Ashlee Simpson, 26, and Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, 31, are getting divorced. They got married in May 2008.

According to ET online, the couple said in a statement, “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to file for divorce. We remain friends and deeply committed and loving parents to our [two-year-old] son Bronx, whose happiness and well-being remains our number one priority. We ask that everyone honor our privacy as we navigate this next phase of our lives.”

TMZ reports, however, the reason why Simpson has filed for divorce was that she could not stand Wentz’s erratic behavior.

Millions of fans rejoiced earlier this year when the legendary pop-punk trio Blink 182 announced that they would be re-uniting after two years of hiatus. Mark Hoppus, Tom Delonge and Travis Barker have been in the studio for the past couple of weeks writing and recording new Blink songs but have just announced an epic amphitheatre summer tour. The support for the arena extravaganza will work like a game of musical artists rotating between Fall Out Boy, Weezer, Panic At The Disco, The All-American Rejects, Taking Back Sunday, Asher Roth and Chester French on different select dates of the tour. All the dates for the tour are listed below (including the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA on August 6) but which support will be at which venues has not be announced yet. All lawn seats at any of the amphitheatres will be $20 with no extra fees. Tickets go on sale May 30 at www.livenation.com.

July 24: Las Vegas (the Joint)

July 28: Vancouver (GM Place)

July 30: Calgary, AB (Saddledome)

July 31: Edmonton, AB (Rexall Place)

Aug. 1: Saskatoon, SK (Credit Union Center)

Aug. 2: Winnipeg, MB (MTS Centre)

Aug. 4: Milwaukee (Marcus Amphitheater)

Aug. 6: Boston (Comcast Center)

Aug. 7 Quebec City, QC (Colisee Pepsi)

Aug. 8: Montreal (Bell Centre)

Aug. 9: Wantagh, N.Y. (Nikon Theater at Jones Beach)

Aug. 12: Hershey, Pa. (the Star Pavilion)

Aug. 13: Cincinnati (Riverbend Music Center)

Aug. 14: Pittsburgh (Post Gazette Pavilion)

Aug. 15: Chicago (First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre)

Aug. 16: Omaha, Neb. (Westfair Amphitheater)

Aug. 18: Minneapolis (Xcel Energy Center)

Aug. 20: Indianapolis (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)

Aug. 21: Buffalo, N.Y. (Darien Lakes Performing Arts Center)

Aug. 22: Detroit (DTE Energy Music Theatre)

Aug. 23: Toronto (Molson Amphitheater)

Aug. 25: Holmdel, N.J. (PNC Bank Arts Center)

Aug. 27: Saratoga, N.Y. (Saratoga Performing Arts Center)

Aug. 28: Camden, Pa. (Susquehanna Bank Center)

Aug. 29: Hartford, Conn. (New England Dodge Music Center)

Aug. 30: Washington, D.C. (TBD)

Aug. 31: Wantagh, N.Y. (Nikon Theater at Jones Beach)

Sept. 2: Cleveland (Blossom Music Center)

Sept. 3: St. Louis (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)

Sept. 4: Kansas City, Kan. (Capitol Federal Park at Sandstone)

Sept. 6: Denver (Fiddlers Green Amphitheater)

Sept. 7: Salt Lake City (David O. McKay Events Center)

Sept. 10: Seattle (White River Amphitheater)

Sept. 12: Sacramento, Calif. (Sleep Train Amphitheater)

Sept. 13: Mountain View, Calif. (Shoreline Amphitheater)

Sept. 14: Santa Barbara, Calif. (Santa Barbara Bowl)

Sept. 16: San Diego (Cricket Wireless Amphitheater)

Sept. 17: Irvine, Calif. (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)

Sept. 19: Phoenix (Tempe Beach Park)

Sept. 21: Albuquerque, N.M. (Journal Pavilion)

Sept. 23: Dallas (Superpages.com Center)

Sept. 24: Houston (Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion)

Sept. 26: West Palm Beach, Fla. (Cruzan Amphitheater)

Sept. 27: Tampa, Fla. (Ford Amphitheater)

Sept. 29: Atlanta (Lakewood Amphitheater)

Oct. 1: Charlotte, N.C. (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)

Oct. 2: Virginia Beach, Va. (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)

Oct. 3: Atlantic City, N.J. (Borgata Events Center)

LOWELL – Samuel L. Jackson might have had enough of those motherfucking snakes on that motherfucking plane, but three years later, Cobra Starship (which outfitted the title song for the 2006 summer reptilian thriller) hasn’t given up the party.

