FOBAT recently sat with Joe Edmonds, who was once in Public Display of Infection, Patrick Stump‘s first-ever band. He was able to clarify many details about the obscure and mysterious band. Below is a transcript of our interview.
Joey: PDI is an interesting case for us. We started FOBAT by looking at the bands the members of Fall Out Boy were in before Fall Out Boy. Some of the music is saved, and we’re just looking for more of it. But PDI was always very interesting to us because it was his first band and there’s nothing from it online. We eventually got in contact with Patrick, and lo and behold, he has nothing from it either. He lost all his stuff from PDI.
Joe Edmonds: Well, guys, I found a cassette tape about six months ago…
Joey: Yeah?
Joe Edmonds: And interestingly enough, I like bought this Amazon cassette recorder and recorded it on to my computer so I can share it all with you guys. It’s five tracks.
Joey: Yes. I know that’s the one where Patrick has a rap.
Joe Edmonds: He does, he does.
Joey: I’m so excited to hear that because I can only imagine how insane it is.
Joe Edmonds: He was actually pretty good! It was kind of hilarious because he was a drummer. We gave him so much crap for that. We’re like, “You’re a drummer, you’re not allowed to sing. That’s against the rules.” And here we all are, living in the shadow of Patrick Stump. [LAUGHS]
Joey: To be fair, his other band that did that; Patterson. Everyone else in the band sang except for him. He wasn’t allowed to sing.
Joe Edmonds: The reason why he caught a lot of that is… He reminds me of another friend of mine, he would. He’d take it so well. You’d give him crap and he would take it so well. So as a result you’d end up giving him more crap, you know?
Joey: Oh, geez. So, because of the unique nature of PDI and the music being mostly lost, I want to just go through all of the things that we know exist and ask if you have them. We know now, obviously, that you have that demo tape… Does it have the artwork?
Joe Edmonds: Yeah, the cassette does.
Joey: We have a bad quality picture of that, and we know that Patrick drew that, which is just also really funny. When we were talking about it with him, I could tell he was a little bit embarrassed. [LAUGHS] So that tape… Do you remember the website MP3.com?
Joe Edmonds: Vaguely, yeah.
Joey: Patrick was a frequent user of MP3.com. He had his own page, and of course, he made one for PDI. The five-track cassette was there, but the audio files were never saved. On that page, he calls it “self-titled.” Like, like as if it’s a self-titled tape, but clearly it’s the Force of Change tape. Was there ever another self-titled tape?
Joe Edmonds: No, we only did one recording. It’s funny because I don’t even remember… Like, that might have been accurate at one point in time. We might have decided, “This is a self-titled album,” and then the album cover was an afterthought or something. I don’t remember. Back then, I literally had a cassette machine and was hitting the buttons to dub the tape over and over again. I remember doing that and getting boxes of them and using a photocopier to make the [insert] and folding it.
Joey: Do you remember how many you made?
Joe Edmonds: I have no recollection. I mean, it had to have been at least like 50 or 100, not a ton.
But the other thing is… and I think I might have it in there. He made these patches that he drew. I just remembered that. And he put one in each of the cassettes.
Amal: That’s so cool, because Fall Out Boy has been playing a lot of festivals recently, and Patrick has been taking patches and sewing them onto his denim jacket as a nod to the scene he came from. So he’s still in that game 20+ years later.
Joey: It’s honestly really sweet, because he’s talked a bit about going back to his roots in a sense; looking back at all these bands that were like part of his high school, that type of thing. He has patches for like the New Jacks and [bands] like that.
Joe Edmonds: Wow, really? He honestly was always the most humble guy, more than anything. We were all just kids who loved heavy metal, but he had a clear talent. When we were in a band together, it was blatantly obvious that he was the best musician in the group.
Joey: Wow, that really shows his talent, considering how young he was. Returning to the MP3.com page though… The discography lists a “PDI Live at the Afternight.” That was the time you guys played that venue, the Afternight. And they recorded it on a VHS tape. It says in the profile that “VHS tape is available upon request.” So, someone in the band had it at some point.
Joe Edmonds: Yes! I had a VHS tape of it. It [was] in my parents’ house somewhere. My parents still live in the house I grew up in, and I’ve looked for it before, but I failed to find it. If that thing ever turns up, I certainly would reach out to you guys. I’m not real hopeful for that one. But I remember it happening. It was kind of this cool little studio deal, and they had a camera crew and everything. I don’t know how we got that gig, but I was like, “This is cool.”
