Pete Wentz Reveals The Identity Of New Band’s Singer
Her name is Bebe Rexha, a singer from Staten Island who has never done anything professional before joining Pete Wentz in his new band The Black Cards. And she’s got an awesome story to match her awesome name.
Wentz and producer Sam Hollander, whose worked with Katy Perry and Gym Class Heroes, met in New York when Wentz was living there while his wife Ashlee was performing in Chicago. Wentz recalls that he was really into reggae, and Hollander was into Lily Allen-type female Brit-pop, and they wanted to combine those two sounds.
When the two got inside the studio to cut the tracks, they still had no singer to bring it all together. Luckily, fate brought them Bebe Rexha, who was auditioning for a different project next door.
“I just heard this voice blasting and I said, ‘Why are we so focused on finding a quirky, British girl?'” Wentz tells Rolling Stone. “There’s somebody in the next room who has these awesome melodies and can really sing and isn’t jaded.”
Rexha, who hit the musical jackpot of working with a high profile musician with an already existing fan base, has virtually no experience in the music industry, although she does still maintain an active (although sparse) MySpace Music page. From what we’ve heard so far, we’re digging her voice, and it sounds like Wentz is being musically inspired by having a female singer.
“Fall Out Boy lyrics were vastly depressing, misogynistic kinds of stuff,” says Wentz. (He’s not kidding—here’s a sample line from a FOB tune “Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner” about a female lover: “So wear me like a locket around your throat / I’ll weigh you down, I’ll watch you choke / You look so good in blue.”) “That really doesn’t work in a band with a female singer… I’m more musically free in this project than I ever was in Fall Out Boy. Patrick [Stump] was the composer in Fall Out Boy, and this is my chance to do something completely different.”
And as far as the status of Fall Out Boy is concerned, it remains unchanged, although Wentz still claims it’s a break, not a break-up. Says Pete:
“I have no idea how long the break will be. Before American Idiot, people had kind of written off Green Day and around Rattle and Hum people had written off U2. At some points lots of bands go through this odd growth where they don’t know which direction to go in and they feel burned out. Rather than break up, it was better for everybody to get their own outlet. The world needed a break from Fall Out Boy as much as Fall Out Boy needed a break from Fall Out Boy.”
The Black Cards are putting the finishing touches on their debut album, and will plan a tour once it’s completed. Which do you think will be released first – Patrick Stump’s solo LP, or The Black Cards’ debut? Maybe Wentz and Stump can plan a co-headlining tour together just to appease their old fans?