Although many people initially thought the group was a joke promotional tool for the film, the boys and gal of Cobra Starship are about to release their third full length album this summer and are currently playing main support for Fall Out Boy on the Believers Never Die Part Deux tour, also featuring All Time Low, Metro Station and Hey Monday.

Blast caught up with Cobra bassist Alex Suarez, drummer Nate Novarro, and Hidden in Plain View’s former drummer and Cobra comrade Spencer Peterson in their dressing room before the show on the 19th stop of the Believers tour at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell.

“We’ve just been really happy since Spencer came out here to join us,” said Novarro. “It’s like the Dow national average went up 7 points. Before that it was at an all time low.”

Everyone shares a laugh before Suarez elaborates, “there are just so many moments where we say, ‘That was awesome. Remember last night? That was awesome.’ There are like 20 of those a day.”

To no surprise, the Cobra attitude is a lighthearted one which could lead some to think that “believers never die” may work as some sort of mantra for the band considering the obstacles they have encountered over the last few months.

They ended a full summer run on last year’s Warped Tour to be confronted with a could-be-devastating diagnosis of lead singer Gabe Saporta’s voice. Because of lumps that formed on his vocal chords, Saporta was sentenced to vocal rest and surgery, but that would impede the upcoming headlining US tour for the New York-based quintet. While the Starship delayed recording of the new record and postponed UK dates, they went ahead with the Sassy Back Tour.

Saporta bumped up his surgery to December and spent the holidays recovering before going to work on the new album at the end of January, though there was some worry if he would be up for the Fall Out Boy tour.

“We just kind of hung out and waited for him to be ready to go,” said Suarez. “There wasn’t really anything else we could do.”

Now the band takes a humorous take on the situation by making skits about Saporta’s surgery for their new weekly webisodes on cobracam.tv.

“Our friend Jack the Camera Guy was available and we invited him out on tour. He just comes out with all these great ideas because he’s such a genius,” said Suarez.

A new webisode will premiere every Monday until the new album is released. The previous escapades have shown backstage footage of the tour and alleged album title meetings.

“Someone starts off, says ‘We should do this,’ and then everyone just throws in there and it all comes together,” Novarro said, explaining how the group drafts ideas for the skits.

The group’s latest episode depicts the after-effects of writing part of the new album in the mountains of Pennsylvania on Novarro’s psyche. The trip was an opportunity for the band to get away from it all and write some new material, but became another filming expedition when the band set up a web cam to film their songwriting process.

“There was lots of snow and red wine. White powder and red wine. Cobra cam. Sweet jams were written up there. We wrote a rap song,” said Suarez of the experience.

The mountain session and later recording in New York City did lead to the first song off the record being released to the Cobra Myspace, “Pete Wentz Is The Only Reason We’re Famous.” The title hints that Cobra is up to their usual celebrity trash-talking style, but not afraid to make themselves the target as well, considering Wentz is the one who signed them to his Decaydance label and they are now opening for him during the BND tour.

“I think we make fun of ourselves more, but ourselves as celebrities,” said Suarez. “So I guess you could say we’re still making fun of celebrities.”

As well as making reference to 80′s Kung Fu supervillain Bruce Leroy, the glowing Last Dragon in the new track, Saporta also gets a little dirty in the first verse when he proclaims, “you can rise to the top/but you can’t ride on my cock.”

The cavalier line took many fans by surprise on the first listen but Suarez and Novarro didn’t seem phased when asked if more of the same bluntness would be found on the record.

“Expect a lot of dick and a lot of cock,” said Suarez.

“Metaphorically, of course,” added Novarro.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of hinting about cock,” concluded Suarez before going into a traumatic story from his childhood in which he was witness to two elephants mating but confused the male elephant parts as a second trunk.

“We went to this, like, drive-in zoo , (Lion Park Safari). I’m just looking out the window, ‘Hey ma, why does that elephant have two trunks?’ and then they started doing it. Have you ever seen two elephants doing it? Not pretty,” Suarez regaled.

