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WHERE DO YOU even start with My Chemical Romance? Perhaps
more than anyone else to emerge this century, they are a band
– more a tour de force – that have set trends, created controversy,
inspired debate, offered countless “Were you there?” moments
and, lest we forget, produced some of the most memorable music
of recent years. Be it through their bold reinventions, eyecatching regalia, culture-crafting mottos or generation-defining
songs, they have come to mean so many different things to so
many people – and, most importantly of all, they did every single
second of it their way.
These are just some of the many reasons why Metal Hammer
were the first UK magazine to have them on the cover, and why
we still feel a strong affinity with them to this day, almost 20
years since Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge blew a hole in rock’n’roll.
In this special-edition magazine, you’ll find some of our earliest,
most classic features with Gerard et al, as well as a retrospective
look through their striking career: album by album, song by song,
quote by quote, from their humble beginnings in New Jersey’s
incredible early 00s scene to their reunion in 2019.
It’s been a hell of a ride, and we feel privileged to have played
some part in it. We hope you enjoy revisiting these memories as
much as we did.

We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from
responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture.
The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable
managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic
standards.

Merlin Alderslade,
Metal Hammer Editor

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Exchange (symbol: FUTR)
www.futureplc.com

Chief Executive Officer Jon Steinberg
Non-Executive Chairman Richard Huntingford
Chief Financial and Strategy Officer Penny Ladkin-Brand
Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244

METALHAMMER.COM

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METALHAMMER.COM 3

CONTENTS

06 In The Begining

What rock’m’roll looked like in 2000.

08 New Romantics

On a day of tragedy, a band was born.

12 Jersey? Sure!

How New Jersey’s DIY scene bore a legend.

14 Gerard Way

32 Frank Iero

How MCR’s dynamite kid came good.

34 Going Underground

Lost eyes and big surprise on tour in 2004.

39 The People Versus…

When MCR tackled our loyal Readers.

44 Like Clockwork

Under the skin of the legendary frontman.

The Chem’s first ever Hammer cover feature.

18 I Brought You My Bullets…

52 The Facts

The album that started it all.

My Chemical Romance in statistical form.

22 Chemical Equation

54 Road Warriors

The bands who inspired The Chems.

MCR get Warped on tour in 2006.

24 DC Hardcore

60 Battle Lines

The gang talk movies and metal in 2004.

28 Three Cheers…

The classic that made MCR superstars.

The Chems come out fighting for Album 3.

66 Tatt’s Life

Frank Iero’s life in ink.

MCR in morbid mood.

74 The Black Parade

The album that redefined a genre.

78 Ray Toro

Big hair, big riffs, big heart.

80 One Vision

100 Major Lasers

Ray and Frank on their futuristic finale.

106 Mikey Way

From shy kid to bass-bustin’ rock god.

108 Hero Worship

Gerard Way on his passion for comics.

114 Live Albums

MCR on post-Black Parade superstardom.

The band’s live albums and DVDs rated.

90 The Umbrella Academy

116 Conventional Weapons

92 The Big Picture

118 Heartbreakers

Gerard takes over the comic book world.

Hits and misses: the band’s swansong.

Gerard’s top 10 comic books

The end of MCR, the start of a new era.

94 Are MCR Emo?

120 The Comeback Kids

96 Danger Days…

124 The 20 Greatest MCR Songs

We solve the issue once and for all.

Dayglo rock with The Fabulous Killjoys.

Inside the MCR reunion.

Their biggest anthems – chosen by you.

PRESS

68 Death Becomes them

PRESS/FUTURE

6 METALHAMMER.COM

Grunge was dead. Nu metal was bloated. Indie rock was predictable.
At the turn of the millennium, rock’n’roll needed a revolution.

WORDS: STEPHEN HILL

y the time My Chemical Romance formed, something had to give. Generation X had grown older, wearier
and, ultimately, more cynical. A generation of disillusioned young music fans were left waiting for some
new heroes to pin their hopes to. The stage was set…
A decade earlier, Kurt Cobain’s raw, withering howl had dragged grunge’s revamped punk rock back
into the mainstream and opened the floodgates for a slew of bands that wore the grunge tag either with
world-weary disdain or as a means to sell records to the Lollapallooza masses. After Cobain’s death, Bush, Creed
and Nickelback arrived to take the shell of his ideas and repackage them into slick, radio-friendly arena anthems
that bore no resemblance to the existential self-loathing that spoke so vividly to a frustrated generation.
Meanwhile, those kids who loved Nirvana gravitated towards the platinum pop-punk of Green Day, The
Offspring and Rancid. Those bands had a lot to thank Nirvana for in terms of opening doors, but this was an
altogether more positive experience compared to the grunge explosion. Fizzing, buzzsaw guitars and snotty,
bratty, middle-fingered lyrics characterised the explosion and led to the formation of The Warped Tour and
some novelty hit singles. And, as the sound became more omnipresent, so the ‘punk’ in pop-punk seemed to
disappear. Blink 182 were hugely influential but when The All-American Rejects and Simple Plan smoothed
their sound down even more, it was no longer dangerous or exciting – it was just MTV-ready pop to be played
on the soundtrack to the next American Pie movie.
Of course, there was a certain spiky-haired, baggy-shorted subgenre of metal that had plenty to say around
this time. Korn and Deftones, nu metal’s innovators, had produced beautifully crafted, heavy, catchy and original
music that didn’t shy away from exposing its feelings. There was an honesty to their sound that spoke to the
same people Kurt Cobain had inspired a few years before, only this time it was more extreme and futuristic.
But, as with its grungier cousin, very quickly all of the subtleties and uniqueness of nu metal were replaced
by identikit guitar tones, silly beards and macho bullshit posing. Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park had enough
tunes to see them through; Adema, Slaves On Dope and Godhead were just a clunking freak show.
By the early 00s, alternative music was in desperate need of some new figureheads. Commercial rock music
was dominated by ‘The’ bands: The Libertines, The Strokes, The Hives, The Vines, The fucking Kooks. Somebody
needed to make dark, aggressive, vibrant rock’n’roll that spoke to the people bored of the whimpering, safe and
faceless music that was masquerading as alternative. Somewhere, in a downtrodden part of New Jersey, five
friends were about to make an impact…

%
b

“ALTERNATIVE MUSIC WAS IN DESPERATE
NEED OF SOME NEW FIGUREHEADS”
METALHAMMER.COM 7

In 2001, in the aftermath of a nation-afflicting tragedy,
one young man and his friends began a journey that would change
the course of alternative music.

t was the definitive moment of the 21st century
so far, only a year into the new millennium. The
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New
York shocked, stunned and appalled most of the
planet, and for a young New Jersey native by the
name of Gerard Way, it did all that and more. On the day
of the disaster, he was inspired to start a band and, along
with drummer Matt Pelissier, sat down and wrote the song
Skylines And Turnstiles to express the complex emotions
he felt about the event that had taken place within
a frighteningly short distance of his home town. This
is the seed from which My Chemical Romance grew.
After recruiting guitarist Ray Toro soon after, due to
Gerard’s openly admitted inability to sing and play at
the same time, the as-yet-unnamed trio retreated to
Pelissier’s attic to record Our Lady Of Sorrows and Cubicles
for what the band now refer to as The Attic Demos. After
hearing the demo, Gerard’s brother Mikey dropped out
of college to join the band on bass and give the quartet
a name after a book by Irvine Welsh – Ecstasy: Three Tales
Of Chemical Romance.
The guys then took to the live circuit, playing their
first ever show at the VFW Hall in Ewing, New Jersey, in
October 2001. The members later reflected on the pure
cathartic emotions they felt from that first show, but that
alone wasn’t enough to satisfy them creatively. Despite
the rawness of that early gig, MCR were determined from
the off to set themselves apart from the usual ‘plug in and
play’ ethic of their punk rock peers.
“When we started this band, we all kind of had the
feeling that there was something missing from the current
music scene,” Gerard told Hammer at the time. “We want to
bring that stadium feel to those small places.”
This ambition impressed Thursday frontman and
fellow New Jersey resident Geoff Rickly who, after doing
some local gigs with MCR around Jersey, signed the

8 METALHAMMER.COM

band to his label, Eyeball Records. Now MCR were almost
ready to launch themselves on the world, but there
was just one piece of the jigsaw missing. On their first
show they had supported another Eyeball Records band
named Pencey Prep and their frontman, Frank Iero, had
made a big impression. After his group disbanded in 2002,
Iero decided to become a full-time member of My Chemical
Romance – a move that would set MCR’s projectory alight.
In 2002, the gang decamped to Nada Recording Studio
in New Windsor, New York, where Rickly produced debut
album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.
Gerard described it to Hammer as “an amalgamation of
all of our favourite things within punk and metal and
whatever seems to move us”.
The album was released on July 22, 2002, to mixedto-positive reviews. Rolling Stone called it “aggressive
thrash with piledriver drums, dragon screeches, and
the kind of over-the-top climax you find in horror
movies”, while Hammer recommended it to fans of
“At The Drive-In, Thursday and Thrice”. The album
was received well enough by fans and industry types
alike to see MCR tour with the likes of The Used, Finch,
Thrice and, crucially, as openers on a European tour that
featured Taking Back Sunday and Thursday.
By the time the tour rolled around, the word-of-mouth
buzz had swelled to the point where people were turning
up early solely to catch these hot new things. Their
performances stole the show and the response, particularly
here in the UK, was rabid. Suddenly, almost overnight, My
Chemical Romance were no longer just an outlet for Gerard
Way’s fears and frustrations. “We wanted that feeling you
get when you watch old tapes of Iron Maiden performing,”
noted Gerard of the band’s hysteria-courting shows.
They had become an international phenomenon that
would only get bigger as the years progressed – a triumph
over tragedy.

PRESS

Ib

WORDS: STEPHEN HILL

“WE WANTED THAT FEELING YOU GET WHEN YOU
WATCH IRON MAIDEN”
GERARD WAS LOOKING TO SOME HEAVY METAL ICONS FOR INSPIRATION

METALHAMMER.COM 9

10 METALHAMMER.COM

New Jersey has long been a hotbed for
punk and rock. In 2003, we got Thursday
singer Geoff Rickly to give us the
lowdown on the new NJ explosion –
including an unkown band named
My Chemical romance.

shows on. When you live away from big cities like New
York, you’re forced to have your own thing and to make
everything yourself because you can’t get to be a part
of what’s going on elsewhere.”
A lot of the small-town kids became involved with
this new music scene in New Jersey and bands began
to appear as if from nowhere. “Often the case would
be that we didn’t have any bands to play that week so
we’d have to start another band. The kids that already
had bands together would say, ‘Let’s start another one
’cos there aren’t enough!’ Kids would be in three of four
bands at a time and they’d all play together, with some
drummers even playing three sets in one night!”
Over the years, bands split up and dispersed to form
other bands but the friendships remained and the NJ
scene became very integrated and supportive of its own.
For example, Geoff became involved with Eyeball Records
and made sure he kept a lookout for new talent. “From the

“WHEN YOU LIVE AWAY FROM BIG CITIES
LIKE NEW YORK, YOU’RE FORCED TO HAVE
YOUR OWN THING” A DIY ATTITUDE IS KEY
METALHAMMER.COM 11

ALL PRESS

T

o those that live there and for most looking in
from the outside, the new-wave emo hardcore
scene originated on the East Coast of America in
and around New Jersey. With enough new bands
spawned by the scene to create prominent and
influential indie labels such as Ferret and Trustkill, it’s
hard to know which ones are worthy of attention over and
above the rest. Geoff Rickly of NJ-based superstars
Thursday tells us about the history of the burgeoning
scene, and his tips for the top.
“The New Jersey scene feels like it’s concentrated
down in New Brunswick, which is a pretty big city,
and it’s like the halfway house for this scene,” Geoff
explains. “Kids from the suburbs used to meet up
in New Brunswick and started this whole thing. In
comparison, my home town in New Jersey was only
one square mile in size but there were some kids in the
next town over who had a garage in which they’d put

beginning, I really liked this guy Ben [Jorgenson] who’s
the singer from Armor For Sleep, so I wanted to put out their
record and get them to tour,” he says. “In order to do so,
I went to dinner with all their parents and tried to convince
them why the band should drop out of high school and tour
full time. That’s my liberation story for them!”
Like some kind of perpetual motion, bands formed
labels that picked up bands that formed new labels.
Everyone in the scene became involved in expanding it.
For example: “Everyone here knows Carl [Severson] from

Nora who runs Ferret Records, and his band are from New
Brunswick,” Geoff explains. “Their drummer used to book
bands on at the Melody Bar, which is the big NB venue.
They’re one of the bands who’ve been around for a long
time and helped create the scene.”
As well as the ‘old timers’, there are some fresh new
faces coming out of New Jersey who Geoff is sure will
soon be household names. “Prevent Falls are a great band
who do really cool, sarcastic post-hardcore that sounds a
little like Helmet, a little like Quicksand and a whole lot
of prog rock,” he tips. “The Oval Portrait are also amazing

“MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE ARE MY FAVOURITE
UP-AND-COMING JERSEY BAND”
WE RECKON THEY’LL DO ALRIGHT

12 METALHAMMER.COM

New Jersey

N

THE FACTS

J is not only home to emo and hardcore stars
but it has also spawned the talents of Bruce
Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Jon Bon Jovi,
Frank Sinatra, Jack Nicholson, Queen Latifah and
Bette Midler. Gadzooks!
The annual Skate And Surf Festival takes place in the
small town of Asbury Park, home of decrepit rocker
Bruce Springsteen. Finch, Killswitch Engage and
The Used have all played, with Thursday headlining.
The Dillinger Escape Plan lived there. “When they
started, people thought they were a metalcore band.
Then they came out with Under The Running Board
and it was jazz metal! They played a Jersey Fest
and wiped the floor with every other band,”
laughs Geoff.

and they’re like a spazzy Refused meets The Dead Boys;
off-the-wall punk. Their singer is so openly over-the-top
gay. He’ll call to tough hardcore kids and shout, ‘Listen
girlfriend, if I see you fighting down there I am gonna
come down and grab your ass!’ Then there’s Further
Seems Forever who’ve moved to New Jersey, so they’re
now a New Jersey band! Their new record is really cool and
they’re putting together a spoken-word compilation for a
benefit, and I hope to do something on that too.”
Like the good musician he is, Geoff always saves
the best until last. “Another band to watch out for is
My Chemical Romance, who are my favourite up-andcoming Jersey band. I’ve known these kids since
before they were a band and I remember them telling
me one night that they were going to get together.
“They said it was going to be like Squeeze and
Psychedelic Furs plus Smashing Pumpkins and Iron
Maiden all at the same time. I listened to them and
thought they were crazy! Then they played me a song
and I was so amazed I asked them if I could produce
their album. They’re on fire!”

NJ has its own song: ‘I know of a state that’s a
perfect playland with white sandy beaches by the
sea/With fun-filled mountains, lakes and parks
and folks with hospitality…’ Livin’ On A Prayer it
ain’t, folks.
NJ also has a Camden, but unlike London’s marketo-tat, theirs has a baseball park, a children’s
garden and the first drive-in movie theatre
ever built.
NJ has a total land coverage of 7,000 square miles,
with an average population of 8,414,350 people.
But no taxis. Only kidding – there are at least three.
It’s affectionately known as the ‘Garden State’.
North Jersey is the car-theft capital of the world,
with more cars stolen in Newark than even the
two largest cities of New York and Los Angeles
put together. Beat that, Merseyside!

METALHAMMER.COM 13

My Chemical Romance’s mercurial leader became a beacon
for an entire generation of disillusioned music fans.

G

WORDS: JAMES GILL

erard Way is not only a musical icon, but also a
subcultural leader. The New Jersey-born selfprofessed comic nerd gave not just music but
ideology to a generation of goth/punk/emo
kids who ached for affirmation.
Gerard and My Chemical Romance rose meteorically
from the underground in 2005 when their Three Cheers
For Sweet Revenge album catapulted them up the charts
and into larger and larger venues on both sides of the
Atlantic. But it wasn’t just the apocalyptic pop-punk
anthems that appealed to the nations’ teenagers – it
was the band’s frontman.
Born in 1977, Gerard was an overweight weirdo who
gravitated, as many of us did, towards the pursuits of
misfits: underground music and graphic novels. The
latter occupied his ambition and it was only after the
nearby events of 9/11 that he decided to start a band.
Having shifted the weight to become a striking
20-something waif, Gerard’s onstage persona was
14 METALHAMMER.COM

honest, which resonated with the youth who wanted
veracity, not just pantomime. Gerard spoke directly to
a disenfranchised generation in an internet age, everobsessed with materialism and looks. He famously once
said on stage: “Hey, girls, you’re beautiful. Don’t look
at those stupid magazines with stick-like models. Eat
healthy and exercise. You are gorgeous, whether you’re
a size four or 14. It doesn’t matter what you look like on
the outside, as long as you’re a good person, as long as
you respect others.”
He extended these sentiments to girls baring their
chests at shows, regularly saying, “The first rule some
of you can’t help. The first rule is don’t be an asshole. The
second rule is don’t flash your boobs. We’re not into that.”
As news of this and other stage rants proliferated, he
gained no friends from the more red-blooded end of the
rock and metal spectrum.
He also offered positivity in dark times, invariably
making anti-suicide speeches from stage, such as at

PRESS

METALHAMMER.COM 15

PRESS

“IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE
ON THE OUTSIDE, AS LONG AS YOU’RE
A GOOD PERSON” GERARD’S TIMELESS MANTRA

16 METALHAMMER.COM

INS NEWS/SHUTTERSTOCK

Reading in 2004, when he said: “Suicide is a serious
thing. And if you know anyone who is suicidal, you
need to get them help. No one should be in pain.”
It struck chords among fans like no nu-metal rapchat or hardcore claptrap ever had.
Of course, with their notoriety and ‘emo’ image, they
picked up no small amount of haters, along with the
archetypal cred thieves, taking underground music and
packaging it for the teen market. Gerard found his band
hated in the hardcore and metal underground, and they
were still far from being household names.
However, the frontman had other problems. As MCR’s
popularity skyrocketed during Three Cheers, his drug
and alcohol addiction had already reached an unworkable
level and he decided to get clean. With the odd
recreational drink not suiting him, he decided to abstain
completely. He was clean, sure, but he’d still ‘been there,
man’; he understood the meaning of ‘lowest ebb’.
Many artists find they lose their muse when they
get clean, but MCR would suffer no such fate thanks
to the classic crossover album they were about to
unleash. When they released The Black Parade in 2006,
My Chemical Romance became an arena band and,
turning their back on any semblance of their hardcore
roots, they embraced a whole new audience, as well as
a ‘Green Day meets Pink Floyd’ sound.
With that album came a new look, fed by Gerard’s fertile
imagination and all part of his driving creativity. Copying
someone so individual is hard because the plagiarism is

so clear, but the power of Gerard’s image and personality
was too strong and dozens of copycats were soon spawned
– hello there Aiden and I Am Ghost!
The backlash was inevitably brutal but, as ever, Gerard
was there for his fans. “You’re going to come across a lot
of shitty bands, and a lot of shitty people,” he noted.
“And if any one of those people call you names because
of what you look like or they don’t accept you for who
you are, I want you to look right at that motherfucker,
stick up your middle finger, and scream ‘Fuck you!’”
Never turning his back on his most vulnerable fans,
he continued to represent the underdog and give them
the courage and tools to stick to their guns.
Four years after their magnum opus, Gerard reinvented
the band again, this time as the Fabulous Killjoys – Tank
Girl meets Gorillaz – with the album Danger Days: The True
Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys.
Now in his 30s, the once nerdy teen and troubled
20-something had it all: a beautiful wife (in Lyn-Z
of Mindless Self Indulgence), and a child with
a standard silly rock-star-kid name (Bandit Lee Way).
It’s always hard to say how big a band could get
without a particular frontman, be it HIM, Judas Priest
or Limp Bizkit, but one thing is clear when it comes to
MCR: there’s something about Gerard Way that, love him
or hate him, came to mean to a generation what the likes
of David Bowie and Marilyn Manson meant to their fans;
the type of role model the mainstream would simply
never give them.
METALHAMMER.COM 17

“BY FAR AND AWAY THE MOST RAW THING
THE BAND EVER PUT THEIR NAME ON”

18 METALHAMMER.COM

I BROUGHT YOU MY
BULLETS, YOU BROUGHT
ME YOUR LOVE
(EYEBALL, 2002)

The MCR saga officially got underway with a raw and promising debut.

nd so the story begins. Crackling with
youthful exuberance and by far and away the
most raw thing the band ever put their name
on, what Bullets lacks in the conceptual depth
the band made their forte on future releases, it
more than made up for in pulsating, electric energy.
After Gerard and original drummer Matt Pelissier

decided to form the band in the aftermath of the 9/11
attacks, MCR’s inception was something of a whirlwind.
Ray Toro joined to assist Gerard who, by his own
admission, couldn’t play guitar and sing at the same
time. The trio spent their time honing their attack and
beginning to form the nucleus of their sound during
intense recording sessions in Matt’s attic. If you really
METALHAMMER.COM 19

LEAD: PRESS TV: GETTY

A

WORDS: TERRY BEZER

want to delve into the guts of the album and tap into the
excitement of a band coming to life, hunt down The Attic
Demos on YouTube.
Gerard’s brother Mikey joined the band after he heard
the demo and consequently opted to drop out of college,
and in the aftermath of his band Pencey Prep’s split,
Frank Iero joined the gang just two days before they were
due to begin recording. If this all seems like it happened
at a thunderous pace, bear in mind that My Chemical
Romance were formed and began to record the album
within just three months of deciding to start a band.
Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly was a natural choice
to produce the band’s debut effort, having already
garnered a reputation in New Jersey through putting
on shows by the likes of Glassjaw and The Movielife.
He understood where the band were coming from, both
sonically and conceptually. He fully understood them,
from eyeballs to entrails. “My Chemical Romance never
had any interest in being cool – they were about doing
something interesting and fun,” he explained to NJ.com.
“If you were going to mock them, you were just feeding
into what they were doing. They drew those targets on
themselves. The detractors don’t get it.”
The sound of the album perfectly mirrors their story
up to this point in that it’s pure chaos. Gerard may have
gone on to master harnessing intensity in his vocal
performances, but here it’s all wild-eyed insanity and
frenzied delivery. The music itself shows shards of the
avant-garde edge that would define their legacy but
here it gets pulverized and has its lunch money stolen
by thrashy guitars and up-the-punx pace, channelling
the unstoppable, immovable passion the guys had for
the band they had just formed.
In perfect honesty, if you were to pick the finest
songs from the band’s star-studded catalogue, very few
tracks from Bullets would make the grade, but purely
for its buoyant, juvenile charm and the excitement that
crackles from every breathtaking second of its length,
it’s one hell of a starting point for the MCR rocket ride.

WHAT WE SAID
“These New Jersey rockers are young, honest and
highly original. Taking a variety of influences on
board, the final product is something of a hardhitting punk-rock explosion. Baring their souls, they
won’t go unnoticed for long.”
– KATIE PARSONS

20 METALHAMMER.COM

THE SONG

VAMPIRES WILL NEVER HURT YOU

T

he first ever single from the band,
Vampires Will Never Hurt You is the
clearest indication of the quality that was
to come from MCR. At five and a half minutes,
it feels as though this was more of an
exercise in showing what they were musically
capable of at this point rather than trying to
gatecrash the mainstream. Drawing from the
horror-punk styling of The Damned and the
Misfits for the first time (a theme that would
continue from their breakout Three Cheers For
Sweet Revenge album all the way to Vampire
Money on their final opus, Danger Days…),
it retrospectively serves as an indication of
where the band would always sit stylistically.
The frantic fretwork and impassioned,
dynamic vocal from Gerard Way make it the
standout performance from the band’s debut.
That it remained in their live shows up until
their very last show at the 2012 Bamboozle
festival in their native New Jersey tells
its own story.

THE VIDEOS
WORDS: TERRY BEZER

VAMPIRES WILL NEVER HURT YOU
A far cry from the Hollywood blockbuster videos
the band would go on to excel at, this modest clip is
fuelled by performance and personality, rather than a
budget that would make Michael Jackson blush. While
most bands counting their pennies would struggle
to make something memorable, let alone iconic, the
theatrical debut performance of Gerard Way propels
the video, and the band getting on their suit-and-tie
shit proves a masterstroke. Sure, the vague subplot
involving a girl, a box and some red lighting might be
a bit naff and has dated terribly, but the crux of the
video still has plenty of spunk and gives a glimpse of
the band they would become.

HONEY, THIS MIRROR ISN’T BIG ENOUGH
FOR THE TWO OF US
Upping the ante in terms of production and performance,
this sinister video draws heavily from Asian horror classic
Audition. In truth, it almost wholesale rips the entire movie
off from start to finish, but if you’re going to steal, steal
from the best, right? It’s probably the most normal the
band themselves have ever looked in a video, clad in jeans
and T-shirts, with Gerard looking particularly badass in
a Motörhead shirt and leather jacket combo. But you can
make them look as normal as you like – their charisma
and star quality always made them anything but.

METALHAMMER.COM 21

The key ingredients that go into making
your favourite New Jersey rock stars.

WORDS: TOM DOYLE

Pomp, circumstance and electrifying showmanship were
always Queen’s stock in trade, and by the time MCR were
filling arenas, they were most certainly channelling the
world-beating spirit of Freddie and the boys. A spirited
cover of Under Pressure alongside The Used offered
a signpost of just what the band meant to Gerard and co.

The macabre, schlock-horror tones of the Misfits are all
over the first three MCR records, with the influence of the
original goth punks palpable on songs like Vampires Will
Never Hurt You. Elsewhere, the graveyard chic of Danzig
and the gang drips off the video to Helena like eyeliner
on a wet day.

The emo stalwarts struck a blow for a whole generation
of New Jersey post-hardcore fans as early as 2001 with
Full Collapse, in the same year that My Chemical Romance
formed. Indeed, The Chems have frequently referenced
Thursday’s combination of intelligent, heart-on-sleeve
lyricism and buzzsaw guitars as being formative during
their early evolution.

The Manchester quartet who were emo before emo was
even a thing undoubtedly had a profound effect on the
band who made the term a household name. Morrissey’s
introspective, soul-searching lyrics and willingness to
take on a political cause proved to be key touchstones for
Gerard Way throughout MCR’s career.

22 METALHAMMER.COM

For all the majesty and theatrical prowess of My Chemical
Romance’s later performances, their early days were
characterised by raw punk fury. The confrontational
ethos of Black Flag pervaded a fledgling band who didn’t
look or sound like their peers at the time, and didn’t give
a fuck about fitting in either.

At the turn of the millennium, AFI were the perfect blend
of Morrissey’s poetics and the Misfits’ horror, with an
injection of ferocious modern hardcore thrown in for
good measure. While the Chems were never as hard-edged
as Davey Havok’s mob once were, a comparable lineage
from punk-rock upstarts to mellowing rock gods is clear.

The military garb on The Black Parade owes a lot to Bruce
Dickinson’s penchant for a civil war uniform, albeit with
a somewhat gothic overtone. Combine that with the
spine-tingling guitar intro on Headfirst For Halos and it
seems pretty obvious that MCR weren’t averse to a spot of
Number Of The Beast when the mood took them.

