My Chemical Romance comprises the musical talent of Ray Toro and Frank Iero on guitar, bassist Mikey Way, drummer Bob Bryar and the vocal stylings of Gerard Way. Hailing from the mean streets of New Jersey except for drummer Bob Bryar who is from Chicago, the band are proud Jersey residents. The band draws their influences from life experience, horror films, comic books and fantasy. My Chemical Romance are adamant in getting their messages across, which is, in the words of lead vocalist Gerard Way, “It’s okay to be messed up, because there a five guys who are just as messed up”.

My Chemical Romance have been a band for almost 5 year, and originally started as a basement band between friends Gerard Way, Ray Toro and former drummer Matt Pelissier in October of 2001 as a result of the Twin Tower terror attack. The first song that the original band penned was Skylines and Turnstiles, which is on My Chemical Romance’s first album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love and is about Gerard’s thoughts and feeling on the event that shaped his and many other people’s future.

As the band progressed in writing they decided to add a bassist, which saw the addiction of Gerard’s younger brother Mikey Way. It is with thanks to Mikey that My Chemical Romance have such a striking and thought provoking name. Before joining the band, Mikey was working in a Barnes & Noble, whilst flicking through some books by Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh, the phrase ‘Chemical Romance’ caught his eye. He later told Gerard about how he though by adding a ‘My’ to it would make it a fantastic band name, and thus the band name was born. When Mikey joined the band, the other members were more then eager to have the band name. They began playing shows in Jersey that were arranged by Frank Iero, who was a friend of the band at this point. The band says they knew something amazing was about to happen after playing only their first ever show.

After being a band for only 6 months, My Chemical Romance signed to local label Eyeball Records. Although they had already had many offers from major labels to be signed to they stuck to the indie label and pursued their first record I Brought Me Your Bullets, You Bought Me Your Love. It was only 2 days before they began to record ‘Bullets’ that second guitarist Frank Iero joined My Chemical Romance. Frank plays on only two tracks from the album, one being Early Sunsets Over Monroeville.

The record was released in June of 2002, with all the songs being the only songs that My Chemical Romance had. The record was recorded in John Neclareo’s basement recording studio, in his mother’s house, during the recording the band had to take regular breaks to avoid the noise made by his mother vacuuming. The album was also slight disadvantaged due to Gerard having an abscess in a tooth, which made recording some of the tracks difficult. The record was produced by Geoff Rickley of Thursday.

Around August of 2002, Brian Schechter a tour manager at the time, heard a My Chemical Romance demo and immediately knew that he wanted to get off the road touring and talk to the band about becoming their manager. He flew to see My Chemical Romance in August of 2002, and had discussions with the band. It took till February of 2003 before Brian eventually became their manager and has been for going 4 years.
After ‘Bullets’ was finished, My Chemical Romance begun a 2 and ½ year tour. They toured with band such as Northstar, Hopes Fall, Underoath, Taking Back Sunday, From Autumn To Ashes, Avenged Sevenfold and The Used. After extensively touring America, they then went to Europe to play shows, and were very well received in Spain and especially in England. Touring didn’t make the band a lot of money; they lived out of a people mover van and had hardly any money to buy food and other necessary items. But they had fun and grew as people and performing artists.

During all their touring, the managed to come to the attention of Craig Aaronson, A&R (Artist & Repertoire) for Warner Bros. Reprise Records. Craig came to see My Chemical Romance play in New York, which impressed the band. My Chemical Romance weren’t really into signing to a major label as they had seen many other bands from their area be ripped off by major labels. They were, however, impressed by Craig’s eagerness to have them signed and eventually signed after 9 months of talks and negotiation they signed to Reprise Records in 2003.

Whilst touring, the band had been writing and where ready to record their second album, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. The album was recorded in the Reprise studios and My Chemical Romance where over whelmed at the expense and length they were able to go to, to produce their first major label records. The album was produced by Howard Benson, who pushed My Chemical Romance to write to what he believed was their full potential, and liked their work ethic. My Chemical Romance enjoyed working with Benson, and although they didn’t immediately grasp his view, they begun to learn to work with him and produced a record that is loved by many worldwide.

Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge was released in June 2004 and sold 11,000 copies in the first week alone and went on to sell 120,000 copies through that summer (American summer), and then to Platinum. After recording ‘Revenge’, My Chemical Romance went straight into the Van’s Warped Tour, and then into the Japanese Summer Sonic Tour. It was in Japan that the band began to have problems with their drummer, Matt Pelissier. It was also during this time that Gerard began to become heavily involved in prescription drug and alcohol abuse, which he had already been involved in. Nothing was working to help Gerard. Brian and the band had all tried to talk to Gerard but he was resilient and kept his bad habits that progressively got worse as time went on. From mid 2003 till July 2004 Gerard played almost every show My Chemical Romance played drunk. It was in July of 2004 that Gerard finally admitted his problems, but not without a struggle. After many phone calls to Brian during the last month, Gerard had spiralled into a suicidal state and had even turned to Cocaine. Through a lot of support from his band mates and management Gerard survived his depression. The Summer Sonic Tour 04 was Gerard’s last show drunk, he has since never turned back to alcohol or drugs.

In mid 2004, only about a month after the release of Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge was released, former drummer Matt Pelissier was sacked. The reason for the sacking has never been disclosed but is believed to be due to constant arguments with guitarist Ray Toro and possible mess-ups during performances. Pelissier was replaced with ex-sound technician Bob Bryar. My Chemical Romance didn’t know anything about Bob’s ability as a drummer, but had heard he was good. Bob left the Project Revolution Tour to join My Chemical Romance for some practise sessions and managed to pick up all the songs easily, 2 days after they began filming the video for I’m Not Okay, without Bob having ever played a show. Bob first tour with My Chemical Romance was the Face to Face tour.

After the hardships of mid 2004, what has come to be called “The My Chemical Romance Explosion” began to happen. With appearances in Alternative Press magazine, on MTV’s Discover and Download and Live on TRL. They also took part in the Nintendo Fusion Tour and filmed the music video for the highly emotive track off of ‘Revenge’ Helena. The band walked away from the Helena shoot with the red black and white costumes that they have come to be known by, and began to develop it into a uniform for the band. After the Helena shoot they played on the Taste Of Chaos Tour 05 and really cemented their place in the music industry of today.

After completing the Taste Of Chaos tour, they again returned to England to perform live, where they took the live shows to the next level incorporating dancers into the performance of Helena as well as a funeral procession through the streets of London that included an ancient hearse and mourners. With the additions to the show My Chemical Romance were starting the beginning of their move to making live concert more interesting, as well as to suit their ever changing band image. It was also during early 2005 that the music video for Ghost Of You was made and released, with the unexpected WWII theme, that really established My Chemical Romance’s place as major players in music today.

On top of all their success if the past 6 months, My Chemical Romance also played as a supporting band for Green Day on their worldwide Stadium Tour. During this tour, they had their bus converted, to add a recording studio to it, allowing them to begin writing for their third album, titled The Black Parade, originally thought to be called The Rise And Fall Of My Chemical Romance. A double DVD and CD detailing the history of the band was released in March of 2006 titled Life On The Murder Scene. The band began studio recording with Rob Cavallo for The Black Parade in April 2006 with the album set for release on the 23rd of October onwards.

During August, the My Chemical Romance fan base was sent into a frenzy when mysterious things began to happen and a plethora of conspiracies began to form within the fan base fuelled by the media, and public speculation surrounding the release of the yet to be announced third album. Read more about the conspiracies on the Black Parade Conspiracies page.

On the 22nd of August 2006, My Chemical Romance played a one off show at Hammersmith Palais in London where a parade of 20 people in full length black cloaks announced the name of the new album officially. The first single Welcome To The Black Parade, from the forthcoming album was released on September 11th, which was well received by My Chemical Romance fans and non-fans alike. The music video for Welcome To The Black Parade was released on September 22nd 2006, an epic 6 minute long parade telling the story of The Patient in moving detail. The video was directed by veteran music video director, Sam Bayer, who also did Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and all of Green Day’s American Idiot videos.

After the completion of The Black Parade, My Chemical Romance have launched into a worldwide tour. Having announced dates in Europe, America and Australia leading into early next year. Make sure you go see them at a venue near you.

Written by Jacinta Preston (© 2007)