Joey: We got in contact with the guy who used to own [The Afternight]. We had never heard of a venue quite like that either. It was a really interesting business model. I think it was ahead of its time.
Joe Edmonds: I would agree.
Amal: There’s one other release to ask about. Do you remember the “Glenview’s Finest” LP? Brian Silver has confirmed with us that he has LP somewhere. PDI recorded two songs for this compilation in his basement.
Joe Edmonds: That’s… not immediately familiar.
Amal: Drew Furse was on vocals, according to what Brian said.
Joe Edmonds: Oh, Drew lived down the street from me. I feel like I remember doing stuff in his basement, too. He was in The Fratelli’s- and not the Fratellis that everybody knows. I actually don’t even know if there’s an affiliation to those two.
Amal: No, there’s not, if you’re talking about the Scottish band.
Joe Edmonds: Yeah, okay. All right. He had a band called the Fratelli’s, so he was probably part of that. We definitely had some band members change out.
Patrick started with us after we were a band. We did tryouts, and he was like, the third tryout. We had one kid who actually… You might actually know the name. It’s Chris Hag-something. He tried out. We wanted him, but we couldn’t really connect. And then we did one with Patrick, and Roger and I were like, “This guy is amazing, we’re done.” I remember the day. He’s playing one of our songs, and we’re like, “All right, just do what makes sense to you,” and he just crushed it.
Joey: Oh, wow, that’s awesome.
Amal: You mentioned a bit about Drew Furse. One of the demos that Patrick sent to Joe Trohman to audition for Fall Out Boy was recorded by Drew, so he’s particularly significant to us. Do you remember what it was like recording with Drew?
Joe Edmonds: Oh, man. Like I said, I couldn’t… We recorded our EP in a studio called Rosebud Recordings. Do you guys know that?
Joey: Yeah. Sean O’Keefe.
Joe Edmonds: Yes! Sean O’Keefe was freaking awesome!
Joey: He’s so amazing. We emailed him a while back. He invited us to his home studio, back in September, unprompted. So we went out to Chicago and met him at his studio.
Joe Edmonds: Wow. He just put us on a whole ‘nother level. We were just some silly garage band. We did one session with him, and he just crushed it. We sounded so good. I later brought another buddy who just played guitar to go see Sean, and he recorded an album for him, too. I remember referring Sean afterwards because he was so good. But he’s still recording now, huh? He’s still doing that?
Joey: Yep. He’s on the grind. He’s been doing all kinds of stuff recently.
Joe Edmonds: Oh, that’s awesome. Another guy that I remember recording with was Chuck Bein. He’s also a Glenview guy, and he played guitar, but he was never in any bands.
Joey: That name sounds familiar. I’m sure we’ve seen it somewhere.
Amal: To wrap up the media questions, we were also wondering if you had anything else we might not know about. Like pictures, video, flyers, that sort of thing.
Joe Edmonds: Not really that I can think of. There is one thing that… Patrick would probably kill me if he found out that I told you this, but, when I was a senior in high school- and this might actually be something you guys can chase down if you’re aggressive enough -for my senior project, I did a movie, and he was one of the actors in it. He was one of the stars. It is absolutely hilarious.
Joey: You did this at GBS?
Joe Edmonds: Yes.
Joey: There is some footage from GBS. They have an online TV archive. There’s one short film thing that he cameos in… Civil Disobedience. He makes a speech, and it’s sort of about racism, I think?
Joe Edmonds: No, that’s not it. It was called “Y2K.”
So, Y2K… In the late 90s, we were legitimately scared that computers would shut down or missiles would go off. That’s what this movie was about. It is the cheesiest movie in the entire world. That’s probably 20 minutes long, or something. And he’s all over it. But, I mean, he was a really good friend of mine. It wasn’t all band stuff that we did.
There are two things in my house that I have on my wall. When we were in my house practicing, I remember him playing, and getting to a point where he’s like, “I don’t need three Toms. I’m done with this one.” And he took [the tom] off and set it down, and it sat there for eternity. I found it in my attic, and that’s hanging in my garage right now.
Joey: That’s hilarious. Patrick abandoned an entire drum set when he quit his garage rock band, The Audreys. Looks like it’s a pattern. [LAUGHS] We need to find that GBS film, too.
Joe Edmonds: The other thing I have is my guitar, which I’m sure you could attest to this if you ever talk to him about it. He learned to play on my guitar, so I have the original guitar that he learned to play guitar on.