Danger Days… saw the band bringing the technicolour
synthesisers of 90s Britpop to the table, and it was Pulp’s
flamboyant streak that most obviously infiltrated the
Chems’ image during this time. Gerard Way’s milk-pale
skin and tousled, bright red hair gave him the air of
a futuristic Jarvis Cocker. Disco 2000 indeed.
METALHAMMER.COM 23

24 METALHAMMER.COM

Comics, movies and metal legends…
for their first full Metal Hammer Feature in early 2004,
My Chemical Romance laid their foundations bare.

WORDS: JAMIE HIBBARD

DePalma’s Phantom Of The Paradise is this weird rock opera and
that was some influence, as was The Wraith with Charlie Sheen,
which is a shitty 80s movie.”
As soon as he utters the word “shitty”, Frank politely cuts
him off to explain that it’s a not-shitty story about Charlie
Sheen being a vengeful motorcycle ghost who goes around
slaying the people who stole his car and murdered him. It
whiffs of a tour bus favourite.
“We realised how important action movies are to us on the
feel of our songs,” says Frank. “For example, there’s a thing
from Lethal Weapon 2 that Ray plays on Demolition Lovers!”
“It’s totally true,” confirms Ray. “The soundtrack for that
movie was by Sting and Eric Clapton – the guitar work is
awesome. It’s taken from the last song on the soundtrack
[Shipyard]. We’re also about to be influenced by DuckTales,
which is an old Nintendo videogame. I nicked a riff from
that, too.”
Bands, eh? They’re all crazy in some way – it’s just not always
a rock’n’roll way.
“We party, but not as hard as half the people we meet,”
laughs Gerard. “We like to drink and some of the guys smoke
pot, but we’ve not snorted coke off dead hookers. Yet. We need

“WE’VE NOT SNORTED COKE OFF DEAD
HOOKERS. YET…” A GLIMPSE OF THINGS TO COME? ER, NOT REALLY
PRESS

Lb

ast night we were talking about the schematics of
superhero weapons,” admits My Chemical Romance
guitarist Frank Iero, as the rest of his bandmates
wonder whether to change the subject or embrace
their geekdom.
Frontman Gerard Way is happy to continue. “Frank was
reading really shitty Avengers comics and I was reading Preacher,
with a stack of Spider-Mans right next to me,” he reveals. “The
more I re-read Preacher, the more I realise what a huge lyrical
influence it’s been on me. I think I’ve even taken individual
issue titles and used them as lyrics!”
Gerard isn’t afraid to admit that My Chemical Romance take
their influences – such as the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon cult
classic graphic novel series Preacher, which itself deserves
wider attention for being the best story ever written – from
stranger places than most bands. In MCR’s world, Nintendo
games and cheesy action movies veil themselves within a dark
and sinister landscape of star-crossed lovers, attacking vampires
and skull fragments.
“The new album picks up where I Brought You My Bullets, You
Brought Me Your Love ended,” explains Gerard. “It tells the story
of a guy who comes back from the dead to get revenge. Brian

METALHAMMER.COM 25

THE SHOW MUST GO ON
Well, they didn’t land that Iron Maiden tour,
but in January 2004, MCR obliterated London’s tiny
Barfly venue. Here’s what went down…

I

WORDS: TERRY BEZER

t’s that time of the year where you’ll be hearing
the names of a million bands you’ve never heard of
before, all with the phrase ‘next big thing’ tagged to
’em. And, needless to say, they will all be vying for you
to spend your hard-earned cash on helping them
establish themselves as one of the big boys. Well, with
a debut album produced by Thursday frontman Geoff
Rickly and a slot on this summer’s Warped Tour, My
Chemical Romance are certainly one of the names to
keep an eye on.
But are they actually that good or are they destined
to join the likes of Out and Orgy on the pile marked
‘overhyped toss’? To answer your question, despite
their none-more-emo name, My Chemical Romance are
a scorching mix of chunky, jagged guitars and wailing,
maniacal vocals, and although their songs occasionally
sound repetitive, judging by tonight’s performance,

26 METALHAMMER.COM

the passion among their ranks is unquestionable.
Everywhere you look onstage there is a band member
throwing himself around in a fit of aggressive tension,
enhancing the song from being merely above-average
ditties into howling, monstrous anthems that London’s
Barfly go absolutely ape for.
Sure, to look at the guys in the band you’d think
they’re bowing down to every current rock cliché going
(the guy with the shrubbery afro, the guy with the
‘nerdy’ specs on), but in frontman Gerard Way, MCR
have a maverick showman who not only has an instantly
identifiable voice but also the ability to connect with
his audience and incite them into a riotous frenzy… even
if he does look a little bit like Drew Barrymore circa ET.
So while the band’s ‘next big thing’ credentials may
be questionable, their ability in the live is no longer up
for debate. They rock – end of story!

“THE MORE I RE-READ COMICS, THE MORE I
REALISE WHAT A HUGE LYRICAL INFLUENCE
THEY’VE BEEN ON ME” GERARD ON HIS COMICAL INSPIRATION
something to build up to! I think we have a very Mötley Crüe
attitude when we play, but we’re totally the opposite offstage.”
When MCR first bolted from the stable door, they weren’t too
sure how the local New Jersey scene would react to them. “We
were definitely influenced by Iron Maiden, Guns N’ Roses and
shit like that in the beginning,” muses the frontman. “No one
else had a cock-rock thing going on except us.
Beyond all expectations, it worked, and MCR started to draw a
crowd keen on checking out this new twist on the NJ punk-rock
sound. They played with whoever would take them out and,
mostly, it would be bands who didn’t sound like them but
were fans of theirs. They ended up doing a show opening for
Jimmy Eat World in front of 10,000 people, which caught the
attention of Bert McCracken from The Used, who asked them
to go out on tour.
“That’s when it really started to move fast, ’cos we were
playing with the right bands that got us to the right kids,” offers
Gerard. “We had a lot of fun and just kept touring. We tried some
different things, ’cos we needed to see what worked and what
didn’t. It didn’t always work, and we still don’t know who we’re
supposed to go on tour with!”
The frontman became friends with Thursday’s Geoff Rickly,
who signed them to his label Eyeball Records and produced the
I Brought You My Bullets… debut, released in the UK on 20:20.
After touring their asses off for the last couple of years, they’re

now ready to go back into the studio, this time with producer
Howard Benson (Motörhead, Sepultura, Blindside) for major
label Reprise.
“The new record is shaping up a little harder and weirder
than the first one,” reveals Ray. “With I Brought You My
Bullets… we just wrote what we wanted, using all our
influences. With this one, there’s more punky ideas in there
and we’re just writing whatever sounds good.”
“We’re trying to match moods with this one,” adds Gerard.
“On the first record we didn’t think too much about how the
album worked as a whole, so now we’re thinking about making
this as a body of work and the feelings you get from that. We’re
being a lot more critical because there’s songs from the first
album that now we dread playing live. There’s more songs on
the new one that make the hairs stand up on the back of my
neck, and we haven’t even recorded anything yet!”
Those new songs, Gerard hopes, will get him closer to his
dream of supporting none other than Iron Maiden! “I know
it’d be tough but I’d do it just to say I’d been out with them,”
says the singer. “I’d love it if we came on and their fans started
chanting, ‘Mai-den! Mai-den!’ ’cos then I could pretend
they were doing that just for me. That actually I was in Iron
Maiden.”
Boys’ fantasies can take them a long way towards realising
them, and MCR’s are just around the corner.

METALHAMMER.COM 27

28 METALHAMMER.COM

THREE CHEERS
FOR SWEET REVENGE
(REPRISE, 2004)

Punk rock, goth schlock and a touch of flamboyance collided
on MCR’s era-defining breakthrough.

n 2004, bands were growing up. Court jesters Blink
182’s self-titled album a year previous had hinted
at a more mature sound and Green Day were about
to blow the whole thing sky high by trading twominute slacker anthems about masturbation and
not wanting to tidy your room for the sprawling, epic,
anti-war rock opera American Idiot. Popular music was
primed for change. My Chemical Romance delivered it.

The hushed opening of Helena was an intriguing
preamble that marked MCR out as a group of musicians
prepared to experiment and take the scenic route toward
pure rock fury. Its subdued scene-setting soon gave way
to a deeply personal and heartfelt love letter to Gerard
Way’s deceased grandmother. Despite its heavy lyrical
content, it still kicked serious amounts of arse, the
thrashing verses and breakdown groove of the chorus
METALHAMMER.COM 29

LEAD: PRESS TV: BIG JOHN

I

WORDS: STEPHEN HILL

sating those who just wanted to bang their heads.
Give ’Em Hell, Kid and To The End follow in a much more
straightforward punk-rock vein, all urgency and blazing
power chords, yet are characterised by Gerard’s bitter and
wounded prose. You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In
Prison tries to restrain itself and allows Gerard to wallow
in his own fears, but, like Animal in The Muppets going
crazy on his drums, MCR can’t keep the subdued gothic
shoegazing up for long. Just as the chorus is about to
kick in, the band detonate in exhilarating fashion.
Then there comes the song with which My Chemical
Romance captured the hearts of so many. I’m Not Okay
(I Promise) is a genuine anthem for the disaffected, still
sounding as righteously pissed off and fresh as it did
almost a decade ago. For all their future success, it’s this
moment that turned My Chemical Romance from a band
to a cult and is arguably the four minutes that have come
to define them.
If people thought the album was to peak there then
The Ghost Of You, while not being as startling and instant,
still kept the anthems coming. A black-hearted ballad of
true woe and despair, it marks the point where the more
grandiose tendencies of the band were first allowed to
flex their muscles.
On reflection, all these years later, there is no denying
that the second half of the album isn’t quite as breathless
as the first. Only the spaghetti western-inspired Hang
’Em High, featuring a typically frantic vocal performance
from former Black Flag and Circle Jerks frontman Keith
Morris, and the brilliantly defiant Thank You For The
Venom, really live up to what had gone before.
By that point, though, it was enough. My Chemical
Romance had spliced an original, inspiring and
youthful collection of dark-sounding punkrock anthems that showed as many glimpses of
instantaneous pop as it did the wildly lavish pomp
and ceremony that would come to characterise the
oncoming juggernaut that was The Black Parade.
And although that may be the album most identify
them with, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge still stands
as My Chemical Romance’s masterpiece.

WHAT WE SAID
“This album is not destined to be a classic,
but – if you can overlook a damp-squib ending
– it excels as a contemporary post-hardcore album
with integrity and tunes in equal part”
– MARK NORTON

30 METALHAMMER.COM

THE SONG
I’M NOT OKAY (I PROMISE)

W

hen MCR released the first single from
Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge they
immediately entered into the lexicon
of great anthems for the disaffected youth.
I’m Not Okay (I Promise) stands alongside
the likes of The Who’s My Generation, The
Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK, Nirvana’s
Smells Like Teen Spirit and Rage Against The
Machine’s Killing In The Name in the honours
list of zeitgeist-capturing, generationdefining statements. It’s also a song that best
showcases what made My Chemical Romance
so exhilarating musically. Despite its outsider
stance, the song is effortlessly cool, the midsection breakdown where Gerard declares ‘I’m
okay’ over a tinkling piano before the whole
band come careering back in with renewed
vigour that they keep until the song’s end is
delivered with a swagger that any band would
sell body parts to replicate.
I’m Not Okay became the most perfect three
and a half minutes of teen angst in a decade
and in doing so launched MCR. It made them
more than a band – they became a badge of
honour.

THE VIDEOS
WORDS: STEPHEN HILL

HELENA
The MCR glam/goth aesthetic taken to its absolute
pinnacle, as Gerard Way gives a eulogy for a beautiful
young lady at a funeral before the entire congregation
stand up as one to sing along with his pained
narrative. Then a bunch of them start dancing around
him. That sort of thing would usually be frowned upon
at many ceremonies such as this. Here, though,it
seems to have a revitalising effect as the corpse gets
up and does a bit of ballet before dropping down dead
again. Easy come, easy go, as they say. Back in her
coffin, the boys carry her out of the church in the
pouring rain as the by now incredibly disrespectful
mourners bust out their very best Singin’ In The Rain
moves. Which, if the expression on Gerard’s face is
anything to go by, doesn’t really help cheer him up in
the slightest. Some people, eh?

I’M NOT OKAY (I PROMISE)
This could very well be the moment that My Chemical
Romance went from being a band into being a cult.
The I’m Not Okay video is three and a half minutes of
gloriously cinematic, jock-baiting, outsider-statuscelebrating beauty. It gave a platform for a generation
of misunderstood kids to feel like they could stand
up, push back and cling to their own identity. Seeing

MCR portraying students at a high school revelling in
their ‘uniqueness’, from playing croquet to jumping out of
lockers to scare cheerleaders to eating their own science
experiment, was exciting and inspiring to many fans.
It’s also very funny – the scene where guitarist Ray Toro
plucks something from a girl’s eye is brilliantly observed.
The song remains to many the most recognisable in the
band’s catalogue and much of that is owed to the brilliantly
rabble-rousing imagery of this video.

THE GHOST OF YOU
For the most fragile and ballad-like song on the album,
My Chemical Romance made the most harrowing of videos.
Clearly influenced by the iconic opening sequence of
Saving Private Ryan, the band are depicted as World War
II soldiers playing at a dance, before being shipped off to
fight on the beaches. What begins as MCR playing while the
troops and their sweethearts slow dance to the floating,
ethereal melody soon merges into a coal-grey-skied war
zone complete with guns, bombs, explosions and all of the
horror of war spelt out in no uncertain terms.
Cutting back and forth between the two sets as the song
builds in aggression, we see bassist Mikey Way leave his
lover and then die in battle, then get a close-up of Gerard
Way’s reaction to seeing his brother pass away, before the
video ends on his terrified face. It’s heavy duty stuff.
METALHAMMER.COM 31

Frank Iero’s grounded, DIY ethos was the
missing ingredient that ignited the band.

W

WORDS: STEPHEN HILL • PORTRAIT: FONTAINE/PHOTOSHOT

hen you hear Gerard Way talk about the
early days of My Chemical Romance, you’ll
often hear him mention the band’s need for
“dynamite”. When they were a four-piece,
they were explosive, but it wasn’t until the
addition of Frank Iero that they truly ignited.
Born on October 31, 1981 and raised in Kearney, New
Jersey, the young Frank spent most of his early life in
and out of hospitals due to a series of allergies, numerous
bouts of bronchitis and ear infections. This undoubtedly
stoked a yearning for a creative outlet as, at the tender
age of 11, Frank began to play in local punk bands in and
around the Jersey scene. Both his father and grandfather
were musicians and despite his father’s suggestion that
Frank take up drums, he instead picked up a guitar.
“My first show was when I was a high school freshman,
but it was at the junior class dance,” he told The AV Club.
“My older friend and bandmate booked it. The band was
called Steve Weil And The Disco Kings. No one in the
band was named Steve Weil, and we didn’t play disco!”
It was during his stint as frontman of post-punks
Pencey Prep that Frank first met Gerard Way. In fact, his
band were the headliners at MCR’s first ever show. Later
on the two bands would share a record label, Eyeball
Records, on which Pencey Prep released the Heartbreak
In Stereo album in 2001 before splitting soon after.
After the break-up, Frank busied himself in numerous
projects, such as I Am A Graveyard, Hybrid, Sector 12 and
the highly influential American Nightmare, but he made
no secret of his love of MCR, and was present during the
band’s recording of a demo version of Vampires Will Never
Hurt You. During a conversation about the difficulty of
playing the song with only one guitarist, the first hints

were made by MCR, and Frank began to get the inkling
that he may soon be able to join what was, in his own
words, his “favourite band”.
After being offered the role as guitarist, the sound
of the band expanded, sharpened and focused, with
Frank’s passion for his work coming through in his
interviews and music. “The best music happens when
you have a personal connection to it,” he stressed to
Guitar World. “That same philosophy can extend to
the instrument you hold in your hands: if a guitar
means something special, you’re bound to do great
things with it.”
In many ways, Frank is the consummate punk rocker
of MCR, the man that keeps them rooted in the DIY
ethics of their early years. It’s more than just the tattoos
of his beloved Black Flag and Misfits, though – Frank
has been vegetarian from an early age since discovering
the mistreatment of animals in slaughterhouses, and
he’s staunchly committed to pro-gay rights issues. His
custom-made ‘Homophobia Is Gay’ T-shirt has become
an iconic, fan-favourite image.
He also founmd time to front the far thrashier,
hardcore punk of Leathermouth, as well as playing in
Reggie And The Full Effect and Death Spells. He writes
and performs his own solo material too, recording a
cover of The Ronettes’ Be My Baby and even contributing
a track to a Tim Burton movie. With this much on his
plate, it’s no surprise that Iero was philosophical about
the break-up of MCR, telling Epiphone, “We had a great
12 years that I wouldn’t change for the world, but it just
came to an end.”
WIth that amount of dynamite, there was always
a chance Frank Iero was gonna blow up. So it proved.

“THE BEST MUSIC HAPPENS
WHEN YOU HAVE A PERSONAL CONNECTION”

32 METALHAMMER.COM

METALHAMMER.COM 33

In mid-2004, with the global domination that was to come just a
murmur on the horizon, we followed MCR around the UK for one
of their very first Metal Hammer features.

G
b

WORDS: JOHN DORAN • PHOTO: JEFF KRAVITZ/GETTY

erard Way had been having premonitions that
he was going to be blinded for months. The lead
singer of My Chemical Romance kept on seeing it
happen in dreams and each time he would wake
up in a cold sweat, shaking. So he was almost
prepared for the accident that was to happen tonight at
London’s premier sauna-cum-venue, The Garage. During an
eviscerating performance, Gerard throws himself toward
the crowd just as one particularly lust-crazed young woman
thrusts her arms up to touch him.

34 METALHAMMER.COM

Gerard, now wearing shades, takes up the story: “I headbanged into her finger and it went right in my eye. It was
the weirdest feeling. It was painful but the worst thing
was how weird it was. I could feel her finger in my eye and
all this really warm fluid running down my face. I thought
my eyeball had burst and I just kept on thinking about the
dreams I’d been having about going blind. I was like, ‘Dude,
I’ve lost this left eye.’ But the finger was right back into my
socket around the eyeball where all the tendons and shit are.
It made a really weird slurping noise when she took it out.”

“I COULD FEEL HER FINGER IN MY EYE…
I THOUGHT MY EYEBALL HAD BURST”
GERARD GETS A LITTLE TOO CLOSE TO THE FRONT ROW

Metal Hammer has very strict rules about what girls can
and cannot stick into its various orifices and this should
definitely be a no-no. Gerard and the rest of the band are
sitting around sharing coffee, beers and soft drinks, waiting
for their Manchester Hop And Grape show soundcheck this
evening and telling us all about how they are beginning to
take off in this country – while swapping gig injury stories.
Gerard reckons it would have been cool in a way to have lost
his eye, saying: “Can you imagine how cool it would be to
wear an eyepatch on stage?”
“You’d be the screamo Bluebeard!”, adds taciturn drummer
Matt Pelissier. All of the band have horror stories to tell
when it comes to playing live and, watching the powerhouse
performance that they put on, you can’t help but feel
they should take out a hell of a lot more personal injury

insurance. “Frank [Iero] hit me in the face with the head
of his guitar one night and it was bleeding so much that
my entire face was covered in blood,” says Ray Toro, the
Afro-haired guitarist. “It was like a mask of blood.”
“We’re a really physical band on stage,” adds Gerard.
“I slipped a couple of discs in my back on tour. Frank has
broken his wrist. We’ve all been hurt.”
It was the gig the night before when we first met up with
the five-piece (Gerard’s brother Mikey plays bass in the
outfit) from Newark, NJ, who, despite only having a couple
of single releases in this country, are starting to cause a
huge stir over here. And if they don’t care much for their
own safety, then they do about their fans. They walk out on
stage to hand out bottles of water to the people at the front
and regularly douse the ones who look like they need it.
METALHAMMER.COM 35

“WE’VE ALL BEEN HURT”

CHRISTINA RADISH/GETTY

GERARD ON SOME OF THE DOWNSIDES OF THE JOB

They also try to protect their fans from the carnage on stage
if they get up there. It’s Metal Hammer’s view that moshing
is a good thing because it gives people the chance to have
catharsis and get the violence out that is in us all without
hurting anyone else (usually). In fact, we’d go so far as to
say that if everyone in this country under the age of 40 was
made to go to one punk or screamo gig a week then football
violence would probably die out overnight. But Gerard still
thinks there’s a negative element to it sometimes, saying:
“Some of it is macho bullshit. Some of the nu metal acts were
just encouraging violence for violence’s sake. It gives punk
rock a bad name and it makes it harder for the kids. Their
parents aren’t going to let them go and watch bands if they
go and get the shit kicked out of them.”
The Garage is heaving hours before the gig even starts and
people keep on coming up to Gerard in the pub beforehand.
He’s nearly mobbed at one point by two girls coming out of
McDonald’s. “Oh! My! God!” says one with her mouth full of
Curly Wurly McFlurry “My! Chemical! Romance!”
And you can see why they’re starting to
attract this kind of attention when the gig
kicks off. Within seconds of the first song,
Gerard is in the crowd, screaming and
thrashing like a younger, better-looking
Casey Chaos. Their music is reminiscent of
other emo/post-hardcore bands, but
they have a scruffier, punkier
edge, which comes from the
fact that they’re all massive
fans of Black Flag.
The band, it has to be
said, as nice as they are,
don’t appear to be very
rock’n’roll. Hammer
groans inwardly
when it gets on the
tour bus, as the
two DVDs that
are out on show
are Dungeons
& Dragons
and Wind
In The
Willows. Nearly all the

36 METALHAMMER.COM

band go straight to bed, leaving Hammer up with Matt and
the drummers from Hondo Maclean and The Bled, drinking
Stella and talking about hi-hats.
The next day, when Hammer has unstuck its tongue
from the floor and tried to rub its aching pancreas better, we
look for the band, but apparently they all got up to go
sightseeing around Manchester at 5.30 this morning. 5.30am?
That was only half an hour after Hammer went to bed! Later,
after a lot of fannying about with gaffa tape and hairspray,
the band finally say they’re ready to go out for a quick pint.
Now Gerard’s got over the fear of nearly becoming a rock’n’roll
cyclops, he can explain the genesis of their strange name.
“The name is taken from an Irvine Welsh book. Me and Mikey
were looking at a copy of Ecstasy, and on the inside it said,
‘Three tales of chemical romance.’”
The de facto leader of the group adds: “Well, the words
Chemical Romance mean so much on so many different
levels. It seemed to be the only way to describe the music.
And in another way, Trainspotting is generally set in this
area with people getting caught up in a scene and a vibe
where there’s a lot of drugs about and that resonated
with us because of all the stuff we had to fight through
to become a band. The strange thing is that when you
watch the movie with the drug
addiction and murder, it
even looks
like Newark,
where we come from!”
Matt, who looks like he
would sooner be pulling his own
teeth out with pliers than being
interviewed, perks up slightly and
says, “Newark is in the State of New
Jersey, a few hours outside of New York.
It’s a complete goddamn wasteland. It’s been shut
down for about 20 years. It smells godawful.”
“What does it smell of?” we ask.
“Dead bodies”, he replies nonchalantly.
“Also, at the time I was drinking severely,” Gerard
says, “and during that period I was using substances
to overcome other substances.
“I’d had a really bad year before the band and that
helped me get out of it. My art career had gone down
the shitter, 9/11 had just happened… I was quite

CHRISTINA RADISH/GETTY
CARLEY MARGOLIS/GETTY

close to that at the time and it affected me in a very bad
way. I became like a hermit and just started drinking all
the time and I didn’t want to do anything with my life.
And drinking and not doing anything else is the worst
thing you can do in terms of depression. I had to go
and see a therapist for the first time ever and she put
me on antidepressants. But it wasn’t the counselling
or the drugs, it was the band that got me out of my
depression. I had a purpose again.”
“You’ll find that none of us was the cool kid at
school,” offers Frank. “I felt like I never fitted in when I
was younger and I think depression is a normal thing that
happens in that situation. So a lot of those emotions go into
our songs. We keep it in check now. Sometimes I go a little
bit off the rails but we keep each other in check. There’s
always beer around on tour. You’re more likely to get beer
tickets than meal tickets.”
The reason that bands drink so much on tour is because
of all of the downtime there is to kill. Matt, who doesn’t
drink that often, says: “You’ll get kids who are desperate
to come backstage and when they run into the dressing
room there will be, like, one guy asleep, two having a chat,
one watching the TV and another smoking a cigarette; they
always look so depressed, like they’ve walked into the wrong
room. Why? You feel like saying, ‘Look, you’d be having a
better time if you were out at the bar.’”
Frank agrees: “The hour you’re on stage and meeting the
kids afterwards is what it’s all about. It is the 22.5 hours of
the day which is boring when you’re on tour.”
But if last night’s gig was incendiary, tonight’s is
certifiably cooler. Ray looks like a 1960s urban guerrilla
with his MC5/Mars Volta ’fro, the rake-thin Mikey looks
like he could have stepped straight out of Flock Of Seagulls,

Gerard is a goth-rock marauder
with raven-black hair, torn black clothing
and aviator shades, and Matt, with his backwards cap and
goatee beard, looks like he’s ready to walk on stage filling in
for Metallica. Frank is the most ‘modern’-looking guy in the
band with his punctured face, gun and heart tattoos, and
asymmetrical haircut. Suddenly all their disparate looks gel
and they look like a band should: a band of brothers.
“In this life you gotta do what you gotta do!” yells
Gerard before adding, “And if that means doing a line of coke
and getting a blow job, then that’s what you gotta do!”
Hammer ain’t gonna argue, and by the end of the show
there have been more members of the audience running
across the stage and diving off than those who haven’t.
After dragging Frank off for a quick curry in nearby
Rusholme, just to prove that all English food isn’t shit,
we rejoin the others in Manchester rock bar, Big Hands,
where a dizzying array of beers are drunk by the band, and
by the swelling ranks of girls who want to drink with them.
We leave them at about 3am, cavorting on the streets of
Manchester, singing note-perfect impressions of English
bands while dreaming about world domination.
METALHAMMER.COM 37

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THE
GREATEST ALBUMS EVER MADE

Discover 146 pages of classic albums reappraised by rock’s greatest writers
and ranked according to votes cast by Classic Rock magazine’s readers.
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PICTURES: NAKI/GETTY

THE PEOPLE
VS.

It’s not just us journos that get to grill the greats. In November 2004,
the lads popped by Hammer Towers for our classic Spanish Inquisition
feature, fielding questions from… YOU!

WHY ARE YOU GUYS SOOOOO
COOL?
THOMAS, VIA EMAIL
GERARD: “We can answer this question. (Massive pause.) Er,
shit. Let me answer this with a question: ‘Why is Brody Dalle
from The Distillers so hot?’ (Another massive pause.) I guess
we’re cool because we’re just like Thomas. Unless he’s a serial
killer or something. We’re just the kids who didn’t fit in at

school and that’s how we found each other. We were always
on the outside looking in and it depends on whether you
think that’s cool or not.”
HAMMER: Offstage though, and outside of music, who is the
coolest, the most goddamn suave when chatting to the ladies?
ALL BAR MIKEY IN UNISON: “Mikey.”
HAMMER: Is it your uncanny Jarvis Cocker impersonation?
MIKEY: “Yeah dude, it gets them every time. No, it’s Bob; the
ladies are suckers for his beard.”
METALHAMMER.COM 39

GERARD, HAVE YOU ANY PLANS
TO DO ANY MORE ARTWORK
FOR FUTURE ALBUMS, AND
HOW MUCH WOULD IT COST TO
GET YOU TO PLAY IN MY FRONT
ROOM?
NAME TAKEN, VIA HAMMER MESSAGE BOARD
GERARD: “Yes, and 20 bucks.”
HAMMER: I suppose there may be people who don’t know that
you do all the artwork.
GERARD: “I did the art for both of the records. The first one
– I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love –
because I didn’t want photographic artwork, so we got
the picture, photocopied it, put some Ajax on it and put
some cellophane on that. It’s not actually a digital image
like most people think. Then the second album, Three Cheers
For Sweet Revenge, was all done in watercolours and paint.
And yes, I want to do all of our album covers. I don’t get the
chance to do half as much artwork as I’d like.”
HAMMER: Talking of front rooms, what’s the smallest gig you’ve
ever played since you’ve been releasing records?
RAY: “We played a basement in Philly in front of five people, a
major record label rep and a homeless person.”
FRANK: “The homeless guy had a tape recorder tied on a
string round his neck. He bootlegged the gig and then tried
to sell it back to us afterwards. It was very enterprising of
him.”