LOWELL — The line of teenage girls and chaperoning parents around Tsongas Arena in Lowell, Mass. Tuesday was a quarter of a mile long. Anyone walking to the end of it is a witness to every color in the neon rainbow “" on t-shirts, shoelaces, and even sections of hair. What could possibly have all of these scenesters lined up in a balmy 94 degree day? Only the wet dream of emo rock tours this summer “" The Believers Never Die Tour Part Deux.

As one dad stated while waiting in line with his daughter, “This is what it was like 20 years ago for us lining up for Ozzy and Motley Crue. They are all dressed up and so into it.”

The tour includes five acts starting with Hey Monday, Metro Station, All Time Low, Cobra Starship and is capitalized with pop-rock giants Fall Out Boy. The concert was completely sold out which means approximately 5,000 jubilant fans crammed into the floor pit of Tsongas while 1,500 their parents and the more claustrophobic fans fill out the arena seats circling the stage. Their screams grew louder and closer to pandemonium with each act that took the stage.

Hey Monday, the newest act to Pete Wentz’s Fueled By Ramen imprint label Decaydance, kept things light and exciting during the opening set but things began to get unkosher when Metro Station took the stage. Trace Cyrus (Yes, of the Miley relation “" her half brother) spent more time throwing his guitar than actually playing it (observation: there was never a time when he strummed and sang at the same time). The stands erupted when Cyrus took off his shirt right before the crowd favorite, “Shake It.” The intensity of the reaction caused one girl to be pulled out of the pit (which looked more like a squared off block of human sardines than actual people) unconscious and rushed backstage for medical attention.

Still, the most disturbing moment of the night came when All Time Low front man Alex Gaskarth requested that all willing girls to throw their bras on stage during the Virginia rockers’ set. Before he could finish the first verse there were dozens of undergarments being thrown on stage, which is even more unsettling when you realize that the mean age of everyone close to the stage is 14 and the sex Gaskarth offered for their undergarments is illegal in all 50 states. The ordeal has me extremely worried about the welfare and mentality of the upcoming concert-going generation.

After the All Time Low set there seemed to be a mass exodus of underage (and now unsupported) teenage girls, only to be replaced by a new crowd of slightly older — but still tripped out in neon — fans who seemed to flank from the wings to take their spots in the pit for the headlining acts.

Cobra Starship lead singer Gabe Saporta refrained from asking for lingerie (though one or two were still thrown at bassist Alex Suarez) and stuck to making jokes about swine flu and teaching the crowd the “international Cobra symbol” -”" throwing fangs up before ending with their flagship song “Snakes On a Plane” and fan favorite “Guilty Pleasure.”

It has to be said that Fall Out Boy lived up to their headlining position though. Their performance was decked out with background video, snare drummers in full SWAT attire and even a wardrobe change. The Chicago-based quartet rocked out for over an hour, playing songs from all four of their albums from the first, “Take This To Your Grave” to the December-released “Folie A Deux”.

Bassist Pete Wentz handled most of the between song banter, commenting on everything from political current events to a poster in the front row pleading “DON’T SELL OUT.” Wentz countered that the band never sold out, merely “bought in” “"- whatever that means.

Overall, it felt like two separate concerts where each band performed for their own respective audiences. There was always something to watch, which is all you could ask for from a show, but in some cases it felt like -”" for better or worse “"- the emphasis was more on the spectacle than the songs being presented. At the end of the night, despite a few disturbing moments, Believers Never Die turned out to be a thoroughly entertaining show and I’ll place a bet that it ends up being one of the most successful of the entire summer.

Stick with Blast as we post our interview with Cobra Starship bassist, Alex Suarez next week!

You dread when you hear it on the radio because you know it is going to be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Yet when the first riffs mixed with syncopated drum beats hit your speakers and you start asking yourself, “Am I more than you bargained for yet?” rather than changing the dial, you know you’re stuck already and every few minutes until you sleep that night will be a chorus of Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down.”

Despite how you might feel about Fall Out Boy, there is no denying they have a tendency to be infectious. Now their fourth album, “Folie A Deux,” is out in stores and the first just-as-catchy single “I Don’t Care” has already hit the airwaves. Whether this latest record will go down in history as the biggest sell out of the generation or punk-emo martyrs for the masses has yet to be determined, but try and find someone who doesn’t know the words to one of their songs. Just try.

