We Could Take To The Highway

After making Bullets, My Chemical Romance went on tour a lot, as they wanted to primarily be a touring band. Gerard and Mikey’s grandmother bought their first van, which they drove until it broke down and caught fire. They didn’t have very much money, and so had to survive on very little food. They lived on top of each other in their crappy van, didn’t shower, and were constantly sick. Various tour injuries from this era include Ray getting hit in the face with Frank’s guitar, Frank breaking his wrist, and Gerard slipping a couple of disks in his back. Their first tour was with Northstar, and was 2 weeks long. On their second tour, Frank got his scorpion tattoo. He deliberately got it high up on his so that no collar would cover it so that he couldn’t get a real job. He and Mikey also dropped out of college to go on tour. Frank’s parents freaked out when they found out, as they wanted him to have something to fall back on if MCR didn’t work out.

With their growing success, the band needed a manager. Brian Schecter was originally the tour manager for bands like The Used, but after hearing My Chemical Romance he knew that they were the band he would get off the road for. He saw them live at Maxwell’s in New Jersey, 4 days after hearing their demo. When he met them they already had 2 booking agents after them. He courted them for a while before becoming their manager on February 17, 2003.

In the beginning MCR would open for whoever would take them. Despite their later labelling as ‘emo’, they didn’t fit into the genre enough and would have to open for hardcore Christian bands. However, as they gained popularity MCR began to open for bands like Thursday, Murder By Death, Taking Back Sunday, From Autumn To Ashes, Underoath, and Reggie And The Full Effect. Because they were so poor, MCR would ask for food and clothes from the bands they were opening for. Most of the money they earned came from merch sales, because distribution for their record was so bad. They took Shaun Simon from Pencey Prep with them on tour to sell merch, but he was dyslexic and didn’t do a very good job. These early tours were described as being like “eating raw life”.

In March 2003 they went on tour in Europe with The Used, playing in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. They didn’t have enough money to pay for it themselves, so Brian paid for it with his savings. In Madrid there were signs all around saying “Go home Yankee trash” in protest of the war in Iraq. While in Amsterdam, Ray lost his wallet. My Chemical Romance finally played their first headlining show on March 22, 2003, at Stingray’s in Old Bridge, NJ. They also played a couple of Christmas shows with Mindless Self Indulgence in December 2003.

My Chemical Romance got their first “big break” when they were asked to fill in for Coheed And Cambria at a Jimmy Eat World show on August 31, 2002. The band rented a van and drove up to Allentown, Pennsylvania, a venue that filled about 10000-12000 people. They played the show like they would play a small show. The show was their introduction to major league stuff like input lists and monitors and people who load bands’ gear onto the stage.

Gerard was also featured in SPIN magazine in 2003. SPIN was doing a fashion feature about up-and-coming singers in the New York City area. They had a friend working at SPIN who suggested the band, so the magazine flew Gerard out to the West Coast to do the photoshoot by himself, while the rest of the band had to drive out in the van. It was his first shoot alone, so he didn’t really know what to expect, but Terry Richardson, the photographer, made him feel really comfortable. They called him speed stick (a brand of deodorant) because he hadn’t showered in a while and smelt bad. Gerard couldn’t fake singing, so Richardson got him to karaoke Blag Flag, and while he was singing sprayed him with water until he was soaking wet.

Even before all of these big things were happening for MCR, major labels were interested in signing them. The band had gotten calls from major labels when they still in the practice studio, before they had ever played a show. They once played a basement show in Philadelphia for five people, one of whom was a homeless bootlegger. One of the other people at the show was a representative of a major label. Despite this interest, My Chemical Romance were hesitant because they didn’t want to be exploited or manipulated. They waited 9 months before deciding who was right for them and signing to Reprise/Warner Brothers on August 31, 2003. Their A+R guy was Craig Aaronson. In mid-2003 they started writing new material for their 2nd album.

In early July 2003, MCR did a very informative radio interview with WSOU, in which they talk about playing live, Freddy Krueger, and voodoo. You can download it here.

Here are two live shows from this era:

The Knitting Factory show from June 26, 2003

The Orangevale, CA show from October 8, 2003

Just Like Up On The Screen

Vampires Will Never Hurt You

Click the album cover to download the video from iTunes

Vampires is the first My Chemical Romance music video ever made. It was made on July 18, 2002, and was premiered at record release show for Bullets, but was only officially released when Bullets was re-released in 2005. It was directed by Marc Debiak. It shows the band wearing suits, playing in a dimly lit room, interspersed with clips of two vampires. In this video, Frank has dreadlocks.

Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For The Two Of Us

Click the album cover to download the video from iTunes

Honey is the second My Chemical Romance music video off Bullets, and was made on August 2, 2003. The single for Honey was released on December 15, 2003, and the video was available online, but it only became widely available when Bullets was re-released. The video is a short film about an Asian man holding auditions to find a girlfriend interspersed with clips of the band playing. At the end of the video, the man is tortured with needles by his chosen girl. Marc Debiak and Grey Sky Films directed the parts of the band playing, and John Armson directed the short film about the man. In this video, Mikey used too much hairspray and ended up with something like a beehive hairdo.

I now leave you with these lovely gifs as incentive to watch the above videos.

...You Brought Me Your Love

Click on the album cover to download Bullets from iTunes.

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love is a concept record about two lovers on the run with a trunk full of ammunition. Click the album cover to download the record from iTunes. Here is a song-by-song break down.

