My Chemical Romance are officially back and life has never been the same again.
In the early morning of November 1, I got woken up by a barrage of messages from friends on both Twitter and Facebook. While rubbing my eyes, I wondered what could be the ruckus all about? I squinted at my phone and there I saw the headlines — My Chemical Romance are reuniting for their first gig since 2012.
I lost my shit. I couldn’t believe it at first. We’re talking about a band that has broken up in 2013 and has been ‘dead’ for seven years. We’re talking about a band who has consistently turned down reunion rumours in the past. We’re talking about my most favourite band in the world. I told friends & colleagues that I don’t want to expect too much (the disappointment of 2016 was still fresh in my mind), but a quick investigation confirmed everything an MCR fan could ever hope for: they are returning with a comeback show this coming December 20th at Los Angeles, California.
As of writing, there’s no confirmation if the gig is just going to be a one-time thing or is an opening act to their official return to the music scene, but of course the hopeful die-hard fan in me is hoping it’s the former. I still don’t want to expect too much but they’ve created an official Instagram page, updated all of their social media accounts (including their Spotify) with their new logo and visuals, and even created a Twitter emoji. All of these done in the evening of Halloween, which, to say the least, was a very My Chemical Romance thing to do.
‘Emo’ is the label that has been associated with them for the longest time and while many will argue that is true, there’s one thing that people don’t give them enough credit for — the theatrics. My Chemical Romance are brilliantly theatrical and that has been their branding since the band formed in 2002. It’s what set them apart from their peers and what helped them enjoy mainstream success during the huge punk rock wave in the mid-2000s.
It’s actually crazy that it took me this long to notice this. As a 13-year old who looked up to the band as my childhood heroes, I’ve always thought that I was entirely enamoured of their music because their songs echoed the immense teenage angst that I felt during those years. I enjoyed catharsis in all the heavy layers of their guitar, in the darkness of their lyrics. I felt heard & seen as someone who has always had a penchant for the dark (and demonic) and to find a band that perfectly suits my taste, in an industry that was otherwise saturated by songs that only talked about boys at that time, was incredibly uplifting.
Now that I’m older with sharper eyes and better appreciation for things, I can say with full confidence that My Chemical Romance’s theatrics was completely ahead of their time. This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise since the band cites David Bowie as one of their major influences and most of the members are huge comic book nerds (in case you don’t know, Gerard Way is the co-creator of the comic book-turned-Netflix series The Umbrella Academy, is the new writer of Doom Patrol, and is the creator of the much-loved Peni Parker in the Spider-verse). The band has always had a knack for storytelling and they always lived up to it.
In light of their grand comeback, here’s an album-by-album appreciation write-up for their music.
I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love
My Chemical Romance debuted in 2002 with the album “I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Love”. Don’t be overwhelmed by the long-ass album title —the songs aren’t any better and this album doesn’t mark the end of their long song titles either.
The album was filled with delicious raw emotions of rage and hurt that can be heard in every driving guitar line, every pounding drum beat, and every vocal scream. The band was formed and inspired, after all, by the tragedy of the 9/11 attack (you can hear it in their song Skylines & Turnstiles). But you know what else they talked about? Vampires.
Yes, they were singing about vampires and it’s not just with the song Vampires Will Never Hurt You, though that’s probably as explicit as they can get, if we’re looking at things on surface-level. It’s a running storyline that can be heard all throughout the album.
The 8th track “Early Sunsets Over Monroeville” is a dark and agonising ballad that lives up to this theme with lyrics such as Running away and hiding with you / I never thought they’d get me here / Not knowing you’d change from just one bite / I fought them all off just to hold you close and tight. The song is also directly inspired by the movie Dawn of the Dead (1978), where a man gets faced with the dilemma of killing his lover after she turns into one of the living dead that has been running after them.
The story continues with “Drowning Lessons” (one of my favorites from the album): I dragged her down I put her out / And back there I left her where no one could see / And lifeless cold into this well / I stared as this moment was held for me. Concurrent with the vampire theme is the story of two lovers who were running away together (“This is the Best Day Ever”) and dying, as told in their ending track “Demolition Lovers”.
