The Paramour

The Black Parade started being written while My Chemical Romance was still on tour. When they did Warped ’05, they customised their tour bus by ripping out the back half and building a makeshift recording studio in it. They used Pro Tools, a drum kit hooked up to an Mbox, and guitars connected to Line 6 Pods to write several demos, including basic versions of the songs that would go on to become Disenchanted, I Don’t Love You and This Is How I Disappear. This studio kept Gerard away from the alcohol fuelled parties of Warped and gave them a head start in recording their 3^rd studio album.

Rob Cavallo

This record was produced by Rob Cavallo, who had previously worked on several Green Day albums, including the critically acclaimed American Idiot. Cavallo helped My Chemical Romance bring their theatrics and epic guitar solos to the forefront. He encouraged them to do whatever they wanted, and gave them the tools to do so (e.g. getting Liza Minelli to provide a cameo on Mama). Cavallo also had a huge selection of vintage guitars, enabling the band to find the right sound for the album. One of the guitars used for Disenchanted and Sleep was the same guitar used by Billie Joe Armstrong to record Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life).

The Paramour - not a house of love

On March the 6^th, 2006, My Chemical Romance headed out to The Paramour, a haunted mansion in Silverlake, Los Angeles. The multi-million dollar manor/studio was built for the star of 1920’s silent film The Creature From The Black Lagoon. It reportedly looks like an Asian palace, with views of the city, a huge garden and an outdoor swimming pool. Unfortunately, the actor’s wife died in a car accident, and her body was buried on the property, leading many to believe that The Paramour is haunted. The ghost opens and closes doors and turns taps on. While for many bands, writing and recording in a haunted mansion would add a “cool” factor, for My Chemical Romance the experience nearly killed them.

Revenge Mikey

The band’s time spent in The Paramour was emotionally the darkest point in the band’s career. The atmosphere was very intense and edgy, and the band put a lot of pressure on themselves. While there, Mikey had a breakdown. He had been having problems with severe anxiety ever since the band’s last victory lap of America, which eventually developed into full-blown depression. Mikey started to withdraw from things, limiting his world to playing shows and staying on the bus between concerts. Some of the biggest shows of his career passed straight by him. Mikey became angry at himself, and started to doubt his musical ability and role in the band. He would stay silent and deflect attention away from himself, which sometimes came off as shyness or even arrogance.

By the time the band started work at The Paramour, Mikey was at an emotional low. He started to feel as though he only had two options – to leave the band or to kill himself. He tried drinking and taking pills, but this did not help. His condition was only worsened by the fact that The Paramour had no phone reception, no TV, and no heating. Also, Mikey had ended up sleeping in a creepy room with only one blue light. After suffering through a month of nervous breakdowns and hyperventilating attacks, Mikey left the mansion to stay with Stacey Fass, the band’s attorney. He started getting therapy, and was diagnosed as having a condition “very close to bipolar”. When he wasn’t seeing a therapist, he returned to The Paramour to help the rest of the band write. However, he did not stay the night again.

After Mikey left, the rest of My Chemical Romance became creatively paralysed. Gerard went through a “pre-mid-life crisis” in which he searched for meaning in what he was doing. He stopped showering and changing his clothes, and started having trouble sleeping. He started having waking dreams and night terrors not being able to breathe and things burning. He started keeping notes of these nightmares. One of things he wrote was “We are all just a black parade”, which helped the band shape the direction of the record. Gerard also described his nightmares into a portable tape recorder, and soundbites from these were later used on Sleep.

To help deal with all of these emotional issues, the band decided to designate one room in The Paramour to go and thrash out their feelings and be brutally honest with each other. This place became known as The Heavy Room. They drained their souls in this room, as they kept finding things they didn’t like about themselves. However, they knew that they had to push themselves to the edge to make a really great record, and ultimately the time spent talking over their feelings in this room strengthened the bonds between them. They realised that they had to put aside their personal problems to help each other, and so emerged closer than ever before.

However, My Chemical Romance was still in creative stasis. A breakthrough finally came when Gerard heard Ray playing songs off Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark At The Moon. “It upset the shit out of me. He wants to play our songs, but he’s playing Ozzy. He was playing the songs a lot faster. They sounded angrier and I knew it was coming solely out of frustration”. Gerard went over to him, and the pair started working on a song scrap entitled “The Saddest Music in the World”. Gerard poured all of his anxieties about Mikey and recording into it, and the song became Famous Last Words. The next day, when Mikey came in they played him the song, and he loved it. This revitalized everyone’s spirits, and the band decided to leave The Paramour a few weeks earlier than they had previously planned. They moved into the Oakwood apartments located close to the studio, and kept working.

