Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo's Mainstream Explosion 1999-2008

by Chris Payne

And nobody likes being misunderstood. I’d rather be ignored than misunderstood.

“Oh, she’s a coat rack.” The girl who would hold her boyfriend’s stuff so he could go mosh.

I was learning how to be a leader—you can’t ask things of people that you’re not willing to do yourself.

PAUL HANLY: Mikey was like, “I’m starting this band My Chemical Romance.” I’m like, “Like the Irvine Welsh novel?”

Glassjaw has a lyric, “I wish you a broken heart and a happy New Year,”

MIKEY WAY: Victory was really behind Taking Back Sunday. I remember first being like . . . you know, because Thursday was Jersey’s band—who’s this band? They have a day in the week as well

“Have another drink and drive yourself home, I hope there’s ice on all the roads,”

“Yeah, this is cool. But I’ve got a band you gotta hear. It’s more like you guys, it’s a little more pop-punk. It’s called Fall Out Boy.” I said, “Like The Simpsons thing?”

“Infamy is bigger than fame.” If half the people hate you, the other half are going to defend you to the death.

The religious oppression creates adverse extremities everywhere you look.

“No child is safe from the sinister cult of emo.”

HAYLEY WILLIAMS: What I take from that season of life is that we all have this one golden summer of life—which Riot! truly felt like—that we can try and mine out of forever . . . or we can appreciate it for what it was and carry on. We have to find our other summers. Those other definitive seasons in our lives that make us feel like we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be. If you’re always turning around, facing the direction you came from, how can you appreciate where you’re standing today? You have to give yourself a chance.