“Winner of the Great Whopper Eat Off
Mika from Japan won Ray’s Great Whopper Eat Off back in November. Here she is with the custom 7 patty burger trophy she got for winning the contest.”
01/04/2010 9:13 pm posted by jeff on mychemicalromance.com
It is the story of an album that never became one and a band that is fighting against its external image: My Chemical Romance reinvent themselves as a pop art band, as futuristic Mad Maxes with funky laser guns in a universe of quotes, cross-references and broken meta levels. The end result is Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys – a record that would not exist in this form if My Chemical Romance had not failed at the first attempt.
TEXT: JAN SCHWARZKAMP
PHOTOS: SEBASTIAN ARTZ”
pg 3. “ A new My Chem song with rough edges was Black Dragon Fighting Society, a hardcore hit in the Misfits style that suited the band perfectly. That’s right: “was” and “stood”. Because that too is now buried in the archives. “Some people will probably hate me for saying something like that, but: The song is more punk than punk. Nobody expected us of all people to record a song like that. The song was deliberately not meant to be longer than a minute and a half, because only the best songs are that short, if you think of Minor Threat alone.” At this point, Gerard has no idea that he is about to make a new start and that Black Dragon Fighting Society will not survive. But there is something that will point the way for the future. A comic. “I’m currently working on a project called The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, which will be completely different to anything you’ve ever seen from me before. It will be my first adult comic, extremely violent. Imagine it as a sci-fi lo-fi punk odyssey, full of references to the Ramones and with a lot of laser-creaking.” The stuff you can knit an album out of, as we will see.
SECOND ATTEMPT
End of September 2010, ten months later. A trailer for the new My Chem album has been circulating online for three days. Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys is what it is called. The trailer shows the four protagonists: Gerard, Mikey and the two guitarists Frank Iero and Ray Toro. No sign of black parade uniforms, but My Chemical Romance now look like four Tank Girls, reinforced by a sissy rollerboy. There is also action à la Mad Max vs. Power Rangers, a bit of 70s road movie flair in the style of Vanishing Point and the crude, grainy look of grindhouse cinema. The band’s reinvention is complete. The light-shy moth has turned into a bright butterfly that fires laser beams.
My Chemical Romance – minus Frank, who is looking after his newborn twins – have been answering journalists’ questions since the early hours of the morning. The most luxurious place to do this is the legendary Sunset Marquis rock star hangout in West Hollywood. Let’s start where we left off the recording device ten months ago: with the comic, which has now become an album. “Yes, the comic is about exactly the same topics that are also found on the album,” confirms Gerard. “The nice thing about the album is that there is no overarching story, it has no concept whatsoever.” Gerard, now with red hair and a healthier complexion, is sitting on a couch again, this time without a cigarette. Ray and Mikey support him. Or not. Because if anyone has anything to say here, it’s only Gerard.
No concept, then. But soon a comic and finally the corresponding album. On the record we meet the DJ called Dr. Death Defying
From black and long to blonde and short to black and the parade moved on. The new costumes are colorful, the record is not as grim as the last ones. “The new record is the most important thing. The last video we had I had this color palette of red.[makeup]”
FACE
With make-up and goth outfits, Gerard looked for a while like the illegitimate son of Robert Smith and Tim Burton, with his hair tied back. In that respect, My Chemical Romance only had themselves to blame for being perceived by some as a dark puppet show. At least you have to give them credit for being early on in this. “We did what we did, regardless of what others thought of it. When the whole thing became popular, we stopped it because we were simply done with the style. After all, our aim with The Black Parade was not to put on a cabaret show, but rather an expansive, theatrical death rock show.”
HANDS
Gerard doesn’t play an instrument, even though he’s a guitarist. He takes care of the lyrics and conceptual ideas. Armed with a notebook, sketchpad and laptop, he works on his comics mainly on tour. “That works best. I sit in front of my computer and write scripts. I get the most done on the road because I have a lot of free time. And then there are the nights. So what do I do after a show? I write until two in the morning.”
