My Chemical Romance

“My Chemical Romance”, a band hailing from Newark, New Jersey, is not your typical rock band. They all claim to have grown up in strange households over the years, which may have influenced some typically “strange” behavior coming out of this rock group sensation.

Band Story

The band technically got started when Gerard started writing songs, calling over buddy Matt Pelissier to help out. Ray hadn’t been playing guitar seriously for about three years, but went over there anyway to check things out. He went to practice in their attic and ended up being blown away by the style of music and writing Gerard had done. It was a real dark, edgy theme, still containing a slight pop element. After a couple weeks a practicing there was an obvious energy they felt playing together. The band’s name comes from an Irvine Welsh novel, and was suggested by Gerard’s younger brother, Mikey. The younger Way brother started playing bass with them, and soon they got Frank a couple months later to fill out the other guitar spot. He happened to be in another band that had helped them get some of their first shows. When the band broke up their first instinct was to use him. Frank was already a fan of the band and an excellent guitar player. They were all in that stage of their life where you are kind of at that crossroads where you can either go one way or another. It worked out that they could all come together and form My Chemical Romance. They were extremely lucky to find each other and are even luckier to be where they are now.

Making It Big

Gerard Way (vocals), and his brother Mikey (bass), are two of the group members, as well as Frank Iero (guitar), Ray Toro (guitar) and Bob Bryar (drums). This particular band says they emerged from the New York/New Jersey Punk Scene, which had a major influence on them as teenagers. Guitarist Frank Iero has been in bands since he was 11 years old, being allowed to practice in the basement as long as his schoolwork was getting done. My Chemical Romance has been through a lot of labels, first being called “emo”, moving onto “vampire and zombie” rock. They believe if you like the record, you like it, whatever it is. Their sound has been describes as Queen meets the Misfits. The band has been banned from Orange County, CA. My Chemical Romance were the surprise breakthrough act of 2005, gaining themselves the highly coveted support slot on the last Green Day world tour. Following the success of  “Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge”, the band began recording their follow-up record in April of 2006. Tentatively titled “The Rise And Fall Of My Chemical Romance,” the real title, “The Black Parade” was announced in August of 2006 by Gerard while performing at the Hammersmith Palais in London. Having reached the #1 chart position in numerous countries and selling over $380, 000 copies in it’s first week alone, The Black Parade is set to define My Chemical Romance as the artists for the new generation.

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love

My Chemical Romance’s first record, “I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love” debuted in 2002, was a worldwide attention grabber, featuring thirteen original songs by a group that’s been on tour for the latter part of two years. They have gained a respectable following in North America and Europe. I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love is a concept album, and the debut album by My Chemical Romance, released in 2002. The storyline continues in Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. The copyright of Bullets reads:
© 2002 EYEBALL RECORDS/ MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE. UNAUTHORIZED DUPLICATION IS A VIOLATION OF APPLICABLE LAWS AND WILL RESULT IN GERARD COMING TO YOUR HOUSE AND SUCKING YOUR BLOOD

Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

To make their second album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, MCR (as most people call them nowadays) had to pull themselves off the road that had accompanied them for so long. It was the only way they could have put out a decent record, and, oh boy, was it decent. “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” is what everyone’s calling “violent, unsafe pop music”. The band has said it “Rose from the ashes following the tragic events of 9/11″. Gerard’s artwork is featured on the cover of the album, and was inspired by the band’s love for horror movies, comic books, and science fiction. The story of the previous album continues in Three Cheers. The story is about two lovers that break up, but reunite when their hometown is invaded and over run by vampires. The female (dubbed as “Helena” on some fansites) ends up being bitten by a vampire and is sent to a hospital where she soon dies with a spike through her heart from her lover. The male continues to live, but realizes that he cannot continue living without her, and kills himself.

The Black Parade

October 24th 2006 saw the release of “The Black Parade”, My Chemical Romance’s third and newest studio album. Produced by Rob Cavallo (Green Day) and featuring the guest vocals of Liza Minelli and the parents of Frank Iero and Gerard and Mikey Way; the band hit the studio in April 2006 to make their third concept album. The story of The Black Parade centers around a character called “The Patient” who has suffered an untimely death. The Black Parade, a parade devised by singer Gerard Way, come to take the Patient into the after-life while reflecting back on his short years alive. Citing Queen, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and David Bowie as influences for their melodramatic classic-rock tinged masterpiece, My Chemical Romance continue to exceed expectations - The Black Parade has to this day sold over 1.3 million albums worldwide.

