COUP DE MAIN INTERVIEW: Parts III-VI
Continuing from HERE.
PART III
'Blade Runner', 'Repo Man', & 'Transformer'...
MIKEY WAY: Movies affect - just as us artists - as much as music would, which is really cool and interesting, I think.
FRANK IERO: Yeah. We kind of like to have movies going while we'll tracking. For some reason, that visual stimulation sometimes will make you play differently.
GERARD WAY: 'Blade Runner' was really huge. 'Blade Runner' was huge during Parade as well. 'Blade Runner' was always on, but this time [while] I watched them, I felt like I was - I felt we were on a bit of an artistic crisis at a certain point. We had done this recording, we [had] just gotten back from Japan and I had about, we had a week to ourselves maybe, to kind of contemplate what we're in the midst of in what we're doing. And I watched the 'Blade Runner' documentary, and that's actually called 'Dangerous Days', because that was the original title of 'Blade Runner'. And there's, just from watching that, I gained so much insight about art and what it took to not back down. And there's this thing where he's, in the very opening when the credits are happening, there's a shadow of Ridley Scott and he says: you see this in my hands, this is my camera, this is my weapon. He goes: I'm not gonna stop until I get what I want. And I was like: oh, God, you got to really dig deep like this guy, like he, we're gonna have to really do what he just said. Had a huge impact on me just that documentary. 'Cause obviously, I've seen the film so much and there's a little bit of influence in there. There's a lot of Tokyo in there. There's a lot of Katsuhiro Otomo. And there's a lot of the director of 'Visitor Q'.
RAY TORO: Takashi Miike.
GERARD: There's a lot of him in this, you know? So, it's really crazy plan of like Andy Warhol, pop art, Japanese comics and filmmakers, and then really amazing science fiction filmmakers like Ridley Scott. Yeah, it's got to be the 'Night Of The Comet', 'cause I think 'Night Of The Comet' was a bit like - it was [similar] style - it feels like they're gonna look like they are making it up a little and just finding cool stuff and has a new-wave punk element to it, much like 'Repo Man', which was also... you look at the generic dog food cans and the vending machines in the middle of the desert, and that's what real 'Repo Man' [is]. We made all the stuff, we spent a long time making all the stuff. And then once we had done it, it was actually much larger than Black Parade. Like, I would say almost 20 times more art was created for this than Black Parade.
FRANK: It's actually 22 percent.
GERARD: Twenty-two percent more, and it was like everything down to the stickers on the car were made-up companies, but even the fonts on the stickers were - and the colours of the logos and everything was like that. And so, now that we have it, it doesn't feel like a prison like Black Parade did. Like, that was very uncomfortable and it was kind of that was the idea, very... military. This seems like something that I want to live in for the next two years and keep playing with.
FRANK: That's one of the greatest things here is that when you can live in this world, it can change and, well, it's like we were talking - [Lou] Reed how, [with the album] 'Transformer'. And then all of a sudden, you'd go see him on that tour, but it was different already. Like, he was already on to the next sheet. And this, I think this concept is the world [that] really allows us to [reach a higher] place and go find that within this world.
GERARD: Totally. Yeah. I want to keep doing it. Like, to me, we should still be doing this all the way up to the end of the cycle. I think it's gonna take a minute to get to the bigger shows to do that.
PART IV
'Danger Days' live, quality control, and old friend Rob Cavallo...
GERARD WAY: One of the cool things right now is we've been away so long that it's really, I think, the first group of shows will be about reconnecting with the audience and less about costuming and things like that - and I think that's great. 'Cause the songs, when we've been rehearsing them in a live sense, they sound way more aggressive than anything else we played. It actually sounds like Rob Cavallo had described, like this is [a] party, that's what it sounds like. And so that's what I would expect live. And then later on, we could think about - we have plenty of time - we could think about how we can make this fun, a fun live experience. I mean, we're talking about bringing the car out on the road and just having it [in] whatever city we're playing, having it drive[n] around all day, and just do fun stuff like that. It was awesome.