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT OF
DOING A COVER?
THE DRIFTER, VIA HAMMER MESSAGE BOARD
40 METALHAMMER.COM

GERARD: “Well we did. We played Jack The Ripper, which was
originally a Morrissey B-side, at the same time the first record
was out because we just didn’t have enough songs. We did
that for years ’cos we only had five songs and our sets would
have been over too quickly.”
HAMMER: We tend to hate it when bands do either exact copies
of songs or when they do really obvious songs. What rules do you
think apply to cover versions?
RAY: “The band you cover have got to be over and done with,
or at least on their 10th album or whatever.”
FRANK: “Yeah, so it doesn’t matter if it’s Aerosmith – not
that you should try to do an Aerosmith cover anyway – but
how are you going to improve that?”
MIKEY: “Johnny And Mary by Placebo (actually Placebo’s
originally by suave 70s rocker Robert Palmer - Pedantic Ed)
is an interesting cover.”
RAY: “Just don’t do anything obvious. Not covering a hit
should be another rule. Placebo also covered Where Is My
Mind? by The Pixies and you can’t do that. How many bands
do that song? Too many.”

GERARD, HOW DO YOU FEEL
ABOUT THE COMMENT
THAT YOU LOOK LIKE DREW
BARRYMORE IN ET?
ANT, BIRMINGHAM
GERARD: “Where does this come from?”
HAMMER: I think it was originally from a Hammer live review
ages ago.
GERARD: “I always get compared to some Hollywood starlet
or other. Especially Christina Ricci.”

“THERE WERE FIVE PEOPLE AND A HOMELESS
GUY AT THE GIG. THE HOMELESS GUY
BOOTLEGGED THE GIG AND TRIED TO SELL
IT TO US AFTERWARDS” MCR ON ENTERPRISING HOBOS

WHAT DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE
CLAIM THAT YOU ARE GOTHS?
ALI, FROM READING
GERARD (WHO IS DRESSED ENTIRELY IN BLACK, HAS
LONG BLACK HAIR AND LOADS OF MAKE-UP ON TO
APPEAR LIKE HE HAS THE THREE-DAY-DEAD EYES OF A
GHOUL): “It doesn’t really bother us. I think it comes from
our song Vampires Will Never Hurt You. I mean, I always
dress in black – the whole of the band always dress in black
– but that isn’t really goth to me. Bauhaus were goth; The
Sisters of Mercy are goth. I think it has more to do with the
sound of the music and our sound is more punk rock. All
that goth music is good stuff though. I just don’t think we
sound like that.”

WHY NOT PLAY A SHOW IN
ICELAND? IT’S NOT A BAD IDEA.
ICELANDIC NAME, ICELAND
GERARD: “I would love to.”
FRANK: “I’ve heard it’s fucking beautiful.”
GERARD: “We’re always up for doing stuff like that in different
countries and what I always say is, ‘If you can find a promoter
willing to bring us over then we’ll do it.’”

HEY GUYS, SORRY TO ASK THE
OBVIOUS, BUT WHAT HAPPENED
TO MATT (PELISSIER, THE
BAND’S DOUR AND SLIGHTLY
OLDER EX-DRUMMER)?
ALEXANDRA ROSE, VIA HAMMER MESSAGE BOARD
GERARD: “We’d rather not talk about this because we’re not a
shit-talking band.”
FRANK: “It’s just not anyone’s business. We don’t feel we
need to talk about stuff like this.”
HAMMER: Well, I’ll turn the question around: can you tell us
about the background of your new member Bob Bryar, who’s

replaced him? (The band turn round to Bob, who is dozing in
the corner with his hoody pulled up, and laugh.)
ALL: “Bob, what’s your background?”
BOB (GROGGILY): “I started playing drums when I was three
and then after school I worked my way into the
music business, working in music stores and record shops.
I started doing drum tech stuff and I always ended up
hanging around with My Chemical Romance whenever I
worked with them.”

WHAT ARE MCR’S FAVOURITE
SANDWICH FILLINGS?
YOUR BIGGEST FAN, NORTHERN IRELAND
RAY: “Turkey and Gruyère.”
FRANK: “Eggplant [aubergine – American Ed] and parmesan.”
MIKEY: “Grilled cheese and tomato.”
BOB: “Tuna mayonnaise.”
HAMMER: So who is the best cook in the band?
RAY: “Well, I know that Bob can actually cook. Bob, how do
you cook them steaks?”
BOB: “I get some steak and some vinegar and some other
shit. I could tell you but I’d have to kill you. Shit, I don’t
know. I can cook really good if I’ve got a book in front of
me.”
GERARD: “Next time I’m over in the UK, I’m going to cook
all of Metal Hammer’s readers a chickpea curry. It tastes
really good.”
FRANK: “If you’re making a chicken Caesar salad, you should
put powdered onions into the dressing and it tastes really
nice.”
HAMMER: Powdered onions? What kind of insanity is that?
FRANK: “You guys don’t have powdered onions? You are so
BC.”
HAMMER: Goddammit. You can’t speak to a member of
Her Majesty’s Metal Press like that! But let me know where we
can get this shit; we’re thinking of launching a sister title – Metal
And Modern Cookery Hammer.
ALL: “Awesome!”
METALHAMMER.COM 41

TO THE GUY WITH THE BIG HAIR
(RAY): DO YOU ACTUALLY LIKE
IRON MAIDEN OR ARE YOU JUST
BEING COOL?
INSANE ANGEL, VIA HAMMER MESSAGE BOARD
GERARD: “Whoa!”
BOB: “Ha ha ha!”
RAY: … (starts shaking)
FRANK: “Oh my God!”
RAY: … (smoke starts pouring from his ears)
MIKEY: “What a fucking question!”
RAY (WITH BARELY CONTROLLED ANGER, THROUGH
GRITTED TEETH): “No. I hate them. They’re fucking shit.
That’s a fucked-up question, you shithead!”
GERARD: “To be fair, it’s a valid question. You do see a lot of
young chicks wearing Maiden T-shirts who are just doing it
because it’s a fashion thing to do.”
HAMMER: So we can safely assume you’re all Maiden fans?
ALL: “Dude! Of course!”
HAMMER: In that case, can you all give me a surprising Bruce
Dickinson fact?
MIKEY: “He was an Olympic fencer.”
RAY: “He wrote books on how to get on in the music biz.”
GERARD: “He’s a trained pilot, dude!”
FRANK: “Do you know how in the 70s Bowie started thinking
he was Ziggy Stardust? Well, I think Bruce Dickinson is
the same with Lord Iffy Boatrace [the main character from
Dicko’s ‘comedy’ novels].”

GERARD: “I’m not sure what he’s talking about. If he means
the people who remember us from being in a hardcore band
who call us faggots on the internet then we’re not bothered.
We get called faggots a lot but, you know, so what? We tend not
to read about ourselves. Live reviews are handy because you
can learn stuff from them, but generally not.”

DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELVES
A METAL BAND?
GRACE, LONDON
GERARD: “Metal is a big influence. If you think about the
power, the screaming, the guitars etc then it is quite metal,
but it sounds like punk to me.”
MIKEY: “We’re also metal in the sense that we’ve a lot of
metal on our instruments and I have quite a lot on my
belt buckle as well.”
GERARD: “If we’re metal then we’re very traditionally metal.
Iron Maiden are an influence, as are Helloween. Don’t ever
forget Helloween!”
HAMMER: So is your song Thank You For The Venom an ABBAstyle tribute to the large-haired black-metal poodle rockers from
Newcastle, England?
GERARD: “Eh?”
HAMMER: It doesn’t matter.
GERARD: “That song is a sarcastic statement, a bit like
saying, ‘Thanks for ruining my life.’ It was something I had
written on my T-shirt the first ever gig we played.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE
CRITICISM YOU RECEIVE FROM
THE METAL COMMUNITY?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU
EVER ENCOUNTERED A MOOSE?
WOULD YOU RUN OR STAND
AND FACE IT?

CHRIS, VIA EMAIL

GOLDFINGER, VIA HAMMER MESSAGE BOARD

42 METALHAMMER.COM

FRANK: “Has Goldfinger ever seen any mooses?”
MIKEY: “That isn’t the plural of moose. It’s moosi.”
GERARD: “Fuck off, it’s meese.”
FRANK: “Has Goldfinger ever seen a flock of meese
advancing on him? It’s a terrifying sight. They aren’t
small creatures. You would just run off like a girl or a boy.
What does running like a girl mean anyway?”
MIKEY: “I’ve seen one. I’d run like a girl for sure. They’re
massive. If you run over one, you’re fucked. They come in
through your windscreen kicking.”
BOB: “People think that moose are really gentle and goofy but
they aren’t; they’re fucking animals.”
HAMMER: What’s the most exotic piece of wildlife you’ve
encountered on tour?
GERARD: “I saw some grizzly bears in Canada.”
RAY: “I saw a coyote.”
BOB: “Ray saw this girl in Chicago. She was fucking exotic.”
RAY: “Oh shit. She pelted me with chicken-flavoured
crackers. Do you remember the homeless lady as well? She
was this really old lady with this faint voice that I found
when I was getting on the tour bus one night. She said, ‘Can
I sleep here tonight?’ and I was like, ‘No way lady, get the hell
off the bus.’ And then I realised that she had wrenched the
window off the side of the bus to get in.”
HAMMER: You have more stories about homeless people
than any other band we’ve met.
GERARD: “That’s because they are our core audience.”
MIKEY: “We’re very attractive to them because we dress like
homeless people.”

DO YOU LIKE THE FRENCH?
PAUL, KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES
GERARD: “Oh. That is such a loaded question.”
FRANK: “Well, I’m going to say no because when we’ve toured
there they’ve never been anything but mean to us.”
HAMMER: Well, you’re in good company. I know Andrew Eldritch
from The Sisters Of Mercy said if he had one wish, he would make
France sink into the sea – except for all of the pretty girls aged
between 18 and 26, who he would levitate to safety.”

ALL, CRACKING UP: “Awesome!”
HAMMER: Yeah, they are an easy target. Wasn’t it Donald
Rumsfeld who said that going to war in Iraq without the French
was like going hunting without an accordion?
FRANK: “Brilliant.”

CAN YOU CLEAR THIS UP FOR
US ONCE AND FOR ALL: WHICH
ONE OF THE VILLAGE PEOPLE
WAS ACTUALLY GAY?
IRON MONKEY, VIA HAMMER MESSAGE BOARD
GERARD (WITHOUT PAUSE): “The construction worker.”

YOU GUYS RULE LIVE. WHAT
BRITISH BAND WOULD YOU LIKE
TO PLAY WITH IN THE FUTURE?
HOLLOW MAN, VIA HAMMER MESSAGE BOARD
FRANK AND MIKEY: “Muse.”
RAY: “Funeral For A Friend.”
GERARD: “Yeah, Funeral For A Friend again.”

HAVE ANY OF YOU EVER BEEN
SHOT AND/OR STABBED?
ANDY, BRISTOL
RAY: “We nearly got shot recently. We were stuck in a traffic
jam and our manager got into this argument with these
Puerto Rican guys and told them to go fuck themselves. They
pulled up next to us and got a gun out. Our manager was
trying to grab the gun. I thought we were fucked for sure.”
BOB: “I just rolled the window up. I couldn’t think of
anything else to do. ‘Phew. I’m safe from the .375 gun
now that I’ve rolled the fucking window up.’”
HAMMER: Were you scared?
BOB: “Nah, I’m full of piss and vinegar.”
HAMMER: So that’s what’s in your secret steak marinade!
BOB: “Shit yeah! I piss on my steak. Now I’m gonna have to
kill you.”

“I JUST ROLLED THE WINDOW UP. I COULDN’T
THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE TO DO. ‘PHEW. I’M
SAFE FROM THE .375 GUN NOW THAT I’VE ROLLED
THE FUCKING WINDOW UP’” BOB ON BECOMING BULLETPROOF
METALHAMMER.COM 43

44 METALHAMMER.COM

In April 2005, we made a little bit of history
by awarding My Chemical Romance their first
UK cover. It was one hell of an experience…

T

WORDS: DANIEL LANE • PHOTOS: JOHN MCMURTRIE

here are plenty of rock stars who can talk the
talk, but there are actually very few who can also
walk the walk. And there are even fewer who can
strut down the street with that knowing, snotty,
rock’n’roll swagger that it takes to truly make it
in this business. It’s a heady combination – part balls,
part bravado, part fucking insanity – but whatever it is,
New Jersey’s My Chemical Romance have it, and they have
it in abundance.
Like a modern-day real-life re-enactment of Anthony
Burgess’s cult classic A Clockwork Orange, My Chem Rom
are all sharp suits and flick-knives. Both dapper and
dangerous in equal measure, they’ve captured the hearts
and minds of the dysfunctional and the downtrodden.
They are to this decade what Nirvana and Manic Street
Preachers were to the 90s. And, like those aforementioned
bands, MCR frontman Gerard Way doesn’t accept the
ascribed moniker of ‘rock star’ lightly. “I don’t think
people are looking for a rock star or rock stars,” he
explains, taking a long pull on his cigarette. “I think
people are looking for a rock star to kill.”
MCR are clearly gunning for the Clockwork Orange
strength-in-numbers approach. They do everything as

a gang and each of them individually has something valid
to say as much as the next band member, be that in the
form of guitarist Ray Toro’s heartfelt passion for music,
the quick and belligerent wit of guitarist Frank Iero, the
dark humour of drummer Bob Bryar or bassist Mikey
Way’s unashamed love of schlock horror flicks.
But it’s not because the band are afraid of Gerard
becoming the Anti-Hero Superstar of the 21st century’s
Generation X – or as they aptly put it, “This ain’t the
Gerard Way show by any means.”
It’s because, it turns out, the gang mentality is for real.
“It’s not an ego thing or because everyone wants equal
time,” continues Gerard. “It’s because we are a gang. But
the weird thing about this gang is there’s no leader. We
don’t want it to become anyone’s ‘show’ because ultimately
that detracts from our music. Without naming names,
probably in the last year and a half/two years, certain
individuals were pushed to the front of their bands.
Maybe it will sell them a few more records, or maybe they
didn’t think of the consequences of doing so, but that
kind of thing is basically a poison in your band.
“Anything this band does, even down to merch,
is collaborative. We’re the kind of guys that, when

“IN OUR BAND, IT’S THE FIVE OF US AGAINST
THE WORLD” FRANK AND THE BOYS HAVE THE GLOVES OFF
METALHAMMER.COM 45

something comes back to bite us in the ass, we know
it’s all our fault! And that’s how stuff ends up being
done. I don’t think we’ve been unhappy with anything
we’ve done so far – a T-shirt, a video, a record…
I think the kids who are into this band are interested
in finding someone to lead them. This band is what
we’d rather have lead them than just me. It’s really rare
that onstage these other guys will talk, but offstage in
interviews, or if the kids approach one of these guys, you
will find that they have a lot to say that’s very relevant.”
“I don’t know how anyone else feels about this,”
interjects Frank. “But whatever happened to bands?
Why does it always have to be this star or that star? If
you’ve been in a band you know exactly what it’s like.
I’ve always been a fan of music made by bands. The
whole ‘rock star’ thing has never seemed real to me and

it seldom feels like art, y’know? It’s almost as if most
bands have this model and he sings and there’s four ugly
guys at the back! And to top it off, their producer probably
writes all their songs! In our band it’s the five of us against
the world. That’s what we’ve chosen for our music and
that’s how I think we should be portrayed if you want to
do things in an honest way. If you want to show the fake
side of music and just sell a magazine cover or a record
then by all means go ahead!”
Indeed, you only have to look at such metal icons as
Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Mötley Crüe and
even latter-day rising stars like Nightwish and Funeral For
A Friend to realise that, even though the frontperson may
be the focal point, he or she is not the be all and end all
of that band. And while Frank makes a sound argument
for this case – one which Hammer wholeheartedly agrees

“WE DIDN’T SET OUT TO BE ICONS”
TOUGH SHIT, FRANKIE BOY!

46 METALHAMMER.COM

with – the 21st century’s Generation X still have a hard
time accepting such subtle details when they’ve already
decided to dub Gerard their new rock messiah.
That said, since their inception five or so years ago,
My Chemical Romance have concentrated their energies
on changing that perception. You only have to stand
outside one of their shows before the doors open to see
girls screaming for autographs when Mikey or Bob walk
past, or budding guitarists mobbing Frank and Ray to
talk about “strings and pedals and pick-ups”. However,
it hasn’t been an easy ride by any means for the New
Jersey alt-rockers and, ultimately, it nearly cost the band
their frontman’s life by pushing him to the brink of
oblivion. Unfortunately, Gerard’s “people are looking for
a rock star to kill” line is closer to the truth than you can
possibly imagine.
“There was a point for me about eight months ago where
I felt really weirded out by the whole ‘rock star’ thing,” he
confesses. “It was like, ‘Shit, I didn’t know this was gonna
happen.’ Well, maybe I did, but I didn’t fully appreciate
the impact of it all. Someone said to me in an interview
recently that a lot of kids are looking up to me as their
saviour and I really didn’t know how to answer that. It
was really bizarre. When we started this band, we set
out to help people and I don’t want to contradict myself,
but I guess we didn’t realise that there were that many
people out there that needed our help.”
You only have to listen to the lyrics on My Chemical
Romance’s latest album, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge,
to discover that, figuratively speaking, Gerard Way is one
sick puppy. He will openly admit to having “psychotic
tendencies” with a shrug, and lists “liver damage” as one
of his ailments on his biog page on the band’s website.
“Basically, when we were on the road, there’d be liquor
before water, and sometimes no water at all. And then
like anything else it gets out of hand and I’d wake up in
the morning and aim to get drunk before noon. I can’t
really remember the last three years because of it. It was
a normal thing for me to get wasted. I knew, deep down,
that I had a problem, but it was something I was very
defensive about, too.
“Now I go to meetings and stuff and they always say
you really need to know the date. And everyone I’ve met
at those kinda places knows the date when they stopped
doing whatever, but I don’t know the date when I stopped
because it was just so urgent for me to stop. I came to the
other guys in the band the day after we got back from
Japan and said, ‘Look, I have a problem, and I think it’s
going to affect the band.’ And that was five or six months
ago. So a decision was made to avoid me contributing to
a complete breakdown of this band. It was to avoid any

BRAVE NEW
WORLD

M

y Chemical Romance’s axe man Ray Toro
(yes, him with the hair) is a massive
Iron Maiden fan.
“We don’t really try and make our influences
that obvious. I think our influences are a lot
more subtle. Frank’s guitar style is different
from mine. He’s from a punk-rock background;
I’m more influenced by classic heavy metal.
So just bringing all those influences together
makes our sound really unique, but it’s quite
obvious that I’m a massive fan of Iron Maiden.
My older brother was a big fan of Iron Maiden
and when I first got into music,
the first album I had was
Killers. I was really impressed,
not just with the guitar
playing, but also the rawness
of it too. It was like punk
rock meets heavy metal.”

METALHAMMER.COM 47

kind of drama – y’know, a VH1 Behind The Music kinda
situation. That’s really it.
“The fact of the matter is that I was extremely
depressed, I was suicidal and the booze wasn’t helping,”
he continues. “It kept me there. I don’t know if it
necessarily helped me to get there in the first place,
but it kept me there. And kept me there for months!
It’s a symptom of being on the road, having nothing
to do for 23 hours a day but drink. But I think you have to
have it in you to start with. Before the band, I was a pretty
good drinker too.”
Contrary to the likes of other angst anti-heroes like
Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain or Korn’s Jonathan Davis, Gerard
and his younger brother Mikey had a pretty normal
upbringing, albeit in a bad neighbourhood.
“Everyone says their family is crazy, so I won’t
say that,” explains Gerard. “Our parents were really
supportive about everything we wanted to do and

we had a really pleasant environment to grow up in.
They encouraged us to do the things that we excelled
at and we were interested in. They wouldn’t push
anything on us and that was the raddest thing.”
Wait, what? A normal upbringing with a mom ’n’ dad
who loved you? Surely there must be some mistake,
young Gerard?
“I guess like anyone else we’re a product of the
environment we grew up in,” he continues. “Northern
New Jersey isn’t the safest place to grow up. I think we’re
really fucked up because we were forced to live in our
heads so much. And when you have to live in your head
like that, you have a hard time dealing with the real
world. I guess me more so than Mikey because I was the
older brother and I experienced things first-hand, as
older brothers do. I’m three years older and I had a really
hard time accepting death. I think that’s where my whole
fucked-upness comes from.
“And before you ask, no, there was no kind of traumatic
event, nothing like that. I was just a kid and I realised one
day that your parents, your friends, your family, everyone
you care about is going to die one day. It just occurred
to me. I wasn’t reading Edgar Allan Poe or listening
to The Cure, I was just watching some shitty cartoons and
it dawned on me that we’re all going to die. So I became
hyper-sensitive about it and still am to this day.
“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 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!”
Yet despite Gerard’s growing pains, having Mikey in
the band has helped him to sort his head out.
“We get along real well,” grins Mikey. “And it’s super
sweet! Our relationship now is pretty much the same as
it’s always been. I think we just wrestled more back then.
We’d professional wrestle each other WWF-style, but the
rule was no punches in the face!”
“I don’t really picture them as brothers,” adds Ray.
“They’re more like best friends. I’ve never seen two

“I THINK PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR A ROCK
STAR TO KILL” GERARD SAW A BULLSEYE ON HIS CHEST
48 METALHAMMER.COM

METALHAMMER.COM 49

NOBODY
EXPECTS THE
SPANISH
INQUISITION

I

t always amused us here at Hammer Towers
when we ran a Spanish Inquisition feature
and invited reader comments. When My
Chemical Romance went head to head with
their fans (see page 39), one young man sent
132 emails addressed to MCR saying such
hilarious things as “Tell those emo fags they
suck,” “Tell those emo fags they fucking suck,”
and “Tell those emo fags they suck dick!”
Needless to say, the Way brothers found the
whole thing hilarious.
MIKEY: “The way I think of it is that if someone
wants to go to all the effort to talk shit about
you, then they’re secretly intrigued by you.”
GERARD: “They’re just a bunch of closet cases.
If you wanna make out with me so bad, dude,
you only had to say!”

50 METALHAMMER.COM

brothers have a relationship like them.”
“If I were with my brother every day, day in, day out,
we’d be at each other’s throats day and night,” offers Bob.
But these two aren’t at all.”
“It’s easier for me and Mikey to be on the road because
we are brothers,” explains Gerard. “I know it’s a strange
thing to say, but I guess that’s why me and him wake up
OK in the morning, because it feels like we’re at home. We
used to hang out and play videogames together; we did
everything together and it’s the same way now.”
“I wish their hygiene was better!” laughs Frank.
Since they officially broke out of New Jersey in 2002
with their debut album I Brought You My Bullets, You
Brought Me Your Love, My Chemical Romance have had
a pretty rapid rise to success. In the UK alone they’ve
graduated to bigger and bigger venues each time they’ve
toured here and they’ve actually sold more records
than screamo superstars The Used (who, incidentally,
namecheck MCR on their latest record).
“We really weren’t aware of that,” says a stunned Gerard.
“But we really try not to pay attention to those kind of
things. I guess the less you pay attention to record sales
and comparisons between your band and other bands,
it keeps your band the way it is.”
“There was a point where we realised that it gets less
about the music and more about the industry as time goes
by,” adds Frank. “We did this interview where the people
who were interviewing us had no idea who we were or that
we were even in a band! They’d just seen us on MTV or in
a magazine or something and thought we were… I actually
don’t know what they thought we were! Hopefully those
times will be few and far between. It’s really not what it’s
about. We didn’t set out to be icons.”
“We ultimately make music for ourselves to make
ourselves feel better,” continues Gerard. “But there
was a definite goal for this band when we started out
to help people. And that is the difference between us
and everyone else I think.”
Frank adds, “We started out with a lot of goals,
and we met them pretty rapidly. We still have a lot of
long-term goals, but it’s hard to articulate that to people
without sounding like assholes. Of course I want to
play huge world tours, but our ultimate goal is just to
reach as many people as possible and make a difference.
It sounds kinda clichéd, but it’s true. If you can change
the world for the better, even just a little bit, I think it’s
the best thing you can do.”
While MCR may look like a gang of cool rock-star
motherfuckers these days with their co-ordinated
black-and-red schtick – even Mikey’s ironic computergeek aesthetic is on the right side of cool – in high

school they were less A Clockwork Orange and more
Revenge Of The Nerds.
“The whole black-and-red thing isn’t a Satanic thing
like some people have said,” grins Gerard. “However, we
do have a huge love and respect for The Dark Lord – The
Dark Lord being [Alkaline Trio frontman] Matt Skiba.
It all kinda came out of a video we were doing actually.
We did the video for Helena and, like everything we do,
we art directed it. And we all really started to like how
we looked in that video. I like the way we look kinda
uniform. It was important for us because not only had
the band become a gang, we needed to look like a gang
too. It wasn’t a calculated thing – it was just one of those
moments when you take a look at yourself and go, ‘I really
like how we look!’”
And that is one of the great things about MCR –
they’re putting the ‘star’ back into rock star. Like all the
rock star greats before them, MCR have a real sense of
showmanship; a sense of mystique that grunge with its
dour dress code, nu metal with its safe and sanitised look,
and the ‘The’ bands who roll up to a gig wearing exactly
the same fucking thing they always wear day in day out,
have robbed us of.
“Well, we, um, actually do wear these kinda clothes
all the time,” confesses Gerard. “I don’t have any other
clothes apart from my pyjamas! Or ‘breakfast pants’ as I
like to call them. The make-up is what we don’t always
wear. It’s a process to get us ready to go on stage. That’s
why it always feels odd getting up first thing in the
morning and having to get ready for photo shoots. But
yeah, we all make a conscious effort to look like jerk-offs
all the time. That’s why we all smell so bad!
“When we went to high school we were definitely the
kids that didn’t fit in. I used to wear a lot of black and
I got hassled for it. As for a Revenge Of The Nerds kinda
vibe, if you look at the kids that came to our shows back
in the early days, it’s exactly what it was. We’d end up
playing a lot of scenester shows, but you could always
tell who came to see My Chemical Romance because they
didn’t look like anyone else, they didn’t fit in with anyone
else and everyone would give them dirty looks. They were
usually alone too. But now I seem to have been given this
‘cutesy frontman’ tag. Like what the fuck?! I don’t think
I’m ‘cute’ in any way, shape or form. I just thought people
liked me because I’m a crazy asshole! That’s the weirdest
thing – we don’t really understand that at all. So it’s very
strange to us that we’re pin-ups on people’s walls.”
Frank is a little more philosophical about it all: “Well,
if that’s the way it’s gonna happen then it’s fucking
hilarious! Do you really want photos of us spitting on each
other and puking up? If you do, you’re fucking crazy!”