My Chemical Romance today

Today My Chemical Romance are headlining festivals worldwide, and are set to begin their full tour of The Black Parade in early 2007. Promising a theatrical stage show, over-the-top production with their “longest tour ever”, MCR are sure to please many a fan across the globe.

Gerard Way

Gerard Arthur Way, born April 9, 1977 and hailing from Newark, New Jersey, is the lead singer of the band My Chemical Romance, brother to band mate Mikey Way (bass). When he lived in New Jersey, he used to stalk Christina Ricci, after finding out she lived nearby. He went to his first concert (Bruce Springsteen) with his mother, and once worked as a cart boy/bagger in a Grocery store. Gerard is 1/2 Italian (mother’s side), and also 1/2 Scottish (father’s side). Gerard’s maternal grandmother Elena taught him how to draw, sing and perform. In the fourth grade, he starred in his school’s production of Peter Pan. He started to play in bands when he was only eleven. As a child, Gerard came to the revelation that everyone he cares about will eventually die, and that he will die alone. This has led to his current obsession with the idea of death.

Health

He has recently recovered from an addiction to drugs and alcohol, being sober as of August 2004, and visits a therapist when the band’s not on tour. Gerard’s band mates have pulled him out of a deep depression twice (before the band really got started, and as he was sobering up). However, he still enjoys smoking Marlboro red cigarettes.

Art

He attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1999. As a child, Gerard grew up in a dangerous and crime-ridden neighborhood. Way has said that he was never really allowed outside to play when he was younger. Instead, he remained indoors and created his own imaginary worlds in his head. This led to his later in life love for artwork. Gerard aspired to be a comic book artist (he loved comic books, and his favorite superhero was always Wolverine) before forming My Chemical Romance in 2001. He pitched a cartoon for Cartoon Network called “The Breakfast Monkey”, but it sadly didn’t work out. He considers himself a failed comic book artist yet has still done the artwork for the My Chemical Romance albums and used to design merchandise for the band “Thursday”.

My Chemical Romance

On September 11^th, 2001, Gerard was working in the comic industry of New York City. Witnessing the horrors of that day incited him to “do something with his life”. The song, “Skylines and Turnstiles” is based upon the terrorism attacks of 9/11, and is the first song to ever be written by My Chemical Romance. The band’s name is based upon an Irvine Welsh novel, and was first suggested by Gerard’s brother, Mikey. Together with Matt Pelissier, Ray Toro, Frank Iero, and Mikey Way, My Chemical Romance recorded their debut album. At their first show, Gerard and the rest of the band got very drunk because they were so nervous. Pelissier was later replaced by Bob Bryar. Gerard and his band mates hope to start working on their third album late 2006. They earned popularity with their hit single “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” and later with a tribute to his late grandmother Elena Lee Rush, titled “Helena”. Gerard came up with the wardrobe ideas for the Helena video. Both songs are from their CD “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge”. Their next two singles, in which they hope to get videos for, are “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison”, with additional vocals of Bert McCracken from one of their “brother” bands The Used, along with their tragic loss song, “The Ghost of You”. The band has made several efforts for various causes such as the South Asian tsunami victims, and the fight against breast cancer. Despite the pictures of Gerard looking ghostly pale, he tans very well. The bulletproof vests they sometimes sport onstage represent where they grew up because the crime rate there was very high.

Makeup & Body Art

Way is known to wear heavy eye shadow during his band’s concerts, but has been seen with a thick black strip along his eyes, during the Taste Of Chaos Tour 2005. He is deathly afraid of needles, so he doesn’t have any piercings or tattoos. Nipple rings freak him out. Marilyn Manson has been quoted saying that he would kick Gerard’s ass if he ever got the chance for stealing his makeup style.

Discography & Lyrics

Way and his band released their first CD, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love in 2002 and have released a CD titled Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge in June of 2004. Way is always trying to write new material, and he usually gets song ideas from the newspaper. He sees lyrics as a way of telling a story, and usually loves dark stuff “anything twisted, weird, and a little evil”. The song, “Demolition Lovers”, is said to be about Gerard’s then girlfriend.

Musical Influences & Tastes

Their musical influences include Iron Maiden, the Misfits, and David Bowie. He has undoubtedly confirmed that he thinks Brody Dalle from the Distillers is hot. His favorite band is now Iron Maiden, but is still a David Bowie fan. He has been obsessed with revenge ever since he heard the Black Flag song ‘Revenge’.  He owns the same color Stratocasters as Billie Joe Armstrong (front man of the smash pop/punk trio Green Day).

Quotes

“If you don’t go to high school you will definitely go to jail.”

