My Chemical Romance

By: Marvei/grade 9th

My Chemical Romance was an American rock band from Newark, New Jersey, active from the year of 2001-2013. The band was formed by frontman Gerard Way and drummer Matt Pelissier in Newark soon upon hearing the September 11 or 9/11’s attack. Gerard wrote the song “Skylines and Turnstiles” to express his feelings about the 9/11 attack and shortly after, he recruited guitarist Ray Toro to join the band as in that time, Gerard could not play the guitar and sing simultaneously. The name of the band was suggested by Gerard’s younger brother, Mikey Way, as he used to work at Barnes and Noble when he was struck by the title of a book by Irvine Welsh named the Three Tales of Chemical Romance. Mikey joined the band shortly after hearing the band’s demo songs and dropped out of college. While with Eyeball Record, the band met Frank Iero, the lead vocalist and lead guitarist for Pencey Prep; following Pencey Prep’s break up, Frank joined the band, days prior to the recording of their debut album. Three months after the formation change of the band, the debut record album was released and titled I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, in which Frank only played two tracks at the time.

In 2003, the band signed a deal with Reprise Record. Following a tour with Avenged Sevenfold, the band began working on their second studio album, Three Cheers for a Sweet Revenge, which was released on the 8th of June in 2004. A month after the album’s release, the band replaced Matt Pelissier with Bob Bryar. There were 4 singles released in the album, “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)”, “Thank You for the Venom”, “Helena”, and “The Ghost of You”. The album went platinum in just over a year after its release. At the beginning of 2005, the band was featured on the first Taste of Chaos along with the Used and Killswitch Engage. The band was also an opening act for Green Day on their American Idiot tour. They then co-headlined Warped Tour 2005 with Fall Out Boy and co-headlined a tour with Alkaline Trio and Reggie and the Full Effect around US.

In the 10th of April in 2006, the band began recording their third studio album with Rob Cavallo , producer of many Green Day albums. The title was originally thought as the Rise and Fall of My Chemical Romance, but in an interview with Kerrang! Magazine, Gerard said that it was just the album’s working title, stating “It was never the album title, more a spoof, or joke.” On the 3rd of August in 2006, the band completed shooting the videos for their first two singles from the album, “Welcome to the Black Parade” and although not released until January 2007, “Famous Last Words”. Both of the music videos were directed by Samuel Bayer, the director of Nirvana’s “Smells Like A Teen Spirit”, and Green Day’s American Idiot videos. During the filming of Famous Last Words, Gerard and Bob were both injured; Gerard suffered torn ligaments in his ankle, and Bob got a several burn on his legs which caused a severe staph infection that needed constant monitoring in the hospital. On the 22nd of August in 2006, the band played a special one-off show at the 1,800 capacity London Hammersmith Palais. The tickets were sold out in 15 minutes, prompting the tickets to be re-sold on E-bay over the ticket’s value. The name of the album was announced and 20 people dressed in black capes with their faces obscured paraded around the Hammersmith venue, followed by a large group of fans and street team members with signs saying "The Black Parade". Later during the show, the album title and the UK release date were confirmed. Before the band took the stage, it was announced that My Chemical Romance was unable to play, but they would be replaced by The Black Parade. After initial crowd hostility, it became clear the band was simply performing under a pseudonym in keeping with the theme of the album. Since then, the band would often perform under the alias "The Black Parade", wearing the costumes seen in the album's music videos. Gerard Way would adopt the persona of the leader of the marching band, The Black Parade, and vary his behavior and performance accordingly. “Welcome to the Black Parade” was as a single on the 11th of September in 2006; followed by the release of the music video on the 26th of September in 2006 in the UK, and on the 27th for the US. The song became the band’s first number one on the UK Single Chart in October 2006. The album, “The Black Parade”, was released on the following month of October on the 23rd in 2006, receiving positive reviews from both UK and US.

They started to gain mainstream attention from the media after the release of the Black Parade in October, receiving loads of positive comments from the US and the UK. Although the band received positive comments for their third studio album, there was an article that rose in which was written by the British Tabloid Sun, entitled “Suicide of Hannah, the Secret Emo” that associated with Hannah Tabloid, a 13-year-old girl who had hung herself supposedly because of her involvement with a reported “self-harming ‘emo’ cult”, which the newspaper directly associated with My Chemical Romance and their then-current album, The Black Parade, which was said to be linked to her suicide. In the article, coroner Roger Skyes expressed concern that Bond’s “emo” lifestyle glamorized suicide and suggested that her obsession with My Chemical Romance was linked to her death. Supporters of emo music contacted NME to defend the genre against accusations that it promotes suicide.

A group of British fans eventually planned a protest against the depiction of the band in the media. The march was expected to be held on May 31st, beginning at Hyde Park’s West Pond and ending outside the offices of Daily Mail, which widely criticized My Chemical Romance and had published general pieces about the danger of “suicide cults”. The march was expected to attract 500-1000 protesters, according to the organizers. After concerns by police, the march was called off and instead about 100 fans congregated at Marble Arch. The Daily Mail defended its position saying its coverage was "balanced and restrained" and "in the public interest" and that they were reporting genuine concerns raised by the coroner at the inquest. They stated that their coverage of the coroner's remarks and the parents' comments was in common with that of other newspapers and pointed to their publishing of readers' letters defending the band and positive reviews of the band's albums and tours.

The band’s fourth album in 2010 was finished on the studio for the recording based on Gerard’s statement in Comic Con in 2010 in San Diego. This album was released without their previous-then drummer, Bob Bryar, who parted ways with them due to a personal reason. Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys was a generic pop-punk album that hits more of a pop sound than a pop-punk/emo-punk genre like they had continued in their first three albums; which caused them to receive loads of backlash from the former pop-punk emos, who all have expected more of a punk sounding album, but received good critics on their pop-sounding songs from the outer media. Their song, Sing, was used as a propaganda song in one of the episode of an American TV show, Glee, in February 2011. Sadly, not long after the album’s release and Conventional Weapons, the band broke up on the 22nd of March in 2013, releasing a statement on their official website. On the 25th of March in 2014, the band released a greatest hits collection, entitled May Death Never Stop You, containing material spreading their entire career, as well a single unreleased track. The track “Fake Your Death” was made digitally available on the 7th of February in 2014.

On July 20, 2016, the band posted on their official Twitter and Facebook pages a video with the piano intro from "Welcome to the Black Parade", ending with a cryptic date, "9/23/16". The video was also published on the band's YouTube channel with the video titled "MCRX". This led to numerous rumors and reports on the band's possible reunion until it was revealed to be a reissue of The Black Parade with unreleased demos. The reissue, titled The Black Parade/Living with Ghosts, includes 11 demos and live tracks. Two months before its release, an early version of "Welcome to the Black Parade", titled "The Five of Us Are Dying", was made available for streaming.

In a discussion of his work on the comic book Doom Patrol, Gerard Way told Billboard, "I wouldn't count (a reunion) out, but at the same time everybody's doing stuff in their lives now that they're really enjoying."

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