“Musician Interview with: Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance”
Recently, I chatted with Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance and below is what he had to say:
FLES: What are your favorite songs from “Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge?”
Gerard: The most special song to me is ‘Helena,’ which is about my grandma. I think my Favorite song to play live and my favorite on the record is ‘You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison.’ I think it’s very important for us as a band to write songs like prison because it’s kind of constantly breaking boundaries
of what could be done by a modern rock band and
still work. I think it’s important to do those things
and take risks. I think it’s the most important song
on the record for that reason.
FLES: When you went into the studio to record the album how many songs did you have and how did you decide which ones would make it onto the album?
Gerard: We actually went into pre production with not that many, I think we had about half a record, then we got really inspired and ended up writing a whole bunch of songs, tweaking sections of songs we previously had and fragments [of songs] became songs. We had become so inspired we got finished with reproduction a week early. I’d say there really isn’t anything left over, but like two songs. One of which was kind of a joke and the other one was an acoustic thing we wanted actually wanted to have the whole band but by then we didn’t have time to redo it.
FLES: How long did it take to record the album?
Gerard: I think only two months. I think we would have gotten it done a little faster than that but [producer] Howard [Benson] wanted to kind of paced the record because we started moving so quickly, because it was so spontaneous. He said, sometimes if you make a record too fast it gets away from you then when your done with it you realize there’s lots of stuff wrong with it. So there were lot of moments were [we] had to stop for a few days here and there.
FLES: How do you decide which songs are releases as singles?
Gerard: We don’t. I think it’s the smartest thing a band can do is not to decide what your singles are because then you don’t write songs to be singles. We let the label decide. That way you can literally honestly say to yourself we don’t write singles, we write records, and you can really retain your artistic Integrity that way. So we gave them [Warner Brothers] the record literally sight unseen and said “here pick the singles, if you find any at all.” They found four, at one point there were six songs they were very excited about, then decided on four of them.
FLES: What was your reaction the first time you heard one of your songs on the radio?
Gerard: It was off our first record, [I Brought You My Bullets You Brought Me Your Love], and I heard ‘Vampires Will Never Hurt You,’ on a college radio station and it was probably the biggest thing to me in the world. To this day, even hearing “Revenge” songs on commercial radio isn’t as big a deal as that first time hearing it on just a college radio station. I think it had like a hundred mile radius.
FLES: Does the band have any plans to release a live CD/DVD?
Gerard: We have been filming footage since the last warped tour and we still have a camera out. I don’t know, we’re talking about it. We feel usually people will put out DVD’s in order to sell as many DVD’s as they did records. That to us is kind of a cheap and sleazy thing to do, ‘cuz their hot at the moment so lets rush a DVD together and get it out. If we put one out it’s going to be because we have so much footage that really tells the complete story of the band as far as we when we had signed to a major [label] the process of recording a record, making the record, and then busting our ass touring on it for the whole time. I think, if we get enough footage to warrant a DVD, we’ll have one. Live CD is something we never actually talked about. We’re kind of one of those bands you need to see live in order to get it. We don’t know if a live CD would work for us but it might, I don’t know.
FLES: Well, we’ve seen MCR about 5 times in concert and I think a live CD would be a great. I think you guys are really good live.
Gerard: Thank you very much. I think it would be cool. Maybe in between not this record or the next but after the next record it might be a good idea to put out a live CD.
FLES: How much preparation went into planning and performing “Under Pressure” with The Used?
Gerard: I’d say a fair amount, not a lot. As far as preparation it was really just go ahead and do it. Two bands in two separate countries we had a very small window of opportunity in which to do it. Two of my guys flew out a day early to LA before we started some tour and I was out there and did my vocals. The Used based off of our template of the song put their parts over it and then it was together. We didn’t play it live together until a week into the Taste of Chaos tour. It was pretty much let’s go head and go this. We tried it for two sound checks then we played it live.
FLES: Is iTunes the only place to purchase the song?
Gerard: Yes.
