Jaden Smith and Fall Out Boy have a strong history together after Smith opened for them on tour and appeared in the video for their single "Champion." In particular, Smith hit it off with FOB bassist Pete Wentz, and the two recently had a hilarious and fascinating chat for Interview Magazine.
In the conversation, the duo talk about everything from their favorite movies (Drive for Wentz, Valerian for Smith, at least for right now) to what it's like having creative parents (Smith) and being one yourself (Wentz) to the limits of virtual reality.
"You need virtual reality to understand high level science, or high level math. It’s very helpful to explain third and fourth dimensional things that people are constantly addressing in quantum physics," Smith said. "But, as soon as you’re creating an avatar and you can live and you can start to feel sensations on VR, that has gone too far. It’s almost a drug, and it cannot be used recreationally."
The interview leads off with Wentz asking Smith about a recent tweet, "Travel Is So Expensive Cause They Don't Want You To See The World," proving that the musician is as much of a Jaden Twitter junky as we are. The two discussed travel, which dovetails into Wentz asking Smith about the first time he really understood his parents' professions. Smith admitted that the way other people would talk about and react to his parents skewed his perception of them.
I thought my dad was a scientist when I was young. Seriously. Because people would come up to me and they would be like, “Your dad is the smartest person that I’ve ever met.” And I was so young, so I’d be like, “Well he just put me on a time out, so I don’t agree.” I would listen to what people were saying about him and about my mom, like, “Your mom is a goddess, your mom is everything, I wouldn’t be here without her,” because they were constantly helping people and putting them in positions so that those people could support their families.
Later, Wentz asked Smith what he saw as a major public misconception about himself. Smith has a tendency for making philosophical statements that occasionally make him the butt of the joke, including a few times in his Reddit AMA last year.
"...I would say that the biggest misconception is, when you think about me, when you think about my name, I don’t want you to think about design, or clothes, or music. I want you to think about a person that’s just trying to help people. This Christmas I [gave] away 100 pounds of clothes," Smith explained.
After releasing his debut album, SYRE, in November 2017, Smith has stayed busy. He plans to release an acapella version of the record in 2018 and even turn it into a movie. Fall Out Boy, meanwhile, just released their fifth album, Mania, on January 19.
Read the full interview between Wentz and Smith here, check out our feature on 10 things you didn't know about Jaden, and watch our "New Yorkers React to Jaden Smith's Music and Tweets" video below.
