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Fall Out Boy have addressed criticism over naming their new album Save Rock and Roll, saying it is impossible to define rock and roll as a genre.
The band have come under fire from critics who say that their music is not rock and roll, but Fall Out Boy have responded saying that rock is the 'bastard child' of blues and jazz, and that it's not about keeping to the rules.
"I think the whole 'save rock and roll' thing and the whole idea of genres - I mean, part of it is that we're challenging that, because - define it," Patrick Stump told Gigwise, in an exclusive interview. "If you get ten people in a room and define rock and roll, all ten of them are going to have completely different answers. Kind of the point is that it shouldn't be in this box and it shouldn't have all these silly rules.
"Obviously, we don't take ourselves all that seriously, we're very tongue in cheek - but there is a level where if you define rock and roll as a few guys with some guitars making music, there's not a lot of that on the radio right now, there's not a lot of that in pop culture right now, so maybe that does need to be saved."
Watch Fall Out Boy discuss saving rock and roll below
Guitarist Joe Trohman agreed, saying, "People are so stuck in the idea of rules of rock and roll, that it has to be this sort of classic rock thing, that it has to sound like Cream or has to sound like The Beatles or something like that, instead of realising that rock and roll is always an idea. It's about attitude and it's about emotion and it's about pushing boundaries."
"And it's about surprise," Stump continued, "because when Cream and The Beatles put those records out, their seminal records out, that was a new thing that didn't exist. They weren't like, 'oh, we're going to do a Beatles record', you know?
Trohman added, "Even Elvis Presley always categorised the idea of rock and roll as something that's more of an attitude than anything. He wasn't like, 'this is rock and roll, and this is what it has to be'.
"Because yeah, rock came from blues and jazz, because rock is just this bastard child. Rock is just a mixture of other kinds of music to create something new so it can continue to do that, so it can progress and move forward."
"Rock is just emo," joked bassist Pete Wentz. "Wow. Let that one loose."
