The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You

Before the record release, My Chemical Romance went on tour with bands like Story of the Year, Avenged Sevenfold, and Moments in Grace. After the record release they toured with Taking Back Sunday, then went on Vans Warped Tour. It was during this period that Gerard’s drinking, that had already been a problem, started to get out of control. This was partly due to the atmosphere of Warped, which was like a summer camp where everyone was old enough to get wasted. Gerard would try to be drunk by the time they got on stage, which was sometimes at midday. He would then drink until 4 in the morning, and use pills to get to sleep. Gerard would sometimes spend $150 a month on illegal pills, most of which were Xanax, and he would go through a bottle of vodka every day to day-and-a-half. Eventually he started dabbling in things like cocaine, until he was standing right on the edge of life and death. The rest of the band was doing similar things, but to a far lesser extent. They could see it was a problem, but they didn’t realise how bad it was. They felt it would be hypocritical to tell him to stop, as they (especially Mikey) had been as bad as Gerard at some points.

Another part of the problem was that Gerard was struggling with the band’s sudden rise to fame. He felt that to be the crazy performer he was onstage he had to drink and do drugs because that was the character people wanted him to play. However, he soon lost all separation between himself and that character. He started wearing the clothes he wore onstage all the time. While he did succeed in being the drunken crazy frontman, Gerard’s singing suffered as a result of his consistent drunkenness. Also, he was terrible at kickball, and he lost his pants on stage. Fun times. After a while it started to feel like the band was touring because they had to. Everyone was unhappy and overwhelmed.

On July 20, 2004, Gerard went out to see The Killers in Kansas while My Chemical Romance were on tour with Senses Fail and The Bled. To celebrate, he got hold of an 8-ball of cocaine (3.5 grams) and did so much of it that he was throwing up in the street. When he woke up the next day he felt more suicidal than he ever had in his life. He called Brian who talked him down, then went for a walk with the Warped tour manager until he fell asleep when the drugs were finally out of his system.

Four days later, on July 24, My Chemical Romance played a show in Louisville Kentucky. Gerard was wasted (as usual) and he was given a wireless mic to sing with. He hadn’t ever done a concert with a wireless microphone before, and he treated the show like a joke, just running around all over the place and barely singing. He ended up under the stage with Daryl Palumbo (Head Automatica) and Geoff Rickly (Thursday). This experience taught Gerard to take every show seriously.

After the trainwreck that was Warped ’04, My Chemical Romance regrouped in New Jersey before heading out the Japan for Summersonic. During this break, Gerard drank, sweated, and loaded up on pills and alcohol. Japan was one of the places he had always wanted to go, but now that he was in this situation he wasn’t sure whether he would come back home. He packed the bare minimum of clothes for the trip because he honestly thought he wouldn’t make it. Gerard popped a bar of Xanax for the plane trip and woke up hours later in Japan. Before the shows in Osaka and Tokyo he drank shitloads of sake and ended up playing two of the band’s biggest shows completely wasted. He wanted to make them as memorable as possible, but did so in the worst possible way. As soon as MCR got off stage, Gerard went and sat on a couch in a corner and threw up for 45 minutes into a garbage can. As the rest of the band stood around him trying to figure out what to do, Gerard thought, “This has to be the end… I have to stop drinking. I don’t know how, but this has to be the end”.

When My Chemical Romance got off the plane back in America, Gerard was really upset because he knew what was going to happen to Otter, but at the same time he didn’t even know whether he’d be alive the next day. He went straight to his therapist and checked into Alcoholics Anonymous. He decided against going to rehab and instead went cold turkey by himself. Gerard’s official sobriety day is August 11.

...For Sweet Revenge

Click the album cover to download Revenge from iTunes.

 Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge is "A story of a man, a woman, and the corpses of 1000 evil men". The title for Revenge was thought of right after My Chemical Romance had finished recording Bullets, although they almost called it Thank You For The Venom. Gerard wanted the title to sound like a movie that was unfinished or never made. It is an aggressive album, with songs about “fictitious gunfights, cowboys, electric chairs and getting fucked in jail”. The original concept was a continuation of the story of the Demolition Lovers. The couple get in a gunfight and the man dies. He thinks the woman is dead as well, but when he gets to hell the devil tells him that she’s still alive. The devil tells him that he can get her back if he kills 1000 evil men, so he goes back out into the world with a revolver and a list of people to kill. While writing the album, Gerard wasn’t sure how the story would end, but about a year and a half later he figured out the ending. The guy would have killed 999 evil men then realised that the last guy he had to kill was himself. This concept was a metaphor was a metaphor for what you’re willing to go through either for someone else or to prove yourself.

However, when Elena died in November they realised that real life had a lot more to do with what they wanted to talk about. Behind the elaborate concept, the record became about two little boys that lose their grandma – “All the fucking anger, the beef with God, the angst, the aggression and the fucking venom – every emotion that you go through when you’re grieving – is on… Revenge”.

Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge is also influenced by Gerard’s obsession with getting revenge on those who have wronged him and his friends, which was started by his discovery of Black Flag when he was a teenager. Making the record was about proving people wrong, and becoming vindicated drove the band throughout the recording process. Revenge is also heavily influenced by Preacher (Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon).

Helena

Helena was written in memory of Gerard and Mikey’s grandmother. Her name was Elena, but her friends called her Helen, so Gerard decided to combine the two names to make the song title. Gerard had said that the main influences behind Helena were Aces High by Iron Maiden and tracks by The Ventures. Gerard said of Helena, “I knew it was going to be heavy. I was almost afraid of the song.”

Give ‘Em Hell, Kid

In their live shows, Gerard has often prefaced this song by saying it is about “getting knocked up” or “making babies, having babies...and selling them on the black market!" indicating that the song is about teenage pregnancy.

To The End

To The End seems to be about a marriage falling apart and all the broken promises associated with this, as shown by “Say goodbye To the vows you take”.

You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison

Prison has been said to capture the band’s unique appeal perfectly, as it is “passionate, visceral… [and] weirdly theatrical. It is a cabaret-style song about getting fucked in jail. It first started being written while the band was on tour with Midtown and Senses Fail in 2003. They were sitting on a porch in the rain when Ray started playing the opening chords. Gerard said it immediately made him think of jail. The lyrics in the final version are pretty much the same as the lyrics he free-styled in their first session. The song is also a metaphor for being on tour, because it feels like jail when you have so many guys and their equipment crammed into the one van, and “even the guys in prison… buddy up and stick through it together”. Bert McCracken (The Used) provided backup vocals for this song, and in the liner notes Gerard thanks Bert for being his “cellmate”.

I’m Not Okay (I Promise)

I’m Not Okay is a cry for help set to pop music. It was the last song written for this album, and the most direct song they had written up to that point. It was the first song Gerard had ever written about all the shitty, sleazy stuff that happens while you are in high school, and about the desperation of looking for someone to love you but being alone. The song was originally called I Promise This Is The Last Time.

The Ghost Of You

This song deals with the fear of losing a loved one. The title is an allusion to Watchmen (Alan Moore), in which an ad reads “Oh, how the ghost of you clings". Originally, the band had set the song to end after the third chorus, but Howard Benson pushed the band to repeat the chorus one last time. At first the band hated the idea, but after hearing what it sounded like they decided it worked better than it had originally. Rinat Arinos provided guest vocals for this song.

The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You

The Jetset Life is about drug use and suicide, as shown by the lyrics "Lost in the prescription, she's got something else in mind." A "Jetset Lifestyle" is a hedonistic pursuit involving lots of travel and is often characterized by drug use, which cold refer to the fact that the band is always on the road and they have no time to spend with their family. This song is very rarely played live.

Interlude

This song contains several religious allusions and sounds like a prayer for help and protection.

