Based in New Jersey, My Chemical Romance is an alternative pop/rock and punk-pop band that has been compared to Thursday and, to a lesser degree, Cursive. Many of their songs are loud, fast, hyper, and aggressive, but My Chemical Romance's work also tends to be melodic and pop-minded. My Chemical Romance got started in the early 2000s, when lead singer Gerard Way and drummer Matt Pelissier decided to try writing some songs together. The first tune that Way and Pelissier -- who had been friends since high school -- came up with was called "Skylines and Turnstiles" (a title reflecting the fact that Way had been working in New York City, where he was in the animation field. This is also about the 9-11 attack). Way and Pelissier both felt good about the song, and Way asked guitarist Ray Toro if he would be interested in working with them. My Chemical Romance's five-man lineup was complete when Way, Pelissier, and Toro joined forces with bassist Mikey Way (Gerard Way's brother) and guitarist Frank Iero. With that lineup in place, the band started playing all around the Northeast Corridor and made plans to begin working on its first album.
In 2002, Eyeball Records (the New York-based indie that Thursday had recorded for) released My Chemical Romance's debut album,(Mikey had been working at Eyeball for an Intership) I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. The album was often compared to Thursday -- a comparison that, for various reasons, was inevitable and unavoidable. Both bands were from New Jersey, both had recorded for Eyeball, and both combined punk-pop's musical aggression with introspective, confessional lyrics. Plus, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love was produced by Geoff Rickly, Thursday's lead singer -- add all of those things up, and there was no way that My Chemical Romance was going to escape Thursday comparisons. But Thursday isn't their only influence; reviewers have cited the Smiths, Morrissey, the Cure,The Smashing Pumpkins and the Misfits as influences. And Way has even cited British heavy metal icons Iron Maiden as an influence.
Lyrically, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love is as dark as it is introspective and cathartic; Way has been quoted as saying that the band's lyrics were a great way for him to deal with the problems he had been going through (which included severe depression and a serious illness in his family). The 2002 release included Way and Pelissier's first song, "Skylines and Turnstiles," and many of the album's other song titles were equally intriguing, including "Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough for the Two of Us," "Drowning Lessons," "Headfirst for Halos," "Our Lady of Sorrows," and "Vampires Will Never Hurt You." In 2003, My Chemical Romance signed with Reprise/Warner Bros.
Their Second Album "Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge" was released in late 2004. The First single "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)", a high speed anthem for the contiually downtrodden and rejected, caught America off-gaurd and put MCR (My Chemical Romance) in the spotlight almost overnight.
The second single "Helena" a slow almost haunting ballat (but not really, it's also very up-beat) dedicated to Elena Rush (the Way brothers' late grand mother.) Brings to mind "The Cure", other noteworthy songs on the album are "The Ghost of You", "Thank You for The Venom" and "To The End". My Chemical Romance was also Featured on this years "A Taste Of Chaos" tour this spring and also go a half hour concert special on the "Fuse" music network.
Members:
Frank Iero (guitar), Mikey Way (Bass guitar), Gerard Way (vocals), Ray Toro (Guitar), Bob Bryar (Drums).
Influences:
Morrissey, the Cure, the Misfits, The Smashing Pumpkins, Smiths.
Gerard Way (born April 9, 1977, Newark, New Jersey) is frontman, lead vocalist and co-founder of My Chemical Romance; he is also elder brother to band's bass player, Mikey Way.
Way is of Scottish and Italian descent. He first began singing in fourth grade, when he played the part of Peter Pan in a school production of the play. His maternal grandmother, Elena Lee Rush, taught him to sing, paint and preform.She also made his costume which included traditional green tights. After this Way "turned his back" on singing, saying, "Well, I don't want to be this weird singer kid, [I'm] into other things like comics and Iron Maiden". He then decided to pursue graphic arts.
Way had always been interested in drawing and comics because his childhood house was a "dark and dingy gothic-looking" place in the town of Belleville, New Jersey. Way says that as a child, he was not much able to play outside, because it was a dangerous area. Instead he created imaginary worlds in his head, which led on to his love for artwork. As a child, Gerard came to the revelation that everyone he cares about will eventually die, and that he will die alone. This has led to his current obsession with the idea of death.
