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My Chemical Romance: The Just-Us League
Posted by Scott Heisel on 12-Jan-07 @ 05:55 PM
They came out of an underground scene whose participants either didn't understand or didn't care about them-and they ended up taking it over. Now they're armed with an ambitious new disc that embraces classic-rock tradition at the expense of anything tagged "post-emo," as well as a grand sense of fearlessness. This is the rise and thrall of MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE.Story: Jason Pettigrew As anybody who has ever seen their videos, witnessed their gigs or read their interviews will tell you, post-emo wunderkinds My Chemical Romance are all about making grand gestures. So, when it came time to celebrate the completion of their ambitious third record, The Black Parade, the band celebrated the best way they knew how: By nearly killing their drummer and crippling their singer. In mid-August, the band arrived at a soundstage in Downey, California, to begin work on two epic videos with director Samuel Bayer (Green Day, Blink-182). At the end of the shoot, Bayer had the stage set on fire with the intention of filming the band amidst the flames. Drummer Bob Bryar didn't leave the stage fast enough, and the pants of his Black Parade uniform melted into the back of his leg. Within a few days, said leg, in his words, "looked like guacamole," but he continued to travel across three continents to play gigs in England, Japan and New York City in abject misery while the infection circulated through his bloodstream. After the spectacle of playing atop the GE Building for MTV's Video Music Awards, as well as a secret show at the Knitting Factory post-VMAs, he went to a hospital emergency room, thinking he would be there for an hour while getting his burns redressed. The doctors saw him, and 14 hours later, Bryar was rescued from a near-fatal infection that was traveling toward his brain. During the second video shoot (which both band and label are keeping under wraps) guitarist Frank Iero--the energetic punk foil to MCR's classic-rock-weaned shred-master Ray Toro--was caught up in the excitement of the huge blaze and tackled frontman and chief conceptualist Gerard Way. As Way was going down, he heard a snap; it was the sound of all the ligaments in his right foot tearing. (In true My Chem style, Iero's tackle didn't make the video's final cut). Way, whose previous dalliances with drugs and alcohol have been well publicized, chose not to take any painkillers, despite his doctor's overwhelming advice to the contrary. "I take that stuff as a really good omen," enthuses Way. "Right before our success, we fired Otter [original drummer Matt Pelissier]; I had a nervous breakdown; and I had to get clean or kill myself. The other day, Brian [Schechter, MCR's manager] told me, 'Damn, the hits keep coming.' I told him that's the way it is when you've emotionally charged your life so much." New York City during Olympus Fashion Week brings people together--like a death camp. The Fashion District, the city's high-ticket shopping area, is the epicenter of uptown fashionista/anorexic panic, where deals will be made and the season's looks will be decided over "lunch" (read: Glass of water, two leaves of watercress). The area is teeming with executives, fashion mavens, frumpy tourists, working stiffs and cubicle-dwellers on their way to fulfilling their weekly 40-hour depression quota. Thanks to the snarled traffic, a $4 cab ride is costing three times as much. Iero is waiting in the restaurant of the Royalton Hotel, sporting a black ensemble (shirt, pants, tie, blazer and, um, tennis shoes) worthy of Fashion Week chic--or maybe an early Joe Pesci movie. It's not long before Toro and Bryar overcome the traffic to join us. (The Ways are conducting business at the label's uptown office.) While Toro's black button-down shirt and pants and Bryar's dark charcoal-colored outfit aren't as immediately eye-catching as Iero, they're still nicer than the closets of every band who played the Kevin Says stage at this year's Warped Tour. Bryar looks tired, but only because of his regimen of antibiotics. He's not hungry at all, but he can't take his meds on an empty stomach. However, he perks up when discussion turns away from his health and toward the creation of the band's new music. "I think we were just pretty crazy with ideas," says Bryar, pushing away his lunch plate. "That's what made the record so exciting. When you do it from the heart, you can do no wrong. Being in a band is about supporting ideas--you always have each others back." But because the band constantly think of the next grand gesture, might they run the risk of overthinking things? At this point, it seems impossible for MCR to do something as immediate as recording a six-song EP of punk covers in three days. "If we were to do that," Bryar surmises, "it would turn into something else. 