s M A N I A.

"There’s two schools of thought,” he said. "One is that you have a record cycle, you put out records and then you go on tour and blah, blah, blah. That’s a very ‘business’ thing. And there’s the other school, which is you wait to be inspired, you experiment, and you discover. I feel like at this point we have the luxury of choosing, and I’m personally choosing to be inspired. Look, I flat out don’t want to be in my 70s, on a bus playing stadiums – I don’t want to be The Rolling Stones. But if Pete has lyrics that are that compelling, I will. That’s exactly what the interplay is. At this point, I’m kind of waiting around for those kind of songs. And we have the bubblings of them…”

Read this: 9 lesser known Fall Out Boy songs that everyone needs to hear