My Chemical Romance
By Alex McCann
When My Chemical Romance first arrived with I Brought You My Bullets You Brought Me Your Love, there was little to separate them from the flood of emo bands at the time. It was an accomplished album recorded just three months after the band formed, but an album that gave little away as to what to expect on the follow up, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. Propelled to national TV on the back of “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)”, a song which goes along the line of thinking that the school days are certainly not the best days of our lives, the album is bursting full of overblown rock classics with each guitar riff and vocal multitracked to an opera-sized epic. Alex McCann caught up with MCR’s frontman Gerard Way.
SOAK: You’ve been out with so many bands previous, how does the Taking Back Sunday tour compare?
Gerard Way: We’ve actually been out with Taking Back Sunday twice. They’re the sort of band that makes you believe in what you do. They have so much fun and they’re so grateful for what they have. There are very few bands you can consistently watch for the whole set, but they’re very spontaneous, so it’s a joy to watch them every night of the tour. I guess the main difference is, there are very few bands that you can feel you’re friends enough to go around their house for Christmas, or call them up in at four in the morning. Taking Back Sunday are one of the few bands you know that has your back. There have been times we’ve been on tour with other bands where everything’s supposed to be cool, but there’s always that underlying tension. We’ve never had any major problems, but when we’re out with Taking Back Sunday or The Used; it’s like being out on the road with your best friends.
SOAK: How have you changed as a band from ‘Bullets’ to ‘Three Cheers’?
GW: Tremendously at this point, especially in the US. There was actually a time when we thought we were going to be bigger the UK, we always felt that they had an appreciation for real bands, but things just took off in the US in a way that we couldn’t have imagined. Just things like regular MTV specials on the making of our videos and regular time on TRL. In the span of two weeks, we’d done Conan O’Brien, Carson Daly and Letterman. We were on Letterman like we were some proper band rather than a little punk band. It’s not a problem at the moment, but what we’re trying to avoid in the US at the moment is becoming “the band that does the ‘I’m Not Okay’ song.” There’s always a danger in that one song takes the band over.
SOAK: Musically there’s a huge leap between the two records. Do you feel like a different band now?
GW: The first album was a really good example of a band that wanted to tour a lot and play live. So our concern was just getting something out so the kids could learn the lyrics, sing along with us to our favourite songs, and really understand what the band was about. We were only a band for three months when we recorded it, and I don’t want to say it’s not the brightest thing to do, because I really love that record, and looking back we probably would have taken a little longer on it. I’m glad we put it out when we did because we found out very early on that we had a very big sound. At that time, it was us finding our way. Now we know how to take that sound out of our heads and people say it sounds really polished, but it’s still a really raw record.
SOAK: As you said, it has a big bombastic scope to it. Is that what you wanted?
GW: A big obnoxious sounding rock record. There was this feeling of bringing a real rock band back. Even when you see us live, it sounds as if there are ten guitarists up on stage because Frank and Ray have so much going on and complement each other so well. They really try to work with everybody as opposed to ‘look at me.’ Frank has these riffs that play right under what I’m singing, and Ray really loves these big power chords and I can just play along inside those. We’re definitely a band that is very self-aware. We think very much in terms of what it’s going to be like live when we play. There are songs that we flat out wouldn’t put on a record if we couldn’t play them live.
SOAK: When you first came out, it was easy to call you an emo band, now it’s like, what are MCR made of?
GW: That was actually what we wanted to happen. We were like please, this emo shit’s got to stop. We were called emo originally because we were a product of our environment. If you’d been from Jersey, you’d realize that we were the most different band in Jersey at the time. I just hope that whatever we do, it’s classified as rock.
SOAK: When you witness My Chemical Romance live, it comes across like the section in Alice Cooper’s “Schools Out” where the band drops back and it’s just the choir. With MCR, is it like that with each and every song?
GW: Yeah. It’s weird as well, because we’re not really a singalong band. It’s a lot harder for a band like us because there’s a lack of repetition and there’s more of a confusion thrown in. The kids somehow get these schizophrenic songs that we’re writing, and it’s really nice when you get that moment where the whole room is singing along and believing in you.
