Patrick Stump Looks Back On Fall Out Boy's SNL Debut: "It Was Literal Dream Stuff"

Patrick Stump has revisited Fall Out Boy's 2006 appearance on Saturday Night Live, a night he still frames as a genuine ambition fulfilled. The band served as musical guest on Season 31, Episode 13, which aired on March 4 with Natalie Portman hosting, and performed 'Dance, Dance' and 'Sugar, We're Going Down'.

Speaking in a new interview featured in the special edition Made In Chicago: A Rock Sound Tribute, Stump said the show was something he obsessed over as a kid and remains fixated on today. He also admitted he did not think of himself as a singer back then, describing how he stumbled into the role almost by accident before suddenly finding himself performing on national television. He remembers the band going on right after Portman's famous rap sketch with The Lonely Island.

Nerves were running high, and Stump singled out a brief backstage moment with cast member Kristen Wiig, who told him he was talented and that the performance had been good. "I needed that so bad at that moment", he said.

The closest call came before broadcast. SNL films a dress rehearsal as a backup in case anything goes wrong on the live show, and during that run Pete Wentz and Joe Trohman played the way they would in any club, bouncing off the walls. What the band did not know is that the show's staging is all interconnected, with the back of one set forming the front of another. The entire studio began to wobble, prompting the stage director to walk over and deliver a firm warning never to do it again.

The full conversation runs alongside interviews with Wentz, Trohman and Andy Hurley in the magazine, which comes with a CD of exclusive tributes recorded by bands associated with Fall Out Boy.