'Oh, hey, we need another week...'" The next thing you know, the band would be telling their label the project is now slated to open on Broadway in 2008, while asking for a loan to put it on. "There's always that fear," says Toro, while Iero tries to find some vegetarian fare on the menu. "You can get caught in recording and mixing and start thinking, 'We gotta scrap it and start again.' There are bands out there that are still trying to make their first record. But you know when it feels right. Who knows, maybe next time, we'll go into a studio for a week and peace out." While reinvention was one of the primary motivations behind the recording of The Black Parade, the disc's 14 tracks are informed by the halcyon days of rock-music history. When presented with a list of songs from the record that guesses at their corresponding classic-rock antecedents, Toro seems impressed. He acknowledges the large-looming homages to Queen ("Welcome To The Black Parade"), Journey ("Famous Last Words"), Pink Floyd ("The End"), even Creedence Clearwater Revival ("I Don't Love You"), but also adds '70s musicals (Annie, Cabaret, All That Jazz), as well as Phantom Of The Paradise, obscure songwriter Paul Williams' 1974 rocking rewrite of Phantom Of The Opera. Ten out of 10 punk rockers will agree that any Misfits 7-inch is far cooler than anything currently rocking MCR's sonic grocery list. "The intention was to make something that was classic, something timeless," says Toro. "Something that, 20 or 30 years from now, parents could play for their kids and say, 'This is what I was listening to when I was your age. Check it out--it's still fucking cool.' We wanted to make a record you could pass down. There's a lot of music out now that doesn't feel like that." It also doesn't feel like something coming out of a bunch of Jersey dudes (okay, Bryar's from Chicago) who came up through Jersey's grimy club circuit. Actually, that's not entirely true: Parade-floats like "The Sharpest Lives" and "Sleep" are moments of prime MCR, with Toro's arena-rock sensibilities complemented by Iero's punk-based, one-two-fuck-you exuberance. While their breakthrough disc, the platinum-selling Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, found them tempering the thrashing exercises found on their 2002 debut, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, now more than ever, MCR have completely outgrown--artistically and, in some cases, socially--the scene that spawned them. "If you go into making a record with that fear of, 'Oh, my God, what will the scene think?,' all you are doing is holding yourself back," says Taking Back Sunday frontman Adam Lazzara. The members of MCR and TBS have been tight friends since they first met four years ago ("real" is Gerard's favorite word to describe TBS). "The question is: Should the scene dictate what bands are doing, or should bands be dictating what's going on in the scene? Because right now, everything's sounding the same. [My Chem] recorded their record totally disregarding that fear, and they will be one of the key bands to change things. They're separating themselves from [the scene], sure, but they're also breaking boundaries for people to draw inspiration from." "At not one second during the making of this record did we dedicate to wondering what 'the scene' would think," Iero says calmly. "Because the people who go to sleep at night wondering if they did the best they could are us. "Growing up, when we did the first album, no one really thought we were the 'cool' thing," the guitarist continues. "We weren't post-hardcore; we weren't a straight-up crust-punk band. All of a sudden, New Jersey became a hotbed, and we started getting attention. That's fine, but we never changed what we did. When we did Three Cheers, we didn't fit in. There was a little less screaming and a little more melody, but it was still us. Never was it a case of, 'Don't put that melody there because Hardcore Chuck, who took me to my first show at Fairfield American Legion Hall, is really going to be bummed at me.' I don't give a shit. If I had to work at McDonald's for the rest of my life to play shows and ride in a shitty van on tour? I've done it. I'll do it again." "The only pressure that we have ever put on ourselves for this whole process was to write the best record we could," says Toro. "People will have their own opinions and expectations, but you can't feel that. The furthest thing from our minds is how the record does [sales-wise]." "I definitely thought the Warner Brothers would be standing in the studio with us overseeing everything," Iero wisecracks before playing his Get Out Of Scene Free card. "Looking back at Three Cheers, we weren't supposed to sell that many records. We were expected to sell, what, 15,000? [The label] probably thought it worked the last time, there was no reason to have their hands in it. And we haven't had anything like that." He stops to sip some water. "I'll let you know when it happens though." While Bryar, Iero and Toro claim to be completely unaffected by the level of expectation, both financially (from their label, hell, the entire music industry) and socially (from every neo-punk band toiling in the underground, bitching about or living vicariously through MCR), they do take the time to ponder if the droves of fans wanting Three More Cheers will back off Black. And they do it with the same kind of over-the-top thinking that propelled their recording sessions. "If that happened, we'd still tour," Bryar says. "I'm kind of hoping we can play a 100-seater [club] sometime." Iero perks up with a devilish grin. "One hundred-seaters would be pretty rad. I can spit on everyone then!" "Here's an idea we're already in agreement on," Bryar begins. "You know how you roll up to an area with full-on production? We'll roll up to a 500-seater and do a week there--and our tour will last for six years." Toro laughs, moving his head between his bandmates like he's watching a tennis game, as Iero volleys again. "Why don't we just go to the homes of everyone who bought the record? Set up full stacks in the living rooms!" Bryar smiles. "They can invite 30 friends." For the rest of the story, pick up AP 221 below... |