After graduating from Belleville High School in 1995, he attended School of Visual Arts in New York City graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1999. Gerard aspired to be a comic book artist and claimed his favourite comic-book team was the Doom Patrol. In 2001, Way says he tried to sell an animated television series to Cartoon Network[1] called The Breakfast Monkey. He maintains that Cartoon Network turned down the pitch because it was too similar to Aqua Teen Hunger Force, then already in production.
Way has recovered from an addiction to drugs and alcohol, being sober as of August 11, 2004, and visits a therapist when the band's not on tour. Gerard's band mates have pulled him out of a deep depression twice (before the band really got started, and as he was sobering).
In a recent interview with Kerrang! magazine, Gerard Way revealed he would be working on a comic book series called The Umbrella Academy. In the interview, he stated he had a love for comic books and superheroes and said that the first issue may not be released until early to mid 2007.
Despite his success as a musician, Way has continued to draw; he produced the artwork for the band's second album, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge and has designed merchandise for My Chemical Romance and other bands. He has created artwork to raise money for causes such as the fight against breast cancer.
Michael James Way (born September 10, 1980), most commonly known as Mikey Way, is the bass guitarist for My Chemical Romance and the younger brother of front man Gerard Way.
He is of Scottish and Italian descent. He came up with the band's name, taken from the book Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance, by Irvine Welsh, while working at a Barnes and Noble bookstore in Clifton, New Jersey. Mikey had been working in the music section of the store, and had decided to take out the books to discuss with a coworker. Mikey also got his brother Gerard a job there working in books. Early on in My Chemical Romance's career, it was said that Way learned bass in order to be able to play in the band, which lacked a bassist at the time. But during interviews with Way in their DVD release, Life on the Murder Scene, Mikey claims that he had been an amateur musician since he was young and was in bands as a bassist before My Chemical Romance. He plays a Highway 1 Precision Bass, a Fender Standard Precision Bass, and a Fender J. Mikey Way had been known for his trademark glasses to correct his nearsightedness, but had Lasik eye surgery and no longer wears them Mikey recently became engaged to guitar tech Alicia Simmons.
Frank Anthony Iero (born October 31, 1981) is the rhythm guitarist and back up vocalist for My Chemical Romance. Iero also has his own clothing line/music label/publishing company called Skeleton Crew.
Frank Iero was born on October 31st, 1981 and grew up in Belleville, New Jersey, close to the other members of his current band, My Chemical Romance. He was bullied throughout high school at Queen Of Peace in North Arlington and went to Rutgers University on a scholarship, but eventually dropped out because he felt that the band he was in was going somewhere (though he still believes he should have a backup plan, as he stated in the band's Life on the Murder Scene DVD). He has played in various bands since the age of eleven, much like fellow bandmate Gerard Way. His mother allowed him to play in their basement to the point where she couldn't sleep. In addition to his band Pencey Prep, Frank also played with the bands Hybrid, Sector 12, I Am a Graveyard, and briefly with Give Up the Ghost.
Frank was recruited after his band Pencey Prep, in which he was a vocalist for, broke up. He was invited to join after the band decided they needed another guitarist (in addition to Ray Toro) to fill out the sound. On My Chemical Romance's first album, he played on "Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough for the Two of Us" and "Early Sunsets Over Monroeville".
Raymond Manuel Toro-Ortiz, most commonly known as Ray Toro (born on July 15, 1977 in Kearny, New Jersey) is the lead guitarist and one of two backup vocalists for My Chemical Romance. He is recognized in the band by his signature fro, and is most commonly nicknamed "Torosaurus".
Growing up, Toro's father worked at the post office in the shipping department, and the family lived on a "dead end" street where he grew up in a Puerto Rican and Portuguese household. "There was definitely a funny collection of people hanging around my block," the guitarist told the magazine Alternative Press. "There was this guy who was this drug addict. Every couple of weeks he would OD outside my house. I would see the ambulance come and take him away." In the My Chemical Romance DVD Life on the Murder Scene, he explains how he wasn't allowed to go and play because they were finding bodies in the local parks, and in West Hudson Park river which was right around the corner from his house. Toro says that due to incidents like this, his parents didn't want to let him out of the house onto the streets by himself. Contrary to popular belief, he did not attend high school with any of his bandmates, but instead attended Kearny High School.