FRANK IERO: Yeah. It was like we're committing with an old friend, you know?
MIKEY WAY: And it felt like when we had... [with Rob Cavallo] it was kind of like a homecoming, and it felt really great.
GERARD: He's a friend and he's an artist. And that was really important, and he's like a fifth member. It felt like he, it felt like we're all kind of like in this pit of fire, reaching our hands out, and he kind of helped us all get out of it. It really did feel that way. And he believes in the band so much. We had really amazing conversation when we got there. It was a very emotional conversation, where he had told us how he had felt like the situation we were in was a shame because he believed we're one of the greatest rock bands in the world. And he couldn't believe that it gotten to this point where we were in stasis creatively, and it made him upset. And he, I think just seeing somebody be so honest about how much they love your band on an artistic level, was enough to make us redo this entire album.
RAY TORO: He's like a partner. And he's ready to go put himself through that journey too, with you. And it's hard on everybody, but we're all there for each other, getting through it.
GERARD: His quality control too, is just as severe as ours, which is awesome, which makes him a great match. He's always pushing us. Even up to the end, I think the last couple of days of tracking was me going back and re-tracking lyrics that he had felt were up to par with the rest of the album. And out of the whole process, luckily, it only happened like on two lines, but it was the hardest two lines to write because of that. I think, well, I think what we realize is, albums and the ambition of the band is much different than its ambition [in] life. I think they're two separate things entirely. And I think writing great songs first, then you can translate them however you want in life. Yeah, I mean, we're just talking about this in the break, like when you listen to that first attempt, it literally does sound like a band - and just strip everything away. I know lyrically, I just stripped everything away. I don't even know what to sing about anymore and 'cause there was nothing left. And that's kind of what it sounds like. And we love a lot of the songs, they're really special to us, but that's all you hear is so much nakedness that there's nothing to the band at that point.
PART V
Creative sparks, experimenting, and Rich Costey...
GERARD WAY: You know, we have finished something like 20-something songs. And they were almost, like more than half of them were mixed. I think it was during the mixing process with Rich Costey. We were sitting there and...
FRANK IERO: Experimenting.
GERARD: Yeah. We still are experimenting. It was nuts, 'cause we couldn't get it, the sound, how we wanted to, you know? And then I think one day, Rich brought over a...
MIKEY WAY: And we started just picking stuff up and just trying things that we've never tried before. And then we started to - it's like the spark started happening and we started to see this other thing, and that was kind of where it started the whole, like, I guess the idea of what it will become.
RAY TORO: You know, it's funny, too, to his credit, too, remember the first time he came to the practice studio... He said: you guys got to get yourself some pedals. It's got to get some different... like new things you never tried before. And...
GERARD: He was dead right.
RAY: ...the spark of creativity is dead right.
GERARD: Rich set a lot of truth in that very first, he was the first person we met up with, and it's like...
RAY: Yeah, to produce...
GERARD WAY: He'd asked really hard questions, kind of like: where are you rebelling against, what's going on here? And everything he said was actually completely accurate. He wanted us to just do crazy things and try new stuff. And we wanted to strip away experimentation. So, then, the mixing process was really difficult. And I think that's when maybe on a subconscious level, it started to creep into our bones that, like: oh, God, maybe this isn't right. And then we got a little bit of a break. We're gearing up to release this thing, taking photos and everything...
PART VI
Desert visions, new songs, and no rules...