FEET
At concerts, Gerard walks a few hundred meters. No instrument ties him to one place. He is one of my absolute favorite front men,“ says brother Mikey. He is General Patton, that is his role. He is also so intelligent and eloquent. Having a brother in the band makes a lot of things easier. We would hang out together even if we didn’t play in a band together.”
HAIR
long. And now: red. The gloom has gone, the black look is sunny, the music – brighter. “The lyrics of the new songs on The Black Parade are so dark that I wrote them. The opposite.” One change that the band turned to was that of teenagers. They were already fed up with black and white.“
COMPLEXION
You can’t tell from the photo, but the California sun is rubbing off on Way’s new home. Gerard looks like he’s just come back from a beach holiday. “I’m quite happy about that. There’s no reason for me to stay pale,” he says. Brother Mikey adds: “29 years of pale skin is enough.”
T-SHIRT
“It has no political meaning. The American flag is used all the time anyway.” In the interview, Way is wearing Chucks with the Stars Spangled Banner. We’ll probably have to ask ourselves that question more often in the near future. The record is clearly not political, and neither is the look. We’re just using it – a flag is like a tribal, you mark your territory with it. Our corporate identity, the symbol with the spider, is also such a powerful, universally applicable symbol.“
PANTS & JACKET
The look changed: Gerard and the band won’t be appearing on stage in simple denim outfits any time soon. “We wore marching band uniforms for three or four years,” says Mikey. When we came back from the Black Parade tour, we had to redefine our lives and deconstruct ourselves. We wanted to drop everything and see what was left. Killjoys is the result of that – as if we were rebelling against The Black Parade, taking a stand against our own last album. A trailer shows the band as colorful end-time punks with laser pistols and Pontiac Trans Ams. Fans are already sending us photos, inventing color concepts for their Killjoy gangs and making their own weapons.“ “Sure, there have been things like that before,” says Gerard, but what band offers that today? It’s like a new Star Wars movie coming out. Nobody knows exactly who this Darth Maul is yet, but people are already dressing up like him. “Last time, our fans designed their own uniforms. This Killjoys thing is a bit more personal because it leaves more room for interpretation. The kids aren’t dressing up like us anymore, they’re creating their own characters.”
pg 4. “Dr. Death. He delivers the intro, reads a traffic report and hosts the spectacle. There is a trailer for the record and now also a music video for the single Na Na Na, which is about our heroes and their new alter egos Party Poison (Gerard), Kid Cobra (Mikey), Fun Ghoul (Frank) and Jet Star (Ray). That’s not a concept? “Well, yes, it is. But what it is supposed to be above all is a big pop art experiment. As it progresses, the fans and we will add more and more to the story. For the comic itself, my co-author and I already have precise ideas about what will happen. But we could also still question everything. If we shoot scenes in the desert, for example, they will dictate what the comic will look like.” Aha. Let’s wait and see instead of going into too much detail. Otherwise we’ll get tangled up like in the confusing universe of Coheed And Cambria.
When we met last year, there were seven songs to listen to, none of which made it onto the album, or at most in a heavily modified form. What happened?
“When we met, we were mixing. Ray was at home with family things. Frank and I were trying to make the album sound the way we wanted it to. But it didn’t work. Since I’m only the lyricist, I couldn’t explain in musical terms what sounded wrong to me. Anyway, we had to approach it from scratch and talk to our producer Rob Cavallo about how we could do it. I had a song called Na Na Na that I had written in the desert. While we were still working on the old recordings, I said: let’s record this song. We went into the studio and within one night the thing was done. That’s when we realized that we had to rebuild the entire album from scratch, including the songs that we had already finished.”
Last time you said that the new album would be a reaction to how you are perceived as a band. What is the situation now?
“It can’t be about what anyone thinks of what you do. It’s about doing it for yourself. That would be the worst thing: making music for the people who
not like you just so they like you. Should I be a bit tougher? Or more punk somehow? Will you like me then? Nah, not with me. That was also my biggest beef with the last recordings. They were good, but not outstanding. And if I had any complaints about them, it was the feeling that I had accommodated other people’s views too much. We wanted to assert ourselves as a rock band. We only managed that with Killjoys.”