Joey: That’s so cool. I’d be flexing that to everybody I know.
Amal: Wait, so that means… Patrick graduated in 2002… Would you have graduated in the 90s, right? So you’re a couple years different in age.
Joe Edmonds: Yeah, I graduated in 2000.
Joey: Okay, so to pivot to the miscellaneous questions…. I think Rachel takes the first one.
Rachel: Who came up with the name Public Display of Infection?
Joe Edmonds: I think it was Roger. We were working through a bunch of other names, and I think it was Roger who came up with it. Yeah.
Rachel: And to clarify the timeline, Patrick was 14 when he joined. When did the band officially start, though?
Joe Edmonds: I was a sophomore when we started… so he was probably- No, he was two years [behind me], so it had to be [my] junior year because he wasn’t a freshman until I was a junior. So he probably started early in my junior year.
James and Nick were both a year older than us, which would have been class of 99. Okay, so they were seniors when Patrick was a freshman. Roger and I were in the same class. We were both juniors. So it probably started, like, early junior year and went through the whole junior year and over the summer. And then Nick and James both went off to college.
Joey: I see.
Joe Edmonds: Okay, so Fall Out Boy started in 2001, right?
Joey: Yes.
Joe Edmonds: I graduated in 2000, so that kind of makes sense.
Rachel: Well that’s confusing, because of some conflicting info. According to Grinding Process’ old website from when Patrick was in it, it said that PDI “got back together” in March of 2000.
Joe Edmonds: March 1st of 2000 would have been my senior year. I don’t think that’s true.
You said “broke up and got back together.” It was not a falling out by any means. We were all just young kids who wanted to be rock stars for life. That’s all we cared about. Roger, Patrick, and I were devastated that our two band members were going off to college.
It’s possible that there was, like, maybe some kind of practice or something that sparked a “reunion.” But the breakup was strictly because James and Nick went off to college.
Joey: Right. Makes sense. Pretty typical for a high school band. At the time that post was put up, Patrick was a part of Grinding Process. Maybe he just told [John], “Oh, we’re going to get back together,” and it never happened.
Joe Edmonds: Adeet. Wasn’t he was Grinding Process?
Joey: No, he was in Firstborn, which was Pete Wenz’s band.
Joe Edmonds: Oh, yes! Did you guys in any of your research come across the New Church? Does that sound familiar to you at all?
Joey: That sounds vaguely familiar. Is that where the GBS radio stuff happened?
Joe Edmonds: Oh, it actually that’s really weird that you say that. The radio station was in the New Church basement for a while.
Joey: Yes, yes. That’s why I know the New Church, because it’s on the GBS website’s history.
Joe Edmonds: So the New Church [area] is where I grew up. It’s like this little circle, and there’s a handful of us from that [area]. Mike Day lived there too. I remember we would actually do shows in their auditorium there, too. I think I definitely remember seeing Firstborn there, or Grinding Process. Or maybe I’m mixing the two up.
Amal: Were you straight-edge vegan also?
Joe Edmonds: I was straight-edge. That was long ago. [LAUGHS] I remember we’d do the X’s on our hands; the whole band did actually. None of us were vegan. Well, Patrick was somewhere in that realm. I think I was a vegetarian a long time ago, but didn’t get that far.
Joey: We’ve spoken with Adeet a few times. He’s still straight-edge, which is pretty cool.
Joe Edmonds: He was one of the ringleaders. He and Mike Day were the ringleaders of the straight-edge movement in that area. They got a lot of us on board.
Joey: Makes sense that he stayed straight-edge if he was a ringleader. [LAUGHS]
Rachel: So when we were looking at Roger’s Facebook, a bunch of people in the comments of one of his posts were talking about a Halloween show that you guys played in 1998. It was apparently very notable. Do you remember anything about that show?
Joe Edmonds: So, I’ll confess. I’m not, like, a devout Christian, but I’m a Christian now. And so it kind of haunts me that we did this, [LAUGHS] but it was all in fun and games. We went to somebody’s house and stole a nativity scene and painted them all.
When I’m saying this, it feels really dark, what we did, but I remember having that as part of our set. I don’t remember all the details, but I remember it being a great show.
Joey: Interesting. Okay. And was Patrick part of the band at that point?
Joe Edmonds: He was. I feel like he painted them, maybe. Like, we probably brought them, and he painted them. Yeah, that’s my guess.