Romance:
The album opens with Romance, a classical guitar piece written in the 19th century by an unknown composer. It is written in the style of Parlour music that was popular in Spain and South America during this period. It has been described as sounding like it “belongs in a Mariachi vampire movie”.

Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For The Two Of Us:
This song deals with drug use, as seen in lyrics like “The amount of pills I’ve taken Counteracts the booze I’m drinking”. It is one of only 3 songs Frank played on when they were recording. A music video directed by Marc Debiak and Grey Sky Films was filmed, and was first shown at the record release party for Bullets.

Vampires Will Never Hurt You:
If you think this song is about real vampires, you need to wise up dude. The vampires in this song are a metaphor for things like drug and alcohol addiction, and “being involved with really crappy people that have nothing better to do than drink with you and drag you down with them.” It is one of the most important songs on the album as it locked in their darkness.

Drowning Lessons:
Drowning Lessons is cursed. My Chem have played it about three times live, and every time something went wrong.

Our Lady Of Sorrows:
This song is a fast, violent song - 8 f-bombs in 2:09. It has some of Gerard’s favourite lyrics he has ever written, including “Oh how wrong we were to think Immortality meant never dying.”

Headfirst For Halos:
Headfirst For Halos is about depression and suicide, as seen in “And I think I’ll blow my brains against the ceiling”.  The lyrics, "Now the red ones make me fly, and the blue ones help me fall" refer to amphetamine and barbiturate pills (uppers and downers or “Reds and Blues” in drug slang). It started out as a joke, but the band said “If we can pull this song off and accomplish this and do it believably… we won’t ever be pigeon-holed.” When played live, Gerard often prefaced this song with an anti-suicide message.

Skylines And Turnstiles:
Skylines And Turnstiles is Gerard’s reaction to 9/11, and was written immediately after the event. Lyrics like “This broken city sky,” and “After seeing what we saw Can we still reclaim our innocence?” reflect this.

Early Sunsets Over Monroeville:
This song was inspired by the zombie film Dawn of the Dead. It is one of only three songs Frank played on. After Ray had laid down his parts, Frank took the recordings into a van with no heating that was parked outside the studio and wrote his parts. Because of the problems he was having with his tooth, Gerard had to sing Monroeville with half a face. He didn’t think it was the best he could do, but “everybody was so psyched on it.” He made Ray and Otter cry, because they’re a band of wusses. It is a slow song, so "Grab your girl... and then shoot her in the head!"

This Is The Best Day Ever:
This Is The Best Day Ever is about Gerard’s visits to hospitals throughout the recording process to get his tooth fixed. It was only finished on the last morning of recording.

Cubicles:
Cubicles is about unrequited office romance (“Water cooler romance”). It also deals with loneliness, as seen in lyrics like “I can’t help but think I’ll die alone.”

Demolition Lovers:
Demolition Lovers captures the whole theme of the album, and is the only song in which the storyline of two lovers on the run can clearly be seen. It is the last of the three songs Frank played on. In the liner notes, Gerard thanks “K”, and says “I’m sorry I wrote all this stuff about killing you, I hope the last song makes up for it.”

Click the image above to download the album covers and lyrics booklet.

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love was released on July 23, 2002. To celebrate, Eyeball held a record release party at the Loop Lounge.

I Brought You My Bullets...

Two days after Frank joined My Chemical Romance, the band went into the studio to record their first album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. They had only been together for about 3 months, and they had only written the songs on the album. Bullets was made to capture a moment in time, the genesis of the band. MCR drove to Nada in upstate New York to record in John Naclerio’s studio, which was in a nice house on a dead end street that didn’t seem to fit in with its surroundings. Naclerio had built the studio himself in his mother’s basement, and they often had to stop recording because she was vacuuming upstairs. Geoff Rickly, the lead singer of Thursday, produced the album. It was recorded and mixed in 10 days, from 15 May 2002 to 25 May. Text around the edge of the disc reads, "Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws and will result in Gerard coming to your house and sucking your blood."

Gerard was extremely nervous about recording his vocals, as the vocals on the demos they had made had come out sounding terrible and nothing like what he sounded like live. He was over-thinking what he wanted to do, and an insane storm hit just as he was about to start recording (the wind was so strong they thought Mikey was going to blow away). Alex Saavedra, the owner of Eyeball records, came into the recording room and gave him a hug for good luck, then punched him in the face.

While they were recording, Gerard was having teeth problems. He had a hole in one of his teeth and an abscess in the hole, which was pushing against the nerves in his face and making it look like he had Parkinson’s. He went to several hospitals to fix it (in the liner notes of the album the band thanks Christine and Sarah for getting Gerard to all the hospitals), and they thought it was facial nerve paralysis, but no one could figure out what was really wrong for a long time.  Gerard had to sing most of the album in intense pain because they had an extremely limited budget and not a lot of time.

The album cover features Harry Houdini hanging upside down in a straightjacket. Gerard stated that it is not a digital image, like many people thought, but was in fact made with some watercolour, some borax, some plastic wrap, and a colour photocopier in the Eyeball Records offices. The inside cover read "Merci Pour Le Venin", which means "Thank You For The Venom" in French.

Before the album was released in late July, a summer sampler called Like Phantoms, Forever was handed out. There are only 100 hard copies of it, and all of them are numbered in red ink. The cover is based on the poster of a horror movie called The Tomb Of Ligeia. This EP included a live cover of Morrisey's Jack The Ripper, which you can download by clicking on the album cover below.