Fall Out Boy's Cryptic Teaser Plans Keep Getting Weirder

Fall Out Boy‘s cryptic teaser campaign for “FOB 8” — no doubt the pop-punk band’s imminent eighth studio album — continues to get stranger. This week, Bring Me the Horizon singer Oli Sykes received a Fall Out Boy seashell in the mail marked with “Love From the Other Side.”

Could that be the name of Fall Out Boy’s forthcoming effort?

See the photo toward the bottom of this post.

“wtf what is this & why is it at my house,” Sykes captioned a photo of the shell he shared on his Instagram Story Tuesday (Jan. 10). Handwritten on the shell is the inscription “1 of 13,” indicating exclusivity. The shell apparently arrived in a plain box marked Fragile and included a note inside from Fall Out Boy that says “Love From the Other Side.” (via NME)

Reportedly, other fans also got Fall Out Boy seashells in the mail. The note that Sykes received alongside his, which also includes each FOB member’s initials, indicates a date of Jan. 19, 2022. That suggests something new from Fall Out Boy could arrive on that day.

Last month, Fall Out Boy launched the teaser website sendingmylovefromtheotherside.com and shared a clay animation video called “A Claymation Fall Out Boy Celebration.” At the end of the clip, part of what is assumed to be a new Fall Out Boy song can be heard.

On the site itself, Fall Out Boy fans can “RSVP” by signing up for the band’s mailing list. Around the same time, some Fall Out Boy fans also received cryptic postcards promoting the site sendingmylovefrompinkseashellbeach.com, which likely ties in to the seashell gift.

But it was back in November 2022 that Fall Out Boy fans got the first indication of renewed band activity when a newspaper ad for “FOB 8” appeared in the Nov. 28 print and digital Chicago Tribune.

The Tribune is one of Fall Out Boy’s hometown rags. And it’s been around five years since Fall Out Boy released M A N I A, their seventh album. Since then, the band has issued an EP, a greatest hits collection and more. Fall Out Boy were formed in Wilmette, Illinois, a village suburb of Chicago, in 2001.

The full-page Fall Out Boy ad sports a stylized wordmark for “FOB 8,” prominent above the fold. The “O” in “FOB” is an artsy smiley face logo, with one side dark and one side light like a yin and yang symbol. Toward the bottom, it says in a smaller font, If you build it, they will come.

“If you build it, they will come,” is a misquoted variation of an iconic movie line from 1989’s Field of Dreams. In the film, the character Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) hears a disembodied voice in a cornfield say, “If you build it, he will come.” Fall Out Boy often reference movies in their songs.