Late 2005 Touring

Gerard at the Brixton Academy, London, 03/11/05

Once they had finished Vans Warped Tour 2005, My Chemical Romance went on (another!) short European tour from mid-September to early October. While in the UK they played at the Reading/Leeds Festival on the Radio 1/NME Stage and the Main Stage. After this tour, My Chemical Romance went on their first headlining tour of the US with Alkaline Trio and Reggie And The Full Effect. This tour started on September the 6^th and went until October the 21^st. They then played Voodoo Festival on the 29^th and 30^th of October, after which they went on (another!!) UK tour with Every Time I Die. After this, My Chemical Romance went on their Canadian Winter Tour with Thrice and Circa Survive until the middle of December. From the 14^th until the 18^th of December, MCR went to Australia in support of Green Day. They played a few festival dates in March and April 2006, then released their CD/DVD Life On The Murder Scene on March 21^st. You can watch the video diary on Youtube by clicking on the album cover below (but you should also buy it coz legality is cool!). You can download the CD part of LOTMS on iTunes.

The Summer Of Like

After finishing their tour with Green Day, My Chemical Romance went on the Vans Warped Tour in the summer of 2005. It was during this time that the friendship between My Chem and Fall Out Boy (and in particular Mikey Way and Pete Wentz) thrived. They had first met on the 2004 Vans Warped Tour, but it was during Warped ’05 that Mikey and Pete’s bromance started to garner attention. This period is known as the “Summer Of Like”, after the working title of the Fall Out Boy song Bang The Doldrums.

You need this band in your life.

See the t-shirt? Sweet Little Dudes.

Even before Warped ‘05, Pete made a lot of references to My Chem on the Fall Out Boy website’s Q&A section. In one answer he writes, “i think we're gonna have to set up a seperate q and a just for our my chem questions and requests. good thing they are good friends of ours...” Later, Pete mentioned in one answer that he and Mikey were in a gang called The Sweet Little Dudes (which was a phrase Mikey had made up sometime around Bullets, before the pair had ever met). In another answer, Pete stated that the pair were also in a gang called The Fraternal Order Of The Handsome Boy, in which Mikey is known as The Duke Of Handsome.

White denim

On April 16, 2005, Mikey was seen at a Fall Out Boy show in Orlando, Florida. He was wearing a white denim jacket. Pete was later seen wearing a similar/the same jacket during Warped ’05. MCR and FOB also both played Bamboozle (a New Jersey music festival) before Warped. Mikey was seen watching FOB play, and around this time Pete posted a blog post talking about the things that made him “hot and bothered”. On his list were “having a crush on a person I speak to near daily” and “White denim jackets”.

During Warped, Mikey and Pete spent a lot of time together. On June 28, he posted “Amazing new mexico sunset. I'm hanging on a bridge with my friend mikey way from my chem. Its all orange and pink above us. We went to another waterpark again. I love high fives again. Totally back in love. Saw the most amazing movie... I think its called spirited away. Watch it.” He also talked a lot about being in love in other posts from this time. Mikey posted a quick FAQ on his Myspace, where he said “Me and pete wentz aren't dating. We are both heterosexual males....sort of...maybe...umm...next!” Way to deny the rumours, Mikey.

Mikey and Patrick

Mikey was often seen hanging around side stage, watching FOB play their set. Pete would sometimes dedicate songs to him while he was watching. While on Warped, Mikey filled in for Pete on bass a few times so Pete could take his mic and go into the crowd. On March 5, 2006, Mikey played bass for a secret Fall Out Boy show (which was played under the name Saved Latin). There have been several other times when MCR and FOB have filled in for each other. On July 14 2005, Ray filled in for Joe Trohman for the Calgary stop of Warped when Joe flew home after his friend OD-ed. Ray learnt their set in about a night. On July 21 and August 15, Ray and Mikey joined Fall Out Boy onstage for a few songs. Patrick Stump also played drums for Thank You For The Venom once on Warped ’05, and Joe played guitar with MCR once. Also, Patrick lived with Bob when MCR was recording The Black Parade and FOB was recording Infinity On High.

