The true lives of my chemical romance: a biography
UK edition
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The definitive biography of My Chemical Romance
My Chemical Romance are the most significant band in alternative rock for the last decade, selling 5 million albums and selling out arenas worldwide until their split after twelve years together. Author Tom Bryant has been given unparalleled access to the band over the course of their extraordinary career and has a unique archive of interviews with Gerard Way and his brother Mikey, Ray Toro and Frank Iero, as well as their friends and those closest to them, allowing him to go behind the scenes and bring their stories to life. From their New Jersey beginnings to international superstardom, from the demons they have battled to the power of their lyrics and their extraordinary connection with their fans, this is the definitive biography of the most adored rock band this century, a story of self-belief and the pursuit of dreams. UK edition: http://amzn.to/1myGFjA US edition: http://amzn.to/1ig2Lo7 |
US edition
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My Chemical Romance: on the cusp of stardom with Three Cheers | Kerrang! September 2004
IT WAS in Kansas City that Gerard Way cracked. My Chemical Romance’s frontman woke up and wanted to end it all. He’d forgotten how many times he’d woken up depressed in the weeks leading up to that moment, he’d forgotten how many times he’d gone to sleep on a cocktail of alcohol and pills and he’d had enough.
Soon after he was in Japan, backstage at Tokyo’s Summer Sonic festival. He’d been vomiting in a bin for ten solid minutes, the result of a sake binge. His band were standing around him not knowing what to do, not knowing how to get through the show, not knowing how their best friend had got himself into this state without them noticing. Then, three days later back in their hometown of New Jersey, the band sacked their drummer Matt Pelissier. From the outside it had looked as if nothing could stop My Chemical Romance’s rise. Their sensational new album, ‘Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge’ was a culmination of everything they had worked for, a desperate gamble that was paying off phenomenally. Then, suddenly, it all came apart and unravelled dramatically right in front of them.
TODAY, IN New York, Gerard Way is sober and has been for 12 days. He’s dressed head to toe in black and he smells bad. It’s a potent mixture of the cigarettes that permanently hang from the corner of his mouth and the sweat from yesterday’s show. He knows it too, “You know when it’s really bad,” he says with a smile. “It’s really bad when you disgust even yourself.”
He cuts a strange figure, almost as though he doesn’t belong inside his own body. His cherubic, baby face is framed by lank, black hair. His shoulders are hunched over – a result of a slipped disc and a problematic spine condition – giving him the appearance of a brooding, camp history professor. He looks both too young for his 27 years and too old for them also. His face puts him at roughly 15 years old, his body and strange charisma give him the air of someone who has lived a long life full of weirdness. It’s hard to put your finger on him – at times he’s stunningly honest, at others he’s can clam up. He is, though, enormously likeable and naturally intelligent. He also likes to be in control.
“Control is important to me because musically we’re so out of control,” he says. “This band is so on edge that I want everything else in my life to be controlled. I need it to stay sane.”
He also worries a lot – “it’s the curse of the Ways,” he says. Right now he’s worrying about that day in Kansas City and what lead him to that state.
“I have the potential to be a fantastic alcoholic,” he states bluntly. “I could be really, really good at it. You have to be careful in a band – you can become an alcoholic really quickly, then the booze leads to the pills, the pills lead to the coke and so on. It’s all interconnected.”
This is a Gerard Way who’s turning over a new leaf. For months he’d been hiding his depression and drinking from his band. Today, in front of them, he’s happy to talk about it openly to anyone who asks him, it’s almost as if just speaking about it is making him feel stronger, making him feel in control of it. It seems a strange condition to have got himself into though, given the potential of his band.
“I hope this doesn’t come across as an excuse,” he says. “But I think at times people want you to play the part of the fucked-up drunk singer. So you start playing it for a while and then suddenly you realise you’re not acting anymore – you are that horrible person. That’s what I realised in Kansas.
“I’d been drinking heavily before shows to get myself up and I’d drink more to stay high after the set. Then I’d move onto pills to bring myself down again. I was constantly trying to artificially control my brain – I thought I could get a real handle on it. Then occasionally I’d start dabbling in other garbage – nothing major but just enough so that I’d got to that point where I was standing on the edge. That’s where I was that morning in Kansas.”
All the while he is saying this he is looking at each band member. They occasionally look up at him but mostly gaze at the floor – this is painful for them too. But this is not a shameful admission, instead it’s one that Way feels is setting him free, is helping him identify where he went wrong.