Toro started playing guitar during his sophomore year. It wasn't until a few years after graduating high school that he met Gerard Way and Mikey Way through a mutual friend from Gerard's art school. The three remained "loose friends" until September 11th when Gerard Way saw the bodies fall from the World Trade Center, and decided he wanted to do something with his life, to help people. He called up Matt Pelissier and together they started My Chemical Romance along with Mikey Way and Ray Toro. Gerard stated on Life On The Murder Scene that this was sort of a final "ditch effort". Toro is a major contributor to all the My Chemical Romance instrumentals, as well as writing the majority of their music, and he often helps rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist Frank Iero write his guitar music. Toro often harmonises his guitar solos, as heard on "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)". He has also been credited by Mikey Way as a "metalhead" due to his love of Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne. Unlike his bandmates, Toro is not a fan of punk rock or emo music (although My Chemical Romance recently did a cover of the Misfits song "Astro Zombies").
Toro cites Randy Rhoads, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Slash, Jimi Hendrix, Kirk Hammett and Jimmy Page as his guitar influences and has been quoted as saying, "I'm into classic rock and metal. All of my style is patterned after these guys." He also had a large role in the music video for My Chemical Romance's first single from Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)".
Previously, Ray played an Epiphone Elitist Les Paul Standard which has a mahogany body, maple top, and a rosewood fingerboard and a Gibson X-plorer. He now plays an ebony Gibson Les Paul Standard.
Robert Nathaniel Cory Bryar, born December 31, 1979 in Chicago, Illinois, is the newest member, being the official drummer for My Chemical Romance since 2004.
Bob Nathaniel Bryar was born December 31st, 1979, in Chicago, Illinois, Bryar attended university in Gainesville, Florida and previously worked at Disney World. He had attended Eisenhower Junior High in Darien, Illinois where he played drums in symphonic and jazz bands, and later attended Downers Grove South high school.
He joined the band in 2004 while working as a sound engineer for The Used, through whom he became friends with the members of My Chemical Romance. He first met the band on tour with The Used. Frank Iero, the rhythm guitarist of My Chemical Romance, said on the DVD Life on the Murder Scene, "Bob and Toro are the two hardest working people I've ever met, and if there is a God, I thank him everyday for bringing us Bob." Mikey Way has also said Bob Bryar has taught them to "not take any shit from anybody."
He replaced My Chemical Romance's former drummer, Matt Pelissier, after being a sound man for The Used for a few years. Contrary to popular belief, he did not play the drums for the band on their second album. The video for "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" was filmed with Bob drumming before he became an "official" member of the band.
In a clip from the making of the video "Welcome to the Black Parade", he said that he was working on a solo project, and all of the songs were written about Gerard, something that has become a joke among fans.
In the filming of the music video for "Famous Last Words", on The Black Parade, Bob's leg was badly burnt. In the first version of the video he can be seen mouthing, "I can't take this fuckin' heat anymore!" Then he runs forward and looks at his leg while the camera is still pointed at him. As a result of this he suffered third degree burns and later developed a gangrene infection from his burns. He went to a hospital afterwards and received treatment. Scheduled shows were cancelled due to the staph infection. Had he not received treatment, or left it a further two days, Bryar would have died.
The Black Parade is the third studio album by New Jersey rock quintet My Chemical Romance. It was released on October 17, 2006, in Puerto Rico, October 19 in Ireland, on October 20 in Germany, internationally on October 23, October 24 in the United States and in Australia on October 28. Like the band's first two albums, it is a concept album, centering around a character known as "the Patient," who potentially suffered an untimely death at a young age.
The album is produced by Rob Cavallo, who has produced every Green Day album since 1994, save for Warning:. The album was intentionally leaked in its entirety on October 19. In an interview with MTV, the band said that the name "The Black Parade" was chosen due to a belief that death comes to individuals as their most powerful memory. The main character in the concept went to a parade with his father at a young age, therefore death comes to him as a "Black Parade". It debuted at #2 on the UK album chart, and #2 on the US Billboard, selling 240,000 copies, far surpassing the 38,000 first week sales of previous album Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. The album debuted at #3 on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart, going Gold (35,000+ copies shipped), and staying atop the chart in New Zealand and certified Gold there, for shipments of over 7,500.
