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- Fall Out Boy will perform at the virtual “We The People” concert series during President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20.
- Pete Wentz has spoken consistently since 2008, when the band endorsed Obama’s presidential run, about how if it wasn’t for Biden’s first Senate term in 1973, Fall Out Boy wouldn’t exist.
- On November 7, 2020, the day Biden’s election win was widely called, Wentz shared a baby photo on his Instagram, with the caption, “My parents met working for Joe Biden in the Senate in the 70s.”
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On Wednesday, alongside the release of a comprehensive 1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, the Biden-Harris transition team released the line-up of their “We The People” inauguration performers, which included emo heartthrob band Fall Out Boy.
And singer Pete Wentz has repeatedly said Biden is the person to thank for the memories.
During the 2020 and 2008 presidential election campaign, bassist and singer Pete Wentz clued fans into his deep family ties to President-elect Joe Biden.
On November 7, 2020, the day Biden’s election win was widely called, Wentz shared a baby photo on his Instagram of him being held by Biden during Biden’s first term in the Senate in the 1970s. Flanked to Biden’s left is Dale Lewis Wentz, Pete’s mom, who at the time had joined Biden’s staff.
"My parents met working for Joe Biden in the Senate in the 70s," Wentz said in his caption, "To me he is a beacon of empathy, compassion, and kindness."
Fall Out Boy and Wentz's performance at a subdued and high-security inauguration will represent a sort of full circle role that Biden has played in the Wentz's lives.
The connection was first publicized in 2008, when Wentz and Fallout boy held a fundraiser for Obama, and Wentz, an Illinois native, publicly endorsed Obama.
That same year, The Washington Post reported, Wentz and his lawyer father Pete Wentz Sr., blogged jointly about their support for the Obama-Biden campaign on Pete Wentz's Tumblr page, with his father explaining his emo rocker son's literal origin story.
"So I guess it's a big day for everyone - one way or another no matter what you are thinking," Pete Wentz wrote on the eve of the 2008 election.
"I don't really want to force my views on anyone. I'm just some guy in a band who doesn't spell that great much less have a degree in anything. So I turned to my dad (has a couple degrees and spells much better, besides he's a hero to me). Blech enough of that… Here's what he had to say," Wentz added, posting a message from his father.
"'I have spent the weekend and now working on the Obama campaign," Pete Wentz Sr. continued, "'Mom and I met in Washington when we were both legislative assistants to Senator Biden when he was in his first term. I had worked in his campaign and your mother had been in the Foreign Service. We started out as friends and the rest is history.'"
Wentz also told the Associated Press after the 2008 election that, "If it weren't for Joe Biden, I would not exist as a human being," adding that Biden attended his parents' wedding.
A number of performers will join Fall Out Boy throughout the virtual inauguration concerts and procession which will be closed to the public, including Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, will.i.am, and Carole King.