Patrick Stump gave up on trying to carve out a career as a songwriter after growing sick of advisors pushing him to come up with lyrics about 'silly topics' such as drinking and girls.
- May 4, 2011
AceShowbiz - After his band Fall Out Boy went on hiatus in 2009, the singer began composing tracks for other artists to record but quickly grew frustrated with label executives' demands.
Patrick Stump admits the experience was so "disheartening and depressing", he decided to create his debut solo effort, Soul Punk, instead.
He tells WENN, "First and foremost, I always just wanted to be a songwriter. I tried doing that for a while. I spent about a year working as a professional songwriter and it was really disheartening, it was really depressing because so much of it is just math."
"So much of it is like, 'You had a hit and this guy had a hit so you guys should write a song together for this person who had a hit.' Not organic in any way. It's really artless the way a lot of it happens. It made me really sad and it kind of drove me to make this record. It drove me to make it with a certain level of passion."
Stump took charge of creating the entire album and was able to write about subjects that mattered most to him - by masking them in pop.
He adds, "A lot of the things I say in Soul Punk are poking fun at the things that I was told to write about. Where I wrote songs about drinking and songs about picking up girls - it's not about that. It's very subversive. I wrote about politics and world affairs and personal things but I channeled it through these silly topics."