SOAK: Do you see yourself as a singer or a frontman?
GW: I think a frontman only because the rest of the band see themselves as performers and not just as musicians. The whole band has this mentality that this could be the last show, so I can’t just stand there and sing, just like they can’t just stand there and play. We really go for it and it’s nothing we have to try and be contrived about, like when this part comes in, make sure everyone’s off the ground.
SOAK:The whole concept of the album changed lyrically from its original idea to something far more personal.
GW: The way it happened was because I didn’t think I’d be able to sing every night about fictitious things. Even if the things are metaphorical, which occasionally it is on this record, I just wanted to be straight and honest about a lot of stuff. Lyrically, it is still quite ambiguous, and I think that’s purposefully done so that people can identify with it in their own way. It can’t be so direct that you’re spelling it out for them; they really need to get something out of it themselves.
This record particularly, I looked up to Tom Waits and Nick Cave, because they’re very colorful, almost poetic writers, but they’re also very direct. They won’t use a big word if they don’t have to, and I like that. At the same time though, I’ve been a big fan of The Pixies for years and there’s a cleverness that comes with Frank Black’s lyrics.
SOAK: I’ve read previously that “It’s Not Okay” and “Prison” are about your relationship with Bert from The Used?
GW: “It’s Not Okay (I Promise)” is actually the one song on the album about high school. It’s a cry for help. “Prison” is more about life on the road. It’s about Bert (The Used), my band, and all the other bands we’ve toured with, like TBS. It’s about the people that you meet on the road that become very special to you.
SOAK: It’s not hard to notice the film references such as John Woo/Tarantino in your lyrics as well?
GW: People always comment that we must watch a lot of movies, and to tell you the truth, movies inspire me lyrically and they inspire me musically. When we write a song, we don’t say, let’s make it a real punk rock song, we say, let’s make a cowboy song or a cabaret song, so when the song first starts, it’ll sound
like a cabaret tune from one of the shows.
SOAK: Are you thinking about the next record now?
GW: Someone gave me a piece of really good advice when we first started. He said, “Stop writing songs for a new record, write songs that you want to play live. You’re a band that first and foremost writes songs to play live, so just start writing songs for yourself.” We’ve always felt that way, so we’re never thinking of the next record and that’s why we’re ahead of the game. By the time we got to pre-production on Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, we were all set to go.
We know what we’re doing this time, so it’s going to be similar to this album, but I think people will still notice the leap. We might even have a ballad on the next record. Within this band you can do anything you want, because when it comes down to the five of us playing, it’ll sound like My Chemical Romance. I think this time around, I’ll be a little more direct; notions like salvation, retribution, damnation and how the band saved my life. I definitely want to deal with those subjects as opposed to something fictitious.
SOAK: How do you feel your life would’ve been if you hadn’t formed MCR?
GW: If I hadn’t found this band, I would probably still be very unhappy. I would probably still be drinking. I would probably be in a slump. I’m 27 now, so I would be 27 and felt like I’ve done nothing. You start to hit that point around 25 and that’s right when things started to turn around for me. I’d been feeling lost since I was about 22, because I would always put a lot of pressure on myself; I’d been depressed and the band in many ways was a last ditch effort.
SOAK: Is it quite hard lyrically when you’re contented like you now?
GW: It’s weird because it doesn’t seem to affect our sense of black humour or what we worry about. We’re always able to put ourselves right back in those lulls. I’m never able to forget the really bad stuff I went through, but I’ve found a division between what I do on-stage with the band and what I am in real life. It’s really nice for me, where I can be happy almost all the day before I go on stage. It used to be the fact that for 45 minutes before I’d go on-stage, I used to act like this fucking lunatic. Now it’s like two minutes before, I’m just hanging out, and I get up on-stage and it’s like woo woo. I think being sober and relearning how to be a frontman as a sober guy is a new feeling. Now I don’t drink, I don’t even take cough syrup with alcohol in it. If it’s got alcohol or any type of drug in it, I won’t go near it.
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