History Of My Chemical Romance

from ultimate-guitar.com
My Chemical Romance broke out into the Music scene in early 2001 and have been releasing successful videos and have been doing some non-stop touring for the majority of the last 3-4 years, all while building a massive fan base. Many know the band and their music, but not many can vouch that they know a lot about their origins. That’s about to change. In this “History Of:” article, your going to learn everything there is to know about one of the biggest success stories to come out of New Jersey in recent years. Let’s begin.

In the mid 2001, Gerard Arthur Way was a 24 year old guy you could find in New York comic shop. He had a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from graduating from New York’s School of Visual Arts. He didn’t have a lot going his way at the time, He was battling alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, an illness in the family, and severe depression, partially as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. His life was not amounting to much, his only artwork to make it anywhere close to being released was a cartoon called, “The Breakfast Monkey”.
He decided one day as he was in his friend’s basement that he would “**** Art”. He and Matt Pelissier, who was a friend from high school, began to channel Gerard’s depression and anger into the form of music. They wrote a Song about the 9/11 attacks called “Skylines and Turnstiles”. Little did they know that it would be the start of something that would change their lives dramatically.

Needing a guitar to round off their music, Pelissier and Way looked back to their hometown of Belleville, New Jersey. They joined forces with lead guitarist Ray Toro who was between bands at the time. He agreed to help them and put some riffs guitar to the words that Way and Pelissier had written. Needing a Bassist, Gerard’s brother Mikey Way bought a bass guitar and began learning as the band began making more songs. All they needed now was a rhythm guitarist to help fill in the background of Ray’s solos. The Answer was Frank Iero. Having just quit a band named Pencey Prep, Iero dropped out of college to begin playing with the rest of the band.

Not having a name, they were looking for a title that would go with their dark lyrics and punk/emo image. One day while working at a Barnes and Noble book store, Mikey spotted the book “Ecstasy: Three Tales Of Chemical Romance” by Irvine Welsh. Mikey thought that My Chemical Romance would be a pretty deadly band name. The name stuck, and in 2002 they decided to sign with the local “Eyeball Records” music label to release their first CD.
The Band released their debut CD titled “I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love” on July 23, 2002, which had the song “Skylines and Turnstiles” as the 7th track. To support the disk, the Way’s Grandmother, Elena Lee Rush, bought the band their first touring van, and they were off.

Their first live show turned out to be a mixed blessing however. The whole band, notably Mikey, drank to cover up their stage fright making the actual performance less than spectacular. However, the band caught the eye of a few people and word began to spread.
This seemed to make them much stronger. They began to perfect their live shows and began to build a large fan base. They teamed up with bands such as Thrice, The Used, and briefly with Alkaline Trio. They received an offer from Reprise records, a division of Warner, to record an album. They began to record a new album that was more professional and appealed to a wider fan base, but they still had their hard image style. With the death of the Way’s grandmother the band wrote the song “Helena” in memory of her, and the rest of the album began to take shape. The result was “Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge”.

Released on June 8th, 2005, the band immediately saw a response. They debuted at the number one on the Billboard Heat seekers chart and were getting offers to underline the “Vans Warped” tour and to be in the first ever “Taste of Chaos” Tour.

This was very good for the band, but problems internally resulted in Matt leaving the band. Needing a drummer, the turned to some of the friends they made before their 2nd Album. A Sound Technician for The Used offered to fill in the spot and Bob Bryar, a native of Chicago, became the band’s drummer. With a full line up they began to tour and landed a spot to be the only opening band for Green Day’s “American Idiot” tour.

With the release of their first single “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” they began to get airtime on MTV’s TRL and the infectious song was being requested on many music stations. The album began to sell and the band followed “I’m Not Okay” with a video for “Helena”. Although it did not do as well as “I’m Not Okay” on the charts, record sales increased and “Helena” received nominations on MTV’s Video Awards, and it won “Woodie of the year” at MTV’s Woodie awards. Their final single from the album was a video for the ballad-like “Ghost of You”. The video had an anti-war message and the song helped “Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge” go platinum.

MCR didn’t stop there after the release of “Ghost Of You”. They began to headline a tour to support the album with opening acts consisting of Circa Survive, Thrice and Alkaline Trio. They also released a DVD/CD collection on March 21, 2006 titled “Life On The Murder Scene”. The DVD’s have behind-the-scenes-footage of the band’s rise to fame, and a collection of all their videos. The CD with have live versions of their songs, and demos of new song. They band is currently writing new material for a 2006 release and have been performing a new song on their tour called “Shut Up And Play”.

From being the kids that used to get picked on in school, MCR have risen above everyone’s expectations and have made a major impact on today’s youth with what Gerard calls “Violent, Unsafe Pop Music”. Their may be many bands similar to MCR, but there’s almost no doubt that they will be a band to stick around for a long time.

A quick thanks to all those who gave me information in the forums in the earlier months and to those who suggested sites and other sources of info. A thank you for UG for a great site and the opportunity to make an article such as this and a thank you goes out to members of MCR for their awesome music and inspiration. \m/