On July 19, Pete made a post on his Fueled By Ramen blog that said, “wrote you a goodbye note (you just wrote me off) on your arm when you passed out. bestfriends, exfriends- better off as lovers not the other way around. racing through the city in the back of yellow checkered cars. the takeoffs are the worst but the skin from your shoulder to your ear makes it all worth it. and im sorry the way my moods flicker on and off like old light on your porch, but i know you wouldn't have it any other way. sneaking in your window instead of out. the way you hold a cigarette cause you don't know what to do with your hands when we are sitting this close. the way the waists of pants feel better at the ankles. the way you always were my best excuse for calling in sick on everyone else. i miss you.” Several lines from this post were later used in Fall Out Boy’s song Bang The Doldrums, leading many fans to speculate whether the song was about Mikey.

As well as (maybe) sharing a white denim jacket, Mikey likes to wear clothes by Clandestine, Pete’s clothing company. There is a picture of Pete wearing Mikey’s famous white-rimmed glasses, and another picture where Pete is wearing a button with Mikey’s face on it. Speaking of buttons, Mikey started wearing a unicorn pin by Pretty Vacant during Warped, leading fans to associate him with unicorns forever after.

Sadly, despite being best friends all summer, Mikey and Pete seem to have mostly fallen out of contact with each other. Mikey was at Pete’s 30th birthday party, but other than that there hasn’t been much more news about the pair after March 2006.

The Ghost Of You

The last music video off Revenge is The Ghost Of You. It was filmed on the 22nd and 23rd of May, 2005 in Malibu, California. This video is again directed by Marc Webb, and looks like a real movie rather than a trailer. As the song is about the fear of losing someone, the band wanted to make a video that touched on this but was at the same time quite unexpected. They felt that as the song had the word “Ghost” in the title, they would be expected to make a creepy, haunted house type video. Instead, they decided to set their music video in a Saving Private Ryan-esque, World War 2 scenario.

The video has two main scenes. During the verses, the band is shown performing with period instruments for a group of about 30 soldiers dancing with their partners. They are also shown at the bar in their dress greens as if they are drunkenly singing along to the jukebox. During the choruses, the soldiers are shown storming a beach that is occupied by the Germans. These sections are more kinetic and fast, and have a handheld camera feel to them. During the breakdown, some shots of Mikey are shown to make the audience feel more connected and attached to him. In the last part of the video, Mikey gets shot and dies before the medic (played by Ray) can save him.

The Ghost Of You was a very expensive music video, costing $500,000 to make. Gerard was very worried about the cost, as he felt he might be gambling their careers away. However, he talked to the band about his concerns, and together they decided that “We didn’t get into it for the money, so let’s make a great video.”

To make the video look like it was set during the 1940’s, Gerard had to chop off all of his hair and get a period haircut. He hadn’t cut his hair since starting the band, apart from trimming and shaping it. When they had finished cutting his hair for the video, it was as short as it had been when they started the band. Bob had to shave off his beard for the video. He was reluctant to do this, as he had had a beard for so long, but when he saw that Gerard was going to cut off all of his hair he agreed to shave his beard. Ray, Mikey and Frank all had to use bobby pins to hold their hair in place, and Mikey had to wear glasses that looked like they were from the 1940’s.

The band almost drowned while they were making this music video. The video was to include a shot of the front of the boat opening to let the soldiers out onto the beach, but they had to shoot the shot in the middle of the ocean to get the angle right. The second time they did it the door scooped up some water which put too much weight on the front of the boat. Too much water seeped in, they couldn’t shut the front, and the boat almost capsized. When commenting on the situation, Frank said “When my balls got wet, that’s when I got scared.” Despite this event, the band had to get back in the boat to keep filming. At first they were extremely hesitant, but when Ray (who can’t swim) got back in, they realised that they had to keep going.

While they were preparing for this music video, My Chemical Romance was on tour with Green Day, who had just finished shooting their video for Wake Me Up When September Ends. When Gerard heard the Green Day video recreated the war in Iraq, he was worried about how My Chem’s new video would be compared to Green Day’s video. However, Billie Joe Armstrong (lead singer of Green Day) showed him their video, and supported My Chem’s decision to make an anti-war statement.

The Ghost Of You was released as a single on August 29, 2005, and the video was premiered on the 6th of September 2005. It was very well received.

