This is later with Lee Matthews The Lee Matthews Podcast more what you Hear weekday afternoons on the Drive. Chris Bain is a New Brunswick, New Jersey born Brooklyn based music journalists. He's written for Vulture, Stereogum, Alternative Press, and Billboard. He's got a new compilation out that is called Where Are Your
Boys Tonight? And it is all about the evolution and the explosion of emo music from the early two thousands, if you remember that period of music My Chemical Romance, Fallout Boy Paramore. Chris, Let's start first of all with what emo music is? Hey, Yeah, So the book, the book Where Your Boys Night is in oral history of emo's boom throughout the two thousands. You know, emo means a lot of different things depending on who you
ask. It could be a lot of things. For me, you know, it could be more indie stuff like American football and capa and jazz. Also bands like My Chemical Romance Paramore, even wrap stuff like a Little Piece. So emo is music that has some kind of roots in hardcore punk, but is often more vulnerable, more melodic, and it's often really performative and over the top, which I send to enjoy and do the bands they all kind of kind of become characters in their own little world and then they acted
out on the stage, don't they. They sure do, especially if they're Chemical Romance. I mean, I thought some mighty wait for the book and that was really rewarding to talk to, you know, arguably the biggest band
from the scene who came from my home state of New Jersey. And I got to see those guys three times last year on their Union tour and the costumes Erard was in a different, different, different persona, a different look for every show I saw them in Jersey twice and once out of when we were young Festival in Vegas and Yeah, Sons the story of My Chemical Romance from their starting basements in New Jersey playing like Wembley Stadium in the UK.
Pretty special to get that down in the book. And the name of the book that he has written is Where Are Your Boys Tonight? The Oral History of Emo's mainstream explosion from nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and eight. Eight Chris Payne, did you try to get what's in? Hey? Sorry, I'm back, Okay, just went off. Oh I didn't know you were
talking to I was gonna I was gonna ask. It seemed like the evolution of emo music at this point was was a thirst and maybe even a hunger, because the sound up until that point was becoming very not for the emo artist, but for just general music. It was a very manufactured sound,
the boy bands, the the highly marketed music. Yeah, I mean I got to talk to some music executives, some record label people from the late nineties early two thousands to really paint the picture in my book, and around the time when a couple of the emo bands who made the first jump from the underground to the mainstream. So we're talking Jimmy, we're with the middle
dashboard, the screaming Infidelities. You know, it was really a time of you know, proper pop music like nineteen nine, two thousand, Backstreet Boys and singing Britney Spears, and you know, once the teen pop kind of fizzled out, and I think a lot of the kids you know, who are the exact same age as me. You know, I was born in December of eighty eight, so this was like prime time for me getting into
my teenage years. I think once the teen pop kind of fizzled out and kids were growing a few years older, maybe looking for the next thing that would make them feel a little edgier. Well, you know in Steps Pete Wentz, the Fall Boy, in Steps, Gerard Way and My Chemical Romance. But there you go. Yeah, And I think it's it's applied a need because you started hearing it. I mean I was even playing it in
mainstream top forty radio. Yeah. I mean it's really cool because you know, I spent seven years as a writer at Billboard before I started writing the book, so you know, keep an eye on the chart and seeing how
these bands crossed over was always really interesting to me. I mean, I like, I remember growing up, you know, watching fall a Boy not only take over rock radio but pop radio with like Sugar, We're Going Down, Dance, Dance, and then being at Billboard when I first started as like an editorial assistant there in twenty thirteen, when they came back with their album Stay of Rock and Roll and you know my songs, know What You Did in the Dark Centuries, all those big hit songs. It was.
It's pretty special as a kid growing up in the scheme in New Jersey seeing all these bands have their big moment, and then as an adult working, you know, in the music industry, working as a music writer, seeing them come around again. So talking to people like Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump from Fall Boys for the book chronicling all that, you know, they really opened up and that was July special. Where Are Your Boys Tonight is the
book. It's the oral history of emo's mainstream explosion from nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and eight. Chris Payne is the author and the the what the title Where Are Your Boys Tonight? Is there a reference? Is that in reference to something in particular? Oh? Yeah, the Fall Boys song It's from their first album's called Grand Theft Autumn. Where is Your Boy? It's
the very catchy chorus that song. And yeah, so it's my chemical Romance on the cover and Fall Boy got via the nod in the reference and Where Your Boys title. But aside from those two bands, some of the other big players in the book are Paramore, kind of at the Disco, Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy Eat World, they used Dashboard Confessional and really what these
bands? Because I was such a diehard fan of them growing up, like reading music magazines like Alternative Press and Spin and Rolling Stone as a kid,
I was just like obsessed with this stuff. So thinking about other fans my audience for the book, I really tried to speak out stories about these bands that hadn't been told before, things they had never been asked about, hadn't been asked in the present day, you know, the sort of things you couldn't get from reading a Wikipedia entry or going back to an old interview from
like oh six. So I'm really excited that I think that if you're anyone out there is a fan of any of the bands I just mentioned, I'm pretty confident in saying that there's at least one story about them that you haven't read before in the book. And as a music journalist, I mean it's that's that's that's difficult these days you have to compete with Wikipedia, and you
also have to find ways to describe what the what the sound is. Yeah, I mean, fortunately, even though Wikipedia is a good beginning stores of information, usually the literary craft the prose of Wikipedia, it's usually not the best. So writing the book entirely in oral history, so it's all from interviews, almost all of which we're done by me over the past couple of years. The book is structured almost like reading a screenplay where it's just you
know. Pete Wentz says this, Patrick Stumps says this, Fall Boys manager says this. Then Brendan Yurei from Panic at the Disco talk So I really tried to capture what it would be like listening to all these people from the band just in a room talking to the reader. Where You're Boys Tonight, The Oral History of Emo's Mainstream Explosion nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and eight. Chris Payne, the author, and thank you for joining us. Chris,
Yeah, thanks so much, and everyone. Yeah, you know, I'm a first time author, so tells are so important, so I appreciate so so much anyone who checks out the book. It's on sale tomorrow wherever books are sold. And you can follow me on socials Askee Pain on a Plane, Twitter and Instagram. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven. And I Heeart Media presentation