The days of The Black Parade, the big gestures and all the pomp, definitely seem to be over. Looking back, did you lay it on too thick?
“Yes and no. It was an extremely ambitious album. I wouldn’t say it was too hard-working, because we didn’t try too hard. But we put a lot of work into it. We had to use a certain arrogance for the album. A lot of people thought at the time that we were a flash in the pan. We had released a hit album and were now going to go under with the emo hype. So we exaggerated everything, a defiant reaction. Even though it wasn’t fun at times, we were constantly laughing because we felt kind of stupid doing it. With Killjoys we may not have laughed as much – but we had more fun.”
THE WATCHMEN
The last sign of life from the band before Killjoys was the Bob Dylan cover Desolation Row on the soundtrack to the graphic novel adaptation The Watchmen. The video for the song was directed by Zach Snyder. “For free,” Gerard marvels to this day. “Zach was so in love with his own film that he was still re-shooting scenes even though he had already finished it. This included the video for our song, which was obviously very important to him. He wanted to know what I thought about it. I told him that our cover version should sound like the Jim Carroll song People Who Died – like a big, loud ‘Fuck you!’, the film is one too.” Snyder chose My Chem because he knew that Gerard is a comic book author and that his The Umbrella Academy, like The Watchmen, won an Eisner Award.
GRANT MORRISON
Morrison plays the bald villain in the Killjoys trailer. He’s a comic book writer like me and my personal hero. We’ve been friends since The Black Parade. Greg is one of the most respected artists in the comics world, alongside Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. He wrote his own character from the trailer and designed the costume himself.
COMICS FOR YOU
The second part of The Umbrella Academy, called Dallas, has just been published in German translation by Cross Cult Verlag and has already won Gerard and illustrator Gabriel Bá the Eisner Award. We are giving away three copies of the hardback piece of bloody pop culture. Write an email with the subject “Dallas” to [email protected]. The deadline for entries is November 19th.
I saw that “Na Na Na” is being used as the theme for the upcoming “TLC” WWE pay-per-view. Are you guys big wrestling fans?
Frank: That’s awesome. We all were back in the ‘80s. Our dads had all taken us to WWF wrestling events and stuff. But Mikey [Way] tries to follow it. He gets back into it here and there. He’s the dude, like if you mention, “Who’s that guy?” – he’ll totally know. It came up last night, as a matter of fact. We were talking to our friend, and his father is friends with a guy that wrestled in the ’80s. I guess one of his characters was called “The Genius.” Mikey was like, “Oh my God. He used to be this guy … He used to wear this graduation hat.” It’s crazy, the amount of wrestling knowledge that Mikey Way has.
12/14/2010 christina fuoco-karasinski with soundspike q&a with frank iero
source: web.archive.org
Rediscovering themselves as creative, dangerous and daring
After spending most of 2009 working with producer Brendan O’Brien on a follow-up to their hit 2006 album The Black Parade, the members of My Chemical Romance were hit with an unsettling realization: They didn’t like their new material all that much. They felt bored and stifled. So when a quick session to write a couple of additional songs veered in a more inspiring direction, the band saw its chance to start over.
Re-teaming with Black Parade producer Rob Cavallo, the musicians—singer Gerard Way, bass player Mikey Way and guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero—ditched the rules they had established for themselves about their sound and the kind of songs they wrote (for the sessions, drummer John Miceli replaced now-departed member Bob Bryar behind the kit). Unburdened of those constraints, the group soon emerged from Cavallo’s Calabasas, Calif., studio with Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. Although imagined as a series of pirate-radio broadcasts coming from California in the year 2019, the band’s energetic, hook-filled fourth album is not designed as a strictly conceptual theatrical piece in the way The Black Parade was (witness Days’ straightforwardly rocking first single, “Na Na Na [Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na]”). “It was a long gestation period to get to this record,” says Ray Toro, “but I don’t think it would have worked any other way.” We spoke with Toro about the changes and self-discoveries that finally led to My Chemical Romance’s new music.