GERARD WAY: I had gone in the desert with Lindsey [Ann Way nee Ballato], because we've been working so much we didn't even get to take our anniversary. So we had, like, two days in the desert is all we could do. And then, and it's like [an] epiphany, you know? And I always knew I wanted the record to be set in the desert and I have this kind of - like this fucking vision. I heard the song in my head, it was like a chant, it was "Na Na Na", it was the dumbest thing in the world. And, but I saw laser guns and I saw muscle cars and dirt and masks, and Draculoids and everything. And then, we went and just met up with Rob as a friend and talk[ed] about the situation we were in. And I kind of have this, I have this thing in my back pocket, 'cause I kind of... I kept mentioning it. I was like: I wrote a song. I think it's really amazing - but I didn't talk about it too much. And then I think when I felt safe and I felt that everybody in the band felt safe for the first time to be free with Rob, that's when I was like: let's just go do this really quick. And so, we did it and it was so obvious. We heard Na Na and we're like, to me it was like: all right, we have a track one now. Now, we have to start over. And it took a minute. We were four songs in before I think we all were fully like, that's, even I was afraid of doing that. It took... I think we then did 'Vampire Money' and then I think we did 'Planetary [Go!]'... all very different songs. So...
FRANK IERO: Yeah. But that was the thing. I mean, once we met with Rob, you had that idea, and it was like: all right, well, what is this? Do we, is it a new record? Is this [the] start, like step one, again...[?]
GERARD: Right.
FRANK: ...or are we just inspired to write a couple of songs? And we just kept saying: all right, well, if the inspiration is there, why would you shut it off? Like, even if it's not on the record, whatever, if we have an idea and it can be great, you have to chase it.
GERARD: And these crazy things started to happen, where you'd get one song, and then the next day you were so inspired, you'd have another. And then by the end of the evening, you're working on another. And that's really what happened on this record. Now, it was hard, but the band was truly alive and we took, there was no rules. 'Cause that last attempt had so many rules on it that the rules were gone. And that, to me, felt like: wait, we're really making a rock and roll album now 'cause there's no rules. Before, it [was] like, rock album[s] don't have rules. And that's what that last recording was. But it was just crazy momentum. It just kept going. And we didn't have like an agreement right, for a while. Like Rob and us, we were just recording... but we didn't know what we were doing.
FRANK: We don't know what it was.
GERARD: Yeah. We didn't, we weren't calling it an album yet. He didn't know, he had other stuff on the books for him to go work on, but we just kept doing it 'cause it was so exciting.
[SOURCE (FOR ALL PARTS)]
PART III
'Blade Runner', 'Repo Man', & 'Transformer'...
MIKEY WAY: Movies affect - just as us artists - as much as music would, which is really cool and interesting, I think.
FRANK IERO: Yeah. We kind of like to have movies going while we'll tracking. For some reason, that visual stimulation sometimes will make you play differently.
GERARD WAY: 'Blade Runner' was really huge. 'Blade Runner' was huge during Parade as well. 'Blade Runner' was always on, but this time [while] I watched them, I felt like I was - I felt we were on a bit of an artistic crisis at a certain point. We had done this recording, we [had] just gotten back from Japan and I had about, we had a week to ourselves maybe, to kind of contemplate what we're in the midst of in what we're doing. And I watched the 'Blade Runner' documentary, and that's actually called 'Dangerous Days', because that was the original title of 'Blade Runner'. And there's, just from watching that, I gained so much insight about art and what it took to not back down. And there's this thing where he's, in the very opening when the credits are happening, there's a shadow of Ridley Scott and he says: you see this in my hands, this is my camera, this is my weapon. He goes: I'm not gonna stop until I get what I want. And I was like: oh, God, you got to really dig deep like this guy, like he, we're gonna have to really do what he just said. Had a huge impact on me just that documentary. 'Cause obviously, I've seen the film so much and there's a little bit of influence in there. There's a lot of Tokyo in there. There's a lot of Katsuhiro Otomo. And there's a lot of the director of 'Visitor Q'.
RAY TORO: Takashi Miike.
GERARD: There's a lot of him in this, you know? So, it's really crazy plan of like Andy Warhol, pop art, Japanese comics and filmmakers, and then really amazing science fiction filmmakers like Ridley Scott. Yeah, it's got to be the 'Night Of The Comet', 'cause I think 'Night Of The Comet' was a bit like - it was [similar] style - it feels like they're gonna look like they are making it up a little and just finding cool stuff and has a new-wave punk element to it, much like 'Repo Man', which was also... you look at the generic dog food cans and the vending machines in the middle of the desert, and that's what real 'Repo Man' [is]. We made all the stuff, we spent a long time making all the stuff. And then once we had done it, it was actually much larger than Black Parade. Like, I would say almost 20 times more art was created for this than Black Parade.
