“Somehow I spent four years of my life in this town (shout-out to the College of New Jersey) without knowing My Chemical Romance played its first show there. Probably because the show was at a pretty unassuming place—the local Elks Lodge. Elks Lodges are little community gathering spots; in the Northeast especially, they were the sites of many legendary punk and hardcore shows. For a DIY band that just formed, these were some of the only shows you could get.”

“The Wayne Firehouse was an unassuming DIY spot that hosted some now-legendary punk shows. In the ’90s and very early 2000s, venues in NYC weren’t taking emo bands seriously, so they’d play random suburban places where they could draw hundreds of kids. This one was just a big rec room at a literal firehouse. In 2000, Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional played here. When I asked about the show, Dashboard’s Chris Carrabba just remembered trying to get a good spot to watch Jimmy Eat World.”

“Everyone knows Warped Tour, but in the early 2000s, an annual Asbury Park, NJ, festival called Skate and Surf was another emo mecca. Shows happened all over town, but the main stage was always inside a big, old-timey theater called Convention Hall, right on the boardwalk overlooking the ocean. Jersey bands like My Chemical Romance, Thursday, and Midtown all played over the years, but Skate and Surf was extra important because bands from around the country met for the first time.”

“My Chemical Romance emerged from the DIY venues of New Jersey; Fall Out Boy came from similar basements and rec halls across Chicago. Around the release of their 2003 debut, Take This to Your Grave, Fall Out Boy tore through several legendary shows on the rickety stage of the Knights of Columbus Hall in Arlington Heights, a suburb near Chicago.”

“Emo was born in Washington, DC, during the mid-1980s. The epicenter of emotional hardcore/emo-core (soon shortened to ‘emo’) was the DIY punk label Dischord Records, home to seminal first-wave emo bands like Rites of Spring, Dag Nasty, and Embrace, which was fronted by label co-founder Ian MacKaye. The front porch of the Dischord headquarters in the DC suburbs was immortalized on the cover of Minor Threat’s 1985 Salad Days, and over the years, it’s become a pilgrimage for punks.”

“For a lot of emo fans, emo IS the American Football house, immortalized on the cover of American Football’s 1999 self-titled debut album. It’s an unassuming white house with a pointed roof in the suburbs surrounding the University of Illinois. American Football’s twinkly riffs and yearning soundscapes went on to define Midwest emo—a subgenre that includes ’90s bands like Cap’n Jazz and Braid, and also later groups like Algernon Cadwallader.”

“Fall Out Boy arrived on the Chilean coast 2008 looking to set a Guinness World Record. Their touring schedule had already brought them to six continents, and Pete Wentz and company were looking to become the first band to play all seven. The plan was—weather permitting—to fly from Chile to Antarctica to play a show. With kids mobbing outside their hotel, Fall Out Boy anxiously waited for the signal. So how’d it all play out? You’ll just have to read my book.”

“Although none of the big bands in my book came from the UK, emo culture is massive there, especially My Chemical Romance. The first thing that comes to mind is a protest of a Daily Mail story. In 2008, the paper ran an opinion piece about how the band and emo in general was a death cult. MCR fans delivered a letter of opposition to its headquarters. ‘Girls were angry because they were worried they would be stopped from doing what they loved doing,’ UK writer Hannah Ewens told me for my book.”

“Vegas has been the site of some of emo’s most mainstream moments. It’s the city that birthed Panic! at the Disco. Pete Wentz met the band at the Aladdin (now the Vegas Planet Hollywood) and signed them to his Decaydance Records. Two years later, the Palms Casino Resort hosted the MTV Video Music Awards. Rihanna came by to perform with Fall Out Boy as her backing band, and Pete Wentz protégés Gym Class Heroes won Best New Artist. An all-night VMAs bender ensued and my book’s got some stories.”

“In my years as a staff writer at Billboard, maybe the wackiest thing I ever got to do was cover three Paramore cruises—myself and about 3000 fans traveling with Paramore from Miami to the Caribbean and back, with the band performing on the ship deck. The sets were always exhilarating; Paramore would play deep cuts since the crowd was nothing but diehards. I interviewed Paramore atop the cruise ship in 2018. It’s one of the most memorable interviews I’ve ever done.”