MURDER BALLADS
NEO-GOTH GREATS

L

ove the goth-punk stylings of MCR? Here’s
Hammer’s Top 10 (well, 11, if you include
the AFI intro) list of all things dark and
downtuned for you to rip or download and burn
your own gothy compilation album!
BAND: AFI
TRACK: Initiation
TIME: 0:39
TAKEN FROM: The Art Of Drowning [Nitro, 2000]
BAND: Avenged Sevenfold
TRACK: Unholy Confessions
TIME: 4:43
TAKEN FROM: Waking The Fallen [Hopeless, 2003]
BAND: Alkaline Trio
TRACK: Private Eye
TIME: 3:30
TAKEN FROM: From Here To Infirmary [Vagrant, 2001]
BAND: My Chemical Romance
TRACK: I’m Not Okay (I Promise)
TIME: 3:08
TAKEN FROM: Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge
[Warner Bros., 2004]
BAND: Danzig
TRACK: Mother
TIME: 3:24
TAKEN FROM: Danzig [American, 1988]
BAND: AFI
TRACK: The Days Of The Phoenix
TIME: 3:27
TAKEN FROM: The Art Of Drowning [Nitro, 2000]
BAND: Atreyu
TRACK: Right Side Of The Bed
TIME: 3:42
TAKEN FROM: The Curse [Victory, 2004]
BAND: Bleeding Through
TRACK: On Wings Of Lead
TIME: 5:21
TAKEN FROM: This Is Love, This Is Murderous [Roadrunner/
Trustkill, 2003]
BAND: Wednesday 13
TRACK: Buried By Christmas
TIME: 3:19
TAKEN FROM: Transylvania 90210 [Roadrunner, 2005]
BAND: Eighteen Visions
TRACK: I Let Go
TIME: 3:23
TAKEN FROM: Obsession [Sony/Trustkill, 2004]
BAND: Type O Negative
TRACK: My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend
TIME: 3:43
TAKEN FROM: The Least Worst Of [Roadrunner, 2000]

METALHAMMER.COM 51

THE DISTANCE IN METRES THAT EVERY BLACK
PARADE CD SOLD WOULD STRETCH IF LAID END
TO END. THAT’S 961 EMPIRE STATE BUILDINGS!

MCR ALBUMS SOLD EVERY HOUR
OVER THE BAND’S INITIAL 12-YEAR CAREER.

VIDEO VIEWS ON THE
OFFICIAL MCR YOUTUBE CHANNEL.

LIKES ON FACEBOOK. THAT’S AROUND
THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF BELGIUM.

52 METALHAMMER.COM

SHOWS DURING THE BLACK PARADE WORLD TOUR.

PLANETARY LOGO
THERE ARE PLENTY OF WAYS TO WRITE…

FIVE
DRUMMERS
SINCE THE BAND
FIRST FORMED. ONLY
18 FEWER THAN
SPINAL TAP!

METAL HAMMER GOLDEN GODS
AWARDS NOMINATIONS…
…AND COVERS!

MEMBERS ON THE MCRMY FACEBOOK PAGE.

METALHAMMER.COM 53

“THIS BAND IS THE ONLY THING I HAVE GOING
FOR ME. IT’S THE ONLY THING I CAN DO RIGHT”
GERARD KNEW WHERE HIS STRENGTHS LAY

54 METALHAMMER.COM

When Hammer was invited to join Gerard et all on 2005’s incarnation
of the Vans Warped Tour, we could hardly refuse…

T

WORDS: IAN WINWOOD • PHOTOS: JOHN MCMURTRIE

he man standing by the side of the road has a
look of resigned understanding on his face. It’s
as if he realises that the task he’s up against
today is insurmountable, a tide of opposition
that can neither be held back nor reasoned with.
The sun is beating down like a truncheon, remorseless, all
day long. The man stands tall, making a stand.
A car drives by, its passenger leans from the window and
shouts, “You fucking asshole!”
The man’s name is Bob Adams, a suave-looking
gentleman with wavy blond hair and pastel-coloured,
country club clothing. He is standing at the entrance to
the Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater in Atlanta holding a sign
that demands you ‘READ THE HOLY BIBLE DAILY’.
It’s midday on Wednesday August 3. Today is the day
the Vans Warped Tour visits Atlanta, Georgia. Something
like 30,000 southern punk rockers are pulling their cars
onto the grass car parks and heading for the entrances. On
the way, they are driving and walking past Bob Adams.
“Get a life you fucking dick!”
Bob Adams just smiles and waves an arm in friendly
riposte. “I’m just here to talk to people,” he says, by way
of explanation. “To tell them about the word of the Bible.
I’ll have a conversation with anyone who wants to talk.
I don’t mind who they are. I’ll be standing here all day.”
There are some Christians who believe that festivals
such as this one are ungodly. Are you one of them?
“Well…” and here Bob Adams smiles, the smile of
a man well used to questions such as this. “I try not to
be too judgemental. But the word of God is in the Bible,
and anything else runs contrary to the scriptures. The
message these people are getting today is not from the

Bible so, yes, I guess it is against the word of God.”
Do you think festivals such as this are the same as going
to church for the people who attend?
This time it’s My Chemical Romance’s vocalist Gerard
Way who answers the question. The singer is sitting in
the air-conditioned silence in the back lounge of his
crew’s tour bus. Outside the sun is bearing down like
a psychopathic stare. It’s 10 minutes to two, an hour or so
before My Chemical Romance are due to take to the stage

METALHAMMER.COM 55

for their 40-minute set of high-energy rock’n’roll. “I don’t
know,” he says, “I’ve never really thought of it like that.”
Gerard then proceeds to think of it like that. “I know
it sounds really stupid when bands say things like this,
but there is definitely a spiritual element to the music for
us. I know that might sound crap, but we really do put
everything into our performance. The very reason we’re
here is for those moments when we’re on stage. Everything
else is just crap. I don’t mean to be rude when I say this,
but talking to you right now is crap. It’s just something
I do when I’m waiting to get onstage. And so for us there
is a kind of devotional quality to playing, yeah.”
And for the audience?
“That’s difficult to say,” he reckons. “We do have
a fanatical element, that’s for sure. I do know that there
are more problems in terms of safety when we play than
for any other band on this tour.”
Yeah, you could say that. Despite the depth and breadth
of the Vans Warped Tour – which this year features, among
others (deep breath), Avenged Sevenfold, Offspring,
Dropkick Murphys, Hawthorne Heights, Millencolin,
Transplants, Funeral For A Friend and MxPx, as well as

some 80-odd more – it’s for My Chemical Romance that the
audience reserves its highest reaches of insanity.
Whereas no more than 5,000 people crowd each of the
larger stages for other bands (there are four main Warped
Tour stages, as well as a handful of smaller platforms
scattered around the site), it seems that every ticket
holder here today, at exactly 3pm, heads to a spot where
My Chem Rom can be seen. For the following 40 minutes,
it’s all melee and melody, a flurry of faces and limbs in
the horrible heat; security guards earning their keep,
pulling people over the barriers; people getting hurt.
That kind of thing.
At the end of the set, Gerard Way, as he does each day,
walks to the first aid area. Today he’s checking on the
well-being of a young fan, freshly fitted with a neck brace.
Hammer photographer John McMurtrie attempts to take
a picture of him doing this.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” screams
a medic.
Excuse us?
“I said, what the fuck are you doing?” The man is
clearly blood-red angry. “Do you know the consequences

“THERE ARE MORE SAFETY PROBLEMS FOR US
THAN ANY OTHER BAND ON THIS TOUR”
CODE RED SECURITY IS AT THE READY…

56 METALHAMMER.COM

of publishing a photograph of a first-aid worker without
written permission?”
No. No, we don’t.
“Well then, get the fuck out of here!”
On board one of My Chemical Romance’s two buses
– one is for the band themselves, the other for their
road crew – things are more serene. In fact, what with
the extra six feet of space allocated by an extendable
living area (pulled out when the bus is parked), you
could almost imagine that you’re sat in the kitchen of
a brightly lit suburban home.
Drummer Bob Bryar smokes Marlboro Ultra Lights
and plays an online computer game, something to do
with burning wigwams and slicing up centaurs. Gerard
strolls in wearing a bulletproof vest, although not so
bulletproof that it’ll actually stop a bullet (“It’s more
of a general statement,” he reveals, enigmatically).
Guitarist Ray Toro, all wild hair and long limbs, passes the
time, talking small and laughing quietly. Frank Iero and
Mikey Way drift in and out, offering cold drinks and
casual conversation.
A My Chemical Romance video (Helena) plays on
the bus television, live on MTV. The band have been
nominated for four Video Music Awards, the posh
ceremony for which is to be held in Miami at the end
of August. In the meantime, Three Cheers For Sweet
Revenge – MCR’s sophomore album – is about to turn

platinum (one million sales) in the United States. The
future’s so bright, they’re all wearing black.
“I think one of the reasons [for our success] is the
fact that some of us are a little bit older,” says the band’s
singer. “I’m 28 years old and I have failed in other areas
of my life, whether that be in personal relationships or in
looking for a job… things like that. I know what it is to
fail. So this band is almost the only thing I have going for
me. It’s almost the only thing I can do right. And I know
we do it right, and I know that people can see how much
this thing means to us.”
What is it that people like about you?
“I think that people can see themselves in us,” believes
Frank Iero. “But at the same time we’re not just everyday
guys. We are for most of the day, but then when we play
we’re something else entirely. I think that people can see
themselves in us, without actually being us. So there is
that aspirational element to what we do. I think that has
something to do with it.”
n Atlanta, My Chemical Romance play twice in one
day. On one occasion they play for thousands of
hyperactive – occasionally homicidal – fans, flailing
and thrashing in the punishing heat. Before this, the
group practise their entire set before an audience of
one photographer and one journalist at the back of
their bus. This is something they do every day: Gerard
Way sings just one song and then leaves, while his
bandmates practise every number they’re scheduled
to play live in concert.
This is how they do it. Just past the bunks, up at
the rear of the bus are racks of musical and computer
equipment, the kind of high-tech gadgetry that looks
capable of launching a satellite probe. In the middle

,b

METALHAMMER.COM 57

stands a drum kit. The group gather around it playing
their songs, only they’re doing it through headphones, so
each member can hear the other but no one outside of the
band can hear anything except the strum of unamplified
guitars and the hollow beat of electronic drums.
Gerard Way stands in the middle of the room with his
back turned, singing along to Ghost Of You. Despite there
being no volume and no audience, each note is sung with
passion, in tune.
Watching My Chemical Romance onstage allows us to get
some sense of what Gerard Way means when he tells you
just what it is his band are about. The charisma of their
frontman is truly something to see, a star in the ascendant,
approachable yet unattainable in equal measure. But each
member has something to offer, both to the ear and to the
eye. This is a group in a real sense of the word – a gang

who work together, a gang who work hard together. Even
on a scaffold stage built on the back of a truck, with
no lights, in the kind of heat that should come with an
Ennio Morricone soundtrack, it’s impossible not to sense
the impact, and this group’s exponential potential.
“You know what?” asks the singer. “We’re quite
a simple band.”
Really? Why’s that?
“Because we don’t spend our money on cocaine or on
hookers or on booze. We just read a lot of comic books
and ride around on our tour bus…”
You boring bunch of bastards!
“We really are.” Gerard smiles, then he thinks about it
and amends his statement. “Apart from when we get up
and play. And then we’re something different. Then we’re
not boring at all.”

“I KNOW THAT PEOPLE CAN SEE
HOW MUCH THIS THING MEANS TO US.”
THE MCRMY FEELS THE LOVE

58 METALHAMMER.COM

With world domination well on the way, Hammer got its biggest taste
yet of the MCRmy’s increasing power when we caught up with the guys
on tour in the UK in late 2005.

WORDS: IAN WINWOOD PHOTOS: NAKI/GETTY

or God’s sake, don’t use my surname,” says Anna.
“I’ve been standing out here all afternoon. I should
have been in school – we’ve got an English test
today, and I quite like English – but I’m bunking
off. Nothing’s gonna stand in the way of me and My
Chemical Romance. Not a chance.”
Why can’t we use your surname?
“In case my mum reads your magazine, of course!”
Next to Anna Whose Surname Cannot Be Used sits
Kimberly, Whose Surname Also Cannot Be Used. The pair
of them are friends and schoolmates, the pair of them
are on the skive, and the pair of them are sitting under
an arched shelter outside the Portsmouth Guildhall. It’s
about half past two in the afternoon, four hours until the
doors open for tonight’s sold-out show. There’s no earthly
reason that Anna and Kimberly should be here as early as
this, but then try telling them that. Them, and the dozen
others sat in the cold, just out of reach of the pissing rain.
“It’s My Chemical Romance,” says Kimberly, as if this
explains everything.
There’s not much of a turnout for them so far, though.
There’s only about 12 of you.
“Yeah, true,” says Kimberly. “But it’s not about who isn’t
here, it’s about who is here.”
In that, she’s right. The people (all young women, by the
way) gathered this afternoon, in the wet and in the cold,
look as if they’re very serious about My Chemical Romance.
As if they could appear on Mastermind on the subject of My
Chemical Romance. As if it would take them about as long
as it takes to draw breath to recognise each and every song
the band will play this evening. As if they know every word
and every note of every B-side the band have ever recorded.
The only thing that appears to be missing are the tattoos,
and that, we’re sure, is just a question of age and legality.
So, we ask, if you could see any band tonight, who would

)b

60 METALHAMMER.COM

it be? “My Chemical Romance,” the pair reply, without
hesitation and in unison.
Any band, past or present; right here, tonight.
“I’d pick My Chemical Romance,” says Kimberly.
Led Zeppelin.
“No.”
Nirvana?
“No!”
Why not?!
“Because,” says Anna, as if speaking to an idiot, as if
speaking to a child, “because My Chemical Romance are
the best band in the world.”

O

n the other side of the Guildhall’s plush stone walls
sit the band themselves. Actually, ‘sit’ might be
a bit strong. They’re kind of lounging, sprawling,
very much at ease. Gerard Way has yet to powder his face
with make-up and is dressed in civvies. He’s keen to make
sure Hammer has something to drink and somewhere
to sit. Guitarist Frank Iero sits to his right, friendly and
immediate, joking and talking as if he’s known you for
years. Bassist Mikey Way is sitting directly opposite,
thin and gawky, self-deprecating and likeable, funny in
a ‘quiet brother’ kind of way. Drummer Bob Bryar is sat
at the other side of the room. His left hand is in a brace,
a condition caused by hitting cymbals and drums night
after night for month after month. He doesn’t say much
but if you ask him if he’s OK, he’ll smile and say, yeah,
he’s OK. Guitarist Ray Toro, on the other hand, is lying on
the floor. Occasionally he’ll raise his head and shake his
explosion of curly hair.
Throughout this free-for-all of an interview, crew
members and local crew hands will continually bustle in
and out of the room, bringing bottled water, Coca-Cola,
Diet Coke and Red Bull. Ray will take a Red Bull and hold it

“WE’RE OUTSIDERS. WE’RE THE KIDS
WHO DIDN’T GET DATES FOR THE PROM”
GERARD WAS ALWAYS READY TO REP FOR THE DISILLUSIONED

METALHAMMER.COM 61

flat against his horizontal chest.
“Oh, my Red Bull,” he’ll say, as if in love. “I love my Red
Bull. Where would I be without my Red Bull?”
First question, then: name three bands who are better
than My Chemical Romance.
“Oh man, that’s a good question,” says Gerard.
“But that’s really tough.”
“Are you serious?” wonders Frank.
Yeah, of course.
“Well, see, thing is, when we started we kind of got
ourselves through the difficult times by being a gang and
believing that we were the best band in the world,”
says the frontman. “And we kind of still believe
that we’re the best band in the world. That’s the
kind of belief that keeps us together. And
even though we’re more popular now and it’s
not so much us against the world, we still
believe that. And there really are no bands
out there who are doing what we do. We’re
different to all the other bands out there.”
Come on, though, answer the question.
Half an hour later, they finally appear ready
to answer the question.

“Iron Maiden,” says Frank. “I’d say they’re better than us.”
“And Green Day,” says Gerard. “Green Day at the moment
are in that place that bands only get to if they’re lucky,
once in their career. Where they can say that they are the
best band in the world. So Green Day are better than us.”
“And Danzig,” adds Frank. “Doyle has been joining him
onstage and singing Misfits songs. That’s just amazing.
That’s better than us.”
“So Iron Maiden, Green Day and Danzig when
Doyle joins them for the encore – that’s
three bands who are better than us,”
says Gerard.
Not only better – not
necessarily better – than
My Chemical Romance,
but also different. Actually,
that should read: My Chemical
Romance are different from the
three bands they opted for. My
Chemical Romance have a quality
that’s all their own. Because of this, the
people gathered outside the venue feel
they know the band, as people. More than

“WE STILL BELIEVE WE’RE THE BEST
BAND IN THE WORLD”
GERARD HAS NEVER BEEN ONE TO EAT HUMBLE PIE

62 METALHAMMER.COM

that, they feel they own the band, and in some way that
My Chemical Romance own them as well.
Onstage, the road crew are assembling the stage set.
The trusses are done up in the form of a church. This
seems apt as it’s from here that in three hours’ time,
Gerard will deliver his sermons in his house of the holy.
You know when you tell the girls in the crowd not to
flash their breasts at bands who ask them to?
“Yeah.”
Well, do you ever feel a bit of an idiot doing that?
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Do you ever feel a bit pious?
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he says. “And I do worry
about being pious, sure. But it’s also important to me to
say those kind of things. It’s important to me, to us, that
our audience know that they don’t have to act in that
stupid way that some rock bands want them to. They don’t
have to flash their tits at the band just because the band
want them to. They don’t have to act like that. And, more
than that, we don’t want them to act that way.”
If you were to ask the girls in your audience to flash at
you, how many of them do you think would comply?
Frank smiles and says, “I don’t know. I guess there
would be some of them that would do that. Just because
we asked them to.”
“Yeah, I think some would,” says Mikey.
But Gerard has thought of something. And this
something, for him, is worth believing in.
“Sure, there’d be those that would do that. We don’t
have complete control over the audience, and neither do
we want complete control over the audience. But what
I do want is to be able to relate to at least some parts of
our audience. So while there are people out there who
will get their tits out simply because I ask them to –
simply because I’m some guy in a band – there are also
those that’d be really disappointed that I did ask them
to. And it’s those people that I’m interested in.”

I

t seems amazing to think this, but it was less than
two years ago that My Chemical Romance were
playing to just 225 people at the Barfly in Camden
Town. This, with its graffiti-splattered dressing room and
sharp-smelling toilets, was the high life for our subjects.
Elsewhere they’d be touring the US, way down on a
bill headlined by American Nightmare, a much noisier
proposition than them. They’d be travelling in a van,
sweaty and uncomfortable, counting down the miles
to their next date with futility. At each show there’d be
a few people singing their songs, while the rest of the
crowd would be sneering from the back of the room. Later
that night, MCR would watch as their fans would be beaten

by the crowd who had gathered to watch the other acts.
“That would happen every night,” says Frank. “It was
quite a disheartening time.”
But from tiny, beaten acorns, something was destined
to grow. And grow. And grow. At the time of writing this,
Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, the band’s second album,
has been in the Billboard US Top 100 for more than a year
and is about to clock up one million sales. In the UK, the
album has sold an impressive 170,000 copies. Each date
of the current UK tour is sold out. So that’s 2,500 people
here in Portsmouth. That’s 4,000 people in Manchester.
That’s 9,000 people, over two nights, at the Brixton
Academy in London. It’s the same in other towns and
cities as well. That, whichever way you look at it, adds
up to a fair success.
“We still fly economy class!” says Gerard.
Can you explain why people like your band in the
way they do?
“I can give it a go,” says the singer. “I think what
we offer is an alternative. I know it kind of sounds
like bullshit when I say this, but I’m serious – people
see a different way when they look at us. They can see
themselves in us. We’re outsiders. We’re the kids who
didn’t get dates for the prom. We’re the kids who were
confused, who didn’t fit in with the cliques, who weren’t
part of the in-crowd. Growing up can be a very frightening
and confusing time, and I think people look at us and see
that it’s OK to be different. They see that there is a way
other than what they’re being offered. That you can stand
out, that you can be creative, that you can be yourself.”
It’s worth pointing out that when Gerard is saying all
this, he’s sat around with his bandmates, none of whom
really look like outsiders. They look young, they look
healthy, some of them are good-looking. And in each
other they clearly have friends. It’s hardly the same
as ringing 118-118 so they can put you through to the
Samaritans, is it?
“No, it might appear to you like that but that’s not how
it seems to us,” says the singer, agreeably.
And how does it appear to you?
“That we’re a victory for the little people. I’m a fuckup and I’ve fucked up everything in my life that isn’t to
do with music. Yes, we have success now and we have
a great quality of life; we have a CD with our name on
it and we have videos and all of that stuff. But we’re
outcasts. There was a time when all we had was each
other. And there may well be a time to come when all
we have is each other. People might like us, but what
they see in us is themselves. And in that sense, we’re
not cool. In that sense, we’re as far away from being cool
as it’s possible to be.”
METALHAMMER.COM 63

Ah, Skindred, Skindred, Skindred. It’s not enough
that you want to make us dance and mosh at the
same time, but now you have us all waving our
shirts above our heads in unified idiocy every
time you play? Ludicrous scenes.

S

ROBERT WELLS/FUTURE

THE NEWPORT HELICOPTER

You look pretty cool.
“Yeah, but we’re not. We’re just in a privileged place
right now. And there are more of us, people like us who
are responding to what we do. Suddenly there’s strength
in numbers; there’s a lot of us. But all of this comes from
us being who we really are.”
Looking at the four of them sat there, the one of them
laid there, it’s hard to think of a single reason to doubt
them, no matter how hard you try. Because the crowds
of girls outside are queuing not to make a pass at them,
but just to meet them. To say hello, and to tell them their
stories; to talk as peacefully as one person can when that
person is simply one out of one-and-a-half-million people
clambering to say hello.
My Chemical Romance: no groupies, no cocaine, no
vices… apart from Starbucks.
“Man,” says Gerard, “as soon as I go into a Starbucks
I take off my sunglasses. I want to be recognised and
I want free coffee.”
Obviously you’re joking.
“No,” says Frank, talking in a manner that suggests
he’s sharing an important secret. “For some reason,
[the guys who make the coffee] are really up on their
music. They usually recognise us and know who we are.”
“I went to four Starbucks in Manhattan recently and
I got free coffee in three of them,” says Mikey, as if he’s
telling you of a time he rescued 300 passengers from
a burning subway car.
“Wow, that’s cool!” exclaims his brother, as if he’s
praising him for rescuing 300 passengers from a burning
subway car. “I have a pretty good strike rate too, but it’s
not as impressive as that.”
Let me get this straight. You’re a platinum band who
go about America trying to get free coffee?
“Yeah,” retorts Mikey, as if it’s obvious.
“Think about it this way,” offers Frank. “If it weren’t for
that, we’d have no vices at all. If it weren’t for Starbucks,
we’d be perfect!”

0$67(562)
CEREMONY
GERARD’S REQUESTS THAT
FANS KEEP THEIR TOPS ON WAS
A UNIQUE AND WELCOME LIVE
TRADEMARK. HERE ARE SOME
SLIGHTLY WEIRDER ONES FROM
THE WORLD OF ROCK’N’ROLL
JUMPDAFUCKUP!
Corey Taylor is one of metal’s most masterful
frontmen, and few of his trademarks have been
adopted/ripped off by more young ’uns than his
penchant for getting everyone to find a seat on the
ground and then jump the fuck up into the air. Epic.

GANGNAM STYLE WALL OF DEATH
Because even rock fans like Psy, really. This
one was an absolute humdinger of a scene
that was brought about by those Bring Me The
Horizon chaps at Vans Warped Tour UK last year.
Silly doesn’t even cover it.

64 METALHAMMER.COM

hortly before the doors open, the crowd snaking its
way from the entrance of the Guildhall has grown
by something like 800 legs. But still, our two girls
without surnames remain at the front of the queue. The
daylight has gone and showtime is almost upon them. The
pair are no longer slouched by the wall. Instead, they’re
upright and agitated. Excited seems too small a word to
cover it.
Tell us something, girls.
“What?” wonders Kimberly.
Imagine you were watching My Chemical Romance
tonight, and Gerard Way looked you – you specifically

– right in the eye and asked you to show him your, you
know, breasts…
“No way would he do that!”
But imagine he did. Would you?
“No, no way,” she says. “Of course I wouldn’t.”
“But that’s the point,” says Anna, her friend. “He never

would ask us to do something like that. That’s why we love
them. That’s why we’ve been queuing all day out here.”
And with that, the pair of them, laughing at the very
idea, turn back towards the doors and wait for their
night to start. Because belief is nothing if you’ve got
nothing to believe in.

“FANS DON’T HAVE TO FLASH THEIR TITS
AT THE BAND JUST BECAUSE THE BAND WANTS
THEM TO” GERARD DIDN’T TAKE ANY NOTES FROM STEEL PANTHER
METALHAMMER.COM 65

When Frank Iero gave us the lowdown on the issues behind his ink.

IS THERE A THEME TO YOUR TATTS?

ANYTHING LOWER DOWN?

Yeah, kind of. I guess it’s basically that if I put my life to
pictures, it would be my tattoos. They have a lot to do with
my childhood, a lot of images to do with the band, specific
moments from our career so far and feelings that I have
about things at certain times. I don’t really regret any of
my tattoos because they all symbolise a point in my life.
Whether it was a good time or a bad time, it’s all my life.

Actually, I have a lot of personal things tattooed on me,
such as poetry that I’ve written. The newest one I got, that I
really like a lot, is down on my thigh and it says ‘Live every
day like it’s your last’.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST TATTOO?
The first tattoo I had done is in the middle of my back. It’s a
jack-o’-lantern. I was born on Halloween so it’s to basically
symbolise that. We’re all major horror fans in this band, so
it’s also kinda neat, I think. I got it on my 18th birthday, so
there was no lying to people in tattoo parlours – I tried lots
of times to get one when I was younger but they didn’t buy it!

WHAT WAS THE NEXT TATTOO YOU HAD DONE?
The next tattoo I got was this band on my left arm which
says ‘Loyalty, Respect, Honesty’. I got that because they’re
the only kind of people I want in my life. And after that
I think I got my Black Flag bars, and then I decided to get my
back done. I really like the chainsaw that’s around my left
bicep. I’m not sure how much of a bicep it is, but the tattoo
came out really well! The chainsaw came from The Texas Chain
Saw Massacre, which is one of my favourite movies of all time.
It also represents a revenge theme to me: the balance of
power, or rather redressing the balance of power.

TELL US ABOUT THE ANCHOR?
Me and three of my friends all had the NJ with the anchor
done at the same time. It means always being anchored to
home in New Jersey. It was something we needed to do.

AND YOUR LIP?
I had the inside of my lip done with the NJ. I guess it’s
a way of remembering your roots and keeping you honest,
true to yourself and down to earth.