“I woke up that morning and I felt completely desperate, I wanted everything to stop, I wanted it all to be over. I wanted to freak out, I wanted to smash things and I wanted to hurt myself while I was doing it. I was entirely depressed, suicidal and all that garbage. I wanted it all over, all of it… everything.”
He phoned a friend who talked him through it, who said that if he could just make it through to Japan then he could come home, he could go back to the therapist he’s been seeing for years and could think about rehab. Then he went to each member of the band individually and told them everything.
“We knew he drank too much,” says guitarist Ray Toro. “I don’t think we realised the full extent of the problem though. We felt like, ‘What did we miss? Could we have done something sooner?’ I don’t think we could have done though. I don’t think Gerard would have listened if we had, I think he had to do it for himself.”
“I needed that support,” says Way, who did go back into therapy but chose to go Cold Turkey rather than head into rehab. “I’m still scared though, I worry it could happen again and I could end up dead. When this band started, it saved my life. I got saved, then I went off the rails again and the band came to my rescue a second time. I hope it’s now an excuse to keep stable because it’s everything that I have now.”
THE SPIRIT within in My Chemical Romance is perhaps stronger now than it’s ever been. Perhaps it has something to do with Way’s honesty towards them, a feeling that they know he can confide his deepest problems to them and that they can be there for him. Perhaps it’s because they know that they have written one of the albums of the year. Either way, this is band full of confidence, who have no fear of making statements like Gerard Ways’: “This album gives us a shot. This gives us a chance to stand up against some really big bands and ask them if they can compete, if they can push the envelope and bring some new ideas.”
That assurance oozes from all of them. Their self-belief is phenomenal but, for now, doesn’t step over the line into arrogance.
“I don’t think we could ever be arrogant,” says Toro. “Our backgrounds will keep us grounded. We’re all working class and I don’t think it’s in our nature to go that way. I still live at home, my mom still yells at me for playing my guitar too loud – that will tend to keep you grounded.”
“But that doesn’t mean we don’t think we can achieve anything,” says fellow guitarist Frank Iero. “To get to this point means we must be doing something special. I’ve had a feeling recently. It feels like this dream – the dream if being in a great band – has come true through luck, hard work and persistence. If that’s possible, then all my other dreams are possible too. It feels like nothing is in my way at the moment.”
“Without sounding completely out of my mind,” adds Way, “I believe that anything is possible.”
IT’S PERHAPS this confidence, this belief in their own ability and their ambition to take things further that spelled the end for ex-drummer Matt Pelissier. The band are tight-lipped about what exactly happened.
“I don’t want to make things public,” says Toro. “We know why we made the decision and we hope he does too. But, from our end, it will stay between Matt and us.”
It’s not the route Pelissier chose to take. He instantly went on to the band’s message boards. Parts of his post give some reasons as to his departure but, you sense, they don’t tell the whole story:
“They told me I’m out of the band because they are uncomfortable with me onstage and they’re afraid I’ll mess up,” he wrote. “I’ve had some whoppers on a few occasions – I’ll never deny I’m human but we all make mistakes… Do I think I’ve been shafted? Yeah. What happened to the five brothers that loved each other more than anything else on earth? I gave up everything for each one of them.”
My Chemical Romance don’t want to get into a slanging match with their ex-bandmate but what Toro will say is that, “Musically we know we are stronger now.” Then, perhaps more tellingly, “We can look each other in the other in the eye and feel love between us. That’s definitely true now.”
“If I’m going to say anything about anyone being fired,” adds Gerard Way, “Then it’s that this band is about giving a shit about each other, about looking people in the fucking eye and knowing you care about them, that they care about you and knowing that’s the truth. That’s not directed at Matt, that’s directed at the whole band.”
