Pete Wentz Says He 'Didn't Really Like' Fame After Ashlee Simpson Divorce: 'My Life Had Blown Up'

Wentz and fellow Fall Out Boy member Patrick Stump opened up to Apple Music's Zane Lowe about the perils of fame

Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy are opening up about the difficulties that come along with fame.

In clips from a new interview with Apple Music's Zane Lowe shared exclusively with PEOPLE, the rockers spoke about the low moments that followed their rise to superstardom — with Wentz looking back on his divorce from ex-wife Ashlee Simpson Ross.

"My life had blown up completely. I got divorced, realized I didn't really like how famous I was. Didn't love who I was," recalled the bassist, 43, who married the "Pieces of Me" singer after two years of dating in 2008 and split three years later.

"I'd fly without the band, and I'd be like, 'How do you even get through the airport,' because I'd just follow a f---ing backpack through the air... a security guy's backpack through the airport," said Wentz about the extremity of his fame level. "It was stuff I just didn't even get, because you didn't need it. You know what I mean?"

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Thinking back on Fall Out Boy's mid-aughts breakthrough with hit songs like "Sugar, We're Goin' Down," "Dance, Dance" and "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race," Stump, 38, spoke about the band members' experiences with paparazzi.

"It's weird to look back on now. Paparazzi broke down [producer] Neal [Avron]'s gate to his house when we were working on Folie [à Deux]. It was like that degree of chaos… I think that, for me, I needed to take time to just become a real person," explained the vocalist. "I didn't like any of that."

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He continued, "I didn't like any of the things, the trappings that came with it, you know what I mean? I hated all of it from the word go, because the thing was, for me, all of it took away... This sounds so cliché. But it is very earnest for me, is the only reason I'm here is music. That's what I want to do. I don't care about any of the rest of it. Literally none of the rest of it."

They also spoke about how fame became a distraction and started to come in between their friendship. "When you're famous, when that bell lights off, that's it, and you're stuck with it," said Stump.

Lowe noted that a "wall" goes up around someone when they reach a certain level of fame, and it's hard "to get through to your buddy." He also said Wentz was "probably high" at the time, to which the bassist responded, "Yeah, bro. For sure."

Related:Joe Trohman Says He Will Temporarily Step Away from Fall Out Boy to Focus on His Mental Health

Stump empathized with Wentz and detailed how fame complicated their communication: "Because you're like distraction, distraction, what the f--- do I have to do to even just survive this s---?"

"It sucked. It super sucked, because it was one of those things where, like I said, I feel like part of my role is to tell his story. I'm a composer," he explained. "That's what I like to do. Where I work in movies, and I work on shows, and I work on Pete."

The singer-songwriter added, "Pete has a story that needs music. And if he's removed from himself, if he's not even able to access himself because he's behind all of this stuff… I don't have a story. So not only did I not have my buddy, which was heartbreaking in its own way, but then I also don't have a purpose as an artist."

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He described the experience as "rough" and complicated his artistic process. "Like I said, that's what gets me out of bed in the morning to do a thing," said Stump, before tying the conversation to Fall Out Boy's new album So Much (for) Stardust, out Friday. "And back to this record, it was like these were lyrics that got me out of bed. That was the whole thing."

Wentz and Stump's full interview with Lowe will air on Apple Music 1 at 10 a.m. PST/1 p.m. EST.

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