WHY EXACTLY DID YOU GO AND GET YOUR NECK
TATTOOED?
I did it because I didn’t want to get a proper job – no
one’s gonna give you a regular job if you’ve got your neck
tattooed, right? It was a way of forcing myself to be in this
band by getting it done. The band actually paid for it! We
were out on tour one day and I woke up in the venue and
said to the guys, “I want to get it done,” and they’re like,
“Well, if you really are gonna do it, we’ll all chip in.”

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE TATTOO?
I don’t know – I’ve got so many!

“I THINK TATTOOS SHOULD SYMBOLISE A POINT
IN YOUR LIFE – WHETHER IT WAS A GOOD TIME
OR A BAD TIME” FRANK’S TATT-DOS & DON’TS
66 METALHAMMER.COM

FUTURE

METALHAMMER.COM 67

68 METALHAMMER.COM

With The Black Parade about to drop, we headed to the 2006 Reading
Festival to find a band in somewhat morbid mood.

T

WORDS: KATIE PARSONS PICTURES: CHAPMAN BAEHLER/MCR PRESS

he backstage field at the Reading Festival
is a hive of activity. The guest area is awash
in drunken squeals and bloated, beered-up
bodies. The occasional ‘funny hat’ lurches by,
and the multitude of dancing ladies in the warm
light have suntanned ankles clamped into bright floral
rubber boots. It may only be mid-morning but the party is
already well underway.
Take two steps to the right, however, past a sternlooking security guard, and the green trailer sheltering
New Jersey superstars My Chemical Romance houses an
entirely different scene. “A friend of mine killed himself
by standing in front of a train,” someone whispers from
the corner. “He was 15 years old.”
Donned in black from tip to toe (barring his new blond
locks), Gerard Way and his four accompanying musicians
(guitarists Frank Iero and Ray Toro, bassist Mikey Way
and drummer Bob Bryar) are slouched on a couch, sipping
sticky cups of brown soya milk from the small selection
of food provided for their pleasure. They’ll be clambering
onto the hulking main stage at Reading in 30 minutes’
time. It’s the biggest show they’ve ever played in the
UK. Given the cheery excitement just metres away, and
the potential exhilaration awaiting them up in front
of the gathered thousands, the last thing you’d expect
to be talking about is suicide. But darkness seems to

overshadow My Chemical Romance wherever they go.
“We actually tried to stay away from death,” says the
permanently sullen singer. “We just couldn’t do it.”
Gerard and the band are chatting to Hammer about
their upcoming new release The Black Parade – the highly
anticipated follow-up to the group’s 2004 release Three
Cheers For Sweet Revenge and 2002’s I Brought You My
Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. Thrust into global
stardom following a series of massive hit singles and
the adoration of a globe-spanning fanbase, My Chemical
Romance may see the The Black Parade becoming their
biggest and most important album to date.
“This is the most theatrical record we have ever
made,” says Gerard quietly. “It really is the record of our
dreams. Just like the other two, it’s a concept album,
but it’s the tightest of all three. While the last record
was an examination of immortality, this new one looks
at mortality. Yes, we have written about death again, but
in a much more mature way.”
Why can’t MCR avoid such morbid thoughts?
“Everybody is afraid of death. It’s just that maybe we’re
a little more afraid of death than most people,” explains
Mikey. “Everyone is going to die. That’s the one thing that
absolutely everyone has in common. It’s universal. Death
is kind of like the unknown, and I think, as a band, and
on this record, we are influenced by the unknown.”

“WHEN NOBODY PAYS ANY ATTENTION TO YOU,
YOU REALISE HOW MORTAL YOU ARE”
GERARD ON THE DARK SIDE OF LIFE

METALHAMMER.COM 69

The album’s concept tracks the experiences of
a character called The Patient, a narrator who My
Chemical Romance use to help weave their shadowy
ideas, lyrics, melodies and musical visions.
“At the very beginning of the record, The Patient is
dying tragically young in a hospital,” explains Gerard.
“Death then comes to him in the form of a parade, because
his strongest memory of childhood is of his father taking
him to a parade. From that point on in the record, he
examines his life, and he meets other characters in the
parade that talk about their lives, and by the end, he is
someone that chooses to live, as opposed to die.”
Sitting in the confines of the small trailer, the four
other members nod in agreement.
“I think that one of our main goals in this band has
always been to write songs from the heart,” says Ray.
“For me, it’s like a constant quest to write the perfect

song,” notes Gerard. “My current favourite of our arsenal
is the new song Cancer. I think it’s the most emotionally
powerful song that we’ve ever written. It’s direct, it’s
honest, it’s ugly, it’s beautiful, it’s the truth. We played
it a few days ago and the response was immediate.
People were so affected, it was like they weren’t able
to speak for two minutes.”

T

he lyrics may be written by their enigmatic
frontman, but the sentiment of the album directly
reflects all of the band members’ urge to give a
voice to their fans; a voice for those who might find
themselves in a situation where they may be choosing
between death and carrying on with life.
“It’s about making a difference,” says Gerard. “It’s
about giving those kids a representative.”
It transpires that from the very beginning of their

“IF GERARD HAD TO TAKE ALL THE
PRESSURE OF THIS BAND ALONE, HE WOULD
RUN TO AN ISLAND AND CHANGE HIS NAME”
MIKEY ON SHARING THE BURDEN

70 METALHAMMER.COM

careers, the group have felt a responsibility to give
a voice to those who dwell in the ‘dark side’ a little
more than others.
“We were originally united as a group because we
ourselves were obvious outsiders,” explains Gerard about
the band’s dark beginnings. “We were pretty much
invisible and insignificant. When nobody pays any
attention to you, you realise how mortal you are. That’s
why teenagers that are troubled or are seen as outcasts
are drawn to death. You have a lot of time to examine
that subject when you’re all alone.”
Gerard and his bandmates are now in the lucky position
where they can turn their own ‘outcast’ experiences into
guidance and relief for others.
“We were people that were able to rise above those
feelings,” he explains, “and with our help, others will
be able to rise above that too. That’s why we have such
a strong relationship with our fans. We can understand.”
Were you shocked into taking action by those that
didn’t survive?
“The suicide of my friend was something that really
changed my life,” he agrees. “There was a really strange
wake where there were all these kids from high school
there, all of his classmates – kids. That was strange.
That set me on the path of wanting to escape that kind
of life in New Jersey, the feeling of being depressed
and insignificant.”
Come summer 2006, the band are about as far removed
from insignificance as it’s possible to imagine, and
the main stage at Reading is about as big at it gets for
any band. As for being depressed? It’s hard to accuse
Frank, Gerard, Ray and Bob of laughing too much. But
Gerard’s little brother Mikey seems slightly more fragile.
Throughout the interview, his hands are visibly shaking.
His conversation is slow and considered.
“I am not going to diagnose myself, but I probably
have ADD. I do have ADD, ’cos I am constantly wandering,”
says the bassist.
“Mikey is the eternal kid brother of the band,” says
Gerard, smiling at his brother. “He has a lot of heart and is
just a bit shy and awkward. We’re very protective of him.”
“Gerard needs protecting though too,” adds Mikey
slowly. “If you look through history, most of the people
that died tragically or imploded or went crazy were the
head men of the band. It’s not a coincidence.” He pauses.
“It’s obvious that they didn’t have enough support around
them. If Gerard had to take all the pressure of this band
alone, he would run to an island and change his name.”
That certainly contradicts the view that MCR is just
another name for ‘Gerard’s band’. Though he has taken on
most of the answers to the questions we have posed the

THREE CHEERS
FOR
SWEET RELIEF
WHEN MCR’S WORK HAS
FLIRTED WITH DEATH

Gerard Way was inspired to form My Chemical
Romance on September 11, 2001. He was
working in New York at the time. The band’s
first song, Skylines And Turnstiles, off 2002’s
debut I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought
Me Your Love, is about the events of the day.
Gerard and Mikey Way grew up in Belleville,
New Jersey, a crime-ridden town bordered by
the Hudson River – infamous for the frequent
discovery of bodies in its waters.
2002’s I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought
Me Your Love is the story of two estranged
lovers who get back together upon the
discovery that their home town has been
invaded by vampires. She gets bitten and
staked, he does himself in to be with her.
Thank you, Bill Shakespeare.
2004’s Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge has
the same guy in hell, asking the Devil to
return his and his bird’s soul in return for the
souls of a thousand do-badders.
Helena, that
album’s first
single, was about
Way’s deceased
grandmother of
the same name,
the one who
taught him
to sing.

METALHAMMER.COM 71

T

here is no time that this belief is more apparent
than when the five members of My Chemical
Romance get up on stage. Sure, Gerard is the
‘frontman’, the spokesman, the voice for the masses, but
without the intense musical backdrop of his friends, he
could be mistaken for just another madman on a rant.
“There is a degree of leadership that needs to be there
on stage,” says Gerard, “and although it is one voice, it’s
all of our voices speaking together. The music speaks for
itself. The chemistry we have together is the real voice.”
To think there was ever a time when Gerard and the
band were outcasts is hard to believe. Up in front of
the gathered thousands, they’re worshipped like gods.
Each carries the audience in the palm of their hands,
through their individual appeals and characters. There
are banners being waved, and every word is sung back
at the band with full force. Far from being insignificant,
they are now the most notorious young men to ever come
out of Newark, New Jersey.
“It was never about notoriety, never about fame,”
insists Gerard not long after MCR step off the stage,
drenched in their own sweat and bathing in the
adoration of their fans. “However, we do seek a certain
glory and victory in all this. There’s something really
amazing about being able to get up on a stage like this
and do this kind of thing.”
And who is this victory over? Is it hitting back at the
bullies of your past?
“It’s less about the bullies and more about the victory
of giving people like us a voice,” Gerard smiles. “And
anyway,” he adds, “the bully is usually the guy that
stays in the town, lives in the town, fucks in the town,
drinks in the town, dies in the town. Whereas,” he grins,
spreading his arms wide across the Reading field, “it’s
usually the kid whose wearing black in the corner that
ends up doing something significant.”

72 METALHAMMER.COM

LIVE AFTER DEATH
HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED
WHEN MCR TOOK TO
THE STAGE SOON AFTER...
As far as musical differences go, you couldn’t
get a wider void than Slayer and following act
My Chemical Romance. The band are adored by
the front half of the crowd and despised by the
back. Rather than ignore the influx of bottles
and mud, vocalist Gerard Way yells back at
the abusers, encouraging them to keep up
their attack. “Thank you for the bottles, thank
you for the piss,” he screams, “and thank you
for the venom…” – leading nicely into the
track of the same name. Clever. The two new
tunes slot well into the set, all fans breathing
a sigh of relief that the upcoming new release
won’t disappoint. One song later, the band
are done, and Gerard and co exit stage right.
An eventful end to a long weekend. Phew.

GETTY/ SCOTT GRIES

group, it was made quite clear to Metal Hammer that the
singer does not do interviews alone.
“We don’t want the emphasis to just be on one person.
Bands are much more exciting than individuals,” laughs
Gerard. “That’s why you start a band! And if you always
keep that in your head, it’s that kind of unity that makes
you stronger. When you just have one individual, that’s
when people get depressed, people off themselves, and
then you have one person carrying this intense weight
on them and they’re this huge celebrity. They don’t
have enough strength on their own; they need others.
That’s the point of a band, of this band – we need each
other. I think everyone in this group wants to carry our
responsibility together.”

THE FULL UNCENSORED STORY
OF METAL’S MOST ICONIC BAND

Exclusive interviews with all the key band members, the inside story of
their landmark albums, and access-all-areas reports from classic live shows –
the complete, maggot-friendly history of Slipknot

ON SALE

Ordering is easy. Go online at:
Or get it from selected supermarkets & newsagents

PRESS

74 METALHAMMER.COM

Punk rock, goth schlock and a touch of flamboyance collided
on MCR’s era-defining breakthrough.

WORDS: STEPHEN HILL

A

vant-garde and daring, Three Cheers… may
be their greatest collection of songs but it’s
the fearless approach to song, storytelling and
imagery on The Black Parade that transformed
My Chemical Romance from being just a band
that write great songs to becoming a global phenomenon.
In an era where artists are concerned by the
constraints of their scene or what their fanbase expect
from them, My Chemical Romance embraced a gallant

and undaunted approach across all aspects of being in
a band. Their image changed drastically as they shifted
from the vampire-punk guise of Three Cheers… to a look
that amalgamated the gothic chic of Tim Burton and
the military look of Sgt. Pepper; a look that was copied
the world over to the point that you couldn’t walk down
your local high street without seeing a representative
of The Black Parade. Gerard Way’s hair was bleached
blond to give the appearance of a sick patient receiving
METALHAMMER.COM 75

chemotherapy, which fitted perfectly into the conceptual
narrative of the album itself.
The story surrounds the afterlife of a character named
‘The Patient’ and how, after his death, he is whisked back
to the biggest event of his life, in this case The Black
Parade (visually depicted beautifully by Samuel Bayer in
the video for Welcome To The Black Parade – see the next
page). It harks back to the epic storytelling of Pink Floyd’s
masterpiece The Wall and the chimeric, otherworldly
excellence of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders
From Mars.
Despite the high concept, however, it was musically that
My Chemical Romance made their gutsiest leaps of all.
From the obvious influence of Queen to more left-field
leanings like the anarchic swing of House Of Wolves
and the appearance of Liza Minnelli on Mama, it was
a visionary artistic Hiroshima that put them continents
ahead of their peers. The balladry on I Don’t Love You and
the spectacularly melancholic Cancer remain truly moving,
This Is How I Disappear and Dead! are as propulsive and
powerful as they are expansive and experimental, and
Welcome To The Black Parade (a Number One single in
the UK, no less) contains more ideas in one magnum opus
than most bands manage in a career. Hell, there really
isn’t a moment on the whole album that isn’t captivating.
The lyrical couplets throughout the album are
something else. From the defiance of ‘I’m going to show
my scars’ on WTTBP to the powerful ‘I am not afraid to
keep on living/I am not afraid to walk this world alone’
on Famous Last Words, Gerard empowered the outsider and
galvanized personal strength and courage to overcome
the trials of life. It was a theme embraced by an entire
generation and that was hammered home further in
their forthcoming rally against the misguided Daily Mail.
The Black Parade became much more than just an album.
It became a way of life that changed the cultural landscape
of the world. Fashion, public psyche and mainstream
understanding of alternative culture were altered forever
but, despite all of this, the legacy of The Black Parade will
always be the outstanding music.

WHAT WE SAID
“The Black Parade is an album full of ambition
that falls ever so slightly short of its high mark.
It will make MCR bigger than anyone thought
possible”
– ALEXANDER MILAS

76 METALHAMMER.COM

THE SONG
WELCOME TO
THE BLACK PARADE

W

hen you think about the endless realms
of mindless diarrhoea that occupy the
Number One slot on the UK singles chart,
it’s miraculous that a song as unique and timeless
as Welcome To The Black Parade reached the pop
music summit (made slightly more heroic by
knocking the über-shit Razorlight from the top
spot). Opening with a delicate piano line, subtle
leads and a military drumbeat before giving way to
the greatest lead Brian May never wrote, Welcome
To The Black Parade is a song that encompasses
everything that’s great about MCR.
Pacey and punk rock with the sharpest of
teeth, it has a flamboyant yet passionate and
sincere vocal showing from Gerard Way. The
song’s bells and whistles include a spectacular
horn section and, vitally, a glamour that eluded
every single one of their counterparts. It was the
anthem of a generation and the closest thing
modern rock has had to the sonic bombast and
unpredictability of Bohemian Rhapsody.

THE VIDEOS
WORDS: TERRY BEZER

WELCOME TO THE BLACK PARADE

I DON’T LOVE YOU

Perfectly visualizing the overall narrative of The
Black Parade album, it’s a video masterclass that
resembles the majesty of The Smashing Pumpkins’
iconic Tonight Tonight clip. The band look like
gothic superheroes atop a parade float, the gathered
throng’s Victorian appearance and Voorhees-esque
masks are unforgettable and the exploits of The Patient,
Mother War, Fear and Regret are acted out before your
eyes. The level of detail and scale of the video has more
in common with a Hollywood epic than it does the
average music promo, with the stunning gothic-noir
costume designs coming courtesy of Oscar-winning
long-time Tim Burton collaborator ,Colleen Atwood,
with superb, elegant direction from Sam Bayer.

Set entirely in black and white, the I Don’t Love You video is
best defined by a striking performance from Gerard
Way. Spent mainly in close-up, it’s this gut-wrenching, hearttugging visual of the frontman poring over his yearning
lyrics that steals the show from a storyline surrounding
two lovers’ eventual split beneath falling leaves and
a bare, crooked-branched tree, and the group’s exploding
instruments.
The video also saw the band appearing out of their
Black Parade uniform for the first time on the album
run, alongside the return of Three Cheers… era director
Marc Webb and a comeback for Gerard’s jet-black hair.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

Teenagers pumping the air in unison like they’re members
of the Third Reich, cheerleaders donning gas masks while
sexually and violently wielding batons, and a full-scale
riot. My Chemical Romance are never going to be a band
that just do a performance video in a field. Going along
with the theme of the song’s lyrics, the members of the
band are objectified to the point of not being treated as
human and are attacked without any regard for their
safety at the video’s climax.
Tellingly, again using their success for the greater good,
the video ends with an endorsement for National Save, a
US organisation that aims to unite all students against acts
of violence.

Unquestionably MCR’s darkest video ever, it depicts the
downfall of the parade in the WTTBP video, with the
float the band rode on fire. They’re surrounded by raging
flames, and the performance from the members of MCR
is both sinister and rabid. The fire would land Bob Bryar
in hospital with second- and third-degree burns on his
legs (and later gangrene), and Gerard with a torn muscle
in his leg from Frank tackling him on set. It was the last
time MCR used Sam Bayer as a video director. Perhaps
they knew he was going on to direct the woeful 2010
A Nightmare On Elm Street remake…

TEENAGERS

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Gerard Way may have been the focal point, but it was Ray Toro’s
influence-mashing guitar work that gave MCR their musical soul.

G

WORDS: JAMES GILL PICTURE: FONTAINE/PHOTOSHOT

uitarist Ray Toro is one of the founding
members of My Chemical Romance, and while
MCR’s imagery comes predominantly from
Gerard Way’s head, much of the band’s sound
is straight out of Ray’s axe.
Until My Chemical Romance formed, the young sixstringer, of Puerto Rican and Portuguese heritage, was
in a band called The Rodneys, and it was their singer,
Shawn Dillon, who introduced Ray to Gerard.
The band’s first album, I Brought You My Bullets,
You Brought Me Your Love, is seminal in many respects,
but it wouldn’t be unfair to say that Gerard’s rough vocal
performance would stop it from being as accessible as
all subsequent forays. What’s clear from that first release,
however, is that the band had a clear talent in Ray.
From the Hispanic music that he doubtless grew
up being exposed to, to the full spectrum of rock and
metal styles he later embraced, Ray injected a breadth
of influences into MCR’s signature post-hardcore punk
rock sound. That first album includes everything from
melancholic picked Spanish guitar and Thin Lizzyesque twin harmonies (with second guitarist Frank
Iero) to galloping Maiden-esque runs and open-chord,
three-chord punk.
As a character, Ray always felt less enigmatic, eerie
and, some would argue, interesting than some of his
bandmates. As such, he seemed to avoid the emo
mudslinging that the other members often suffered.
Despite their immense profile, however, fame clearly
never created a monster in Ray, with the axeman
noting to Ultimate Guitar in 2007: “I don’t know why
people call me a guitar hero, but it makes me feel
great! For us, it kind of feels like a dream we’re all
living right now.”
He admitted that being in a band was never a real

ambition of his, and his love of gaming firmly underpins
his role as a devout geek – and he’s hardly in bad
company, given his bandmates’ passion for comic books,
horror films and, y’know, big, sprawling concept albums.
Appropriate for a man in a band like MCR, Ray has a big
heart, being the driving force behind the #SINGItForJapan
project, dedicated to supporting those affected by the
2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The guitarist cites Brian May and Randy Rhoads as
being his biggest influences, and his talents can best be
heard on The Black Parade, where his developing musical
tastes are showcased all over the album’s 13 tracks.
While less of the thrashing gallop and insistent metallic
soloing is in evidence, Ray aped Queen’s Brian May, Green
Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and even Pink Floyd’s Dave
Gilmour to great effect.
As well as his playing, his songwriting was becoming
more developed as well. “I usually go on first instinct,”
Ray said of his songwriting style. “It’s just like when
you’re tracking in the studio – the first one or two or
three times that you lay down a part is usually the best.”
Maybe it was the distraction of videogames that meant
the guitarist felt less drawn than other MCR members
to pursue extra-curricular musical projects, as it was
only in 2013 that his first solo material appeared. And
while the guitar was far from the star, the song, Isn’t That
Something, again displayed his musicality.
In 2016, Ray unveiled his debut solo album, the
80s-pop influenced Remember The Laughter. In 2018, he
reunited with Gerard Way to co-write the latter’s solo
single Getting Down The Germs, and played on a pair of
60s covers, Hazy Shade Of Winter and Happy Together,
recorded for The Umbrella Academy soundtrack, the
following year – proving that the bond of MCR could
never be broken.

“I DON’T KNOW WHY PEOPLE CALL
ME A GUITAR HERO!”

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WORDS: ALEXANDER MILAS • PHOTOS: JUSTIN BORUCKI

Six months after The Black Parade made them
the biggest band on the planet, we endeavoured
to find out if that success had become a poisoned
chalice in our biggest MCR cover story yet…

METALHAMMER.COM 81

T

here’s little point belabouring what’s now an
undeniable truth: My Chemical Romance,
erstwhile New Jersey nobodies with a dream, are
fucking huge. But if you think their follow-up to
2004’s already rapturously received Three Cheers
For Sweet Revenge is merely a commercially minded cash
grab then think again. It’s a big, fuck-off concept album
that more happily sits in a peer group born in the 70s. But,
as even they acknowledge, the making of The Black Parade
was no split-second decision.
Fraught with fears about its reception and their own
ability to even achieve such lofty artistic heights, their time
in the studio was a jumping-off point into a chasm that may
just have been an abyss. Instead, they found themselves at
the top of the charts, and – judging by how hard it is to get
hold of them these days – it’s been a softer landing than
even they expected. Hammer first tried to catch up with
them in LA, then New York and finally settled on Japan – all
in the span of a few days. Life, for them, is moving pretty

fast. They can hardly believe it themselves. “I almost forgot
we were in Japan,” chuckles drummer Bob Bryar.

HOW IS JAPAN?
GERARD WAY: “I love Japan. It’s amazing. I’m just really
excited to be back on tour again. That’s just, you know…
I’ve been looking forward to starting this tour for quite
some time.”
BOB BRYAR: “It’s going really well. We’ve played the
new record everywhere now and it’s going well wherever
we go. It’s just weird to see. It’s awesome. It was kind of
a risk putting this out!”

WERE THERE POINTS WHERE YOU
DOUBTED HOW THE BLACK PARADE
WOULD BE RECEIVED?
GERARD: “I had these Frankenstein moments like that
once or twice a week, where I was asking myself, ‘Am
I nuts?’ I needed confirmation from somebody that had

“PEOPLE WILL BITCH AND COMPLAIN ABOUT US”
GERARD EXPECTED SOME HATERS

82 METALHAMMER.COM

showered in maybe a week that could tell me I’m OK,
and that we’re doing the right thing, and that we’re not
fucking crazy… that I wasn’t driving us into the sun!”
BOB: “Yeah, we definitely hit a point. We were just out to do
something to make us happy. I knew that I liked it and we
knew it would be special to us, but I didn’t want people to go,
‘What are these dudes doing?!’ Luckily that didn’t happen.”
RAY TORO: “While we were in the studio it was all about
having fun. The more insane or wacky the idea was, the
more likely we were to try it. You tell yourself you don’t care
but you really do. Of course you want people to like it.”
GERARD: “When it was done, I knew that we’d created
a monster.”

A MONSTER RECORD OR
SOMETHING MONSTROUS?
GERARD: “Definitely a monster in a good way, but at the
same time it’s such a personal monster. This was a really
personal record; this is us laying it out there. It changed
things. It’s not so much that as when I was doing Helena
though. That was a lot tougher because I wasn’t really
ready to deal with my grandmother’s death so head-on,
and then when we put the record out it was, ‘OK, you’re
going to be dealing with this for the next eight months.’
There was no death that spawned this record.”
BOB: “It was definitely a challenge to make this. We
were grouped with a lot of other bands and this album
blindsided a lot of people. It made them re-evaluate us.
This is the defining record. This is who we are. We took
everything that we had – every idea, every emotion
– and we took it to a place that we hadn’t been. We
cornered ourselves. It’s going to be hard to beat this. It’ll
be a whole new idea… maybe stripped down and raw?”

CONCEPT ALBUMS AREN’T VERY COMMON
THESE DAYS.
GERARD: “Setting ourselves apart came naturally. People
say, ‘You worked really hard to distance yourself.’ No,
we just worked to do something really special and crazy
and nuts. But it came more honestly and organically.
We weren’t thinking, ‘We can’t do it like such-and-such
band.’ It was, ‘We need to do something that’s going to
blow people’s minds.’”
RAY: “We’ve always tried to mix it up, to change. We’ve
always worried about everything sounding the same.
It’s the records that stand out that really excite us.”
BOB: “You can tell some bands were in the studio going,
‘OK, here’s our single, now let’s fill out the rest of the
record.’ And there’s bands putting out records they’re
calling concept records but there’s no concept there. Our
record has everything.”

MCR’S LITTLE
BLACK BOOK

I

f you think the words ‘special’ and ‘edition’
simply mean a few bonus tracks and some
spare minutes of live footage thrown in as
a so-called ‘bonus’, My Chemical Romance’s
special edition Black Parade release blew all
competition out of the water. With a 64page booklet featuring Gerard Way’s own
haunting illustrations tying the story concept
of The Black Parade to images that bespeak
the singer’s vast but morbid imagination,
this was truly something special. The same
way the album tells the story of a character
known only as The Patient facing a potentially
untimely death, the booklet also tells the
story of MCR’s own journey in the studio.
“Making a record is a lot like surgery
without anesthetic,” writes Gerard. “You
first need to cut yourself up the middle. Then
you have to rip out every single organ, every
single part and lay them on a table.”
It isn’t all so grim, but it candidly
documents the lows and highs that are the
backdrop to My Chemical Romance’s biggest
album to date. With stories of exhaustion,
doubt and a creative birthing process – one
that began in the extravagant surroundings
of the Paramour mansion in LA – it charts the
creation of every song in exquisite detail.
“I’m glad we actually finished it and I can’t
wait to tour and play it live,” closes Gerard,
having just finished MCR’s magnum opus.
“This is the best and craziest thing that has
happened to me and I thank the other four
dudes for that. I owe them.”
A long way from the operating table indeed.

METALHAMMER.COM 83

IT SOUNDS LIKE AN EXHAUSTING
PROCESS. WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN?
GERARD: “That’s a good question! I actually don’t know if
I’d be able to do it again. It was totally draining and painful.
I mean, it was super fun but physically it was the hardest
thing I’ve ever had to do. Going to bed at 6am, waking
up four hours later and doing it all again. That was every
day. I was constantly obsessing over the record, not just
musically but all the visual stuff that went along with it.
That stuff took so long because we could never just bang out
a record, put a collection of songs out. We can’t just do that.”