Joey: Are you saying they were painting them to be, like, bloody or, Halloween…?
Joe Edmonds: Yeah, exactly. Like, hardcore and Halloween-y. There was no negative intent when we did it. We were just kids trying to be hardcore. [LAUGHS]
Joey: Well, of course, now we know why it was so legendary.
Joe Edmonds: It was.
Amal: Do you have any rough idea of how many shows you played as a band?
Joe Edmonds: I’m gonna have to take a wild guess here and say 10 or 15. Could have been more, could have been less.
Amal: Were there any interesting venues that you played?
Joe Edmonds: Actually, one of our favorites was the Battle of the Bands at our high school. Did you guys ever hear of that one?
Joey: Yeah, there’s a few scans of pages from GBS yearbooks.
Joe Edmonds: We had gone to it every year, and all of us individually had played in some way. But we recruited a ton of people. We ended up getting two-thirds of all of the votes, and it was so exciting. I mean, we just were on fire; we won this thing because half of the people were there to see us. It was super fun. That was pretty cool for being kids.
Amal: Did the school happen to record that by chance?
Joe Edmonds: You know, in the 90s… There could be almost no record of something like that. I would say with a high confidence that they did not. If it were something like a variety show, they would. They always had those recorded.
Amal: Right, right. So it was after school. It wasn’t during the school day.
Joe Edmonds: Correct.
Amal: And you guys won with all original songs?
Joe Edmonds: Yeah. I also remember Roger and Patrick and the other guys would all bust out some Deftones, or something. And I was like a cop about being “all original.” So I would like, “Stop it. This is practice. If we’re not writing something, it’s not practice.” I was always adamant that we don’t play other people’s music. I don’t know why.
Joey: Recalling that MP3.com page Patrick made… We showed it to [Patrick] because, interestingly, there’s a list of members, right? There’s “Stump, Roger, James, Nick,” but you’re not listed. Someone else is listed. A “Dekker.” Patrick had no idea who that was, even though he made the page. Do you know who it is?
Joe Edmonds: …I got nothing.
Joey: Okay. That is the biggest mystery! We’ve asked a bunch of other people; no one knows who Dekker is. We thought it might be like a nickname for you, but clearly not
Joe Edmonds: Yeah, I have no idea. I wish I could remember some of this stuff. I really do!
Des: So, what was the songwriting process for the band? With Patrick’s other band, Patterson, they all kind of said that they all had a hand in it.
Joe Edmonds: We didn’t have a ton of songs, but most of it was… I think Roger and I would write them mostly. Everything was in drop D, and we would just come up with… some chugga chugga, a little twanging, too. We’d go back and forth and come up with some kind of riff, and then drums and bass would come in. It wasn’t scientific; the music was pretty basic. It wasn’t anything crazy, you know?
Joey: Yeah.
Joe Edmonds: I feel like we started like that. Roger and I would work together, and then we would just bring in the other instruments after we’d come up with something. We probably had a handful of songs that we never recorded or we barely ever played. We had a few cover songs that we would play. You know, even though I was strict about that. I remember doing “Jump Around” by Cypress Hill. We had a rendition of that.
Joey: That’s pretty sick.
Joe Edmonds: And then we recorded “Halloween,” which is the Halloween movie theme song. It was a play on that.
Our vocals were not very legible, I’ll say. Like, you couldn’t really understand what we were saying. Even in his rap. It sounded good, but it wasn’t real clear what he was saying.
Amal: Do you know who he was inspired by or who he was trying to emulate?
Joe Edmonds: I don’t know if he was trying to emulate anyone, you know? Like, this is just purely his idea. I feel like that song was kind of weak. And he’s like, “I got a riff for it.” He just told us. He’s like, “I’ve been working on it.” He had a backyard recording, or something. And then he just did it. And we loved it. I remember we just loved it right away.
Amal: So, do you remember ever hearing Patrick sing while at practice?
Joe Edmonds: No. He only did it once. He had that one riff. He didn’t do anything else.
Amal: Did he just do it, like, suddenly?
Joe Edmonds: He worked on it quietly, like in his basement or something, and didn’t tell us about it for a month. And actually, you know what? I don’t think he ever tried it with us until we were in the studio. I think he just went, “Hold on, let me just record this, and we’ll see how it works.”
Joey: That’s funny. Also, very Patrick.
Joe Edmonds: Yeah, I think that’s how it happened.
Joey: Wow. Very bold of him.
