Fall Out Boy rose to the forefront of emo pop in the mid-2000s, selling more than four million albums thanks to the band's tabloid-grabbing bassist, able-voiced frontman, and handful of Top 40 hits. The group's four members first came together in Wilmette, a bedroom community 14 miles north of Chicago, around 2001. Vocalist/guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist/lyricist Pete Wentz, drummer Andrew Hurley, and guitarist Joe Trohman had all taken part in various bands connected to Chicago's underground hardcore scene. Most notably, Hurley drummed for Racetraitor, the furiously political metalcore outfit whose brief output was both a rallying point and sticking point within the hardcore community. As Fall Out Boy, the quartet used the unbridled intensity of hardcore as a foundation for melody-drenched pop-punk, with a heavy debt to the emo scene. They debuted with a self-released demo in 2001, following it up in May 2002 with a split LP (issued on the Uprising label) that also featured Project Rocket, for which Hurley also drummed. The band remained with the label for the release of a mini-LP, Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girl, but a bidding war of sorts was already in full swing.