Were you comfortable with how elaborate TheBlack Parade tour was?
I felt like we were doing a stage show or a musical, instead of being a band. We wore these rigid costumes, the show was the same every night. It wasn’t choreographed, but it was timed out to feel like the album. We missed the spontaneity. When you say “rock ’n’ roll band,” you think spontaneous. The Black Parade was very restrictive. We had stripped out all the best parts of the band, even the creativity, and we didn’t get back to actually being a rock ’n’ roll band until we started doing Danger Days this year.
Why didn’t you release the album you made with Brendan O’Brien?
At the end of 2009, we decided to get into the studio with Rob Cavallo and write one or two new tracks to fill out that [O’Brien-produced] record. We realized the momentum from these new songs was carrying us, and we decided to scrap everything else we had done. It was clear to us that the true My Chemical Romance was in the songs that ended up on Danger Days. That’s us being creative, dangerous, daring—and the previous stuff we were working on had none of that.
Why did that epiphany take so long?
We have a desire to constantly create something new, and after we were done touring on The Black Parade, we didn’t have anything left. So we took a break, then started the process: We wrote and recorded an entire record and scrapped it. If we had tried to get into the studio sooner after finishing the tour, we probably wouldn’t be a band today. And if we put out that record we were working on in 2009, we probably wouldn’t be a band today.
The situation was that dire?
We just weren’t in the right place at that time. It really took writing “Na Na Na” and reuniting with Rob Cavallo. All those elements really added up to this atmosphere where it was inspiring to work again. Prior to that, we were showing up at the studio like zombies.
Where did “Na Na Na” come from?
We were all frustrated, and Gerard had gone out with his wife for a long weekend in the desert. He ended up writing the riff and the lyrics to “Na Na Na.” When we got back to Cavallo’s studio, he brought it up and we tracked it. There was an energy in that room that was very different from the prior sessions. It was pretty clear when we wrote that song that we were going to start over, but we didn’t really know it until we were about four songs in. That song was the catalyst for starting over and rediscovering what this band is. Before, everything was, “You can’t, you don’t, you shouldn’t.” We wrote “Na Na Na” and all of that went out the window.
When did the concept emerge?
It was all organic. Gerard had been coming up with a lot of art pieces. He was working on a comic with a friend of ours, Shaun Simon, back home, and it had some of the same ideas as the record. If you look at the lyrics, it’s about the returning of color to the world, of danger. That’s the crux of what the record is about. But it’s only conceptual in the sense that it’s framed as a pirate-radio broadcast from the future. When you listen to the record, there’s not a story being told. As far as characters and settings, that’s more for the videos.
Did you purposely avoid a narrative?
On The Black Parade, one of the things we got stuck in was trying to tell a story. That’s a big undertaking, and when you’re trying to tell a story, the songwriting suffers, because sometimes you have to do certain things musically to tell that story. This album was simply about writing a collection of great songs.
What was the writing like?
We did most of it in the studio, which was cool. That’s also why it’s the most organic record we’ve done. We had all these tools at our disposal all the time, and that was a great way to write. There was no time that took place between when you had an idea and when you could try it. To me, music is something that you have to capture right when you hear it. This is the first record we really wrote in a studio, and I think we’ll always do it that way. The possibilities are endless.
How fast did you work?
The first batch of four or five songs came pretty quickly. Two days after “Na Na Na,” we wrote “Vampire Money” and then “SING.” Each song was so different from the last, and every day in the studio you were getting something different. We were being challenged as musicians and songwriters to do something different, something that we’d never done before. I can’t even explain how exciting that is. There was this energy, this vibrancy, in the studio, and in the music, too. You could definitely tell when somebody had an idea. We usually would get to the studio in the early afternoon, and you could just see a look in people’s eyes, like, “I’ve got this idea!” It was the most freeing feeling any of us have ever had. It felt like rediscovering the band.
