Earlier today (Jan. 18), Fall Out Boy announced So Much (For) Stardust, its first album in nearly five years, along with the video for its first single, “Love From the Other Side.” Tonight, in a statement shared on the band’s social media accounts, guitarist Joe Trohman revealed that he is temporarily stepping away from the band.
Trohman said that his mental health “has rapidly deteriorated over the past several years” and that “to avoid fading away and never returning, I will be taking a break from work, which regrettably includes stepping away from Fall Out Boy for a spell.”
The musician said it “pains me to make this decision” at the same time that the band announced its new album, one that he said “fills me with great pride.” However, Trohman said that he plans on rejoining Fall Out Boy and that he “must recover, which means putting myself and my mental health first.”
a note from Joe: pic.twitter.com/CbK887oWLn
— Fall Out Boy (@falloutboy) January 19, 2023
Last year, Trohman released his memoir, None of This Rocks. In an interview with SPIN about the book, the guitarist forwent the salacious expose for a psychological study on himself.
“Therapy has helped a great deal,” Trohman said of his mental health at the time. “There’s the cliched elements of therapy like ‘Let’s talk about your family history’ or ‘Let’s talk about your parents,’ but all of our problems do come from our parents, because where do we come from? How are we molded? Parents. I’ve always been able to connect all of my issues back to my upbringing, and I’ve had all this time to reflect on it.
“I live in my head so much unfortunately — sometimes for better, most of the time for worse. But in living in my head all the time and thinking about this stuff, it’s like working on a puzzle you don’t understand yet. The longer you work on it, eventually you go “Oh OK, I understand why I didn’t get this puzzle, and it makes sense now.” That rang true when it came to connecting the dots and my upbringing — especially my relationship to my mom. But therapy definitely got me there. I don’t think it’s very easy to just grow older and figure that stuff out on your own without any guidance.”
