SPIN MAGAZINE
MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE COVER story
I love you...
You Rock...
You are my life...
You are many people’s lives...
You save lives...
My Chemical Romance save lives—it’s the kind of cute, gimmicky slogan that tempts headline writers whenever the morbidly military-garbed superstars grace the press with their lofty declarations about mortality. Yet it’s not until you surf the pages of ImNotOkay.net, or witness a thousand teens in the pit, roaring, “I am not afraid to keep on living,” in a communal burst of affirmation, that this claim of salvation becomes a palpable principle.
“It’s the mantra of the band,” says bassist Mikey Way, from My Chem’s tour bus, which has just traveled 34 hours from San Diego to the Riverside Theater in frigid Milwaukee. “Kids would say they were gonna kill themselves, then they heard our music. It’s great when you can impact someone like that. It’s absolutely our mission.”
I even wrote my suicide letter. I even planned a date that I was going to kill myself. But then, My Chemical Romance came in to my life. They fucking saved me. They helped me believe that I wasn’t alone, that someone actually cares. Their music inspires me so much. And I…cannot thank them enough for giving me a reason to live. For giving me a reason to be myself. Thank you, MCR, for saving my fucking life.
The My Chemical Romance phenomenon bridges two of the new millennium’s most significant, if far-flung, cultural convulsions: the tragedy of 9/11 and the launch of social media. That’s heady stuff for a Jersey band that thrashed around that state’s basement punk scene before graduating, in 2004, to lavish arena rock and the kind of worshipful success that has made earnest believers of even themselves. Not that the role of pomp rock’n’roll savior didn’t take some getting used to. With every online post crediting them with rescuing another soul, devotion to the band approaches religious fervor. “I’d meet these kids that were outsiders,” says frontman Gerard Way. “And I realized they’re looking to us for the answer. It started to scare me.”
Any fear of that responsibility has since turned into an embrace.
On the strength of their 2002 debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, these former misfits—Mikey Way, 26, his older brother Gerard, 29, drummer Bob Bryar, 27, and guitarists Frank Iero, 25, and Ray Toro, 29—built a diehard following playing New Jersey basements and VFW halls. But it wasn’t until 2004’s Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and the video-driven success of its post-Weezer anthem of teenage disaffection, “I’m Not Okay (I Promise),” and the maniacal dirge “Helena” that My Chemical Romance found their voice. And the voice of a new generation of jaded youth—the unloved, the overlooked, the burned, bruised, and battered, fourth graders, punks, preps, jocks, and the sworn enemies of punks, preps, and jocks.
Fittingly for a band that, more than any other since the Smashing Pumpkins’ mid-’90s run, has had tremendous therapeutic impact on its fan base, they often soundcheck with the Pumpkins’ “Zero.” Consummate Corgan pupils that they are, My Chem followed Three Cheers with a dip into the infinite sadness: last fall’s ambitious The Black Parade, replete with Mellon Collie-meets-Night at the Opera bravado, plus a flash of Sgt. Pepper’s panache.
They appeal to the darker side of my personality that i suppress to be the happy bunny most people think i am.
The Black Parade furthers a mystical connection to 9/11 that’s been with the band since budding comic-book artist Gerard witnessed the Twin Towers crumble and immediately resolved to start a band and change the world. In fact, the new album’s first single, “Welcome to the Black Parade,” received its initial radio play within a week of September 11, 2006. “There was no plan behind that,” says Toro. “It was a coincidence. But it’s crazy that whenever [the 9/11 anniversary] passes, it always bring me to the band.”
Sonically and thematically, the new album represents, as Mikey puts it, “the definitive My Chemical Romance.” If abandoning the noir emo of the first two albums for the Queen-channeling bombast of The Black Parade seemed like an odd leap to some, it didn’t to Toro. “Our sound has matured into what we always wanted,” he says. “[From the start], we envisioned ourselves as a big rock band that played epic songs. It just took awhile to get there.”