SUCCESS OFTEN BREEDS CONCEIT. HOW
HAVE YOU STAYED ROOTED?
RAY: “You have that core group of friends – your parents,
your best friend, your girlfriend – and nothing changes
with them. Just because you’re doing well, they treat you
the same and I love that. You still get shit. I love that too!
If I come home late, I want to get shit from my girlfriend.
Or I want to get yelled at by my mom because I haven’t
called in a couple of days. That’s what keeps you normal.”
GERARD: “I’ve made it a habit, along with the other

guys, of avoiding really conventional things like those LA
parties. We don’t really mix well with those things so we
don’t go to them. I feel pretty normal still. When I come off
tour it takes me a good three or four days, but then three
or four days go by and I don’t even remember I’m in the
band. It’s really strange. Actually, the weirdest thing that
happened was after the last tour when I went to Portland,
Oregon for about a week and just holed up in a hotel room.
I did a bunch of writing – this is just before Christmas
– and about four or five days in I felt completely back to
normal. Almost as if My Chemical Romance was a total
dream and I wasn’t even sure it had happened.”
BOB: “We’re not going out to big parties to judge other
people, that kind of bullshit. The only time where this all
feels like too much is when people pry into our personal lives.
People go, ‘Oh, I found this picture of you in grade school…’”

HAS THAT HAPPENED?
BOB: “Yeah, we’ve all had it. People will find our yearbooks.
Gerard and Mikey have had people outside of their house.
I’ve had kids outside my house. We did a signing in Chicago
one time and a few kids came by with pictures they took
of my house and asked me to sign them. I was like, ‘Why

“WHEN IT WAS DONE, WE KNEW WE’D CREATED
A MONSTER”MCR WERE PLAYING FRANKENSTEIN
84 METALHAMMER.COM

would you show this to me? This is weird.’ My mom is
a waitress, and they somehow found that out and they’ll
go eat and request her. That’s going a little bit too far.”

DO YOU MISS YOUR ANONYMITY?
GERARD: “Yeah. But you get an interview like this and
it makes it easier because it’s stuff I want to talk about.
And there’s a few guys who we’ve built a relationship
with. That’s not anything to bitch about – that people
want to read what I say. But my hair has nothing to
do with what I want to say. It’s the needless fucking
celebrity bullshit that make it a grind.”

BUT YOU’RE APPROACHING
CELEBRITY STATUS YOURSELF.
GERARD: “It’s funny, I was seeing somebody who called
me the most confident person with the least amount of
self-esteem ever. I’m extremely confident, I believe in
myself, but I’m also self-deprecating to the point of humour.
If I was saying, ‘Yeah, my shit don’t stink,’ that’d be faking
it, and there’s so many people faking it out there. There’s
a suspension of disbelief you’re supposed to have with these
people but I don’t buy into it. I don’t mind being extremely
extraordinary onstage, but I’m not going to bullshit people.”

here’s an inherent defensiveness in these bandmates’
tone that suggests they’ve already taken more than their
share of abuse, but it’s hard to imagine that being any
real surprise to a group that owes more to classic rock acts
like Queen these days than anything you’re likely to hear
from more recently hatched musicians. There’s a candour
to Gerard that can’t be mistaken for anything other than
genuine self-belief, though to some it may seem like
arrogance. It may fit into standard clichés about newfound stardom, but perhaps My Chemical Romance really
were just having their fun in the studio and inadvertently
wrote a hit.

WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE CRITICAL
REACTION TO THE BLACK PARADE? DESPITE
THE SALES, NOT EVERYBODY ‘GOT’ WHAT
YOU WERE DOING...
GERARD: “The critical reaction was just cynicism. I read
something saying, ‘This is some major label thing and
you can tell that the label directs them, yadda yadda
yadda.’ It’s like, what label in the world would dress us
like that? Have you seen what we look like lately? Who
the hell would dress us like that?! We had people at the
label fucking terrified of the way we looked!

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“Of course there’s jealousy and resentment, but
we’re really lucky and we’re really blessed. I mean, shit
happened real fast. It’s crazy. We can’t stop it. We didn’t
sell ourselves up the river. We stayed true to our morals
and our integrity and we still got huge.”

ARE YOU EMBARRASSED BY YOUR GOOD
FORTUNE?
GERARD: “Yeah, it’s really surreal. It’s not that it’s
embarrassment of it, but it’s like, boom! Shit, man!
Especially when people really feel passionately pissed off
at you for achieving so much so fast. We’re like, ‘Man, shit
wasn’t my fault! We just worked our fucking asses off!’ The
way I always saw it is that any resentment or being pissed
off with us for achieving so much so fast or for having the
amount of growth that we’ve had… it’s like, ‘How can you
get pissed off with that?’ What have we done wrong?”
RAY: “We just got very lucky. You can’t fault people for
getting lucky. We would still be doing this if we were still
in a van. We worked our asses off. We haven’t stopped in
five years. If we’re lucky because kids got turned on to it,
that’s not our fault. We’ve always stuck to our guns, we’ve
never exploited our fans. It isn’t how long it takes, it’s
how we got here, and I know we got here the right way.”

HAVE YOU HAD A LOT OF ABUSE?
GERARD: “I’ll listen to most records and I’d think, ‘When
was the last time you took a risk?’ A lot of people will
bitch and complain about us… ‘Dude you’re still making
the same fucking pop-punk record you’ve been making
for 20 years’ – what do you fucking expect? Are you that
surprised? Are you that bitter about the fact we’ve done
something really sincere and really honest and it’s worked
out? Isn’t that weird? We did the right thing!”

for eight years and nothing has happened,’ well, that’s not
our fault. But bands that are bigger than us aren’t saying
that. Like Green Day. You’d think they would be impossible
to be around but they were the nicest band we ever met.”

WHEN DID YOU MEET THEM?
BOB: “We did a radio Christmas show about two years ago,
I think. They said hi and all of a sudden we got an offer
to do their tour. The first day we got there I thought they
were going to just throw our shit up on the stage and kick
us off at the end and give us a closet to live in. But that
totally wasn’t what happened. I was sitting in our dressing
room and Billie [Joe Armstrong, frontman] came in and
sat down next to me and said, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ He
introduced himself like I didn’t know who he was!”

DID THAT SET AN EXAMPLE TO YOU?
BOB: “Yeah. Because people will go, ‘Wow, I can’t believe
we’re hanging out with you, you guys seem like complete
dicks.’ I’ve seen so many bands that get mildly successful
and they do turn into the biggest dicks so I can’t blame
[those people for thinking that about us].”

GERARD, YOU ONCE TOLD US ABOUT
BUMPING INTO IRON MAIDEN’S BRUCE
DICKINSON IN NEW YORK...
GERARD: “Yeah! That dude was completely normal. He
wasn’t trying to uphold this bullshit illusion, and meeting
people like that on the way up was good for me to see
because it let me know I was doing things the right way.
I can’t fathom why people see me like I see him, though.”
BOB: “We’re really nice to fans but as soon as you fuck with
us then we are the biggest dicks you’ve ever seen.”

SOME PEOPLE MIGHT BEGRUDGE
YOU YOUR SUCCESSES.

IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED WHEN BERT
MCCRACKEN TOLD PEOPLE AT THE WARPED
TOUR NOT TO WATCH YOU?

BOB: “That’s just something that people do. It’s just
jealousy. Put yourselves in our shoes – we’re playing songs
we love. What else should we do? Our music connects with
people. Any band that wants to go, ‘We’ve been touring

BOB: “Yeah, pretty much! But you’ve got to take that dude
with a grain of salt. You just can’t take him seriously. Our
reaction to that was getting on the stage and blowing his
band completely away.”

“I WAS ASKING MYSELF, ‘AM I NUTS?’
I NEEDED CONFIRMATION WE WERE DOING THE
RIGHT THING” EVEN GERARD KNEW THIS WAS A BOLD ADVENTURE
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DEAN KARR/PRESS

CONCEPTUALLY
SPEAKING
THE STORY OF THE BLACK PARADE IS THAT
OF A CHARACTER, THE PATIENT, WHO’S
FACING AN UNTIMELY DEATH. SO WITH THAT
IN MIND, HERE’S ANOTHER TRIO OF CLASSIC
CONCEPT ALBUMS YOU SHOULD ‘CHECK
OUT’ (SEE WHAT WE DID THERE?)

QUEENSRŸCHE OPERATION
MINDCRIME (EMI, 1988)
The story of an ex-heroin
addict, Nikki, who falls
under the hypnotic control of
Dr. X, a member of a cult-like
anti-government conspiracy
aiming to eradicate society’s corrupt leaders –
and who intend to use Nikki as their assassin.

IRON MAIDEN SEVENTH SON
OF A SEVENTH SON (EMI, 1987)
Inspired by sci-fi great
Orson Scott Card’s novel
Seventh, about a child whose
magical powers make him
the target of evil forces, this
Maiden masterpiece is really all about very real
mythology that’s found in cultures around the
world concerning the supposed mystical powers
of seventh sons of seventh sons.

PINK FLOYD THE WALL (EMI, 1979)
The big daddy of them
all. The surreal story of a
disadvantaged misfit named
Pink who builds a metaphorical
wall around himself to defend
against the ills of society – including his own
eventual rock-star lifestyle – The Wall is a proper
rock opera and essential listening.

88 METALHAMMER.COM

YOU RE-SHOT THE VIDEO FOR I’M NOT
OKAY, WHICH ORIGINALLY PORTRAYED
YOUR LIFE ON THE ROAD IN THE EARLY
DAYS. ARE YOU NOSTALGIC FOR THOSE
MORE INNOCENT TIMES?
GERARD: “There was definitely an innocence period,
and that [time in the original video] was about it. Even
with Helena, though, that was still there. But the more
music we make, the more we’ve actually started to find
more magic in the creation of it. We’ve gotten more into
it, and that’s where you start to find the real innocence.
If you keep that really pure, it’ll stay there and there’s
nothing that’ll touch it, that’ll touch the making of the
music. Especially if you’re never making records to make
money and you’re not motivated by mortgages or… we all
live really humble lives. It’ll never affect our music.”
BOB: “We’ve done vans for a long fucking time, and been
in positions where we had to hitch rides and sleep on
people’s floors. We’ve experienced it. Maybe not as much
as some bands have, but it’s not like we’re out there
acting like the biggest rock stars in the world.”
RAY: “We’re still the same group of guys we were five
years ago. But then you think about the places that we
used to play compared to now, and that’s pretty fucking
wild. When you sit down and think about it, you get
these, ‘Holy fuck!’ moments. Like, ‘Holy shit, I can’t
believe we’re in Japan playing to loads of kids!’ Those
quiet moments of reflection, where we think, ‘Man,
we’ve done it. We’re living the dream.’”

SO WHAT DID HAPPEN TO THE BEATEN-UP
OLD VAN THAT YOU USED TO GO ON
TOUR IN?
RAY: “I think it’s parked on the lawn of one of our old
tour managers’ house. The first day we got our tour bus,
the van was on its deathbed. It was slowly dying – as
were we, because the exhaust system was fucked up
so it was shooting noxious gas into the cabin! We were
passing out and hallucinating. It actually caught fire
once while we were driving up to the Warped tour. That
was the day we got our bus, ’cos we’d put a lot of miles on
that van!”
And with that, My Chemical Romance are off to
soundcheck at Tokyo’s sold-out Club Citta. It’s a fair
guess they won’t be taking a van to get there, but
whether the road ahead of them really stretches as far
as they can see is impossible to say. But the enthusiasm
and confidence in their voices as they embark on the
rest of the biggest tour of their lives seems to suggest
that they’d walk if they had to.

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When Gerard Way created The Umbrella Academy, he imagined it
becoming a hit TV series. And that’s exactly what happened.

WORDS: DAVE EVERLEY

f Gerard Way hadn’t founded My Chemical Romance
and gone on to be an icon for millions of outsiders
around the world, there’s every chance he would
have carved out an equally successful career in the
world of comic books.
As it is, he managed both. His first major comic book
series, The Umbrella Academy, emerged in 2007, at the
height of MCR’s post-Black Parade fame. A decade and
three volumes later, it made the successful leap from page
to screen when streaming giant Netflix turned it into a
hugely successful TV show.
Comics were an artistic outlet for Gerard long before
music. He began writing his own stories as a kid – his
first proper series was On Raven’s Wings, published in 1996

,b

90 METALHAMMER.COM

when he was 16 (he would be credited as Garry Way). Only
two issues hit the shelves before it was cancelled – copies
of both currently sell on ebay for upwards of £350.00.
He continued to write as MCR got off the ground in the
early 2000s, though it wasn’t until the success of The Black
Parade gave him some serious artistic clout that he got a
chance to put one of his creations out in the world once
more.
The Umbrella Academy had been gestating for a few
years, and after a brief online tease in 2006 and a Comic
Book Day giveaway in 2007, the first volume of The
Umbrella Academy was finally published in September
2007. Written by Gerard and drawn by artist Gerald Ba,
the six-issue story centred around a dysfunctional family

“BEING IN A BAND
IS LIKE BEING
IN A DYSFUNCTIONAL
FAMILY – ALL
THESE DISTINCT
PERSONALITIES”
GERARD ON THE PARALLELS BETWEEN

of superheroes – The Monocle, Spaceboy, The Kraken,
The Rumor, The Seance, Number Five, The Horror and The
White Violin – who banded together to solve the riddle of
their father’s mysterious death.
It was influenced by the comics he’d grown up reading
– notably X-Men and Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol – but it
had a left-field flavour all its own. This was partly down to
the fact that The Umbrella Academy was Gerard’s reaction
to his experiences in My Chemical Romance.
“Being in a band is like being in a dysfunctional
family,” Gerard told Rolling Stone. “And all these
personalities are really distinct and really big - not just
the people in your band, but the people you meet on the
road or the crew that you work with. We were in a big
pressure cooker of fame and notoriety and the characters
experience that.”
Following the success of the first series, a follow-up,
The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, followed in 2009, by which
time there was already talk of turning it into a TV series
or a full-length movie.
That process would take several years. There were
false starts and dead ends - Universal optioned a fulllength movie, only for it to languish in development hell.
Eventually Netflix rode to the rescue, commissioning The
Umbrella Academy series in 2015.
While critics were sniffy, the show was a hit with
viewers and comic book fans alike when it hit the screen
in 2019. Vividly bringing Gerard’s creations to life, it
starred Juno actor Elliott Page as The White Violin, Merlin

star Tom Hopper as Spaceboy and R&B superstar
Mary J Blige as Commission agent Cha Cha. A
second series followed in 2020, while the show also
saw Gerard reuniting with MCR bandmate Ray Toro
for covers of 60s classics Happy Together and Hazy
Shade Of Winter - something which undoubtedly
precipitated the band’s reunion.
Gerard had put the original comic book series
on ice after the second series, focussing instead
The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, a tie-in
with MCR‘s fourth and apparently final album,
Danger Days. But in 2018, he resurrected it
for a third volume, Hotel Oblivion. MCR’s live
comeback in 2019 looked to have sidelined it again,
but in 2020 the singer announced he was working
on a fourth series, Sparrow Academy. It seems that
whatever Gerard Way’s future holds, The Umbrella
Academy is part of it.
METALHAMMER.COM 91

NETFLIX/PRESS

MCR AND THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY

GERARD WAY’S TOP 10
COMIC BOOKS
Gerard Way is more than just MCR’s singer – he’s a comic book
aficionado. And this is his ultimate reading list.
WORDS: TOM BRYANT

DOOM PATROL – GRANT
MORRISON
”Doom Patrol is the moment that
Grant Morrison started breaking
moulds. He took pre-existing
characters that nobody really
cared about, which gave him free
reign to do what he wanted with
them. He ended up making some
very post-modern work – and it was very different
from anything else because it didn’t feel like a
superhero comic anymore. It was basically a superhero
comic that didn’t feel like a superhero comic.
“Grant has been a big influence on me and I’ve
become his friend over the years, which is kind
of interesting. I never expected to get so close to
someone who is such a hero of mine – but he, I and
his wife just gel as human beings. It’s nice to know
somebody who is at the top of his game – he shows
me work that is light years ahead of everything else
that is going on. And he does it all the time. I’m in
awe of him.”

THE INVISIBLES – GRANT
MORRISON
“This one is a lot more abstract.
It’s a very heavy read and it’s long
– it went on for years. I would say
it’s a combination of a fictional
autobiography, a conspiracy
theory and a spy-action comic.
Grant went on a personal,
psychological journey at a certain
period in his life and he was basically trying to explain
the journey in the comic. It’s also about control and
it’s a very important work.”
92 METALHAMMER.COM

WATCHMEN – ALAN MOORE
“This has to be on the list, it’s so full
of breakthroughs. It looked like it was
going to be a superhero comic but, in
the way it’s told, it’s nothing like a
superhero comic. There are so many
things happening psychologically on
each page that it’s the kind of book
you read over and over again.
“It was both an honour and
terrifying for My Chemical Romance be asked to
contribute a song to the soundtrack of the film they
made of it. The comic has a strong fanbase who didn’t
want the film made, so I knew there was a good chance
they weren’t going to give much support to a band like
us being involved. On top of everything, were covering
a Bob Dylan song [Desolation Row].
“I probably bummed quite a few people out. But I
was damned if another band were going to do it. My
thinking was: no matter how the film is perceived,
people are going to watch it in 20 years and it’s going
to be my band on it. I was happy to take any bullet
because I feel strongly about Watchmen.”

AKIRA – KATSUHIRO OTOMO
“This is the closest thing to an epic
masterpiece that comics have ever had.
There are six volumes and they’re all the
size of phonebooks. Loosely, it’s about the
atomic bomb being dropped on Japan, the
fallout from it and its rebuilding. The art
is gorgeous – not a single page is phoned
in. The architecture he creates in the city
alone is mind-boggling. It’s incredible
that anyone could draw all that. To me, it is the
masterpiece of comics.”

“I have a whole shelf of
Marshal Law at home. People
like Frank Miller had already
done the anti-hero thing with
Batman, but Marshal Law
was the ultimate anti-hero
book. It took superheroes
and called them out, almost saying
they were bullshit. There are metaphors and parallels
with the Vietnam War, it deconstructs Superman and
turns him into a villain. Marshal Law is just one of the
greatest of all time – if you’re getting into comics, this
is one of the places to start.”

LOVE AND ROCKETS – GILBERT,
JAIME AND MARIO HERNANDEZ
“This is really a story about friends,
but it’s also about punk music and
science fiction too. It starts off as
this very dense, slice of life, science
fiction thing and it evolves as the
characters become part of punk
scenes and start to get into bands.
“It’s also a very strong book about
women. There’s one character who starts off one
way and then, part way through the series, she just
gains weight. It deals with things like that and you
see characters go through real changes. It’s written by
three brothers, Gilbert, Jaime and Mario, and
they have been doing it since 1981. It is one of the
longest-running independent
comics that I can think of.”

DAYTRIPPER – FÁBIO MOON
AND GABRIEL BÁ
“It’s by two friends of mine,
Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá who
are twins, and I worked with
Gabriel on Umbrella Academy.
Daytripper is the book they
did for Vertigo and it basically
won every award you can win.
It’s about life, and it’s about the choices
you make and how your life could have been very
different. It’s about all the little moments that change
everything. It’s absolutely beautiful.”

HELLBOY – MIKE MIGNOLA
“Mike Mignola is an absolute genius.
Everything he does just has magic
about it. In Hellboy, he plays around
with folklore and the Cthulu Mythos
but at the heart of it is a character
who is just a normal guy stuck in the
weird position that he just happens
to be a demon.”

SANDMAN – NEIL GAIMAN
“This absolutely has to be on the list.
There has never been a comic like it.
He was the first guy to look at a comic
almost like prose. It’s so cerebral but
it’s also gorgeous and fantastical. With
Sandman, he basically turned comic
books into real literature, which was a
big turning point.”

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE –
KIERON GILLEN AND JAMIE
MCKELVIE
“This is a newer book that I’m really
into. It reminds me of Sandman in that
it’s about this pantheon of gods. But
the team that makes the book have
been able to capture music in a way
that comic books have never really
managed. The same guys used to do
this book called Phonogram in which
the concept was that music is
magic.
“They are still the only people
I have ever read in a comic who
have accurately portrayed what
it feels like to be performing.
They get that immortal,
borderline godlike
feeling you get from
being onstage. Also
get anything Matt
Fraction does and
anything his wife
Kelly Sue DeConnick
does, particularly
Matt’s ODY-C
and Kelly Sue’s
Bitch Planet.”

GETTY/ RICHARD ECCLESTONE

MARSHAL LAW – PAT
MILLS AND KEVIN
O’NEILL

METALHAMMER.COM 93

W

hen British tabloid The Daily Mail waged an
ill-informed campaign against MCR and the
dangers of ‘emo’ music, it was the first time
many people had ever been confronted by
the term. Much guffawing and puzzled
looks were exchanged around the country by so-called
‘normal’ folk. What was this emo music that My Chemical
Romance were the leading lights of?
The irony, to anyone au fait with the roots of this music,
is that when MCR were tagged as the genre’s figureheads,
it totally changed the definition of what emo actually
was. The tag ‘emo’, derived from the emotional hardcore
of the mid-80s punk scene, bears little or no resemblance
to Gerard Way and co. From Rites Of Spring’s meek and
melody-heavy tunes, the Descendents’ geeky, lovelorn
buzzsaw punk or Fugazi’s discordant, socially conscious
and freeform ire, the inspiration for emo was radically
different from the self-loathing horror punk it’s now
associated with.
It was established as a genuine movement and subgenre during the 90s as a slew of bands took the sound
of hardcore and stripped it of all the bullish machismo
that had become the norm and instead infused it with an
honesty and sensitivity that had never been heard before.
Jawbox, Far, Nada Surf, Gameface, Garrison and more all
existed deep within the underground, pulling in a more
introspective, thoughtful college audience that eschewed
94 METALHAMMER.COM

PRESS X3

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the glue-sniffing, phlegm-gobbing aesthetic of traditional
punk rock. These were bands who were influenced as much
by The Smiths as they were by Black Flag – ironic given
that MCR openly admitted that those two groups had a
huge influence on their sound.
What they didn’t do was sell records, ensuring that
emo was still an unheard-of, word-of-mouth movement in
the main. That was until the turn of the millennium, as
the globe-straddling commercial behemoth of nu metal
began to run out of ideas and its fans were forced to
search elsewhere for an antidote to its creative decline.
Those seduced by the heavier elements soon found
sanctuary in the nascent metalcore movement and the
reimagining of thrash that bands such as Lamb Of God
and Trivium delivered. But for those who related to early
nu metal’s wounded lyrical honesty and forward-thinking
sonic approach, the void was filled by a group of posthardcore acts, led by Glassjaw, At The Drive-In and …
And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. They began to
actually infiltrate MTV and mainstream culture while being
confusingly monikered as ‘emo’, ‘post-rock’ and ‘screamo’
at various times. Clearly, emo was still impossible to pin
down to an actual sound.
It was the success of Jimmy Eat World, Thursday, Taking
Back Sunday and British acts Funeral For A Friend and
Hundred Reasons that offered emo a clearly defined sound
and look. Skinny jeans, fringes and classic American apparel

EMO THERAPY
FIVE LEGITIMATE EMO
ORIGINALS WORTHY
OF YOUR ATTENTION

RITES OF SPRING

were married to chiming guitars, whisper-to-shriek vocals
and a melding of anthemic choruses with indie-esque punk.
This is where MCR come in. Having toured with the
aforementioned Thursday and Taking Back Sunday here
in the UK, it was easy to pigeonhole them alongside their
peers, yet they were radically different to those bands.
The only real comparisons would be AFI and Alkaline Trio,
two bands that ignored heartbreak and introspection and
instead concentrated on a black-hearted, gothic-heavy,
macabre sound that was strongly influenced by the Misfits’
B-movie schlock punk.
In fact, Gerard Way himself stated bluntly that MCR
never felt part of or identified with the scene. “Basically,
it’s never been an accurate way to describe us,” he told
American college website The Maine Campus. “I think emo
is fucking garbage; it’s bullshit. I think there’s bands that
we unfortunately get lumped in with that are considered
emo and by default that starts to make us emo.”
Of course, once MCR broke, the look and sound of emo
were defined by their every action. Despite being “vocally
anti-violence and anti-suicide”, themes of self-harm,
depression and distress became inexplicably linked with
their sound and image. They were followed by countless
also-rans trying to pull the exact same trick. Now every
band that adds even a touch of melancholy to their music,
from Black Veil Brides to Bring Me The Horizon, are
sneeringly referred to with the tag. For better or worse, the
change in emo’s DNA is all due to the massive impact of My
Chemical Romance.

The godfathers of emo. Before
joining Fugazi, Guy Picciotto
made punk that was honest
and vulnerable for the first
time.

TEXAS IS THE REASON
They didn’t break any new
ground, but their Do You
Know Who You Are? album is
stone-cold emo perfection.

FAR
Jonah Matranga’s Far added
metallic muscle to raw,
emotional openness. The
band were a big influence on
Deftones.

GRADE
The first band to be associated
with the term ‘screamo’.
Lovelorn lyrics with Maiden
riffs and throat-ripping vocals.

JIMMY EAT WORLD
The most commercially
successful pre-MCR emo band.
Hopelessly romantic, with a
commercial sheen that still
remains unsurpassed today.

“EMO IS GARBAGE. IT’S BULLSHIT”
GERARD DIDN’T FEEL AN AFFILIATION

METALHAMMER.COM 95

96 METALHAMMER.COM

DANGER DAYS

THE TRUE LIVES OF THE FABULOUS
KILLJOYS (REPRISE, 2010)
Another high-concept romp through the Chems’ wildest imaginations
marked a confident, if marginally less memorable, final outing.

T

WORDS: TOM DOYLE • PORTRAIT: BRIAN VAN DER BRUG/GETTY

here’s little doubt that My Chemical Romance
would have felt at least some pressure going
into the recording process for their fourth fulllength album. With their previous two efforts
they had released the record that broke them
into the public consciousness, and followed it up with
one that catapulted them into stadia across the globe,
transforming them from a mere band into a worldwide

phenomenon. As far as high-water marks go, theirs was
nearly causing a flood warning.
That cauldron of anticipation ultimately led the Chems
to a surfeit of songs. The writing process yielded dozens
of tunes which were eventually deemed unsuitable and
scrapped, with the band admitting they felt, for a while
at least, unsure of what direction to move in. The turning
point in Danger Days’ creative gestation seems to have
METALHAMMER.COM 97

come with the composition of first single Na Na Na (Na
Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na), which summed up everything
Gerard Way felt about what they had produced for their
new opus thus far: it was adequate but totally disposable.
From that point on, MCR cut completely loose, indulging
both their more left-field musical influences and their
wildest imaginations to create something totally unique
and compelling in its vibrancy. To that end, Danger Days
is a concept album which focuses around a gang of four
vigilantes living in the desert around the fictitious Battery
City in post-apocalyptic California. That the band members
each play their own character in this tale (Gerard Way as
Party Poison, Ray Toro as Jet Star, Frank Iero as Fun Ghoul
and Mikey Way as Kobra Kid) is remarkable enough, but the
level of detail invested into the narrative arc of the album
is quite astonishing.
From the videos to the website for the evil Better Living
Industries that the band are trying to overthrow, to
a limited-edition EP featuring the music the gang would
listen to in their signature Pontiac, the effort is painstaking
and the effect immersive. Lyrically, too, the whole of
Danger Days concerns the Killjoys’ struggle and deals in
metaphor with social, artistic and even political woes.
As far as pushing a storyline goes, it’s hard to think of
a more committed or complete record from the last decade.
But it’s the musical departure that stands out the
most. There’s none of the vaudeville of The Black Parade
here, and from the Stooges-esque riff of Na Na Na to the
sweeping chorus of SING, to the messy punk’n’roll of
Vampire Money, this is an unmistakably upbeat record. The
overtones of garage rock à la The Hives are merged with
the pumping punk of songs like Planetary (GO!) to produce
something shot through with stunning pop sensibility.
Plenty of critics were baffled at the time by MCR’s
determination to change seemingly everything about
themselves with Danger Days, but looking back now, it
seems totally in keeping with the band’s nature to flip the
script and keep us all guessing. They always did it their way
and this final full-length of theirs is perhaps the ultimate
evidence of that. Red hair, ray guns and rollicking great
tunes – ignore this album at your peril.