When the Chicago foursome first got together in 2001, they had no idea they’d turn out to be a tour de force of the emerging music scene. The group started when guitarist Joe Trohman and bassist Pete Wentz decided to leave their previous hardcore bands to pursue more melodic musical initiatives.

Trohman passed Wentz along to young, extreme side-burned future vocalist Patrick Stump, but the band didn’t finalize their line up with drummer Andy Hurley until they went into the studio to record their debut full length “Take This To Your Grave”.

The album was the bleeding heart soundtrack for “emo” kids everywhere, starting with a large cult-like following in small clubs in Chicago and gradually spreading outwards. The sound was rough and unpolished, but catchy. It was really the heartbreaking honesty of songwriter and band spokesperson Wentz’s lyrics that captured the attention of every teenager out there that was dissatisfied with the tragic life of suburbia and needed a more potent therapy than the Good Charlotte and Simple Plan themes blasting from the airwaves at the time.

Songs like “Grand Theft Autumn (Where Is Your Boy)” and “Dead On Arrival” with words like, “I’m willing to take my chances on the hope I forget you hate him more than you notice I wrote this for you” and “I know I’m not your favorite record but the songs you grow to like never stick at first so I’m writing you a chorus” began finding themselves on mix CDs, scribbled on notebooks, and being screamed out by kids packed like sardines into small clubs across the country.

It was only a matter of time before the Wilmette, Illinois quartet was a household (or rather chat room) name for every young person daring to call him- or herself “scene”.

Fall Out Boy spent two years touring behind “Take This To Your Grave” before returning to the studio to make its follow-up: “From Under The Cork Tree” (the title borrowed from “The Story of Ferdinand” by Munro Leaf, one of Wentz’s favorite childhood books).

Having grown up a bit from playing the local venues of downtown Chicago, “From Under the Cork Tree” came out with a much more mature sound. The guitars are tighter and overall musicianship was stepped up a notch as Stump seemed to be growing comfortably into his roll as arranger for the band.

The sophomore album was a display of growth for the boys, a snapshot of the past two years of their lives featuring appearances from hometown buddy and The Academy Is… lead singer William Beckett and a fresh out of high school Panic(!) at the Disco front man Brendon Urie. “From Under the Cork Tree” also debuted FOB’s first attempt at a slow song (“I’ve Got A Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (summer song)”) and Wentz once again delivered with lyrics that went straight to the soul of every angsty kid who had ever felt not good enough, “I took a shot and didn’t even come close at love and hope. And the poets are just the kids who didn’t make it, who never had it at all.”

After 10 years, MTV is pulling the plug on its popular music video countdown show, “Total Request Live.”

The show will end with a two-hour special on a Saturday afternoon in November, said executive producer Dave Sirulnick on Monday. Sirulnick said the show wasn’t ending forever, but said now was the right time to give the show a “break.”

“We want to close this era of ‘TRL’ in a big celebratory way, and 10 is a great number,” Sirulnick said. “And 10 is the number that ‘TRL’ counted down every single day for 10 years, and we hit this 10th (anniversary) and we thought, ‘You know what? This feels like the right time and let’s celebrate it and let’s reward it. And let’s let it have a little bit of a rest for a minute.’ Let it catch its breath! Been working hard — for 10 years!”

“TRL” started in 1998 and served as a springboard for acts like The Spice Girls, The Backstreet Boys and many more.

According to some reports, MTV will replace “TRL” with “FNMTV” a Los Angeles-taped show hosted by Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz. The show features a mix of music from Slipknot to the Jonas Brothers.

In a statement, Eminem said: “I’m going to miss ‘TRL.’ … Where else will I be able to start feuds, defend my honor vigorously and act like an angry teenager on national TV? Oh wait … The VMAs!”

After headlining a concert on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, Fall Out Boy announced they would release their enw album, Folie A Deux, on November 4, Election Day.

Fall Out Boy’s ‘Beat It’ nominated for Best Rock Video at 25th annual MTV VMAs

The first single will be the track “I Don’t Care.” Radio dates to be announced shortly.

