Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo’s Mainstream Explosion, 1999-2008
a McNally Jackson bestseller
staff recommendation, Harvard Bookstore
Released June 6, 2023 via Dey Street Books. Order it here.
Press:
Vulture: First serial, “I Gotta Go Explain to People What Emo Is”
Billboard: Emo’s mainstream era in 15 songs: ‘Where Are Your Boys Tonight’ author Chris Payne makes his picks
Interviews:
Video Interviews:
How Emo Exploded: Chris Payne w/ Gabe Saporta and Johnny Minardi
New York Public Library interview with author Leslie Simon
About the Book:
Since first release June 6, 2023 on Dey Street Books, Where Are Your Boys Tonight? has sold over 26,000 copies to date. After its run in hardcover, it was released on paperback June 11, 2024.
If Meet Me in the Bathroom traced New York City's early 2000’s rock scene, Where Are Your Boys Tonight? gives the inside story of the turn-of-the-millennium emo subculture that became bigger than anyone thought possible. There was Pete Wentz, the Fall Out Boy leader who launched a litany of scene-stealing bands and preposterous side-hustles, and Gerard Way, the wizard behind My Chemical Romance and The Black Parade. Panic! At the Disco and Paramore emerged soon after—a pair of intrepid outsiders who got massive playing by their own rules. As they ascended, MySpace took over the internet and the age of influencers dawned, with emo its choice aesthetic.
Music journalist Chris Payne experienced emo's mainstream takeover from sweaty crowds and mosh pits growing up in New Jersey. In Where Are Your Boys Tonight? he offers an authoritative, impassioned, and occasionally absurd account told through interviews with more than 150 people, from the scene's biggest bands, producers, and managers to the teenage fans who helped redefine American music culture.