Pretty Handsome Awkward

After filming Helena, My Chemical Romance appeared on Total Request Live (TRL) in New York. They decided to do it to say that bands like My Chem could do things like that and make them look cool. It was the first time they had gotten a police escort, which made them feel “Ghostbuster famous”. On the show, Frank jumped up on top of Bob’s drum kit and knocked over the bass drum. Bob had to improvise, and he ended up using his tom as a bass drum. After this, MCR toured Europe with Taking Back Sunday from the 18th of January to the 4th of February. They then went on a short tour of Japan from the 7th to the 9th of February.

In late winter 2005, My Chemical Romance went on the first ever Taste Of Chaos tour with The Used, Avenged Sevenfold, Thrice, Story of the Year, and Underoath. After Taste Of Chaos, My Chem went on another short UK tour with Mini Hand, then went on tour with Green Day from the 15th of April until the 15th of May. The two bands had a lot of fun together on this tour, and they went to movies and waterparks together. Green Day also played several pranks on MCR, such as emptying popcorn on them while they were playing and setting off loud bangs to scare Gerard.

During the Taste Of Chaos tour, the friendship between The Used and My Chemical Romance (and in particular Gerard and Bert) was at its highest. The Used are a rock band from Utah, and Bert McCracken is their extremely classy lead singer.

My Chem and The Used first met through Brian Schechter, MCR’s manager. He had just become really good friends with Gerard, and Bert was like his little brother, so he introduced the pair. They met for the first time in a pizzeria, and quickly became firm friends. The first show they played together was Skatefest in 2002. The Used then took My Chem on tour in February 2003, and they went to Europe together from early March to late April in 2003. The two bands were also together on Warped Tour 2004, during which they became notorious for drinking and partying together, becoming known as the Toxic Twins. Bert also became friendly with Gerard’s mom, and she gave Bert a framed picture of him and Gerard for his birthday.

The Used and MCR became big influences on each other. Bert said “I can’t say enough good things about those guys. They write honest music. They’re my favourite new band, by far. They just kill. Gerard Way has been such a huge support for me in so many strange ways.” In the liner notes for Revenge, Gerard thanks Bert for being his “cellmate”. The Used name-checked MCR in their song Take It Away in the line “And I've lost all doubt In a chemical romance”. In the I’m Not Okay music video, one of the text screens reads “If You’ve Ever Felt Used”, and it lingers on the screen slightly longer than the other lines of text. Bert also claims to have inspired You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison, saying “One night [Gerard and I] were making out for so long it almost wasn’t funny anymore – even though it was. That’s what he wrote the song about, whether he wants admit it or not. We were way wasted.” The Toxic Twins seemed inseparable, wearing each other’s merch, doing interviews together, and appearing in their respective video diaries.

My Chem and The Used also collaborated on a duet for charity. Bert picked Under Pressure (a collaboration between David Bowie and Queen) for the bands to cover, as he is a huge Bowie fan and MCR like both Bowie and Queen. Bert sang Bowie’s part, while Gerard did Freddie Mercury’s part. They recorded the song in Niagra Falls, NY for the MTV2 $2 Bill Show on March the 1st, and released it on April 12 2005. The proceeds from this song went towards relief for the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. It was re-released on The Used’s 2nd album, In Love And Death.

Unfortunately, this whirlwind friendship collapsed very suddenly. In November, Kerrang! published a very short article in which Bert revealed that the pair was no longer talking. He said that while the rest of The Used was still in contact with My Chem, he was no longer on speaking terms with them. In January 2006, Blunt magazine published an interview with MCR in which Gerard said that Bert making up the conflict. In response to this, Bert spoke to an interviewer about what had happened, saying, “What happened was – it was maybe like a year and a half ago I saw all their heads blow up and after their heads blew up their heads kinda went up their arses as well. And I just thought ‘Fuck that, I don’t need friends like that and I don’t even need acquaintances like that.’ As far as the whole thing goes now, I wish them the best with their touring and their record, but it’s over. It’s definitely not a publicity stunt.” MCR did not respond to this.

The Used’s 3rd album, Lies To The Liars, includes a song called Pretty Handsome Awkward is supposedly about Gerard. Quinn Allman (guitar) said, “It’s about someone with short blonde hair, but I’m not sure who it is.” When asked what this person would think about the song, Bert said “I think he will love it… [He’ll] wish he wrote it.”

A recent interview with The Used mentioned that the two bands were friends again and that the whole episode had been exaggerated. My Chemical Romance has not made any comment about the situation since the article in Blunt magazine.