FRANK: It's actually 22 percent.
GERARD: Twenty-two percent more, and it was like everything down to the stickers on the car were made-up companies, but even the fonts on the stickers were - and the colours of the logos and everything was like that. And so, now that we have it, it doesn't feel like a prison like Black Parade did. Like, that was very uncomfortable and it was kind of that was the idea, very... military. This seems like something that I want to live in for the next two years and keep playing with.
FRANK: That's one of the greatest things here is that when you can live in this world, it can change and, well, it's like we were talking - [Lou] Reed how, [with the album] 'Transformer'. And then all of a sudden, you'd go see him on that tour, but it was different already. Like, he was already on to the next sheet. And this, I think this concept is the world [that] really allows us to [reach a higher] place and go find that within this world.
GERARD: Totally. Yeah. I want to keep doing it. Like, to me, we should still be doing this all the way up to the end of the cycle. I think it's gonna take a minute to get to the bigger shows to do that.
PART IV
'Danger Days' live, quality control, and old friend Rob Cavallo...
GERARD WAY: One of the cool things right now is we've been away so long that it's really, I think, the first group of shows will be about reconnecting with the audience and less about costuming and things like that - and I think that's great. 'Cause the songs, when we've been rehearsing them in a live sense, they sound way more aggressive than anything else we played. It actually sounds like Rob Cavallo had described, like this is [a] party, that's what it sounds like. And so that's what I would expect live. And then later on, we could think about - we have plenty of time - we could think about how we can make this fun, a fun live experience. I mean, we're talking about bringing the car out on the road and just having it [in] whatever city we're playing, having it drive[n] around all day, and just do fun stuff like that. It was awesome.
FRANK IERO: Yeah. It was like we're committing with an old friend, you know?
MIKEY WAY: And it felt like when we had... [with Rob Cavallo] it was kind of like a homecoming, and it felt really great.
GERARD: He's a friend and he's an artist. And that was really important, and he's like a fifth member. It felt like he, it felt like we're all kind of like in this pit of fire, reaching our hands out, and he kind of helped us all get out of it. It really did feel that way. And he believes in the band so much. We had really amazing conversation when we got there. It was a very emotional conversation, where he had told us how he had felt like the situation we were in was a shame because he believed we're one of the greatest rock bands in the world. And he couldn't believe that it gotten to this point where we were in stasis creatively, and it made him upset. And he, I think just seeing somebody be so honest about how much they love your band on an artistic level, was enough to make us redo this entire album.
RAY TORO: He's like a partner. And he's ready to go put himself through that journey too, with you. And it's hard on everybody, but we're all there for each other, getting through it.
GERARD: His quality control too, is just as severe as ours, which is awesome, which makes him a great match. He's always pushing us. Even up to the end, I think the last couple of days of tracking was me going back and re-tracking lyrics that he had felt were up to par with the rest of the album. And out of the whole process, luckily, it only happened like on two lines, but it was the hardest two lines to write because of that. I think, well, I think what we realize is, albums and the ambition of the band is much different than its ambition [in] life. I think they're two separate things entirely. And I think writing great songs first, then you can translate them however you want in life. Yeah, I mean, we're just talking about this in the break, like when you listen to that first attempt, it literally does sound like a band - and just strip everything away. I know lyrically, I just stripped everything away. I don't even know what to sing about anymore and 'cause there was nothing left. And that's kind of what it sounds like. And we love a lot of the songs, they're really special to us, but that's all you hear is so much nakedness that there's nothing to the band at that point.
PART V
Creative sparks, experimenting, and Rich Costey...