Gerard has cited Queen as a major influence. The tonality of the guitar orchestration in "Welcome to the Black Parade," allegedly resembles the timbral qualities of the guitar orchestration done by Queen guitarist Brian May, especially in "It's a Hard Life" on the Queen album The Works.The opening and closing sections of "Welcome to the Black Parade" are highly reminiscent of the Queen song "Innuendo", the title track of the Queen album, and the Suit of Lights song, "Goodbye Silk City".
Gerard has also stated that the three albums which have the most similarity to this album, and some of the influences on this record, are Queen's A Night at the Opera, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Pink Floyd's The Wall.
It has also recently been stated by Gerard Way that the Smashing
The Patient is the main character from the plot behind The Black Parade. The album tells of the unhealthy Patient's struggle for redemption after discovering that his death is fast approaching. The Patient's story is introduced by the song The End and he learns that he will die in Dead!. Although the Patient is made to seem he has few friends or family, he explains his anxieties of a lonely death to someone, possibly his lover, in This Is How I Disappear, a song about his fears. He also suffered from drug and alcohol problems, explained in The Sharpest Lives, a song about his substance abuse. According to the plot, death comes to one in their fondest memory, the Patient's being of a parade he went to with his father, thus, Welcome to the Black Parade. In I Don't Love You, it is revealed he does have a love in his life, which is followed by House of Wolves where he becomes scared by the sudden idea that he may in fact end up in hell. The Patient's illness (although possibly his lover's), cancer, is seemingly confirmed in the song Cancer, which is about regrets. He then writes an angered letter to his mother and is revealed to have fought in a war (possibly traumatizing him and leading to his later problems) in the song Mama, while he finally decides to just leave this life in Sleep. The training of the Patient in a military boot camp is fully clarified in Teenagers, a reflection of the Patient's harsh adolescent years. In the song Disenchanted, the Patient is at his lowest point until he finds hope in an afterlife and declares his climactic loss of the fear of death in Famous Last Words where he redeems himself (now even with a possibility of ascending to heaven), bravely prepared to pass on.
In Gerard Way's drawings, "The Patient" has no hair and is hooked up to an IV whilst sat in a wheel chair. These signs of chemotherapy, used to treat cancer, are mirrored in the song Cancer with the line I will not kiss you / Baby I'm just soggy from the chemo.
Track List: 1. The End. 2. Dead! 3. This Is How I Disappear. 4. The Sharpest Lives. 5. Welcome To The Black Parade. 6. I Don't Love You. 7. House Of Wolves. 8. Cancer. 9. Mamma. 10. Sleep. 11. Teenagers. 12. Disenchanted. 13. Famous Last Words. 14. Blood (Hidden Track)
Hiya... me and my best pal (we both been isolated so if u give us shi* u'll get it back)
anyway as i was saying we're in a dance group, and we're thinking about doing a dance to `IM NOT FUCKING OKAY`!!!!
PLEASE REPLY U MORONS ive sent u loads but u never answer back... plz reply!!!!!!!!!!!!
y album since 1994, save for Warning:. The album was intentionally leaked in its entirety on October 19. In an interview with MTV, the band said that the name "The Black Parade" was chosen due to a belief that death comes to individuals as their most powerful memory. The main character in the concept went to a parade with his father at a young age, therefore death comes to him as a "Black Parade". It debuted at #2 on the UK album chart, and #2 on the US Billboard, selling 240,000 copies, far surpassing the 38,000 first week sales of previous album Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. The album debuted at #3 on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart, going Gold (35,000+ copies shipped), and staying atop the chart in New Zealand and certified Gold there, for shipments of over 7,500.
Japan
YoU RoCk!!!
xoxo
+yuka+
Johor Bahru
Malaysia
Indonesia
Newark, New Jersey
United States
Magdeburg
Germany
Cheshire
United Kingdom
anyway as i was saying we're in a dance group, and we're thinking about doing a dance to `IM NOT FUCKING OKAY`!!!!
PLEASE REPLY U MORONS ive sent u loads but u never answer back... plz reply!!!!!!!!!!!!
Egypt
Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Yangon
Myanmar
Quito
Ecuador
i luv u!!