Helena

On the 7th and 8th of January 2005, My Chemical Romance filmed the music video for Helena. It was filmed in the Immanuel Presbyterian Church on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The band had enjoyed working with Marc Webb on I’m Not Okay, so they asked him to direct Helena as well. They also got Michael Rooney to choreograph the dancers. The video is described as being “celebratory but sombre” by Frank.

The video is based around the funeral of a girl who died tragically young. Gerard sings from the pulpit while the rest of the band perform in front of the altar. While he is singing, several performers dance to the music. When the song reaches the bridge, the girl in the coffin (played by Tracey Phillips) comes back to life to do one last dance down the aisle, symbolising her crossing over into the afterlife. When she finishes, she falls back into the casket, and the pallbearers (the band plus a fan called Cameron) carry the casket to the hearse as dancers with black and red umbrellas dance around them.

The band decided to use a younger woman to play Helena so as to make people take the video more seriously, and so people could connect with it on a broader level – “when somebody older dies, you kind of expect it, when somebody younger dies, it’s more tragic”. Gerard has stated that making the video felt a lot like he was reliving his grandmother’s funeral, and he had to leave the room when Tracey did her dance because it made him so emotional.

The crew hadn’t expected it to be raining on the days they were shooting, but Marc used the rain to help set the tone of the video. The sixth pallbearer and most of the mourners were played by fans who had received emails asking them to be in the video. Frank was too short to help carry to casket, and so had to walk underneath pretending to hold it. Gerard and Ray bore the brunt of the weight, as they were at the front.

The music video was released on the 23rd May, 2005. After they had finished shooting the video, the band kept the clothes they wore for it. They liked the way the matching suits made them look like a gang. It wasn’t a calculated movement, just a moment when they decided they liked the way they looked. From then on they played many live shows wearing “uniforms”. After a while they ended up not having any other clothes with them on tour, just their pajamas.

Helena was premiered on the MTV2 $2 Bill Show on March the 1st. It was nominated for five Moonmen at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards. They didn’t win any, but they did a surprise performance at the end of the night. The video won other awards, including the Kerrang! award for Best Video in 2005. As well as this, on April 9, 2005, My Chemical Romance organised a parade in London with a hearse that was inspired by Helena. They played 2 shows on that day to keep up with demand, and had dancers on stage when they played Helena to recreate the music video.

Late 2004 Touring

After Matt left, Bob joined, and Gerard got clean and sober, My Chemical Romance’s shows got a lot better. Although the first few shows were a bit rough, their act gradually got tighter, and they were able to have fun onstage again. Gerard started to realise that he didn’t have to be drunk to be a crazy frontman, and so My Chemical Romance went from a band on the brink of imploding to a band ready to take on the world.

After the Face To Face tour, My Chem went on a short UK tour in mid-September. They then joined the Nintendo Fusion tour with Story of the Year, Lostprophets, Letter Kills, Amberlin, and Autopilot Off. The people running the tour gave the band a Gamecube with Mario Kart and Donkey Konga. After this tour finished in mid-November, My Chem played a whole bunch of radio shows until the end of the year. On November 13, 2004 they played a show sponsored by KROQ-FM in a Best Buy parking lot in Orange, California. Because of the venue’s proximity to residential areas and a hotel, the band wasn’t supposed to swear, but the guy who was supposed to tell them forgot. The police also threatened to pull the plug on the show because the crowd was too amped-up. They also got in trouble for trying to meet with fans outside of their allotted time slot. At the end of the day, My Chem were told they were banned from playing in Orange County ever again. On December 5, 2004, My Chemical Romance played a show as part of the 97x Next Big Thing concert series. Unfortunately, Gerard lost his voice on this day, so Adam Lazzara (Taking Back Sunday) sang in place of him.

My Chemical Romance also contributed a song to Kevin & Bean's Christmastime in the 909, a compilation of bands covering Christmas related songs. On one of the band’s first tours they weren’t able to get home in time for Christmas, which was a wake-up call as to what touring was really like. However, All I Want For Christmas Is You (Mariah Carey) came on the radio, which cheered everyone up. Gerard got so excited about it he started swinging the knife they kept for protection around. When they were asked to contribute a song for Kevin and Bean’s CD, they decided that instead of covering a classic or writing a new song they decided to see what they could do with this ridiculous song. The song was re-released on Gift Wrapped - 20 Songs That Keep On Giving! You can download it from iTunes by clicking on the album cover.