GERARD WAY: You know, we have finished something like 20-something songs. And they were almost, like more than half of them were mixed. I think it was during the mixing process with Rich Costey. We were sitting there and...
FRANK IERO: Experimenting.
GERARD: Yeah. We still are experimenting. It was nuts, 'cause we couldn't get it, the sound, how we wanted to, you know? And then I think one day, Rich brought over a...
MIKEY WAY: And we started just picking stuff up and just trying things that we've never tried before. And then we started to - it's like the spark started happening and we started to see this other thing, and that was kind of where it started the whole, like, I guess the idea of what it will become.
RAY TORO: You know, it's funny, too, to his credit, too, remember the first time he came to the practice studio... He said: you guys got to get yourself some pedals. It's got to get some different... like new things you never tried before. And...
GERARD: He was dead right.
RAY: ...the spark of creativity is dead right.
GERARD: Rich set a lot of truth in that very first, he was the first person we met up with, and it's like...
RAY: Yeah, to produce...
GERARD WAY: He'd asked really hard questions, kind of like: where are you rebelling against, what's going on here? And everything he said was actually completely accurate. He wanted us to just do crazy things and try new stuff. And we wanted to strip away experimentation. So, then, the mixing process was really difficult. And I think that's when maybe on a subconscious level, it started to creep into our bones that, like: oh, God, maybe this isn't right. And then we got a little bit of a break. We're gearing up to release this thing, taking photos and everything...
PART VI
Desert visions, new songs, and no rules...
GERARD WAY: I had gone in the desert with Lindsey [Ann Way nee Ballato], because we've been working so much we didn't even get to take our anniversary. So we had, like, two days in the desert is all we could do. And then, and it's like [an] epiphany, you know? And I always knew I wanted the record to be set in the desert and I have this kind of - like this fucking vision. I heard the song in my head, it was like a chant, it was "Na Na Na", it was the dumbest thing in the world. And, but I saw laser guns and I saw muscle cars and dirt and masks, and Draculoids and everything. And then, we went and just met up with Rob as a friend and talk[ed] about the situation we were in. And I kind of have this, I have this thing in my back pocket, 'cause I kind of... I kept mentioning it. I was like: I wrote a song. I think it's really amazing - but I didn't talk about it too much. And then I think when I felt safe and I felt that everybody in the band felt safe for the first time to be free with Rob, that's when I was like: let's just go do this really quick. And so, we did it and it was so obvious. We heard Na Na and we're like, to me it was like: all right, we have a track one now. Now, we have to start over. And it took a minute. We were four songs in before I think we all were fully like, that's, even I was afraid of doing that. It took... I think we then did 'Vampire Money' and then I think we did 'Planetary [Go!]'... all very different songs. So...
FRANK IERO: Yeah. But that was the thing. I mean, once we met with Rob, you had that idea, and it was like: all right, well, what is this? Do we, is it a new record? Is this [the] start, like step one, again...[?]
GERARD: Right.
FRANK: ...or are we just inspired to write a couple of songs? And we just kept saying: all right, well, if the inspiration is there, why would you shut it off? Like, even if it's not on the record, whatever, if we have an idea and it can be great, you have to chase it.
GERARD: And these crazy things started to happen, where you'd get one song, and then the next day you were so inspired, you'd have another. And then by the end of the evening, you're working on another. And that's really what happened on this record. Now, it was hard, but the band was truly alive and we took, there was no rules. 'Cause that last attempt had so many rules on it that the rules were gone. And that, to me, felt like: wait, we're really making a rock and roll album now 'cause there's no rules. Before, it [was] like, rock album[s] don't have rules. And that's what that last recording was. But it was just crazy momentum. It just kept going. And we didn't have like an agreement right, for a while. Like Rob and us, we were just recording... but we didn't know what we were doing.
FRANK: We don't know what it was.
GERARD: Yeah. We didn't, we weren't calling it an album yet. He didn't know, he had other stuff on the books for him to go work on, but we just kept doing it 'cause it was so exciting.
[SOURCE (FOR ALL PARTS)]