WHAT IT has meant is that the band are on even more of a high, that they finally feel as if all the cogs have fallen into place. Watching them play at Irving Plaza later that night is a revelation. Iero whirls around the stage manically, spinning into amps, mic stands and collapsing on the floor. New drummer Bob Bryar who looked nervous and perhaps felt out of place during the interview – is all smiles. Gerard’s younger brother Mikey – the youngest member (“He needs a bit of looking after,” laughed Iero earlier. “I once caught him going into a shower with an electric heater!”) – beams at the crowd. The real chemistry live is between Toro’s brutally eloquent guitar lines and Way’s all encompassing charisma. He stalks the stage like a Southern preacher, goading the crowd, firing them up and getting in their faces as if he’s about to call down a hail of fire and brimstone. All the while Toro is behind him, reinforcing his sermon with shards of alternating violence and calm. Watching them here, in their natural habitat and in front of what is virtually a hometown crowd, is to watch a band who will soon be too big for venues like this. It’s to watch a band who can now mix it with the big boys and, providing Gerard Way can keep his head together, it’s to watch a band who can only get better and better.
© Tom Bryant 2012
Soon after he was in Japan, backstage at Tokyo’s Summer Sonic festival. He’d been vomiting in a bin for ten solid minutes, the result of a sake binge. His band were standing around him not knowing what to do, not knowing how to get through the show, not knowing how their best friend had got himself into this state without them noticing. Then, three days later back in their hometown of New Jersey, the band sacked their drummer Matt Pelissier. From the outside it had looked as if nothing could stop My Chemical Romance’s rise. Their sensational new album, ‘Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge’ was a culmination of everything they had worked for, a desperate gamble that was paying off phenomenally. Then, suddenly, it all came apart and unravelled dramatically right in front of them.
TODAY, IN New York, Gerard Way is sober and has been for 12 days. He’s dressed head to toe in black and he smells bad. It’s a potent mixture of the cigarettes that permanently hang from the corner of his mouth and the sweat from yesterday’s show. He knows it too, “You know when it’s really bad,” he says with a smile. “It’s really bad when you disgust even yourself.”
He cuts a strange figure, almost as though he doesn’t belong inside his own body. His cherubic, baby face is framed by lank, black hair. His shoulders are hunched over – a result of a slipped disc and a problematic spine condition – giving him the appearance of a brooding, camp history professor. He looks both too young for his 27 years and too old for them also. His face puts him at roughly 15 years old, his body and strange charisma give him the air of someone who has lived a long life full of weirdness. It’s hard to put your finger on him – at times he’s stunningly honest, at others he’s can clam up. He is, though, enormously likeable and naturally intelligent. He also likes to be in control.
“Control is important to me because musically we’re so out of control,” he says. “This band is so on edge that I want everything else in my life to be controlled. I need it to stay sane.”
He also worries a lot – “it’s the curse of the Ways,” he says. Right now he’s worrying about that day in Kansas City and what lead him to that state.
“I have the potential to be a fantastic alcoholic,” he states bluntly. “I could be really, really good at it. You have to be careful in a band – you can become an alcoholic really quickly, then the booze leads to the pills, the pills lead to the coke and so on. It’s all interconnected.”
This is a Gerard Way who’s turning over a new leaf. For months he’d been hiding his depression and drinking from his band. Today, in front of them, he’s happy to talk about it openly to anyone who asks him, it’s almost as if just speaking about it is making him feel stronger, making him feel in control of it. It seems a strange condition to have got himself into though, given the potential of his band.
“I hope this doesn’t come across as an excuse,” he says. “But I think at times people want you to play the part of the fucked-up drunk singer. So you start playing it for a while and then suddenly you realise you’re not acting anymore – you are that horrible person. That’s what I realised in Kansas.
“I’d been drinking heavily before shows to get myself up and I’d drink more to stay high after the set. Then I’d move onto pills to bring myself down again. I was constantly trying to artificially control my brain – I thought I could get a real handle on it. Then occasionally I’d start dabbling in other garbage – nothing major but just enough so that I’d got to that point where I was standing on the edge. That’s where I was that morning in Kansas.”
All the while he is saying this he is looking at each band member. They occasionally look up at him but mostly gaze at the floor – this is painful for them too. But this is not a shameful admission, instead it’s one that Way feels is setting him free, is helping him identify where he went wrong.
“I woke up that morning and I felt completely desperate, I wanted everything to stop, I wanted it all to be over. I wanted to freak out, I wanted to smash things and I wanted to hurt myself while I was doing it. I was entirely depressed, suicidal and all that garbage. I wanted it all over, all of it… everything.”
He phoned a friend who talked him through it, who said that if he could just make it through to Japan then he could come home, he could go back to the therapist he’s been seeing for years and could think about rehab. Then he went to each member of the band individually and told them everything.