FLES: Will My Chemical Romance and The Used collaborate on more songs in the future?
Gerard: It’s hard to say. We’re such good friends and we’ve known each other for a long time, I’m sure that’s a possibility. We love collaborating it’s a very cool thing to do; especially if it’s for the right reasons. The thing about Under Pressure, it was for a good cause.
FLES: Do you have any Idea how much money the song raised for the Tsunami Relief?
Gerard: I Believe when it came out $25,000 dollars was initially raised and I think it’s still up in the top three (at the time of this Interview) at iTunes and still raising a lot of money.
FLES: Has the popularity of My Chemical Romance taken you by surprise?
Gerard: It really has. We really believed in ourselves. We believed in the music, we believed in the record, I think a lot more than a lot of other people did. We kind of always knew it was going to be something very big, in terms of speaking to people but we were very surprised by the same element were not use to we’re use to being normal guys. That’s the whole idea behind the band that were very private normal people that when we get onstage we become like these extraordinary characters almost like superhero’s that’s kind of how it works. It started carrying to offstage and we became really the same offstage and that was really strange for us and it’s harder to deal with especially if your bunch of guys that are just like geeky comic book nerds that have no privacy.
FLES: Where Do You See My Chemical Romance say five years from now?
Gerard: In five years, I would see us getting ready to put out a new record after the next one. We’ll probably put out another record after this then tour extensively on it. Then I’d like to see the band take a break for a little while to reevaluate themselves as individuals and as a band and to kind of evolve again as a band, I think that’s really needs to happen and I think some of that stuff only happens from breaks. I see us probably as almost a completely different sounding band with the same ethics. Maybe on a different level I’m not really sure. I know we’ll still be doing this though.
FLES: Any idea when the next album will come out?
Gerard: We want it to come out two years to the [release] day of Revenge. We probably would have called the record sooner but Revenge ended up doing so well that we’re going to continue to tour on it.
FLES: What was it like for you to tour with Green Day?
Gerard: We’ve been on it for about a week now and we’re probably on the seventh show. I’m going to say for the record they are the nicest guys we’ve ever met. We’ve never seen a band reach out to us so much in so many ways, in a live set, on a person level. They really make us feel like fellow musicians. We’ve toured with bands that were only slightly bigger than us or at our level that acted more like rock stars. They don’t even act like rock stars, they’re just a punk band and they put on the greatest, greatest fucking show in the world. I definitely think they’re the greatest rock band right now.
FLES: What are your thoughts on being nominated for “Golden gods” award?
Gerard: You know I just found out about that. I’m not very familiar with the golden gods award but I am very familiar with Metal Hammer who does those. Metal Hammer is a really supportive magazine and its really great. I wasn’t aware of the award but it feels awesome to be nominated for anything. We kind of stay away from press though, positive or negative, we kind of live in a bubble. It’s good to not want nominations and it’s good to not strive for nominations, If you get them it’s kind of like frosting, it’s a bonus. We were use to for so long being the band who was kind of underrated and we were use to not being nominated for stuff and use to being under the radar for so long even though, we felt we deserved a little more recognition. In a reader’s poll two months ago we were the most underrated band now were the most overrated band. It’s funny to go from underrated to overrated so quickly. You get so exposed it becomes less cool to be into your band.
FLES: I have a feeling My Chemical Romance will be nominated for quite a bit of awards in the future.
Gerard: Thank you. We have a good feeling about that stuff too.
FLES: Gerard, Thank you for your time.
Gerard: No problem. Thank you very much.
My Chemical Romance is from Newark, NJ and tour on a regular basis. Their music in on Warner Brothers Records and is available at the usual outlets.
Online users may purchase their music at Amazon.com. For more band information visit the official My Chemical Romance website . To sample music by My Chemical Romance visit their page at myspace.com.
Interview by Michael Montes – Copyright © 2005 Florida Entertainment Scene – All Rights Reserved.“
photo is from the sun dome tampa florida 04/18/2005
