Credit: Pamela LittkyThanks to their hit "Centuries," Fall Out Boy has become the go-to band for sporting events -- a far cry from their days as the nerdy, "emo" band. "Centuries" has been used as the soundtrack for ESPN's coverage of the college football playoffs, and after performing at last week's NHL All-Star Game, the band will be headlining the VH1 + Papa John's Super Bowl Blitz: A Concert for the Troops, taking place on Friday.
Having "Centuries" playing on ESPN helped facilitate that shift, but as bassist Pete Wentz tells ABC News Radio, it's not so much that Fall Out Boy has changed, but rather the culture has.
"There was like a big, bitter divide I feel like when we were in high school, and maybe like 10 or 15 years ago, that there was the jocks and there was the nerds," Wentz says. "But now you meet nerdy jocks all the time, and vice versa."
FOB will be bringing "Centuries" with them when they perform at the Super Bowl Blitz, but one thing that will be missing from the band's Super Bowl weekend will be drummer Andy Hurley's beloved Green Bay Packers, who suffered a devastating loss to the Super Bowl-bound Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game.
"It was tough," Hurley says of the defeat. "I figured the only thing I can do is be positive about it and learn the lesson that was there to learn."
Green Bay was leading Seattle 19-7 with less than 11 minutes left in the game before losing to the Seahawks 28-22 in overtime.
"You got to keep playing until the end, one thing they didn't do," Hurley says of the Packers. "Next season I hope that it lights a fire under their a** to finish each game."
That "play to the end" philosophy applies to Fall Out Boy's career, too -- after taking an extended hiatus, they reunited to give new life to the band and continue what they had started. The result has been two straight number one albums: 2013's Save Rock and Roll and their most recent record, American Beauty/American Psycho. Additionally, "Centuries" gave the band their first top-10 appearance on Billboard's Hot 100 since 2007.
The Super Bowl Blitz: A Concert for the Troops will air tonight at 9 p.m. ET on VH1.
Follow @ABCNewsRadio
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.