WHAT WE SAID
“Love them or hate them, there’s no doubt that My
Chemical Romance are a clever band. There’s plenty
here that fans will lap up; the haters will keep on
hating”
– CAREN GIBSON

98 METALHAMMER.COM

THE SONG
NA NA NA

E

verybody wants to change the world but no
one, no one wants to die,’ croons Gerard Way
on the bridge of Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na
Na Na Na Na), but changing everything is exactly
what My Chemical Romance were doing when they
released the song as the first single from their
pivotal fourth album. And while perhaps they
weren’t risking death, there was certainly a sense
that the band were rolling the dice a little. Gone
were the macabre overtones that so characterised
The Black Parade in favour of a dayglo punk chorus
so simple that on first listen you’d be forgiven for
wondering whether the band were pulling your leg.
They weren’t, of course, and the question
of whether fans would buy into this change in
direction was quickly and positively answered.
It remains one of the band’s most effortlessly
catchy earworms, not to mention a decent social
commentary on the disposability of pop culture.

TV: FUTURE

THE VIDEOS
WORDS: TOM DOYLE

NA NA NA
The vibrant imagination of the Chems is all over the video
for Na Na Na (Na N-oh you know the rest), with neon
ray guns, deadly Draculoids and more movie references
than you can shake a stick at all firmly in place. We’re
introduced to the band in their new guise as The Killjoys,
who are being chased around the desert outside Battery
City by the evil Korse and his aforementioned vampiric
henchmen (who seem more interested in scoping porn
and hacking vending machines). Part Mad Max, part
Easy Rider, part comic-book lunacy, it perfectly sets the
scene for the album as a whole in four short minutes.

SING
Picking up where Na Na Na left off, we see The Killjoys
piling straight into Korse’s Battery City headquarters and
busting into the joint through a combination of their
Pontiac Firebird and some sharp shooting. The band’s
objective is to rescue The Missile Kid, previously captured
from them in the desert. Unfortunately, in a raging
shootout, our boys are all taken down, but not before
they’re able to get their young target to safety. As their
bodies are dragged away, we’re left to wonder what fate will
befall our heroic gang and whether this really is the end…

PLANETARY (GO!)
No complicated storyline, no high-concept art and
definitely no ray guns, just a rockin’ live performance
done the old-fashioned way. Planetary (GO!) sees the band
playing a super-intimate show to an absolutely enthralled

crowd. The track’s syncopated stomp lends itself to a
hands-in-the-air bounce-along and MCR gladly oblige as
confetti and balloons shower down on smiling, sweatsoaked faces. It’s a glorious snapshot of a gig that every
Chems fan would have given their right arm to be at, and
proof of what a fantastic live proposition they always were.

#SINGITFORJAPAN
In the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and
tsunami, the band released a stripped-down version of
SING and an accompanying video featuring heartfelt
messages of solidarity from the global MCRmy. The result
is a moving reminder of music’s continent-spanning
power to both unify and give strength in even the
bleakest of circumstances. If people didn’t believe
the bond that existed between the fans of this band
beforehand, they certainly did after watching this. All
proceeds from the sale of the song went to the Red Cross.

THE KIDS FROM YESTERDAY
Another fan-centric affair, but this time the visual
delights come courtesy of MCR devotee Emily Eisemann,
who edited together a career-spanning montage of the
band’s finest live moments. From punk-rock basements
to the gothic monochrome of The Black Parade to the
stadium-filling giants they were by this stage, it’s an eyepopping trip down memory lane. In fact, it proved to be
the perfect time to look back through MCR’s history as this
was the video to what would end up being their last proper
single before the band eventually split in March 2013.

METALHAMMER.COM 99

PRESS

100 METALHAMMER.COM

With Danger Days’ ray gun-toting thematics
upon them, in 2010 Ray Toro and Frank Iero
revealed the truth behind MCR’s futuristic
final venture.

D
b

WORDS: MATTHEW PARKER

espite what you may have heard, it’s not every
day a journalist turns up for an interview to
find a group of rock stars semi-conscious on
the floor of a five-star hotel room. But this was
the sight that greeted us at the Royal Garden
Hotel in Kensington, West London.
“They’ve been doing press and radio for about three
weeks straight now,” says My Chemical Romance’s PR
as we step over the Gerard Way-shaped pile on the floor.
Fortunately, as we’re guided into one of two conference
suites the record label have booked out, we find
guitarists Frank Iero and Ray Toro in more sprightly form.
And for good reason. New album Danger Days: The True
Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys is a revelation. Unapologetic
in both its science-fiction stylings and its complete
disregard for genre convention, it’s the Back To The
Future of rock’n’roll – a light-speed trip through the best

bits of contemporary music from the 1950s to the 2020s.
“I guess that one thing we had talked about is,
‘What would My Chemical Romance sound like in the
year 2019?’” explains a clearly excited Ray, distinctive
for both his awe-inspiring barnet and his equally cool
Steven Tyler voice. “This was supposed to be music
from the future. There are elements of sci-fi running
throughout, so that really had an influence on the tones
we were choosing. We tried to make our guitars recreate
the sound of lasers and synthesisers.”
Of course, all of their hard work crafting tones would
mean diddly squat if Frank and Ray’s playing had gone
down the pan, but Danger Days represents a big step
forward for the two guitarists. The album’s solos are
particularly special. At once extravagant and soulful yet
never outstaying their welcome, they form many of the
album’s best moments.

“WHAT WOULD MY CHEMICAL
ROMANCE SOUND LIKE IN THE YEAR 2019?”
RAY WAS FEELING PHILOSOPHICAL

METALHAMMER.COM 101

DRAWING
INSPIRATION
The comic concept
behind the new look

T

he setting and the umbrella concept of it,”
explains Frank, “stem from a comic idea
that Gerard and our friend Shaun Simon
were working on. They still are, actually. But the
actual storyline that takes place in the videos and
who represents what and the look of it – that all
came about throughout the writing of the album.
The songs sort of told us what they wanted to be
and that kind of dictated the visual key.”
This ain’t The Black Parade II, though. As Frank
is keen to point out: “This is not a concept album!”

102 METALHAMMER.COM

“I don’t like to overdo it,” says Ray when asked how
he approached the task. “Certain songs call for certain
things. Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back is an arena rock
song, so the solo for that had to be really energetic,
whereas S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W is more epic and psychedelic,
so the solo for that song has some harmonies and octave
work in it. Or Summertime, the way I thought about that
song was that it should remind you of days gone past, so
the solo is more of a melody.”
Not only a progression in their musical understanding,
and their ability to express it, this record also shows the
guitarists’ dedication to always serving the songs.
“There’s no overplaying,” says Frank. “I think there
might have been some pitfalls in the past, where you
start layering things and parts get doubled and there’s
like a fucking stack…”
“And you’re just not hearing anything any more,” adds
Ray. “On this record there’s a lot of breathing room and it
was about what melodies we wanted to maximise and
sometimes that meant not playing at all. That is, I think,
a mature decision that the band made.”
‘Mature’ pretty much covers it. For all of Danger Days’
gleeful experimentation, it’s clear that MCR themselves
are growing up. You can’t blame the band for wanting to
move on and put their last album behind them. Not only
were they the subjects of a media witch-hunt regarding

GREG WATERMANN/PRESS

second that we were rewriting the record.”
That “little bit of inspiration” turned out to be Na Na
Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na), a blistering garagepunk brat of a tune that became the lead single and
linchpin for the whole album. “Then came Vampire Money,
Planetary (GO!), SING,” offers Frank. “It was like,
‘Whoa, this is what we should have been doing!’”
“Those songs came out like a torrent – it felt like
we had gotten our creativity back,” continues Ray.
“We were doing the things we felt like doing.”
So, what was the band’s mindset going into those
sessions? “It could have been a band that was very
depressed and who had worked for a year and then was
starting over again,” says Frank. “But I think, because of
the songs we ended up writing when
we were finally ‘free’, what you’re
getting is a band that’s in a
creative wave and it just so
happened that the Record button
was down. It was like, ‘All right, the
sky’s the limit!’”
“That had to be the mindset,”

PRESS X2

the harmful effects of emo music, but The Black Parade
eventually restricted their performances and creativity.
“When we were playing shows, it wasn’t My Chemical
Romance,” says Ray, “it was ‘The Black Parade’ and we
were definitely trying to embody a different persona.
We were being antagonistic and shitty to the audience
and kind of punishing them. It was like putting on
a stage show and it started to feel like it was rehearsed.
The way we’re playing now is very, very different.”
In contrast to the morbid pop-gothery of their last
full-length, Danger Days is an exhilarating, futuristic
blast through riffy garage rock, dance beats and the kind
of solos you’ll want to rewind. In short, where The Black
Parade was about death, Danger Days is very much about
life and what life has the potential to be. Having set out
with a ‘back to basics’ mantra, it was actually discarding
such restrictions that allowed the group to progress.
“We didn’t feel like we had taken the band to the next
level,” says Frank of the “20 or 30” songs they had
written initially. “The rules we had set up for ourselves
actually held us back, so we took a week off and had
a little bit of inspiration. We didn’t think for one

METALHAMMER.COM 103

“In some bands, the only time you get to be creative is in
the studio. That sucks. If that muscle isn’t worked…”
“You start losing it,” chips in Ray. So, now it’s all about
keeping the ball rolling? “Exactly,” he replies. “The way
we toured before, we rarely got days off. I think the way
we’re going to do it now is be a little smarter. If we’re in
a city that has a great studio and we have something
new to track, then that’s a great way to spend a day.”
It’s a Bob Dylan-esque ‘don’t look back’ attitude to
creativity, the kind that focuses on constant reinvention,
and that has led to the band writing a noticeably varied
collection of songs. But how exactly does a guitarist react
to playing a rebel dance song from 2019? “For me, that’s
the best thing about being a musician,” says Ray. “It’s
finding those challenges. Every song was its own little
entity and adventure.”
But experimentation comes at a cost. “There were a
couple of things that went a little too far,” admits Frank.
Thankfully, though, quality control prevailed. “One of
the engineers had been working with drum loops and
‘re-imagining’ this song,” says Ray. “I remember hearing
it and I literally almost put my fist through the screen!
I was like, ‘No! This is not the song! This is horrible!’”
Through all this reinvention, however, Danger Days has
emerged triumphant. And just as Dylan turned his back
on the stifling folk scene by ‘going electric’, MCR have
finally shaken the emo tag. The Killjoys are the
sound of the future.

PRESS

agrees Ray. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have written a good
record at all.”
Now is a time of celebration for MCR: they’ve found a
way to enjoy themselves again. Instead of becoming a
weight around their necks, the Danger Days sessions have
re-energised the band, allowing them to find new sources
of inspiration. “While we were recording Planetary (GO!),
we turned all the lights off and brought out this strobe,”
says Frank, recounting one of his favourite moments in
the studio. “It made us all feel sick the whole time!”
“You could watch the drum booth on a big plasma
screen in the control room,” remembers Ray, recalling
their session drummer John Miceli’s role in the madness.
“And all you saw was these flashing lights and this
motherfucker on the drums, just shredding them!”
However, the guitarist reckons the memory that will
stay with him the longest was the sense of being part of
a community – albeit one armed with plastic ray guns
and wearing road warrior costumes.
“We’d be working on one song, just starting to flesh
it out,” Ray tells us, “and Frank would be in the back
writing guitar parts, and then Mikey or Gerard would
be on the keyboards writing something. It was really
cool and the record was definitely a community project.
That’s my favourite memory of the whole thing.”
Having fought to get their muse back, MCR are careful
not to undervalue it. “A fun concept for us is to constantly
stay creative, even during the touring cycle,” says Frank.

104 METALHAMMER.COM

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Shying away from the limelight never took away
from the younger Way’s importance to MCR.

WORDS: TOM DOYLE • PICTURE: FONTAINE/PHOTOSHOT

T

o some, Mikey Way will always just be Gerard
Way’s little brother; the kid who got dragged
into My Chemical Romance to play bass even
though at the time he could barely strum a
note. But the reality is that what the younger
Way sibling lacked in immediate musical talent, he made
up for in go-getting attitude.
“My first breakthrough with bass playing was during
one of the first MCR practises in December of 2001,”
he told Music Radar earlier in 2013. “Gerard and Ray
both coached me as I hadn’t had a great deal of bass
experience up to that point. When I got the picking
pattern/timing for Our Lady Of Sorrows down, I had
a total ‘wow’ moment and knew that not only did I love
it, but I would play the bass forever.”
Dropping out of college to join Gerard and Ray Toro in
the fledgling band, it was he who famously named them,
based on the title of Irvine Welsh’s novel Ecstasy: Three
Tales Of Chemical Romance.
Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, his musical
upbringing was similar to his brother’s, the likes of
Iron Maiden and the Misfits playing alongside English
indie from The Smiths to Blur and Pulp. Yet that
penchant for flamboyant, effervescent performers
didn’t always translate into a big personality of his
own. From the earliest days of My Chemical Romance,
Mikey shied away from the spotlight, allowing the rest
of the band to face the glare of the media as they set
about climbing the slope to stardom.
In particular, Mikey found the art of being on stage
a difficult one to master, often drinking to excess in
the early days to numb the nervousness of playing
live. That alcohol dependency gradually developed into
drug abuse, with the young bass player hitting harder
substances to cope with bigger stages. Overwhelming

anxiety would eventually manifest itself in serious
booze-fuelled, bipolar episodes during the recording
of The Black Parade, with the guitarist finally having
to take himself out of the firing line, staying with
friends of the band to get some much-needed
psychological help.
“I didn’t really leave the band – I just left the house
where we were living,” he explained to Concord
Monitor. “When I first left, I was worried about how I’d
be able to handle it. But then, by going through the
proper channels, it all started getting better.”
Having battled his way through addiction, Mikey
increasingly rose to the forefront of MCR, the exertion of
his musical influence over the band no more noticeable
than on their final full-length, Danger Days. It’s a record
full of the style, vivacity and characterisation of David
Bowie, an artist both Way brothers have professed to
love over the years.
Mikey’s artistic endeavours are not strictly limited
to the musical realm, though. In 2008, he created an
eight-page comic for DC, focused around Batman and
his nemesis Scarecrow, proving it’s not just Gerard who
knows what’s up when it comes to concocting scenarios
for superheroes and villains to play in.
Ultimately, the story of Mikey Way is one that
embodies the punk-rock spirit in its truest form. Perhaps
not the most naturally gifted musician, he applied
himself to the challenge of being in a band with a quiet
and understated dedication. Growing from the meek,
pretty-faced one at the back to a fully fledged rock star
by the time of the band’s eventual split, he has remained
consistently relatable, no matter how many tens of
thousands of people My Chemical Romance play to, or
how many Number One records they rack up. A nice kid
from New Jersey done good. What’s not to love?

“I KNEW I WOULD PLAY BASS FOREVER”

106 METALHAMMER.COM

METALHAMMER.COM 107

Proving once again that he is indeed a man of many talents,
Gerard Waycontinued to showcase his passion for
comic books with 2013’s The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys.

T

WORDS: STEPHEN JEWELL • IMAGES: © DARK HORSE & RESPECTIVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS

here’s always been a comic book/rock music
crossover, from the Kiss comics of the 70s to Paul
McCartney singing about the Titanium Man. But
never has a rock star made quite such an assured
impact on the medium as Gerard Way.
With the first two series of The Umbrella Academy five or
so years back, Way proved there were more strings to his
bow than music making, but now he’s formed a veritable
comic book super-group, recruiting co-writer Shaun
Simon and artist Becky Cloonan (Batman, Buffy The
Vampire Slayer) on his latest Dark Horse offering, The True
Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys – and it’s as impressive
as The Umbrella Academy ever was.
Spinning out of the New Jersey rockers’
fourth and final album, Danger Days, the six-part
series has quickly surpassed all expectations, with
May’s teaser issue becoming this year’s Free
Comic Book Day’s most sought-after item.
Then, having held its own against the
summer’s inevitable tide of crossover
titles from the Big Two (Marvel and
DC), the clamour surrounding June’s
debut issue continued to build. Make
no mistake: this My Chemical Romance
spin-off is very much its own project, as
well as being one of the year’s hottest comic
books. “I’ve got to be honest, I’ve never seen
a reaction like this to anything I’ve been
a part of, with people immediately and
across the board loving it like that,”
reflects Gerard himself. “Obviously some
people won’t like it, but I’ve got a feeling
it’ll be quite a while before we hear from
them. I’m stunned, as there wasn’t
108 METALHAMMER.COM

even this kind of reaction to the
first Umbrella Academy.
I personally went into that
very confidently, and the
reaction was great, but this
blows that away.
“It also feels free of hype. Dark Horse did a
really cool job in letting people know that this book was
coming out, while not overdoing it. So people still got to
discover it on their own – it hasn’t been jammed down
anyone’s throats.”
Gerard first began formulating the basic idea for The
True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys in the early 00s. It was
formally announced by Dark Horse as far back as 2009,
and the dystopian rock’n’roll sci-fi epic has been in the
pipeline ever since. Co-writer Shaun Simon once played
in a band with My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank
Iero, so he’s a long-time associate of the singer.
“It’s pretty incredible,” says Shaun of his first foray
into comics. “It’s something that’s been in our heads for
five years and, having worked on it for that long, you
start to lose a lot of perspective – you can’t look at it with
clean eyes any more. But from all the press and reviews
we’ve been getting, it’s great to know that our work is
having such an impact on readers. It really means a lot

to us, and it means that we really did know what we were
doing in setting out to tell a good story.”
However, having flown solo on 2007’s The Umbrella
Academy: Apocalypse Suite, and on its 2008 follow-up
Dallas, Gerard took some persuading that writing with
someone else this time would be a good idea.
“I had a lot of growing up to do,” he admits. “Shaun
and I have been friends for a long time, and I’ve always
known how creative he is. He really is an abstract
thinker, and that’s what I look for in a partner. So one
of the things I had to learn was the immediate trust
necessary in a collaboration. I had to resist not sitting
there and micro-managing everything.
“When I first did Umbrella Academy, I had yet to develop
a strong relationship with the artist, Gabriel Bá, so a lot of
my early scripts were, like, super-dense, Alan Moore-style
paragraphs, which really translates as me trying to control
everything that’s happening on the page.”

“I HAD A LOT OF GROWING UP TO DO”
GERARD ON CHANGING TACT FOR THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT

METALHAMMER.COM 109

Once any initial hurdles were overcome, he and Shaun
hit the ground running. “I started getting stuff back
and straight away there was this feeling that this person
may even get it more than I do,” Gerard says. “In a really
positive way, I guess I just learned to ‘love the bomb’, and
I got really comfortable with collaborating and letting go
of the stuff that we were doing together. It felt amazing, as
he was chiming in with equal impact and enthusiasm; the
pages would come back different but in a good way, like
they were improved.”
Despite all this free-form thinking, however, Gerard
and Shaun actually stuck closely to the traditional
full-script format.
“That was a very strong rule with me from early on,
when I was first doing Umbrella Academy,” the frontman
says. “I was, like, ‘There’s not going to be any kind of
cheating,’ which is why the original series and then Dallas
both took so long to write. The difference between a real
project and a vanity project is that with a real project
there can be no corner-cutting.”
Shaun adds, “Another big factor is that Becky didn’t
just take our scripts and draw exactly what we told her.
She put her own twist on it. That’s how you get the best
work out of anyone. You don’t try and restrain them – you
believe in them and you let them do their own thing.”
Becky Cloonan’s CV includes illustrating Brian Wood’s
Conan The Barbarian, and joining forces with Kelly Sue
DeConnick on Spider-Man off-shoot Osborn – not to
mention creating her own self-published titles, such as

Demeter and Wolves – so she’s nothing if not versatile.
Wide-ranging though her career has been, though,
The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys is surely the New
York-based cartoonist’s most high-profile assignment
yet. “I’m really psyched that I’ve been on board this
book for so long, and been able to see its development,”
she says. “There’s an aspect of being hands-off, as I let
Gerard and Shaun do the scripts and then they let me do
the thumbnails and hand in the art. I like to think that
there’s been a lot of collaboration, and we went through
a few rounds of back and forth before I dived into it.
I wasn’t afraid to ask to change things if I saw a better
way of doing a particular scene.”
Expanding on concepts and characters that first
appeared on Danger Days and the videos for its singles,
like Na Na Na, SING and the Warren Ellis-riffing Planetary
(GO!), Gerard and Shaun insist that The True Lives Of The
Fabulous Killjoys is not just a sequence of glorified album
notes, but its own entity.
“To start with, we thought it was going to relate really
closely thematically,” Gerard says, “but one of the best
parts about this team is the ability of everyone involved
to be able to bend in a positive way by dodging bullets,
altering paths and changing footing. It relates directly in
terms of the storyline, but we worked very hard to make
sure nobody needed to see the videos or have the album to
understand it. You can just pick up the first issue and go!”
“There’s no exclusion,” agrees Becky. “It fuses
alchemically with the album, but if you know the

“I’VE NEVER SEEN A REACTION LIKE THIS TO
ANYTHING I’VE BEEN A PART OF” GERARD FEELS THE LOVE
110 METALHAMMER.COM

GETTY/GREGG DEGUIRE

METALHAMMER.COM 111

videos and the lyrics, you’ll get more out of it.”
Indeed, there are many subtle details for fans to pick
up on – such as the mysterious yellow mask that main
protagonist The Girl stumbles across in the first issue.
“If you know anything about the videos then you’ll get
it but even if you don’t, there’s a reference to what the
mask is. Then you start to see stuff like the mailbox
in there. A lot of thought went into those elements.
It means that we don’t have to over-explain, but it all
connects to that world.”
Perhaps thanks to her vague moniker and somewhat
elusive personality, Becky initially struggled to pinpoint
exactly who The Girl was. “I had a hard time nailing down
her design,” she says. “I don’t know if it was her face, a
gesture, her posture or something with her hair, but one day
she suddenly kind of looked different. I was like, ‘I’ve finally
got it!’ I remember showing it to Gerard and Shaun and they
both agreed. I think I’ve still got that very drawing.”
“I remember Becky trying really hard to inject something
of the Ramones into her silhouette, because that band
was so important to this story,” adds Gerard. “I remember
seeing her final design and thinking, ‘You know, if you
look at her in silhouette, it could be Johnny Ramone.’”
Another character that Becky at first felt daunted
by was the sinister Korse, who was brought to life by
112 METALHAMMER.COM

none other than legendary comic writer Grant
Morrison in the Na Na Na and SING videos.
“There’s so much crazy shit in this,” laughs
Gerard. “The fact that he is in the comic is nuts! I
know Grant has put himself in his own comics before,
but this is slightly different. He’s been very important
to the project because, first of all, he’s like the point of
origin for my influences, with The Invisibles and, more
importantly, his impact on 90s comics. I’ll probably never
get over the fact that he’s now a character in a comic I
wrote, but it really feels like a lot of stuff is now coming
full circle.”
“I met Grant for the first time at New York Comic Con
last year,” says Becky. “He was introduced to me at a DC
party and I was like, ‘I’m drawing you!’ It’s been really
weird, but I’ve tried to approach it like, on one level I’m
drawing Grant Morrison in his awesome frilly shirt and
his kinky outfit, but on another, I’m also drawing the
character – and that’s always the image that’s at the top
of my head. He’s in the videos, but that’s where it ends
visually – I’m not drawing Grant Morrison; it’s Korse.”
As Gerard confirms, though, Morrison really made his
presence felt on set. “Grant is a method actor,” he laughs.
“You’d know this from meeting him, or reading his
work. As soon as he was in costume, he got a lot
quieter. But when he went into action, he didn’t
hold anything back. He was really grabbing my
face in those scenes! Then he stood rigid in the
desert in that heat, and he was the only one not
moving. The Draculoids [the project’s scarymasked stooges] were just goofing around, but
he was literally just standing there. I was like,
‘Holy shit, he really is Korse right now!’”

SIMPLY MARVEL-LOUS
When comics and rock’n’roll collide...

ROB ZOMBIE

LORDI

What with his penchant for theatrics,
horror and anything vaguely gory, it’s
hardly surprising that old Bobby Z has
brought out his own comic line too. As
well as the well-received Rob Zombie’s
Spookshow, in 2008 the bearded
behemoth put together a comic
version of his would-be horror epic,
Werewolf Women Of The SS.

A mere 500 copies of this comic were originally
released, and they were only made available
to people who bought Lordi’s debut single
Would You Love A Monsterman? in 2002. It
stars the Finnish Eurovision slayers and
features fake adverts for products such as
Kita’s Blood Drops and Lordi Trading Cards.
We can only imagine what’s in those Blood
Drops, though…

ANTHRAX

KISS

Not only have the Bronx legends had album and DVD
artwork designed by esteemed comic illustrators
in the past, and written a whole song about Judge
Dredd with I Am The Law, but guitarist Scott Ian
actually had a stint drawing legendary DC anti-hero
Lobo in November 2009!

There isn’t a piece of merchandise on the face of the
Earth Kiss can’t put their name on, so it’s no surprise
that their 1977 collaboration with Marvel was the first
of many forays into the comic world – and it featured
the mixing of the band’s own blood into the red ink
used in the illustrations! Rock’n’roll…

MEGADETH

DANZIG

Back in ’97, Megadeth penned a deal
with Chaos! Comics to produce a special
four-issue mini-series starring band
mascot Vic Rattlehead! The comic had
Vic serving as narrator for a Tales From
The Crypt-style series of horror tales. Of
course, the real question is, when are
we gonna get a Vic versus Eddie comic?

Never one to shy away from doing things his
own way, the man they call the Metal Elvis
founded his own series Verotika back in the
early 90s, quickly setting up a template
that was usually filled with blood, guts and
boobies. Which, coincidentally, are believed
to be the top three things that Danzig fans
love the most.

STONE SOUR
Corey Taylor took his bold vision for the expansive,
two-disc beast that was House Of Gold & Bones to
new heights by putting together a House Of Gold &
Bones comic mini-series. Like Gerard, Corey went to
Dark Horse to help him with his ideas, enlisting art by
Richard P. Clark and covers by Shawn Alexander.
Nice work.

COHEED AND CAMBRIA
As if their brand of catchy, twiddly prog rock wasn’t
enough to give fans everywhere multiple nerdgasms,
furry boffins Coheed And Cambria’s entire discography
is actually inspired by an ongoing storyline invented
by frontman Claudio Sanchez. Named The Amory Wars
and based in another universe, a comic book adaptation
emerged in the mid-2000s.
METALHAMMER.COM 113

“THESE PERFORMANCES STILL SEEM
DANGEROUS AND BEAUTIFULLY RAMSHACKLE”
114 METALHAMMER.COM

The Chems’ live DVDs revisited.