Likewise, the band has moved beyond its funereal fashion obsessions and macabre lyrical preoccupations and toward a more affirming message. Using the fictional story of a protagonist called the Patient, The Black Parade delivers a carpe diem call. “He’s an Everyman who realizes his time is up,” Iero says, referring to the Patient. “He didn’t live his life to the fullest and wishes he had another chance.”
Each of the band’s albums involves some kind of story line (Bullets follows a couple of Bonnie and Clyde types; Three Cheers recounts the devilish efforts of a man—possibly the Clyde figure—to reunite with his late lover), but Gerard isn’t coy about it. “Every fiction the band has used is just a layer over very personal things,” he says. “That first record’s about a bad breakup. The second’s about my grandma’s death. And the third’s about making the choice to live your life.” It’s this last concept that has rallied the band’s most fragile and rabid followers.
“What sticks out in my mind when we play,” says Bryar, “are kids just breaking down and crying in the front row. Perhaps that happens to a lot of bands…but it’s different for us. The music brings out shit in them. It’s a release.”
They fill a void...a missing part of me...a part of my heart and soul...a part of my confidence. Their music makes me happy. Their music makes me feel beautiful.
“Sometimes, honestly, I feel we’re moderating [a support group],” says Gerard. “We tap into dark stuff from the high school years, and it’s our responsibility to bring kids a positive, nonviolent solution.” Without dismissing the collective catharsis provided by MCR concerts (which continue in late February with the first leg of an arena tour), the impact of the mosh pit pales next to the band’s powerful online presence.
My Chem’s MySpace page boasts over 3,000 posts per day—ranging from thank-you notes to appeals for likeminded allies. (By comparison, the daily posts on the Strokes’ MySpace page barely number 150.) The fan sites and message boards transcend mere idol worship, though. They offer visitors a forum to discuss topics ranging from the relatively mundane (fashion) to the deeply troubling (cutting yourself). Threads titled “My Chemical Suicide Story” or “It’s a Band to Save Your Life” not only honor the group but also have helped establish MCR as the avatars of a superhighway support system. “The fans look out for each other,” notes Mikey. “It’s like a gang—but not in a negative way.”
They have given me a reason to live and to keep on living. Seriously, if it wasn’t for them, i would be dead right now...MCR are like my guardian angels. lol
But—no joke—who’s looking out for the band? Turns out even saviors need salvation.
While recording The Black Parade last March in Los Angeles, MCR moved into the allegedly haunted Paramour Mansion. “When you’re in a band like this, there’s this persistent feeling of being torn apart by external forces, that you’re always surrounded by wolves waiting to eat you,” explains Gerard. The combination of the Paramour’s Shining-esque dimensions and the overwhelming expectations for Three Cheers’ follow-up apparently proved too much for Mikey, who suffered, what he calls, “a series of nervous breakdowns” before temporarily leaving the band.
“All the things that have happened in my life, mixed with the expectations, collapsed on me,” Mikey says, alluding to, among other things, his clinical depression and his father’s (nonfatal) heart attack during the Three Cheers tour. “I started mixing antidepressants with alcohol, which made me manic-depressive. I had this feeling I wouldn’t make it through another record, so I left.”
Mikey’s hiatus forced the members to reconsider the project and ultimately galvanized the rest of the band, who were battling their own doubts and fears.
“The anxieties and pressures started to build and give me nightmares, too,” recalls Gerard. “When [Mikey left], we finally had to face these issues. I had found this painting called March of the Saints in this dungeon bathroom in the house and thought about processions, Joan of Arc, stuff from childhood, all this Catholic guilt and doubt. I started investigating that and soon saw patterns in the songs.”
With Mikey back in the fold, the band responded to Gerard’s Parade epiphany with a surge of creativity that yielded the album’s most exhilarating moments (“Cancer,” “Sleep”), culminating in “Famous Last Words.” “That song’s so undeniably powerful because it was born out of that period,” says Gerard.
And yet the anthem, with its clarion chorus, “I am not afraid to keep on living,” had to survive crisis before it could deliver catharsis.