Joe Edmonds: Yeah. [LAUGHS]
Joey: In the demo tape, Patrick obviously made it because he proclaims as such on it, “art by XStumpX.” There’s a thanks section, but it has mostly first names and nicknames. Knowing the full names, we could maybe reach out to these people for more information. Just tell me if you know who any of these people are.
Joe Edmonds: Diatribe… I vaguely remember them. They were in that scene, they were a rap group.
Joey: Oh, fascinating. I bet you guys played shows together. I assume Mikey D is probably Mike Day?
Joe Edmonds: Yes, it is. Also, Greg Tracy was our bassist before Nick. Briefly. “Ragged Independents”… I don’t remember them. I think that’s mainly everyone.
Des: What were your musical inspirations for the band? Did you have any local Chicago influences? Just in general? What kind of sound are you looking for for the band?
Joe Edmonds: I mean, we already said Deftones. They were one of my favorites as a kid growing up. And honestly, a lot of the band names I don’t even remember. When I graduated from high school, my music palette changed dramatically. I don’t listen to much heavy metal anymore. Earth Crisis- I remember that one.
Des: Okay, so you remember Earth Crisis, and then you said you were familiar with Firstborn a little bit. So you recall Racetraitor or Arma Angelus at all? Pete Wentz was in both of those bands.
Joe Edmonds: I don’t remember either those names off the top of my head.
Amal: Racetraitor is huge, and Arma Angelus was basically the continuation of Firstborn, so we thought you might.
Joe Edmonds: Maybe part of the reason why I remember the name Firstborn so well is because I knew that’s what Pete was in… but I feel like we played with them a lot. I could be wrong, but it feels like one of the bands that was played with a lot. I’m not sure.
Joey: Interesting. Were you in any other bands at all?
Joe Edmonds: Nope, [PDI] was it. I started studying cars and got an engineering degree [after high school]. I have in my office a guitar that hangs on my wall, which I bought when I was about 23. And ever since then, I’ve been meaning to pick it up. So, roughly 20 years I’ve been looking at that guitar, saying, “One day I’m gonna play it again.” [LAUGHS]
Joey: Hey, maybe just save it for retirement at that point. You know?
Joe Edmonds: Yeah, that’s right. [LAUGHS]
Rachel: Even though you fell out of that scene, are you in contact with anyone related to PDI still?
Joe Edmonds: I mean, some of my best friends that I grew up with were with me through the band, and it still comes up every once in a while. When you guys reached out to me, the first thing I did is send a screenshot to all my old buddies and said, “They finally found me!”
Amal: Oh my god, you don’t know how happy that makes us. [LAUGHS]
Joe Edmonds: Well, I mean, it made me happy, too! It’s so far in my past that it’s almost like it’s just this distant memory, but it really happened, you know? It was a big part of my life back then.
As for other contacts… I feel like Mike Day might have some good memories, but he’s moved so many times that I can’t imagine that he’s gonna have much. This cassette tape was actually in a wedding present for me in 2010 from Mike Day, because he was at my wedding. That’s how I have this. I would never have had it otherwise.
Joey: Wow. I guess we owe it to Mike, then.
Joe Edmonds: Yeah, exactly. [LAUGHS]
Amal: If I ever get married, the people I met through doing this project will be at my wedding. [LAUGHS]
Joe Edmonds: This is such a cool project. I mean, you’ve got to be such enthusiasts to do this. And you’re uncovering so much stuff. It’s just so cool. And what I think is really cool about what you’re doing right now is you’re making my ears perk up and be like, “I haven’t heard that name in the longest time!”
Des: It’s really cool to talk with you; I’ve just been a fan of Fall Out Boy until I met these guys, like, I didn’t listen to hardcore. I’m not an admin on their team or anything, I just help out. I didn’t really know about any of this when I started. I’ve gotten so invested in Patterson, Patrick’s old band. And now PDI. I think it’s so cool that we get to bridge this little gap of knowledge, I guess, by hearing it straight from the source.
Joe Edmonds: That’s so awesome. If you guys that come across anything, let me know. I’m probably going to keep an eye on your website, because I’m actually super entertained by all this stuff, and all these things that come out afterwards.
Joey: Of course. Thank you. Now that we have some info, we’ll start writing our little Wikipedia article on PDI. You can send it to everyone and say, “Look, I wasn’t lying!”
Joe Edmonds: [LAUGHS] That’s great. Well, thank you guys so much.
Joey: Thank you! It was a pleasure.