WORDS: TERRY BEZER PHOTO: MICK HUTSON/GETTY

LIFE ON THE MURDER SCENE (2006)

T

his collection begins with a mixed bag of a live
album from the Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge
era. The material captured at the MTV $2 Bill and
Starland concerts perfectly captures the kind of live
band MCR were at that point in time. Even seven years
after its release, these performances still seem dangerous
and beautifully ramshackle – it feels like they could
derail at any time, but never do. These songs would be
considered art punk for their viciousness and sheer edge
alone, if it wasn’t for the fact that the melodies are pure
pop (im)perfection.
The AOL sessions are a lot more controlled and feel
meek in comparison, and you have to question why they
were included on the audio portion of this collection.
A band can never truly recreate the mayhem of a live
show in a sterile studio, and that really shows when these
songs are put next to the apocalyptic brilliance of the
tracks that preceded them.
Faring much better are the two DVDs. The first disc

shows the
workings of
a band from
inside the
belly of the
beast as they
capture the
hearts and
minds of
a generation.
From the
earliest days
to becoming
a once-in-alifetime band,
the documentary footage is breathtaking, as are the
live performances and stunning videos from the Three
Cheers era, which are captured on Disc 2. Quite simply,
these DVDs are essential for any MCR aficionado.

THE BLACK PARADE IS DEAD! (2008)

H

ow do you perfectly document something that
continues to be arguably the greatest live rock
spectacle of the 21st century? You can never do
a show of that magnitude and splendour true justice,
but filming it in front of 20,000 fanatical fans in Mexico
City certainly is a good try. If the Three Cheers tour was
menacing and malignant, The Black Parade’s was all
about theatre and majestic grandeur… all of which makes
the audio CD a little bit redundant because the real treat
on this tour – and consequently this package – is in the
visuals.
Gerard fully embraces the Freddie Mercury school
of showmanship, hamming up every last second with
triumphant gestures and OTT grandiosity. The highlight
of this is the frontman’s arrival during The End,
appearing in a hospital bed, on a drip, before tearing off
his dressing gown to reveal his Black Parade uniform.
The band themselves, united as an army in their Black
Parade regalia, reveal one of rock’s all-time most iconic
looks. That this collection also captures the last show the

band would
ever perform
as The Black
Parade adds
an extra
dimension
to an already
dramatic
performance.
Best of all
is the limitededition, coffinshaped box set
of the package
that included a
death certificate and a mask designed by one of the band
members themselves. This highly collectable edition sold
out almost instantly when it was first released, and now
goes for high prices on eBay on the rare occasions it rears
its head. Good luck finding one…
METALHAMMER.COM 115

REPRISE, 2012/13

MCR’s curious final bow proved a mixed bag.
WORDS: TOM DOYLE

onventional Weapons is something of an
oddity in the My Chemical Romance back
catalogue, being, as it is, made up of cuts
that were deemed unsuitable or simply
not good enough for their eventual final
album proper, Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous
Killjoys. The band released these 10 tracks as five
singles between October 2012 and February 2013 before
promptly splitting up in March, making this hotchpotch
of nearly-made-its the band’s final communiqué with
fans. Nevertheless, a five-month distribution period did
allow for a lushly-packaged vinyl box set to be produced
and, as collector’s items go, it’s a thing of multicoloured,
analogue beauty.
It’s not just the presentation that’s decent, either. As
far as the tunes go, there are a couple of tracks on here
which are, frankly, better than the stuff that made it on
to Danger Days. Naturally, there’s a sense that this is not
a body of work that has been moulded and structured in
the way that a regular album might, but that’s not to say
it feels all over the shop. These are songs that were all
written in the same sessions and there’s a certain level of
clarity to what the band were evidently trying to achieve.
Sonically, it’s pitched somewhere between Three Cheers
For Sweet Revenge and Danger Days – the vibe is punky,
full of anthemic pizzazz and imbued with a pleasingly
raw streak that was all but entirely removed from what
the band eventually did release as their fourth ‘proper’
album. Opener Boy Division is a total screamer that could

&b

sit quite comfortably alongside MCR’s finest songs,
pumping along like a battered old car whose wheels
are about to fall off, before crashing into a brilliantly
dead-eyed break. Meanwhile, Tomorrow’s Money is soaked
in pissed-off attitude, its shades of lo-fi garage punk
deliciously rendered by axemen Frank Iero and Ray Toro,
both men sounding like they’re giving their instruments
hell from the very first second to the very last.
There are some missteps, however. Make Room!!!! is
a somewhat tiresome yap-along which goes nowhere and
takes far too long doing it, while AMBULANCE is about as
cookie-cutter as you could possibly imagine, sounding
more like an average My Chemical Romance cover band
rather than the real deal. That being said, the scales are
firmly in favour of the pros rather than the cons and
across these 10 tracks there’s plenty enough proof of what
excellent and enduring songwriters MCR were.
Ultimately, Conventional Weapons falls down if you try
to consider it as you would a normal album. There’s no
real flow or structure to speak of – no beginning, middle
or end. More interestingly, though, it serves as a marker
for the evolution the band took in making Danger Days;
that album is so utterly focused on narrative, no doubt
as a result of the storyless nature of this collection.
These five singles are best treated as a work in progress,
then; the thing that got MCR to where they eventually
went. Enjoy the best of these weapons and discard the
worst and you’ll certainly find a couple of treats with
which to arm yourself.

“THERE’S PLENTY ENOUGH PROOF OF WHAT
EXCELLENT AND ENDURING SONGWRITERS
MCR WERE”
116 METALHAMMER.COM

METALHAMMER.COM 117

PRESS

118 METALHAMMER.COM

Four groundbreaking albums.
The most devoted fanbase in music.
History-making festival sets.
And then, out of the blue,
MCR were no more…

WORDS: TERRY BEZER

t wasn’t supposed to go down like this. My Chemical
Romance had stood out on the rock scene for over
a decade as one of the most explosive and unique
bands of all time, but they chose to go out on what
is arguably their weakest album to date. And after
12 years of shows that always burst with passion and
theatrical spectacle, it would have been a catastrophe to
go out on some of those lacklustre displays of their final
days – but so it came to be.
It came on March 22, 2013, in the shape of a short,
incisive blog on the band’s website. Six sentences and a
picture of Houdini ushered in the end of an era.
“Beyond any sadness, what I feel the most is pride,”
tweeted Gerard Way. He went on to post a blog about
freeing a trapped bird from his house, and while fans
speculated that this, along with the Houdini picture, was
a metaphor that the band were to continue under a new
name to get out of their record contract, it was always
the longest of long shots that this would be the case.
Gerard himself admitted in his blog that he thought the
band was done because he felt himself “acting”. The reality
of the situation was clear: after 12 years and just four
albums, My Chemical Romance were done.
Frank Iero posted his own blog, one that was far more
straightforward than his bandmate’s. Honest, direct and
razor-sharp, it expressed nothing but love for the band,

,b

its work and its fans, but was swift to say that it was very
much a case of “if you weren’t there in those 12 years
then you missed out”.
Ray Toro posted a new song called Isn’t That Something
just 48 hours after the split. Mikey Way, meanwhile,
was tweeting about a new musical venture seven days
after the break-up, and Iero himself performed a new
song called Going Off Track at the Union Hall in Brooklyn
after just over two weeks. Basically, the message was
like a cannon blast: MCR were over and the band were
all working on their own material.
And what of the band’s mouthpiece and spiritual
leader? Gerard was already working on solo material
before the band split. Demos of two songs, Zero Zero
and Millions began circulating online before MCR’s split.
His solo career officially got under way in 2014 with the
Hesitant Alien album hitting the Top 20 in the US and UK.
Since then, Gerard has focussed on his comic book
career, writing for Marvel’s Edge Of Spider-Verse, creating
his own Young Animal series as part of DC’s Doom Patrol
imprint and helping adapt The Umbrella Academy for TV.
But music was never far away. Gerard reunited with
his brother Mikey for 2018’s Baby You’re Haunted House
standalone single and teamed-up with Ray Toro on the
same year’s Getting Down With The Germs. Suddenly,
a MCR comeback didn’t look so outlandish.

“BEYOND ANY SADNESS, WHAT
I FEEL THE MOST IS PRIDE” GERARD HAD NO REGRETS
METALHAMMER.COM 119

120 METALHAMMER.COM

In 2020, My Chemical Romance announced the news
every fan wanted to hear: that they were reuniting.
This is how it happened – and what comes next.

WORDS: MARIANNE ELOISE • PICTURE: MARK SULLIVAN/GETTY

t all started, as so much does, on Instagram. My
Chemical Romance, dormant since they announced
their breakup in 2013, launched an official page.
There wasn’t much to it: a profile picture featuring
a black and white rune-style candle, a few cryptic
stories. Keen-eyed, desperate fans who had been putting
together crumbs of “hints” at a comeback for seven years

,b

quickly jumped on the account and the couple of cryptic
crumbs that it dropped. Is it real? What does this mean?
A candle could mean rebirth… was Joe Jonas telling the
truth when he said he saw them in the studio?
On Halloween 2019, fittingly, the account finally posted
On Grid, and fans immediately descended. A tour flyer
with two stone angels and the words RETURN in capital
METALHAMMER.COM 121

“RATHER THAN WANING, MY CHEMICAL
ROMANCE’S INFLUENCE HAS ONLY INCREASED”

ALAMY

letters accompanied by a venue: the Shrine Expo Hall
in Los Angeles. A date: December 20th. And a caption:
“Like Phantoms Forever”, a reference to the closing track
from I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love,
Demolition Lovers. The tickets were extortionate ($150)
but fans didn’t care: they booked flights, they refreshed
Ticketmaster, they begged their friends to come. Few
lucky ones got in – it sold out in four minutes flat.
Few bands could command the level of dedication
and obsession that My Chemical Romance always
have, particularly after so many years away. Rather
than waning, their influence only increased as a new
generation of emos unearthed the discography of a band
who had once been the subject of one of the mid-00s
most memorable moral panics. Clearly, they feel how
much their presence was wanted, their fans’ ouija board
efforts calling them earthside.
My Chemical Romance announced 2020 dates in
Australia, Japan and New Zealand just a week after the
first big reveal. On the day of the Los Angeles show, they
revealed via Twitter that this wasn’t a recent decision:
“In 2017, we got in a room together to see what would
happen. A couple more jam sessions and 39 days of
rehearsals later, we’re ready to show you what we’ve
learned. See you soon.”
The UK had to wait until January 2020 for My Chemical
Romance to drop the UK dates. Through a cryptic, spooky
video of a cloaked skeleton walking through a forest
entitled “An Offering”, the band announced shows in

122 METALHAMMER.COM

Milton Keynes that June, which prompted some memes
and a lot of confusion. The first sold out in minutes - as
did the second and the third. A North American tour soon
followed, cementing what had been clear for a while: My
Chemical Romance were back. They were ready for global
domination, to knock their imitators off the top spot and
give their fans a reason to live again.
As it turns out, the only comeback that would come to
pass in the end would be the Los Angeles appearance.
Really nerdy fans believed that the show was prophesied
in Danger Days, an album whose story is set in a postapocalyptic California in 2019. The concert itself, as
told by people who were there, was a very special,
relatively small return to form for the band. According to
Consequence of Sound, Way cried, “This was a magical
night, we’re having so much fun!” Rolling Stone captured
the energy, reporting on costumed fans and declaring: “If
this band excels at anything beyond their riffs, it’s their
matchless flair for drama.”
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, all of My Chemical
Romance’s other upcoming dates were cancelled or
postponed, making the Los Angeles show a blip in the
timeline, a mysterious mirage of a show. Did it really
happen? It gave people hope just long enough to hold out
but that quickly fizzled away. The accounts that had once
inspired so much hysteria have been relatively quiet,
popping up only to announce new postponements or to
promote the band’s members’ and friends’ other projects.
Will the initial anticipation hold for shows that are
delayed another year or more? Well, what’s another year
or two to fans who already waited seven?
MCR’s comeback was well-timed to coincide with the
apex of the wider mid-00s emo renaissance: the return
of bands of that era, the creation of new ones, and the
influence of emo in all areas of culture. But the hysteria
isn’t so much testament to the times we live in now as
to the band themselves: to what they created, what they
inspired in their fans, what they continue to inspire.
This level of excitement around My Chemical Romance,
isn’t new. Early in their career, the band became
figureheads of an emerging third-wave emo movement
and soon found themselves credited with “saving” young
fans’ lives. With the release of The Black Parade in 2006,

CHRISTOPHER POLK/GETTY IMAGES

the band perfected their flair for concept albums and
sweeping theatrics, giving fans a uniform of black and
silver marching band jackets.
However, it was not only their music but their candour
about their real-life struggles, like addiction and
depression, that gathered a not-so-small army of lost,
adoring fans who were nothing short of evangelical
about what My Chemical Romance preached. Parents and
tabloids believed it was a suicide cult. Those in-theknow knew it was more like a support group: a place to
be open about what you felt and to be told that it was
worth carrying on. They soon felt the weight of that
responsibility, with Gerard Way lamenting in 2006 that,
“we’re not psychotherapists”. However, he also said, “We

try to be honest about what’s happened to us in our lives.
We’re there for people in that respect.”
Which is why the reunion announcements inspired
such Beatlesmania-esque chaos: it wasn’t a desire to
regress, to retreat into nostalgia. The excitement and the
way it played out online, small hints spreading across the
internet like wildfire, reminded fans both old and new of
that feeling: of being a part of something real, something
that would support them when there was nothing else.
With how hard life has been lately for everyone, it seems
likely that My Chemical Romance will follow through on
their promise to return, and even more likely that their
shows will be bursting at the seams with fans old and
new just seeking to be a part of something.

“THE HYSTERIA AROUND THE REUNION
IS TESTAMENT TO WHAT THEY INSPIRED
IN THEIR YOUNG FANS, WHAT THEY
CONTINUE TO INSPIRE”
METALHAMMER.COM 123

When we asked you to vote for the greatest MCR anthem, you
responded in your tens of thousands. Here are the results in full…

WORDS: MARIANNE ELOISE • PORTRAIT: MICK HUTSON/GETTY

124 METALHAMMER.COM

20

The Light Behind Your Eyes

Before My Chemical Romance’s hiatus they
dropped Conventional Weapons, a compilation
album of 10 previously unreleased tracks. The Light
Behind Your Eyes is a haunting ballad, opening with
violins and gentle acoustic before giving way to big
guitars. It’s a rumination on mortality, life, and their
time as a band before fading away.

It’s Not a Fashion Statement,
It’s a Fucking Deathwish
This fun, fast, punk track from Three Cheers
For Sweet Revenge sees Way barely catching his breath
between promises of “I will remember you” . The first
track the band wrote after I Brought You My Bullets, You
Brought Me Your Love , it sounds more like that record’s
post-hardcore than other tracks on Three Cheers….

House of Wolves
House of Wolves plays an important role in
the mythology of The Black Parade as the
protagonist The Patient arrives in hell after a naughty
life. Whispers of “S-I-N” underpin jazzy, distorted guitars
as Gerard ruminates on innocence and sin. You can hear
how much fun they’re having with being bad, bad, bad.

The Sharpest Lives
On The Sharpest Lives , The Patient of The Black
Parade ’s narrative looks back on his chaotic
life. It’s the best of all eras My Chem, with the stadium
energy of The Black Parade, verses that are reminiscent
of I Brought You My Bullets… and vocal embellishments
that feel very Three Cheers…. Its chorus just begs to be
screamed along to.

You Know What They Do To Guys Like
Us in Prison
Here, My Chemical Romance are at their
campest and weirdest best, opening shyly with Gerard’s
vocals and an unassuming guitar before descending into
chaos. Full to of iconic emo lyrics and warped vocals, it
also features The Used’s Bert McCracken accompanying
Way on both screaming and speaking parts.

Demolition Lovers
At six minutes, Demolition Lovers is one of My
Chemical Romance’s longer songs, hinting
at the taste for theatrics they’d later fully lean into. It’s
a slow-building track with dead silence before a spooky,
stripped back interlude, crafting a real atmosphere and
the foundation of the story of Three Cheers….
METALHAMMER.COM 125

ROSS GILMORE/GETTY

14

Disenchanted

While MCR’s louder tracks often get the most
attention, they do ballads like nobody else. The
Black Parade ’s Disenchanted sees The Patient, heading to
his final end, musing on the pointlessness of life through a
big chorus and powerful guitar. It’s their most Queen effort
yet, fading out as someone plucks on a lone guitar.

Cemetery Drive
“Cemetery Drive” is one of the strongest tracks
on Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, and an
underrated one. Dealing with the protagonist’s wife’s
suicide, it’s heavy with both real and fictional emotion,
opening with gentle drums and whispery vocals that set
the scene for something a lot bigger.

Thank You for the Venom
My Chemical Romance inspired a lot of hate from
the media for their clothes, their lyrics, their...
everything. On Three Cheers… single Thank You For the
Venom , they bite back at the critics with a rallying cry that
they’ll never be brought down, and it’s a lot of fun for a
clapback. Plus, that guitar solo.

Dead!
The first track proper on The Black Parade after
the heart monitor-beep laden ballad The End. ,
Dead! sets up all that The Patient’s journey to hell is going
to be. Opening with fast guitars and Gerard Way’s screams,
126 METALHAMMER.COM

it sees The Patient finding out
that he’s on his way out. The vocal
gymnastics Gerard Way flips through
here are unforgettable.

Cancer
Cancer is a piano ballad
more rooted in reality
than the rest of The Black Parade,
with Way singing from The Patient’s
perspective about his cancer diagnosis, chapped lips and
fear of leaving his loved ones behind. It’s mournful and
visceral, emboldened by violins and Way’s heartfelt vocals.

9

Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)

While initially annoying to the ears of OG fans, Na
Na Na introduces their most ambitious concept yet,
a desert-based dystopia in post-apocalyptic California.
Featuring an intro from Mindless Self Indulgence’s Steve
Montano as Dr. Death Defying, there’s no denying it’s
stadium ready (and brave). Plus, opening a crowd-friendly
track with cries of “give me drugs”? It’s an anthem.

8

I Don’t Love You

Sitting neatly in the narrative of The Black Parade , I
Don’t Love You is one of MCR’s more simple tracks, but
therein lies its ower. It’s a real power ballad replete with
cries of “baby get out”, it’s a sob-inducing examination of
true heartbreak, both within the story and without.

The Ghost of You
Opening with subtly effected guitars that feel
submerged underwater, The Ghost of Youdropped as
the fourth single from Three Cheers… with a Marc Webbdirected video that cost one million dollars and saw the
band crawling around in the trenches. It’s an eerie, earnest
love song with tinges of grief.

6

Teenagers

The Gen Z vs. Millennial wars has a lot of grown
adults feeling pretty scared of the youth. Teenagers,
more relatable than ever, is a fun pop punk bop with a
catchy hook of “teenagers scare the living shit out of me”. The
accompanying video sees the band playing at an anti-pep
rally, leading bored teens into a rousing chorus. According
to Gerard Way, the song carries a darker message about
school shootings: “It’s about a big problem in America
where kids are killing kids. The only thing I learned in high
school is that people are very violent and territorial.”

5

Mama

A song about The Patient and his mother’s
conflicted relationship, “Mama” is one of My
Chemical Romance’s weirdest songs, playing with Jewish
vibes and old-fashioned radio crackles. It works, especially
as showtunes play into so much of My Chemical Romance’s
discography. It’s is embellished with stage and screen icon
Liza Minnelli’s iconic sobs, shouts and cries of “And if you
would call me a sweetheart/I’d maybe then sing you a song...”
“We wanted somebody kind of motherly, but who was
also a survivor, had been through a lot, but was rooted in
theatre” said Way. Not only did Minnelli fit the bill, she did
it for free, and the pair have been friends ever since.

4

Famous Last Words

While My Chemical
Romance got a lot of flack
from worried parents for lyrics
about misery, many were wilfully
ignoring the optimistic under
(and over) tones of many of their
songs. The second single from
The Black Parade and its closing
track, Famous Last Words isn’t the
death rattle you’d expect from an
album about cancer. Instead, it’s a
powerful promise to carry on.
“I am not afraid to keep on living/I
am not afraid to walk this world
alone,” Way sings, and it’s a refrain
designed for the fans to keep

screaming back at them, too. The
simple bridge that builds to Way’s
theatrical, determined screams
is a reminder that My Chem are
unmatched.

3

I’m Not Okay (I Promise)

While My Chemical Romance
already had a dedicated
fanbase off the back of I Brought
You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your
Love, I’m Not Okay (I Promise) was
the track that introduced their
eyelinered-faces to the world at
large. An anthem for the misfits
and the downtrodden, it followed
in the tradition of all the bands before who had assigned
themselves as role models for the weirdos. The video,
featuring the band in oversized school uniforms dealing
with all the shit that being at school comes with, is kinetic
and unforgettable, dedicated to nerds everywhere.

2

Helena

While many of the songs on Three Cheers For Sweet
Revengefollow the mythology of the demolition
lovers, there are a couple of outliers. One isHelena,
a thoughtful tribute Gerard and Mikey Way’s late
grandmother. Gerard has called the song an angry letter to
himself about how he handled his grandmother’s life and
death: “It’s about why I wasn’t around for this woman who
was so special to me, why I wasn’t there for the last year of
her life,” he said. He’s also spoken frequently on the selfhate that’s woven through “Helena”, but in practice, it’s
buried under the genuine grief. The wobbly, eerie opening
vocals and whispers set a mournful tone before Way, as
always, fully goes for it. A distorted bridge opens with “can
you hear me/are you near me” and leads into a cry of “when
both our cars collide”, and you can feel that regret.
The Marc Webb-directed video is as recognisable as
the track itself. It moves away from their real life grief,
focusing instead on a young woman who died tragically.
The band move amongst the mourners, leading them into
a choreographed dance before the made up eyes of Helena
snap open in her coffin; she dances with her black ballet
flats through the pews before laying back down to die.
The band carry her coffin through the rain and Way stares
defiantly at the camera as attendees dance in the rain with
black and red umbrellas. Helena is a beautiful, mournful
track that stands the test of time and one of My Chemical
Romance’s most unique, blurring reality with fiction and
emo with goth in a way few have done since.
METALHAMMER.COM 127

1
hree Cheers For Sweet Revenge would have been a
difficult album for anyone to follow, and for two years,
fans waited anxiously to find out what My Chemical
Romance would do next. They would be surprised.
On September 2, 2006, the band dropped Welcome
to the Black Parade on Myspace, an epic introduction to a new
narrative landscape. Ten days later, it
was released as a single, reaching No.9
on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and later
becoming the band’s first No.1 in the UK.
It represented a lot of firsts for the
band, but it was the video, released in
late September, that showed the world
what The Black Parade would be about.
It introduced fans to a pale, blackeyed man known only as The Patient
reclining in a hospital bed. In the video,
he is taken to death by a marching
band known as a “Black Parade”. In an
interview, Way said, “I’d like to think
that when you die death comes for you however you want, and
I feel that it’s your strongest memory – either from childhood or
adulthood.”
The Patient’s most vivid memory, we come to understand,
was being taken to see a marching band with his father. In
a desolate cityscape, the band play on floats in the silver
and black jackets that fans would later don in homage. It’s a
departure from the world of Three Cheers…: Way’s hair is closecropped and bleached, his jet black locks a thing of the past.
On Welcome To The Black Parade, MCR revealed the glam rock
and musical theatre influences that the rest of the album would
play with. Opening with a G note that’s firmly embedded in
the ears and hearts of emos everywhere, the track has hints of
Queen and Bowie but is decidedly My Chem. Way sings from the
perspective of The Patient: “When I was a young boy, my father/
took me into the city to see a marching band/He said, ‘Son, when
you grow up would you be/The saviour of the broken, the beaten
and the damned?’” It rings of the cultish evangelism that My
Chemical Romance inspired in their adoring fans – many did
see MCR as their saviours, leading them away from darkness.
At just five minutes, Welcome To The Black Parade somehow
traverses genres and moods, feeling much bigger than it is. It’s
cleaner than anything on the prior two albums: slicker and
more deliberate, with less of the weird murderous energy either
I Brought You My Bullets… or Three Cheers… . It feels, above all,
like a defiant refusal to give in or die: “I’m unashamed, I’m
gonna show my scars/Give a cheer for all the broken/Listen here,
because it’s who we are/I’m just a man, I’m not a hero/Just a boy,
who had to sing this song,” sings Way.

7b

128 METALHAMMER.COM

Any fans who weren’t already buying what My Chemical
Romance were selling – the idea of community and being saved
among the other weirdos and losers – were now fully along for
the ride. The fears that some would later have that My Chemical
Romance inspired cultish obsession weren’t that far off, of
course, but it wasn’t a dark or negative place to be at all. As
Welcome To The Black Parade fades out,
the marching drum snare still ticking,
My Chemical Romance have shown
their new faces to the world. Everyone
wanted to hear the story of The Patient.
The defiance woven through
Welcome To The Black Parade was hard
won. Members of the band, already
struggling with depression, addiction
and self-esteem, were finding their
newfound fame and positions of
influence difficult to handle. Speaking
around the release of the record in
October 2006, Way revealed that he had
a crisis of faith during recording sessions in Los Angeles. “I was
staring at that cityscape wondering what the hell I was doing
with my life,” he said. “I was examining every awful thing
about myself. I was cutting myself open and taking all the
parts out and examining them.” He added that the group were
fighting with each other: “It wasn’t the happiest time of our
lives. I was very edgy, almost like I wasn’t really alive.”
That difficulty and pain, however, particularly amongst
themselves, became the defiance that fills the record, nowhere
more so than on its first single. Way said, “We became so
protective of each other when we were making this record that
everything became different. We became a different band. We
had always loved each other – we’re like brothers – but this was
something different.”
For most longtime fans, Welcome To The Black Parade was their
first introduction to this new, sprawling world that the band
were taking them into. “It personifies the whole record,” said
Way. “It’s basically the one song that sounds up the song for
the record and all the risks we took jammed into one mini-epic.
And it still retains everything that made us special,” Ray Toro,
too, called it their Bohemian Rhapsody, and the Queen influence
is clear to anyone.
My Chemical Romance are so good at so many things:
storytelling, theatre, darkness, light and community. All of that
is here on Welcome To The Black Parade , in their most ambitious,
epic effort to that point. It showcases everything that fans of all
ages and eras love about the band, from their vulnerability to
their commitment to drama. Simply put, it’s pure My Chemical
Romance distilled into just five minutes.

THEO WARGO/GETTY

METALHAMMER.COM 129

NAKI/GETTY

“I AM NOT AFRAID TO KEEP ON LIVING. I AM NOT
AFRAID TO WALK THIS WORLD ALONE” MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE

E
OM

BACK

K

T HE C
9001

:
IDS

INSIDE
THE MCR!
REUNION

9000

GERARD WAY: UP
CLOSE AND PERSONAL!
ROCK STAR, COMIC BOOK ARTIST,
ICON – THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
MCR’S FRONTMAN

THE STORY BEHIND
EVERY ALBUM

FROM I BROUGHT YOU MY BULLETS
TO DANGER DAYS –
EVERY MCR RECORD RE-REVIEWED!

THE 20 GREATEST MCR
SONGS VOTED BY YOU!
THE ANTHEMS THAT
CHANGED THE WORLD
– THE ULTIMATE PLAYLIST!