“It’s called Eating Out Your Girlfriend, and it’s real, and it doesn’t matter.”
The band Fall Out Boy’s debut EP, “Evening Out With Your Girlfriend,” turned 21 in March of 2024. Though we still don’t know a lot about the EP, as the few survivors of this album remain shunned to the recesses of greatest hits tracklists, and for most of these songs, that’s the best-case scenario. Most songs of this EP were lost to time until the band finally released the EP to streaming platforms on November 1, 2021. The EP itself sports nine tracks, “Honorable Mention,” “Calm Before The Storm,” “Switchblades And Infidelity,” “Pretty In Punk,” “Growing Up,” “The World’s Waiting (For Five Tired Boys In A Broken Down Van),” “Short, Fast, And Loud,” “Moving Pictures,” and “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose (But I’m Gonna Give It My Best Shot).”
Two songs from “Evening Out With Your Girlfriend” have escaped its clutches, “Calm Before The Storm” and “Growing Up.” Both of which have received their own re-recordings, separating them from the original tracks. The former appears on the band Fall Out Boy’s album “Take This To Your Grave,” released on May 6, 2003, by Fueled By Ramen, less than two months after “Evening Out With Your Girlfriend,” which was released on March 25, 2003, by Uprising Records. The latter was featured on the band’s fourth studio album, “Folie À Deux,” released by Island Records, with a feature from William Beckett in the song “What a Catch Donnie.”
While there isn’t total fan consensus on why the band hates the EP so much as to wipe it from their history in the band’s greatest hits album “Believers Never Die,” there is some general speculation on the topic. One main theory is that Uprising Records, the label that Fall Out Boy was with during the short production and release of “Evening Out With Your Girlfriend,” released the “rushed, unfinished” product against the band’s wishes. To worsen the blow on this front, Uprising Records decided to re-release the album after the band’s 2005 hit success, “From Under The Cork Tree,” without their involvement or consent. The band didn’t receive royalties on either release of the EP — ”both were a scam on us,” according to Patrick Stump.
Secondly, and notable to mention. The band’s star drummer, Andrew (Andy) Hurley wasn’t featured on the album at all. Mike Pariskuwicz, a now almost entirely unknown name in the scene, was the drummer for “Evening Out With Your Girlfriend,” before swiftly exiting the band shortly after the album’s release. Hurley would join the band soon after, and he became the drummer for “Take This To Your Grave,” as well as all of the band’s following albums. With the EP not sporting the iconic lineup of Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Joe Trohman, and Andy Hurley, it’s thought that the band did not consider it a “real” Fall Out Boy album.
Another interesting factor that may have contributed to the band’s disdain for “Evening Out With Your Girlfriend,” was that it doesn’t utilize Pete Wentz as the primary lyricist. The song lyrics on the whole EP are written by Fall Out Boy’s one and only Patrick Stump. Bangers such as “He’s well hung, and I am hanging up” from “Calm Before the Storm,” and “Go figure, I’m bigger than that” from “Short, Fast, And Loud.” While Stump’s lyrics aren’t bad, the band decided that to utilize their strengths, Pete Wentz would write future lyrics for the band, and Stump would write the music.
While all of these factors are completely valid, and any reason Fall Out Boy has to write off their originating EP, it is clear that “Evening Out With Your Girlfriend” was integral to the band’s growth internally, artistically, and stylistically. While the band may ignore their old music, some fans still look back on the era fondly, viewing the amateur sound and production as the foundation of the Fall Out Boy we have today.
Anyways, “it’s called “Eating Out Your Girlfriend,” and it’s real, and it doesn’t matter.”
…At least according to Brendon Urie.