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, the band’s second album, was what catapulted them into mainstream success. With lead single “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)”, which resonated with every angsty teenager in 2004 who’s had their own share of tears-at-the-seams relationships, everybody was singing to My Chemical Romance lyrics in no time. Their next single “Helena”, a song written about the Way brothers’ late grandmother, was also a huge hit.
The “Helena” music video offered a more direct insight to what the band is really about in terms of drama and aesthetics — black & red suits, pale & ghastly faces, red eyeshadows, and heavy guyliner. In the video, there was a gothic congregation dancing ballet in a church where a funeral mass is being held. You can only wish your funeral will be as extra as this.
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, in all aspects, was a lot darker, angrier, and more violent. But that’s because it’s also a concept album that continues the story of Demolition Lovers from their debut album: two lovers are gunned down and sent to hell. The man was separated from his lover and in order to reunite with her again, he was given a gun to bring down the souls of a thousand evil men.
When I first got my hands on a physical copy of this album, I absolutely loved the lyrics for their sheer, explicit, and unapologetic anger (I will avenge my ghost with every breath I take /I’m coming back from the dead and I’ll take you home with me / I’m taking back the life you stole). Now that I’m older and can look at it from a more objective point of view, I can say I fully appreciate the lyrics for the awesome storytelling and how Gerard Way did not only sing but also acted out the protagonist’s feelings in every song.
On tour, the band continued with their ‘murder’ aesthetic (I would have labeled it as murder twink, if it happened now). On stage, the band wore bulletproof vests, put on red eyeshadow and guyliner, and even wore arm bands that featured guns along with the letters MCR as the logo. The live album & DVD that was subsequently released after was named Life on the Murder Scene.
The Black Parade
The Black Parade is the first My Chemical Romance album I ever bought, and also the era where I fully got into them. I remember being 12 and catching a glimpse of the Welcome To The Black Parade music video while waiting for the turn of a local band’s screen time in MYX’s Daily Countdown and thinking, this band is really over the top.
The comment was made in stride at first but as their music quickly grew on me, I began to love how dramatic the whole thing was. This was My Chemical Romance with their theatrics at full blast. The album was a rock opera that tells the story of a cancer patient meekly named as (you guess it) “The Patient” as he dies and revisits the events of his life.
It opens strongly with “The End”, which, if you listen closely, also serves as the protagonists’ monologue as it sets the story. It sounds like a perfect opening number for a musical, especially with lyrics as Another contusion, my funeral jag / Here’s my resignation, I’ll serve it in drag/ You’ve got front row seats to the penitence ball/ When I grow up I want to be nothing at all. The track is quickly followed up by “Dead!”, a song that juxtaposes words like Have you heard the news that you’re dead? / No one ever had much nice to say / I think they never liked you anyway over an upbeat, heavy tune. Talk about a tragicomedy.
Death has always been a cloud that has hovered over the band’s concepts for the entirety of their career, but it has never become more fleshed out than it has in The Black Parade, if not in a dark and ghastly caricature. The album’s rock opera single “Welcome to the Black Parade” features the origin story of The Patient and was inspired by Gerard Way’s belief that the reaper comes to you in your most vivid memory — in this case, the protagonist’s most vivid life memory was when he was a child and his father took him to see a marching band. This was because he died before he could really achieve anything.
The album’s 9th track “Mama” introduces another character in the story — Mother War. In terms of story, lyrics, and sheer pathos, this song is my favourite. The song opens with explosions in the background, which indicates the protagonist was a soldier at war writing to his mother. Later on, we learn that the son shares a tumultuous relationship with his mother, who is ashamed of him (Well mother what the war did to my legs and to my tongue / You should have raised a baby girl / I should’ve been a better son/ If you could coddle the infection).
The entire song feels like a complete musical production, for the lack of a better term. And to make things better, they even got famed Broadway star Liza Minelli to produce guest vocals for it.
Their ethos didn’t end there, of course. Gerard Way changed his hair to a platinum blond crew cut to look more in character and the band continued to wear their marching band outfits and wore skull face paint, both in live performances and while on tour.
It was a whole new definition of performative rock n’ roll for My Chemical Romance.
