Fans Speculate Fall Out Boy is Teasing New Album Through Newspaper Ads

Blacked-out ads, ominously heralding “FOB 8” and “If you build it, they will come,” have been spotted in the Chicago Tribune. Fans are speculating the message could be linked to a yet-to-be-announced album from Fall Out Boy.

See the ad, below.

A new record would be the band’s eighth studio album – hence the “FOB 8” – and their first LP since 2018’s Mania.

Earlier this year while in conversation with Rolling Stone, the group’s guitarist, Joe Trohman, hinted that new music was in the works but has since been put on hold. “We were working on some stuff that was guitar-based,” he explained. “I don’t know what’s happening with it. I think it unfortunately went to the back burner. It would be nice to make a record where the guitar is a little more upfront. We did start that way, as a guitar-based rock band, and it’d be cool to go back to those roots.”

In the interview, Trohman said he was frustrated during the creation of their last album and he expressed a desire to go back to the basics. “That’s what leads me, hopefully, to go back to making a record… with guitars, bass, drums, vocal,” he said. “I love synthesizers, synthesizers that we play. We can play music; let’s play the music. Let’s not go for samples. Let’s not try to reach for singles. At this point, we’ve had so many hit singles. Do we really even need to reach for singles anymore? I think we should just make a cool record.”

Fall Out Boy is not the first band this year to be cryptic about their upcoming releases. From dropping hints on social media to taking up advertising space around the world, breadcrumbs for diehard fans to decipher have been sprinkled by several acts, including fellow punk-rockers Paramore and Blink-182. The latter band took it to an extreme, proselytizing their return as the original Blink trio with hints from Peru to Manhattan across billboards and on random posters plastered across cities across the globe.

Maybe that’s what Fall Out Boy is attempting. Maybe not. Only time will tell when the band’s eighth studio will drop.

Photo by Timothy Norris / Getty Images for Live Nation