Kerrang! Poster Issue Scans and Short Article
Scans and the article written out below the cut! This is from a special issue of Kerrang! that was published a couple of months ago.
My Chemical Romance: A Photographic History
Over the last 10 years, My Chemical Romance have gone from New Jersey local gig-goers to worldwide, interstellar superstars. Kerrang! Has been along for the ride since the very beginning, and K! scribe Tom Bryan has seen the band evolve and mature into modern day icons…
“The first time I met Gerard Way, he stank. We were in New York in August 2004 and the city was being buffeted by a violent thunderstorm. My Chemical Romance had just been posing for a photo shoot and, quite honestly, they looked like they might have been anyone. It was the eve of Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge’s UK release and, at that precise moment, they were just another band, slightly shabby, slightly tired, slightly bored.
And then the rain came down. Soaked, the band and I ran for a cab. I ended up next to Gerard, and soon regretted it. Slowly but surely, as the heat of the cab took hold, Gerard’s wet jacket began to steam. The most virulent smell of cigarettes, sweat, stale booze and God knows what else spread around the car. He looked apologetic, then said: ‘You know it’s bad when you disgust even yourself.’ This was not a band, I thought, who were going to make it.
But then Gerard started talking properly. He had given up drinking and drugs just 12 days earlier after a series of episodes, collapses and freak-outs that suggested he was close to the edge. He confessed all of this - his dark nights of the soul, his demons and his fears - to me, a stranger, in the back of a New York cab. It was simply fascinating.
His bandmates too - Ray Toro, so talented, Mikey Way so innocent and Frank Iero so heartfelt were no less interesting and they prompted then drummer Bob Bryar, doing his first ever interview, not to be quite so modest and shy.
That evening, I watched them play at the Irving Plaza. They blew me away. Gerard was a mad professor, whirling and whipping the crowd into a frenzy. Frank twirled on the spot: spinning, collapsing, but still playing. Ray’s afro caught the lights, lending him a halo of hair, as his guitar spat brutal eloquence into the night. Mikey beamed at the crowd, locked in with Bob. They were sensational.
I looked around at the crowd and they were a great mass of seething bodies. Then I looked at the balcony where I was standing to see the Way family, the Iero family and the Toro family, all there to watch their kids. All in My Chem t-shirts. All headbanging.
From then on, it was clear that - far from being a band who weren’t going to make it, as I initially thought - this was a band who could change everything. And they did, on every level. Who else was making videos with the Gothic melodrama of Helena, who else spoke with such intrigue, who else wrote songs marrying anguish, fantasy and honesty with such thrilling music?
As their career unfolded, it was clear they would push themselves to the edge for their art: the vision and drama of The Black Parade sent Mikey to therapy, and nearly sent the rest crazy. Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys bravely reversed the stark blacks and whites of its predecessor to come swathed in glorious Technicolor - but not before driving them to the brink of break-up before its creation.
There’s one thing, though, that says everything about My Chemical Romance. In 2006, when they were bottled mercilessly at Reading Festival, Gerard promised to never return unless they were headliners. In 2011, they did exactly that. It’s that determination, those victories, that make My Chemical Romance special.
In 2004, my first interview with My Chemical Romance ended with Gerard saying one thing. ‘Without sounding completely out of my mind,’ he said, calmly: ‘I believe anything is possible.’
He was dead right.”
My Chemical Romance: A Photographic History
Over the last 10 years, My Chemical Romance have gone from New Jersey local gig-goers to worldwide, interstellar superstars. Kerrang! Has been along for the ride since the very beginning, and K! scribe Tom Bryan has seen the band evolve and mature into modern day icons…
“The first time I met Gerard Way, he stank. We were in New York in August 2004 and the city was being buffeted by a violent thunderstorm. My Chemical Romance had just been posing for a photo shoot and, quite honestly, they looked like they might have been anyone. It was the eve of Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge’s UK release and, at that precise moment, they were just another band, slightly shabby, slightly tired, slightly bored.
And then the rain came down. Soaked, the band and I ran for a cab. I ended up next to Gerard, and soon regretted it. Slowly but surely, as the heat of the cab took hold, Gerard’s wet jacket began to steam. The most virulent smell of cigarettes, sweat, stale booze and God knows what else spread around the car. He looked apologetic, then said: ‘You know it’s bad when you disgust even yourself.’ This was not a band, I thought, who were going to make it.
But then Gerard started talking properly. He had given up drinking and drugs just 12 days earlier after a series of episodes, collapses and freak-outs that suggested he was close to the edge. He confessed all of this - his dark nights of the soul, his demons and his fears - to me, a stranger, in the back of a New York cab. It was simply fascinating.
His bandmates too - Ray Toro, so talented, Mikey Way so innocent and Frank Iero so heartfelt were no less interesting and they prompted then drummer Bob Bryar, doing his first ever interview, not to be quite so modest and shy.
That evening, I watched them play at the Irving Plaza. They blew me away. Gerard was a mad professor, whirling and whipping the crowd into a frenzy. Frank twirled on the spot: spinning, collapsing, but still playing. Ray’s afro caught the lights, lending him a halo of hair, as his guitar spat brutal eloquence into the night. Mikey beamed at the crowd, locked in with Bob. They were sensational.
I looked around at the crowd and they were a great mass of seething bodies. Then I looked at the balcony where I was standing to see the Way family, the Iero family and the Toro family, all there to watch their kids. All in My Chem t-shirts. All headbanging.
From then on, it was clear that - far from being a band who weren’t going to make it, as I initially thought - this was a band who could change everything. And they did, on every level. Who else was making videos with the Gothic melodrama of Helena, who else spoke with such intrigue, who else wrote songs marrying anguish, fantasy and honesty with such thrilling music?
As their career unfolded, it was clear they would push themselves to the edge for their art: the vision and drama of The Black Parade sent Mikey to therapy, and nearly sent the rest crazy. Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys bravely reversed the stark blacks and whites of its predecessor to come swathed in glorious Technicolor - but not before driving them to the brink of break-up before its creation.
There’s one thing, though, that says everything about My Chemical Romance. In 2006, when they were bottled mercilessly at Reading Festival, Gerard promised to never return unless they were headliners. In 2011, they did exactly that. It’s that determination, those victories, that make My Chemical Romance special.
In 2004, my first interview with My Chemical Romance ended with Gerard saying one thing. ‘Without sounding completely out of my mind,’ he said, calmly: ‘I believe anything is possible.’
He was dead right.”