A member of pop-punk/rock band Fall Out Boy has announced that they are temporarily leaving the band. In “note from Joe” statement on the group’s Instagram page, guitarist Joe Trohman revealed that he is taking some time away from Fall Out Boy. Trohman explained that he made the difficult decision for the sake of his mental health.
“Neil Young once howled that it’s better to burn out than to fade away. But I can tell you unequivocally that burning out is dreadful,” Trohman wrote. “Without divulging all the details, I must disclose that my mental health has rapidly deteriorated over the past several years. So, 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.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
Trohman went on to share, “It pains me to make this decision, especially when we are releasing a new album that fills me with great pride (the sin I’m most proud of). So, the question remains: Will I return to the fold? Absolutely, one-hundred percent.”
Finally, he added, “In the meantime, I must recover which means putting myself and my mental health first. Thank you to everyone, including my bandmates and family, for understanding and respecting this difficult, but necessary, decision.” Trohman then concluded his message by quipping, “Smell you sooner than later.”
In 2022, Trohman released a memoir, None of This Rocks, in which he discussed his difficult relationship with his mother, who also lived with mental illness. During an interview with Tamron Hall, Trohman opened up, saying, “It’s tough because I don’t want to blame her. She was truly very, very sick.”
He explained, “She had radiation therapy to get rid of a tumor back in the 1970s. And it just, the science wasn’t what it is now. So she lived with basically radiation poisoning as sort of a brain decay of sorts so she was very ill my whole life. And unfortunately, whatever happened to her may have affected the part of her brain that controlled emotions, but she’d never had the ability to reciprocate love at all, which was incredibly tough.”
The guitarist added, “It was really confusing. I constantly would ask my father, ‘Why is she this way?’ and he would try to explain to me that ‘She can’t help it, you just have to try to understand’ but like, as you said, as a child, you don’t understand why your mother won’t just love you. So I wasn’t given the tools to seek out a positive affirmation. I also didn’t know how to positively affirm myself.”