–Eric R. Danton”
12/2010 music and musicians magazine
source: web.archive.org
2010 spin – photos by ture lillegraven
“For My Chemical Romance, a new LP isn’t just music — it’s a full on art project. That’s certainly the case with their November 22 concept album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. And it was the same with their recent photo shoot for SPIN’s December cover.
The band — singer Gerard Way, 33; bassist Mikey Way, 30; guitarist Frank Iero, 29; and guitarist Ray Toro, 33 — met up with SPIN photo director Michelle Egiziano and photographer Ture Lillegraven at L.A.’s Pink Motel, a ’50s joint often used in movies and music videos (like Cee-Lo’s latest).
The idea was to continue the concept of the album, which is about a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-like gang called the Killjoys who fight an invading army of vampires. The tale unfolds like the comic books Gerard grew up on, and also takes cues from Japanese animation. “Gerard said he discovered Japanimation when the band was on a tour of Japan. He was really inspired by that imagery and it influenced the album, videos, and photo shoot,” Lillegraven says.”
source: turelillegraven.com
frank iero: “What a journey this has been, arduous at times, but always resulting in the band reaching new heights. Which is how it should be with a band that is never satisfied with just “good enough”…if it doesn’t change the game, it isn’t My Chemical Romance. You as fans shouldn’t expect anything less. It feels as though everything we’ve ever done has been leading up to this moment. Like our entire lives have been a drill preparing us to stumble upon what Gerard has been referring to as “the new shit god-dammit.”
So lets get down to it, with these new songs, or “the new shit god-dammit”, plus the songs we’ve written over the past year, we basically have enough material for about 2.5 records now.“ – frank iero
earlycuntsets.org sourced – where I got all my mcr pictures
first of a series. due to tumblr limits on how many links you can post. this full idea will be continued on future posts. here is 2007-2010. this is pictures. will make a separate post for youtube/recordings.
been needing to fully source my website so here we go! wanted to share with other kool mcr fans.
old fansites/website appearances:
12/17/2010 the night 87x stole christmas detroit mi – ken settle & schwegweb.com (ken settle)
12/18/2020 the edge jingle bell rock toronto ca – popmatters (mcrmy ecuador) & aux.tv
“‘the kids better be dressed really fucked up’ gerard said before the first night of the World Contamination Tour in London. He was joking and mock challenging the fans, but there was a part if him that was serious. ‘I hope i’m not disappointed. If they aren’t I’m gonna be like, “I dunno if I want to do this anymore.” There better be masks or I’m gonna be pissed. What’s the fucking point if they’re not going to dress up? If they don’t come up to me and tell me their Killjoy name, I”m going. to be bummed’“ – gerard from the mcr book “not the life it seems”
My Chemical Romance’s Ray Toro talks new album Danger Days Ray Toro rocks out during a My Chemical Romance concert in Taiwan, 2008. © Nicky Loh/Reuters/Corbis Intense? Oh yeah. Toro puts his hair into his playing. © Joel Auerbach/ZUMA/Corbis With the upcoming release of Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, My Chemical Romance are intent on building on the success they enjoyed with 2006’s multi-platinum The Black Parade. Already the album’s first single from Danger Days, the memorably titled and positively bouncy Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na), is making a serious dent at radio. And the album as a whole is a joyride of exuberant, slamming rock that leaves a listener little time to catch one’s breath – a far cry from the dark-tinged themes and musical soundscapes that made up The Black Parade. Getting there wasn’t so easy, however, for the New Jersey-based band, which consists of singer Gerard Way, his bassist brother Mikey, along with guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero (drummer Bob Bryar departed earlier this year). Throughout 2009, the group worked with producer Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, Bruce Springsteen), desperately trying to reinvent themselves and capture magic…to no avail. At the beginning of 2010, the band made the painful (and no doubt costly) decision to shelve the album and start all over again, this time reuniting with Black Parade producer (and newly minted Warner Bros Records Label Group Chairman) Rob Cavallo. “It was