“I wasn’t running away from the bigness, but I wasn’t happy doing it anymore, and it’s not what I wanted for my life anymore.
“As a human being you have to understand and deal with the process, not just run away from it,” Gerard reflects. The band were back, reborn as superhero rogues in a post-apocalyptic land, another concept album firmly in their grasp and another touring schedule spanning way out into the future. That was until September 2010 at least, when the notoriously catchy, gloriously cartoony trailer for ‘Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)’ burst onto the internet. The band – guitarists Frank Iero and Ray Toro, along with Gerard’s bassist brother Mikey – spent time being husbands and fathers, settling in to that new period of their lives.
Having closed the door on ‘The Black Parade’ almost six years ago now, things soon became quiet in the MCR camp. So, you go against yourself, you go against what feels right, to ‘be an adult’.” It becomes that machine and then you don’t want to turn your back on anybody, not a single person. We’ve all got mortgages and families now and the right thing to do is to stay in this.’ Then you start thinking about the crew that you help they work with you and that’s how they make their pay cheque. “You’re becoming an adult and so you think one of those things is, ‘Well, I’m gonna be responsible. “You know, you try to be responsible,” he explains. As the project grew, drawing more and more people into the mix, there were less opportunities to walk away, and more depending on him than ever before. With the band growing up and beginning to settle down with their wives and children, he had bigger responsibilities than his own artistic urges. Somewhere along the way, his priorities had changed. There was nothing more for me to say under that umbrella of My Chemical Romance.” It was an extremely high note, I had said all I’d wanted to say. “I don’t know how much of a secret this is,” offers Gerard, “and I don’t think it is, but when we finished ‘…Parade’ and we had finished the touring, I didn’t want to do it anymore. With the release of their third album ‘The Black Parade’ they had grown bigger than ever they felt unstoppable, a force to be reckoned with in their gothic military uniforms, but when touring drew to a close in 2008, that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Their incendiary brand of punk rock – visceral but somehow eloquent, morbid yet enamouring – proudly blurred the lines of niche and mainstream, all the while taunting critics with its moments of bombast and flair. I came to peace with that part, but at the beginning of the break up, for sure, I was trying to escape this largeness.”īy the time the band called it a day back in March 2013, they had sold over four million albums worldwide, climbed to the top of the charts and headlined festivals on both side of the Atlantic. I learned to accept that it had grown to that and to love it for what it was, despite how big it had gotten. “There was a large part of me that wanted to escape that bigness, which I came to terms with over time. He looks relaxed, ready for things to set in motion once again, unafraid to admit that the next part of his life began at the end of his last.
He’s traded it in for a messy mound of blond locks (for the time being, at least), blue jeans and some beaten up Converse. One of the last great accolades of the band saw them headline Reading & Leeds Festival just over three years ago, but gone is the flame red hair and leather jacket that he boasted during their ‘Danger Days’ performance. Sat in the basement of a central London hotel, he looks a little different to the last time he was on UK soil. Then, one day, My Chemical Romance became just too big a monster. With each of their albums came a new era for the band, and with every new concept, legions of fans would follow. He had taken his band out of the dirty basements of New Jersey, tracked down the souls of 1000 evil men, led a deathly army and become his very own superhero. For the best part of a decade-and-a-half, he had graced stages around the world, kicking and screaming, sweating and bleeding his way to the most dizzying heights of popularity. It’s safe to say that Gerard was stepping into the unknown. Twelve years on, as the band were finally drawing to a close, it was that same Lake Placid Blue guitar that Gerard Way turned to. My Chemical Romance first came to life when the band’s frontman, their leader-in-waiting, picked up a 90s Fender Mexican Stratocaster in his parents’ basement and wrote their very first song.
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