“We knew he drank too much,” says guitarist Ray Toro. “I don’t think we realised the full extent of the problem though. We felt like, ‘What did we miss? Could we have done something sooner?’ I don’t think we could have done though. I don’t think Gerard would have listened if we had, I think he had to do it for himself.”
“I needed that support,” says Way, who did go back into therapy but chose to go Cold Turkey rather than head into rehab. “I’m still scared though, I worry it could happen again and I could end up dead. When this band started, it saved my life. I got saved, then I went off the rails again and the band came to my rescue a second time. I hope it’s now an excuse to keep stable because it’s everything that I have now.”
THE SPIRIT within in My Chemical Romance is perhaps stronger now than it’s ever been. Perhaps it has something to do with Way’s honesty towards them, a feeling that they know he can confide his deepest problems to them and that they can be there for him. Perhaps it’s because they know that they have written one of the albums of the year. Either way, this is band full of confidence, who have no fear of making statements like Gerard Ways’: “This album gives us a shot. This gives us a chance to stand up against some really big bands and ask them if they can compete, if they can push the envelope and bring some new ideas.”
That assurance oozes from all of them. Their self-belief is phenomenal but, for now, doesn’t step over the line into arrogance.
“I don’t think we could ever be arrogant,” says Toro. “Our backgrounds will keep us grounded. We’re all working class and I don’t think it’s in our nature to go that way. I still live at home, my mom still yells at me for playing my guitar too loud – that will tend to keep you grounded.”
“But that doesn’t mean we don’t think we can achieve anything,” says fellow guitarist Frank Iero. “To get to this point means we must be doing something special. I’ve had a feeling recently. It feels like this dream – the dream if being in a great band – has come true through luck, hard work and persistence. If that’s possible, then all my other dreams are possible too. It feels like nothing is in my way at the moment.”
“Without sounding completely out of my mind,” adds Way, “I believe that anything is possible.”
IT’S PERHAPS this confidence, this belief in their own ability and their ambition to take things further that spelled the end for ex-drummer Matt Pelissier. The band are tight-lipped about what exactly happened.
“I don’t want to make things public,” says Toro. “We know why we made the decision and we hope he does too. But, from our end, it will stay between Matt and us.”
It’s not the route Pelissier chose to take. He instantly went on to the band’s message boards. Parts of his post give some reasons as to his departure but, you sense, they don’t tell the whole story:
“They told me I’m out of the band because they are uncomfortable with me onstage and they’re afraid I’ll mess up,” he wrote. “I’ve had some whoppers on a few occasions – I’ll never deny I’m human but we all make mistakes… Do I think I’ve been shafted? Yeah. What happened to the five brothers that loved each other more than anything else on earth? I gave up everything for each one of them.”
My Chemical Romance don’t want to get into a slanging match with their ex-bandmate but what Toro will say is that, “Musically we know we are stronger now.” Then, perhaps more tellingly, “We can look each other in the other in the eye and feel love between us. That’s definitely true now.”
“If I’m going to say anything about anyone being fired,” adds Gerard Way, “Then it’s that this band is about giving a shit about each other, about looking people in the fucking eye and knowing you care about them, that they care about you and knowing that’s the truth. That’s not directed at Matt, that’s directed at the whole band.”
WHAT IT has meant is that the band are on even more of a high, that they finally feel as if all the cogs have fallen into place. Watching them play at Irving Plaza later that night is a revelation. Iero whirls around the stage manically, spinning into amps, mic stands and collapsing on the floor. New drummer Bob Bryar who looked nervous and perhaps felt out of place during the interview – is all smiles. Gerard’s younger brother Mikey – the youngest member (“He needs a bit of looking after,” laughed Iero earlier. “I once caught him going into a shower with an electric heater!”) – beams at the crowd. The real chemistry live is between Toro’s brutally eloquent guitar lines and Way’s all encompassing charisma. He stalks the stage like a Southern preacher, goading the crowd, firing them up and getting in their faces as if he’s about to call down a hail of fire and brimstone. All the while Toro is behind him, reinforcing his sermon with shards of alternating violence and calm. Watching them here, in their natural habitat and in front of what is virtually a hometown crowd, is to watch a band who will soon be too big for venues like this. It’s to watch a band who can now mix it with the big boys and, providing Gerard Way can keep his head together, it’s to watch a band who can only get better and better.
© Tom Bryant 2012