“For Folie A Deux, Fall Out Boy spearheaded a politically charged group that unveiled cryptic ‘big brother’ type messages in order to support and ignite a democratic process,” Island Def Jam Music Group said in a statement Tuesday. “Impressively, the creative album roll-out garnered over 1 million impressions in just one week online across literally hundreds of websites such as absolutepunk.net, friendsorenemies.com, Live journal communities and many other popular music websites, including the band’s own site, www.falloutboyrock.com.”

“This roll-out was started to engage people and let them tell their own stories.  We came up with the beginning and the end, while the rest happened organically,” said bass player Pete Wentz.

Fall Out Boy’s cover of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” has been nominated for Best Rock Video at this year’s 25th annual MTV Video Music Awards.  The worldwide cablecast takes place live from Paramount Studios in Hollywood, September 7 at 9 p.m.

Guitarist Joe Trohman doesn’t believe in idols.

“People always ask who mine are,” the 23-year-old said in a recent interview. “But that phrase, ‘I’m only human’ — it’s there for a reason.”

In the past seven years, Trohman’s band — Fall Out Boy — has exploded from an underground sensation to an internationally recognized pop-punk powerhouse, hitting number one on the Billboard charts and performing at the MTV Video Music Awards last September.

For some fans, his success and talent makes Trohman a rock-and-roll idol himself. But he won’t have it, he says. And, speaking with BLAST, Trohman insisted that the name of his new line of custom electric guitars had no special meaning — called the Joe Trohman Washburn Idol.

Designed by Trohman and manufactured by Washburn Guitars last year, the Idol is aesthetically simple: available in black or white, with a classic binding — cream around the black model, and black on the white. The neck is wide and thin, the solid basswood body is thin and light and there are just four adjustment knobs.

“I have guitars that have a lot of weird modes, and tons of switches and stuff,” Trohman said. Those are fun, but as the guitar player for Fall Out Boy … I don’t have a bunch of effects. I just have a guitar, and it needs to be able to do its job.”

Maybe the flashiest physical feature of the guitar are its inlays on the fret board, shaped like Fall Out Boy’s keyhole logo.

“I’m very into design, and I like modern stuff,” Trohman says. “I like the simplistic value of it.”

Inspired by some of Trohman’s favorite vintage guitars — his black Les Paul Custom and white Les Paul Studio — his model hides a couple of innovative features beneath its basic surface. In particular, its Voice Contour Control (VCC) coil-splitting system allows for a dirty tone, combining single-coil pick-up sounds and humbucking, without the usual hum of a single-coil, according to the retailer’s website, empireoftherepublic.com.

“I think it’s really cool, and it works for me when I’m flicking between two amps,” Trohman says. The result, he says, is a dirty sound that roars out smooth.

When Trohman was approached by Washburn by last year, he had minor deals with some retailers, he says, but no actual endorsement. Part of the package, he says, was getting to design a guitar all his own.

“I pretty much couldn’t turn it down,” he says. “It’s pretty hard for any guitarist, no matter how good they are, to make a signature guitar. I jumped on it — it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Now, the Idol is a mainstay for the lead guitarist, and has knocked his 1969 Les Paul Custom out of the top spot for favorite guitar.

“It’s the first time I got to make one,” he says. “And it’s a very comfortable relationship I have with the guitar, because I was able to … put it together and make it to my standards.”

Trohman has been playing guitar for nearly 14 years, he says, and has a collection of about 30 guitars in his Chicago home. He’d love to add another of his own creations to the line-up.

“That all depends on the demand for the guitar, honestly,” he said.

The guitar has seen a spike in online orders recently. “The fact that people want to buy my guitar blind, without ever playing it, is really cool,” he said.

In about four months, Sam Ash locations nationwide will start carrying the Idol. For now, they’re available online exclusively, at empireoftherepublic.com — a name invented when Trohman mashed together a couple of terms from the Star Wars series.

The guitar sells for $420.

“It’s inexpensive,” he said, “but the craftmanship great. For a beginner who wants to start out with a decent guitar, or for an advanced player who doesn’t have a lot of money but wants a nice guitar — it covers everyone.”

Fall Out Boy has been on tour for about six or seven years straight, and last week the band flew to Moscow to perform at a private engagement.

Later this year they’ll start recording their next album record with some of the 50 songs they’ve got floating around, Trohman said.

“But right now, we’ll just do one-off shows here and there,” he says. “And we’ll work on individual things — like sitting around, enjoying being home.”