Pete Wentz

Like Sid Vicious and Flea, Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz is the rare bass player who draws as much attention as his band's lead singer. Wentz has also achieved notoriety through his business acumen, signing the megaseller Panic! at the Disco to his label, Decaydance Records, and through his exhibitionist tendencies: Last year, cell-phone photos of Wentz's johnson circulated all over the Internet. On Fall Out Boy's new album, Infinity on High -- the title was cribbed from a letter Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother -- Wentz and Co. jam with Jay-Z on "Thriller," get slick with producer Babyface on two tracks and re-team with producer Neal Avron, who worked on Fall Out Boy's triple-platinum 2005 breakthrough, From Under the Cork Tree. Even cooler: Kanye West has remixed the album's debut single, "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race." "It's going to be an insane year," says Wentz, 27, checking in from an FOB date in London. "We feel like we've proved ourselves, and everything else is icing on the cake."

Your record leaked. That's a bummer.

When I started to get text messages about that, I felt the color come out of my face. I freaked out. I wanted someone in jail, and then we found out it was traced to a plant in Asia, so I didn't have anybody to yell at. I think our band is going to sell CDs, but it's frustrating, because we want to present it in a certain way.

What do you collect?

I love Transformers. I used to collect hardcore records, but I don't take very good care of them, so actual collectors would make fun of me. I'm kind of a hoodie collector. I have two years' worth of hoodies, wearing a different one every day.

Why do you love hoodies?

A lot of people in the hardcore scene used to wear them. It's also like a comfort blanket. Long after I started wearing them, my manager told me that Bob Dylan would wear hoodies on tour. And when the hoodie was up, you couldn't talk to him. I was like, "That's fucking amazing!"

What lyric from Infinity on High are you most proud of?

At this moment, it's in "You're Crashing, But You're No Wave." I used to work with this [volunteer legal] organization in Chicago called Uhuru, and we worked on the case for Fred Hampton Jr. [Many believe that Hampton, the son of a Black Panther, was wrongfully convicted of arson in 1993.] The song is a courtroom narrative, and it's so different from anything else we've done. I like the line "The headline reads, 'The man hangs, but the jury doesn't.' "

As you travel the world, is there a city where you feel like you belong?

In this weird way, it would be either Osaka or Tokyo. It's so different. I'll wake up at 5 a.m. and walk around, and everything seems so foreign and different, but it also feels so safe. Everything's like a cartoon there.

What's your definition of the ideal party?

I've found that, for the most part, parties are like New Year's Eves: They suck. But I like parties at my house [in Los Angeles]. I feel more comfortable. We do themed parties sometimes. We've done "Golf Pros & Tennis Ho's" and other dumb ones that I probably wouldn't have missed out on if I'd been in college. It's fun.