I think I just died. I love it ’cause it’s not an ordinary performance video, where bands just...well, play. It actually shows MCR doing their thing. Their intensity. Like the part when Frank suddenly stops playing and sits on his knees gasping. And the end, with Bob’s injury, breaks my heart every time.
In August, Bob Bryar nearly died while filming the video for “Famous Last Words.” And his wasn’t even the first injury associated with the clip. Earlier in the shoot, Gerard destroyed the ligaments in one ankle after, he says, he was “tackled accidentally” by Iero.
This video sequel to the new album’s “Welcome to the Black Parade” clip shows the band performing before the Black Parade float that’s been set ablaze in some barren wasteland. On the set, Bryar was positioned too close to the flames, and his pants caught fire. Watch the video closely and you can see the accident unfold in real time.
Bryar’s third-degree burns called for a skin graft, but rather than go to the hospital, the drummer found a doctor to treat his wounds in his hotel room. A staph infection followed, which spread with abandon. “An abscess was resting on my brain,” Bryar says. “I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk. When I tried to leave the hospital, they said I’d die in two days if I left. So I sat back down.”
But for Bryar, that wasn’t the worst of it. “We canceled three shows,” he laments. “I hate canceling shows. We pride ourselves on giving fans something to do. If they are going through some shit, they can go to a show and heal. I didn’t want to let anyone down.”
Real men wear makeup.
From the gothic glissades of “Helena” to the apocalyptic cavalcade of “Black Parade,” My Chem are dedicated to the visual side of music making—as if Bryar’s “sweet scar” (as he now calls it) and the unnatural stiffness on the left side of his face weren’t sufficient proof.
“The visual element is another tool that helps tell the story,” Toro says. “The videos are an exercise in creativity—the fun stuff where you let your wildest imagination come to life. Rock music is becoming stale. Let’s put the fun back.”
In addition to MCR, bands like Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco are returning rock videos to their mid-’90s glory days, when highly conceptual, story-oriented, and just plain awesome clips like Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” and Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight” reigned. But the man most responsible for this charge stands surprisingly uncertain.
“Sometimes I think it has gone so far that it takes away from the music,” says Gerard, a Rocky Horror Picture Show freak who now models MCR’s aesthetic on the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet (City of Lost Children) and Terry Gilliam (Brazil). “I question it because I believe that much in the music. When we talk about this arena tour, we talk about how can we keep it a rock show, how can we keep it about the five people. The visuals give your work its art, but the part that saves lives is how forthcoming we are with personal information and the music.”
Indeed, that honesty can get muddled amid too much makeup. This never seemed more apparent than on the 2006 live CD/DVD Life on the Murder Scene, which features footage of a visibly intoxicated Gerard Way throwing up behind a bus. “One of the hardest things to deal with is looking foolish,” says Way, who’s been sober for two years. “To create a mythology, you have to be an open book. It lends a certain truth to that mythology. It was important to show how foolish I was and send a message that there’s no glamour [in that].”
Find that one thing that fills you with utter joy, and hold on to it, as long as you can.
My Chemical Romance do not care about being called sellouts. They abandoned their screamo origins. And they relish their place next to Fergie on TRL. “If you can reach more people, you’d be stupid not to do it,” proclaims Bryar. “We never waved the punk-rock flag, and we’ve always been honest about our ambitions beyond playing basements,” adds Gerard, which could mean an even softer sound on future albums, to the dismay of punk loyalists in basements everywhere. “I already feel we want to create something new,” Toro says, “maybe even get away from what this record sounds like and strip it down. Put out something more raw.”
My Chem may embrace their pop appeal, but they stress that they serve a higher power. “The kids who’ve been at the front of the barricade for four years are proud to hear us on pop radio,” says Way. “They know that means things are changing. There could come a time when you hear ‘Cancer’ followed by ‘My Humps’ on the same station. That’s nothing short of amazing. When you get that big, you’re having an effect on culture.”
And for MCR, what does that effect translate to? Hope regained. Lives no longer on the brink of oblivion.
“When this stops being special, when we become part of the problem, it will be time to quit,” Gerard says. “It can happen next record or five records from now. When this stops meaning something, we’ll all walk away.”