Later on, it was revealed that The Black Parade was actually a persona that the band has embraced. They were playing as a pseudo band within a band. In a recent interview with Carry The Fire podcast, Gerard Way talked about being in character during TBP.
“Obviously I was looking up to my heroes when I was constructing that. I was looking at David Bowie, especially around The Black Parade. Early Black Parade stuff was basically, ‘What if death had a rock band?’ and it obviously changed from that and we all became death in a way, the whole band.”
How did they end such an iconic era? They performed as the ‘band’ for the last time in Mexico City, recorded the performance, and later released it as a live album & DVD called “The Black Parade is Dead!”.
Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys
MCR’s fourth and last full album Danger Days was far removed from the death-obsessed persona that the band has put on for so long. It was less angry and dark; the album takes a more upbeat, catchy, pop-punk tone with traces of good, old rock n’ roll.
That doesn’t mean the band has completely abandoned their love for incorporating storylines in their albums. With Danger Days, MCR became the fictional characters called “Killjoys”, a group of intergalactic freedom fighters in who live in post-apocalyptic California in 2019.
The band even had individual character names: Gerard Way was “Party Poison”, Ray Toro was “Jet-Star”, Frank Iero was “Fun Ghoul”, and Mikey Way was “The Kobra Kid”. The album was interspersed by short skits done by a fictional pirate radio DJ/host called “Dr. Death Defying”.
In “Na Na Na”, My Chemical Romance exchanged skull face paint and all-black outfits for colourful motor jackets, washed out jeans, and leather gloves. And as far as staying in character goes, Gerard Way dyed his hair a vibrant red.
The Killjoys engage in long car chase & shootout with the “Draculoids” and executors from the evil corporation “Better Living Industries” or “BL/ind”. The music video references Blade Runner and exhibits an overall comic book feel in its creative treatment (Gerard Way later on released a comic book of the same title).
The storyline, as always, was consistent for the rest of the songs in the album. I didn’t realise how incredibly on point Bulletproof Heart was with its lyrics (Gravity don’t mean too much to me / I’m who I’ve got to be / These pigs are after me, after you) and the inclusion of galactic and futuristic sound effects in the background until recently.
Comparatively, this was no doubt MCR’s ‘happiest’-sounding album. While defiance is still a recurring theme in the lyrics, it’s more optimistic (just listen to “Sing” and “Summertime”), and there’s less death and murder involved (the most violent track is “Destroya”, a tribal ritual-like song which tells how the protagonist turns his back on love & faith to focus on his battle). The tone was probably informed by the band’s personal relationships — this was the time when most of them got married and became fathers.
The Return
Long before their internet-breaking announcement last Thursday, October 31, the universe has already been ripe with reunion theories since they broke up. There’s that crazy fan theory that says the band will reunite in 2019 because Gerard Way has mentioned that he wants to emulate Smashing Pumpkins, who disbanded on their 12th year only to reunite after six years (2019 is the 6th year since MCR broke up in March 22, 2013). There’s also that theory that the band will reunite this year since the Danger Days album is set in 2019. And of course, there’s that Joe Jonas spoiler.
As if announcing your comeback on Halloween wasn’t iconic enough.
Whichever of these theories rang true the most, the important thing is they all came true — My Chemical Romance is back.
Though personally, I wouldn’t put it past MCR to purse the Dangers Day theory (maybe they’ve planned this a long time ago, maybe they saw the fan theory and just went along with it). This is a theatrical band who’s composed of excellent storytellers. This is a band who likes to come in armed with new, outlandish, and refreshing concepts and always follows through with them.
This is the band that, after all these years, I still completely love (and now I understand better why).
All we’ve got so far are the cryptic symbols that they posted on their Instagram stories and the sculpture featured in their new poster is called “Cella Magnani”, a work by Italian artist Pasquale Rizzoli which shows the departing soul being guided by the angel to heaven. But whatever this means and whatever they have in store of us, I can hardly wait. I AM ABSOLUTELY EXCITED. I thought this year’s Halloween couldn’t get more infinitely better, and they just proved me wrong.
I am ready for your next drama, My Chemical Romance.