“I’d rather be a creature of the night than an old dude.” 

“So many people treat you like you’re a kid so you might as well act like one and throw your television out of the hotel window.”

“Be Yourself, Don’t take anyone’s shit and never let them take you alive…”

“So how was Christmas for you guys? Did you all get lots of nice black t-shirts?”

“If you’re gonna buy me a present, don’t spend more than twenty five bucks, you’ll get a blowjob anyway.”

“Surrounding myself with fans makes me feel like I’m not going through it alone.” 
“The Devil got landed with a shitty job, he has to deal with assholes everyday, he’s probably bored as hell.”

“When I was writing it, I was remembering how hard it was to be a 16-year-old in high school. I always wanted to be an artist, so I was this loner kid who just got drunk all the time. I only had one real friend. There was a girl I really liked, and she ended up taking really sleazy photographs with her boyfriend, and that really crushed me, I was just swimming in this pit of despair, jealousy and alcoholism.”

“It erases everything I hate about myself. Nothing can hurt me. I feel completely invincible. I feel like everyone else on that stage is invincible and we’re capable of anything. There’s no stopping us.”

“I’d enjoy it if a guy grabbed my ass. I guess it all depends on how he grabbed it, too.”

“When you are kissing a guy with a beard, it’s different.”

“There’s such a lack of sex in music”

“It takes me a while to tell stories. I think it’s because I was drunk for three years”

“I was this weird loner kid who got drunk by himself all the time.” (talking about high school)

“I have a nihilistic attitude so it’s like, the new gay… it’s popular.” (Gerard on why we should give a damn about MCR) 

“Look at me, with my pretty bracelet and tiara… I’m a fuckin’ princess!”

“Were not a festival band, playing during the day was something we had to get over, I was like uhh this sun stuff kind of sucks”

“When we first started out I had a really big issue and a lot of my loved ones had a really big issue with the fact that I was totally in pain up there and there was a time when I tried to hurt myself off stage, but I got over that. Like, you should never want to hurt yourself. You should love yourself. Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself and become a new person and I think that that is going to be a lot of what the next record is about, not to plug it or anything. Like, it’s going to talk about dying and coming back to become what you totally want to become. We are all becoming what we want to become.”

“What I Like about The Sims is that I don’t have a normal life at all, so I play this game where these people have these really boring, mundane lives. It’s fun. My Sims family is called the Cholly family. I don’t know why I picked that name; it’s kind of random. The teenage daughter is my favourite, because I just had her go through this Goth phase. She’s really kind of nerdy and she just became a concert violinist, which is pretty huge for the family. And she got into private school. But she started wearing black lipstick and she dyed her hair purple. It’s pretty huge.”

“I went to school in drag, in art school and my day was completely different because everybody thought I was a chick. You should see me as a chick. So I went as a girl, as like an experiment and it worked really well and everyone was really nice to me but I couldn’t talk obviously…you know train conductors were really cool to me on my commute…HA! I looked hot as a chick!”

“Craziest thing that ever happened to me was being attacked by a black bird. It pecked the shit out of my head. We were at this hotel called The Phoenix in San Francisco. We were leaving to go to a show the next morning and the bird just fuckin’ attacked my head. And the next day Slipknot were there, they were coming in as we were leaving, and they got attacked by birds too.”

“Yeah, obviously we use vampires as a metaphor for something else, something deeper than just the supernatural. But there’s just something about the bloodsucking walking dead, that can say so much to people. There are really so many people trying to get control over you on a daily basis and steal your soul in some way, take a part of you…”

“Um, lots of people grab my ass. I’m actually starting to get this thing now where people grab my package. That actually happened once in Boston, it usually doesn’t happen. We went over to England and it happened at almost every show. I don’t really enjoy any kind of invasion of privacy like that I guess. Grabbing my package is obviously a total invasion of privacy I’m not into that at all.”

“That’s what happens when you’re all borderline psychotic and therein lies the beauty of this band - our duality. There’s a duality to each band member too. There’s a desire to have this constant conflict. If we write a write a song and it turns out really poppy, we have to make the lyrics really fucked up. There’s psychosis to everything we do for sure. One day we’re probably gonna write this number one pop tune that will be about a massacre!”

“If for one minute you think you’re better than a sixteen year old girl in a Green Day t-shirt, you are sorely mistaken. Remember the first time you went to a show and saw your favorite band. You wore their shirt, and sang every word. You didn’t know anything about scene politics, haircuts, or what was cool. All you knew was that this music made you feel different from anyone you shared a locker with. Someone finally understood you. This is what music is about.”