A rocker’s unexpected exposure

PICTURE this: Pete Wentz, the bassist and lyricist for emerging rock heroes Fall Out Boy, suffers the ostensible embarrassment of having his nude photos circulated on the Internet. A furor ensues, Wentz becomes a laughingstock and the quartet implodes, ruining the momentum from its platinum-selling album “From Under the Cork Tree.”

It hasn’t happened that way.

Wentz might be the latest to have crashed at the intersection of celebrity, digital photography and the blogosphere, but the Chicago-based emo band -- whose music has been an MTV staple since “Cork Tree” was released last May -- is playing on.

Earlier this month, self-taken cameraphone images of Wentz wearing a five o’clock shadow, a tattoo of his record label’s logo and little else were widely circulated on the Internet. Jokes about the band reaching the logical endpoint of its genre’s self-exposure came easily. Sure, the tastefully placed Morrissey record in the background of one photo kept his indie cred, but it couldn’t stop him from becoming one of the Internet’s most unwillingly popular searches.

But as the group, which includes singer/guitarist Patrick Stump, guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley, heads west on its first headlining arena tour (which stops Tuesday at the L.A. Sports Arena), the fact that Wentz is more popular as a shutterbug than as a bassist seems to have bolstered his band’s status as the MySpace generation’s most visible rock stars.

“Once 3 or 4 million people have seen you naked, it’s kind of liberating and you don’t really care,” Wentz says. “But at the time it felt like the dream where you wake up at school with no pants on, but it really happened, and the school is 4 million people.”

Though Wentz now jokes about the debacle, the pictures capped what could be one of rock’s Worst Weeks Ever. After publicly feuding with a Chicago blogger who claimed Wentz made a pass at his girlfriend, the bassist took a vicious fall to the floor of New York’s Knitting Factory on March 3 when the crowd failed to catch him after he dived off the stage.

The photos? Wentz claims they were stolen when someone accessed his Sidekick PDA by guessing his password on the T-Mobile website. When he discovered that the photos leaked, Wentz was so upset that he had a car accident, considered quitting the band and booked some sessions with his psychiatrist. Still, he acknowledges that the photos weren’t meant exclusively for his use, and it is surprising that someone so Internet-savvy would leave such pictures, which were on his Sidekick for over a year, so vulnerable to hackers.

“I’m no more bizarre than most of the boys I hang out with,” Wentz says. “I’m kind of a dirty boy. You take pictures that you intend for yourself or for one other person. But apparently, someone knows more about my life than I would have expected.”

The timing of the brouhaha isn’t wholly inconvenient. The band recently released an expanded version of its Grammy-nominated Island debut with three unreleased demos and remixes of the album’s biggest singles, “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” and “Dance, Dance.” Stump’s reworking of “Sugar” is even better than the original and offers a hint at the band’s influences as they write the follow-up to “Cork Tree.” But don’t expect any racy snapshots from the heavily sideburned 21-year-old singer.

“I like to focus on singing and songwriting, and Pete knows better how to express what needs to be said verbally than I do,” Stump says. “I usually defer to him when I want something said. I kind of like it that way. It’s a very Rodgers and Hammerstein, Chad and Pharrell kind of thing.”

That unlikely group dynamic -- the band’s lead singer and songwriter barely appears in the new “Thriller”-inspired video for “A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More ‘Touch Me’ ” -- is part of what sets Fall Out Boy apart from the morass of sound-alike emo bands. Wentz, an extrovert with his own clothing line (Clandestine Industries), has a penchant for film-noir song titles. Stump’s pure pop instincts and clear tenor are far more expressive than his peers’ juvenile howling, and the band’s explosiveness onstage leads to shows riveting and unhinged, as on their much-maligned recent “Saturday Night Live” performance.

Though Stump is barely old enough to drink, the pair’s chemistry and undeniable songcraft made converts out of music bloggers and hip-hop impresarios like Jay-Z, who as president and chief executive of Def Jam Recordings is one of Fall Out Boy’s label bosses.

“I remember when I first went to the shows at Irving Plaza [in New York City] and they were relatively unknown to me,” Jay-Z says. “I noticed how the crowd moved, and how people knew every word. I was like, ‘These guys are a movement.’ It’s in the songwriting, the huge melodies, the hip-hop way of thinking that it’s more than music, that it’s a lifestyle.”

That the group pals around with Jay-Z while still championing younger punkish acts like Panic! at the Disco occasionally creates some worlds-colliding moments. The band was in an awkward position recently when Victory Records, home of current FOB tour mates Hawthorne Heights, sent an e-mail encouraging fans to bury copies of R&B; singer Ne-Yo’s debut album on store shelves. Ne-Yo is Fall Out Boy’s labelmate (and the album still outpaced Hawthorne Heights on the charts that week).

But Fall Out Boy’s gossipy trouble doesn’t seem to affect the quartet’s songwriting or “Total Request Live” appeal. They’re nearly finished writing “Cork Tree’s” follow-up, their fourth album. And they’re learning to make the best of whatever attention they get.

“I’ll be honest, those are all right pictures,” Wentz says. “But had I known that 4 million people would have seen me naked, I would have probably tried to take more flattering pictures. But at least now me and Morrissey have taken our first press photo together.”

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Fall Out Boy

Where: L.A. Sports Arena, 3939 S. Figueroa St., L.A.

When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday

Price: $27.50

Info: (213) 480-3232 (Ticketmaster)