a hard decision to scrap the record we had made with Brendan, but in the end it was the right decision,” says Toro “Nobody was feeling quite right about what we had done. There was no joy in the record. It had nothing to do with Brendan. We were the problem.” The difficulties in recording Danger Days the first time, is there anything specific you can point to? “We were just burnt out. The touring schedule on The Black Parade was very hectic, and it probably went on six months longer than it should have. When we started talking about what the next album should be, we saw The Black Parade as the enemy – it was a big, theatrical rock record, and we were wearing the costumes and stuff. We wanted to go the other way. “So we spent 2009 writing and recording and trying to do a real stripped-down record. I remember distinctly, whereas in the past I would have laid down a bunch of different guitar tracks, harmonies and stuff, this time I said, ‘No, I can’t do that.’ After a while, it started to feel like I was going against my nature.” Did Brendan ever say to you guys, “This is good, but it’s not great?” “He was really trying; he did the best he could with us. He knew things weren’t clicking, and he’d try to rally us. I remember he said, ‘Hey, on some songs, I’d love to hear you do what you did on The Black Parade.’ Because there wasn’t any of the harmonized guitar parts or the stacking that I usually do. He was trying to get us to make one record, and we wanted to make something totally different. “Musically, we wanted to go back to our basement. But just because we wanted to do something different didn’t make it easy. In many ways, we felt as though we were holding ourselves back creatively. We were going through the motions. Some of the songs were good, but we weren’t happy with all of them.” Did any songs from the original sessions make the finished album? “Yeah, but we recut them. There’s Bulletproof Heart, Party Poison and a song called The Only Hope For Me Is You. Those songs always excited us, so we weren’t going to lose them.” Having worked with Rob Cavallo on The Black Parade, I assume he was the natural choice to come in after you tabled the first attempt at Danger Days. “Rob’s always been one of our biggest cheerleaders, and he and the rest of the guys at the label totally backed our decision to start over again. Originally, Rob came in to work on some mixes and see if he could help things along, but before long it became clear what we had to do. “With Rob, we got the band back. We got out creative energy back. I think one of the problems with the sessions with Brendan was, we had already decided what the album should sound like, and in hindsight, you really can’t do that. You have to let the music speak and be what it wants. We found our sound again, and it was exciting.” The record seems like a stark contrast to The Black Parade. It’s more hopeful and upbeat. “It’s weird. That wasn’t the goal at any point. I think it was just how we were feeling in the studio once we got back on track with Rob. In 2009, the record was kind of strange, and not everybody in the group was sold on what we were doing. Once we got going with Rob, like I said, our spark came back. So maybe that’s why it sounds, you know, the way it does.” As a guitarist, who are your influences? Who did you listen to early on? “Really, my biggest influence was my older brother, Louie. He was awesome, man. He was 17 or 18 when he started playing. I shared a bedroom with Louie and my other brother, Ed. And I just remember being in bed and hearing Louie play the guitar till all hours of the night and into two in the morning. He was great. “That’s how I first got into the guitar, from hearing and watching Louie. He was into Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Metallica, Motley Crue – a lot of classic rock with some metal thrown in. So I got into that stuff as well. He helped me out a lot. He had a stack of Guitar World magazines – I’d go through them and look at the tabs. Then I got more into guys like Jeff Beck and David Gilmour.” How did you develop your style into what it is now? “I think it’s a mixture, the classic rock and then more metal bands. Megadeth, Pantera, Metallica, Iron Maiden – I think I have more of a faster-riffing, minor-key kind of thing going on. Then, as I got older, I got into punk bands. So I mix it up: I love the attitude of punk, but I love the precision of a lot of the metal players.” With influences such as you mentioned, what kind of practice schedule do you adhere to? Punk players are more about vibe and spontaneity – “I know what you’re getting at. I definitely used to practice more. I think I found that the best middle ground is one where you’re hitting your notes and feel comfortable on the fretboard, but you still want to leave room for attitude and freshness. Listen to a guy like Stevie Ray Vaughan, who’s one of my favorites. He’s a flawless player, but you hear the heart and soul there – he’s reacting for the moment.” How did you come to join My Chemical Romance? “It’s funny. Gerard said that I was the best player he’d ever heard, which kind of floored me. I don’t think that’s true, but it was nice that he would say that. I didn’t have to audition or anything. We were friends, so he already knew what I could do. I think he knew that I was always trying to push myself as a player. “And I still am. I love searching for new lines and parts. Every song is a challenge. That’s what keeps me excited. For instance, there’s a song on the new record called Planetary (GO!), and I had to try to figure out how to make the guitar sound like a keyboard or a synthesizer. What I ended up doing was using an Electro-Harmonix POG, which is one of my favorite pedals. It’s sick – you have all of these octaves to play with. So I found some great sounds to use there. “On a song like Save Yourself, the playing is more precise, with heavy palm mutes on the verses. The solo is more of a pentatonic thing, kind of like what Kirk Hammett might play. So exploring all of those aspects but trying to keep it fresh and with a bit of a punk spirit is what keeps me going.” Two guitar bands are funny animals: one guy can’t do what the other guy does. Do you find that you have to change your style or hold back in any way to play with Frank? “No, not at all. I love playing with Frank. Our styles are very distinct. He’s much more melodic than I am. If you listen to him, he’s always harmonizing with or backing up the vocal melody. His guitar is more like another lead vocal. I guess I’m the ‘lead guitarist’ per se, but we’re always swapping roles. Sometimes he does little leads on the choruses. He so free. He’s got an energy that I find very inspiring.” In the past, you’ve played Les Pauls pretty exclusively. Are those still your go-to guitars? “Yeah, definitely. But I’ll tell you, recently I had the chance to play one of Jimi Hendrix’s Strats. Totally mind-blowing! This guy, Jimmy from Mates Rehearsal Studios in California, has one – I had shown for practice, and I didn’t have a guitar to play. So Jimmy let me play this Hendrix Strat that he got from Jimi’s old guitar tech. The thing was beat to shit, but it was the best-playing guitar ever. I played it for a year – Jimmy let me use it in the studio. Man, I loved that. It was fucking awesome! “Live, I’m still a Les Paul guy, but playing Jimi Hendrix’s Strat really got me interested in Strats and other guitars. In fact, I’m in desperate search for the ultimate Tele to play. If I can find one, I’m there.” Lastly, let me ask you about your drummer situation. You recently got a new guy in… “Well, not really. My Chem is a four-piece, and we’re going to stay that way. We’ve been playing with Mike [Pedicone], who’s a good friend of ours. He’s terrific, but he’s not an official member. I think we’re going to stay a four-piece.” 11/18/2010 joe bosso with music radar ray toro interview source: musicradar.com
2010 spin – photos by ture lillegraven “For My Chemical Romance, a new LP isn’t just music — it’s a full on art project. That’s certainly the case with their November 22 concept album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. And it was the same with their recent photo shoot for SPIN’s December cover. The band — singer Gerard Way, 33; bassist Mikey Way, 30; guitarist Frank Iero, 29; and guitarist Ray Toro, 33 — met up with SPIN photo director Michelle Egiziano and photographer Ture Lillegraven at L.A.’s Pink Motel, a ’50s joint often used in movies and music videos (like Cee-Lo’s latest). The idea was to continue the concept of the album, which is about a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-like gang called the Killjoys who fight an invading army of vampires. The tale unfolds like the comic books Gerard grew up on, and also takes cues from Japanese animation. “Gerard said he discovered Japanimation when the band was on a tour of Japan. He was really inspired by that imagery and it influenced the album, videos, and photo shoot,” Lillegraven says.” source: turelillegraven.com
12/03/2010 roseland ballroom nyc ny blackandwhitestriped and exxagerardted on livejournal source: mcr-unofficial.livejournal.com