Thank You For The Venom

Thank You For The Venom was a song title first thought of by Gerard right at the beginning of the band’s career. He had it handwritten on the t-shirt he wore at their first show, and the phrase is written in French in the album sleeve of Bullets. It is a sarcastic statement, like saying, “thanks for ruining my life. The line “I wouldn’t front the scene if you paid me” is direct commentary on how the music scene was being exploited, and how the band weren’t a part of it and didn’t want to be the poster child for it.

Hang ‘Em High

This song is about “cowboys, and cowgirls, and guns up!” The beginning of the song before the vocals kick in has a very Western feel to it, and lyrics like “Wait until it fades to black, Ride into the sunset” also call to mind a stereotypical Western movie. Lyrics like “Don’t stop if I fall, And don’t look back” seem to suggest two partners (the Demolition Lovers) fighting in a gun battle and one telling the other to keep fighting even if he dies. Keith Morris (the Circle Jerks, Black Flag) supplied guest vocals for this song. He contacted the band and told them what a huge fan he was, so they invited him up to sing on this track. Frank told him how they wanted him to sing, then sat around talking with him for ages afterward.

It’s Not A Fashion Statement, It’s A Fucking Deathwish

This song was one of the first songs written for the album, and was played live several times in 2003 before they started recording. It is commonly censored to just It’s Not A Fashion Statement, It’s A Deathwish.

Cemetery Drive

A common interpretation of this song is that it is about adultery. It also touches on suicide, as seen in “They found you on the bathroom floor”. Also, in the background of the second verse Gerard can be heard singing, “Don’t do it” repeatedly, which then changes to ''Are you there at all? Do you care at all? Are you there at all?'' when it gets to the bridge.

I Never Told You What I Do For A Living

This song seems to tie in with the album’s original concept very heavily. Lyrics like “Another knife in my hands, A stain that never comes off the sheets” seem to refer to the man and all of the people he has killed. The last two lines (“They gave us two shots to the back of the head And we're all dead now”) indicate the Demolition Lovers suffered a tragic end.

Click the image to download the song

B-Sides

Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge has three b-sides. The first is Sister To Sleep. The title is a reference to The Sandman (Neil Gaiman), in which the sister of Sleep is Death. Right after the band had started writing the song they were offered a place on the soundtrack of Freddy Vs. Jason, a crossover film between the A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises. They finished the song and made it about Freddy Krueger because he attacks people in their dreams. Unfortunately, they ultimately did not make the soundtrack, so the song became about someone in an institute for insomnia who is trying not to fall asleep because they know that if they do they will die.

Click to download LOTMS b-sides

The second b-side is Bury Me In Black. A demo of this was released on the Australian and UK versions of the I’m Not Okay (I Promise) single. The lyrics talk about alcohol consumption a lot (“we'll drown ourselves in misery tonight” and “These eyes have had too much to drink again tonight”), and contain a lot of anger (“I wanna see what your insides look like, I bet you're not fucking pretty on the inside”).

The last b-side is Desert Song, which was released in 2006 on Life On The Murder Scene. It was written around the time the band was recording Revenge, but they never had time to finish it until later. This song does not feature any drums, just guitars and vocals.

Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge cost $200,000, a relatively small amount compared to many other major label productions. It was released on June 8, 2004, and sold more than 11,000 copies in the first week, which was more than what Bullets had sold in almost 2 years.

Three Cheers...

As soon as the band had finished recording Bullets, Gerard decided that the title of their second record would be Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. Because they had recently signed to a major label, the recording process was very different, as they actually had money, good equipment, and a lot of time. Revenge was written and recorded over a four-month period from October 2003 – January 2004. The record was mostly written in New Jersey during the second half of 2003. While they were writing Frank and Mikey lived together.

In November 2003, Gerard and Mikey’s grandmother Elena died. The band had almost finished writing, but this tragic event changed the whole direction of the record. Mikey and Gerard had just come off tour and hadn’t had a chance to visit her yet. They hadn’t even known she was sick – they thought she was just having some routine surgery. After that, the only thing that made them feel good was getting back into music. The album, which had previously been a concept album, started to relate to real life a lot more. After Elena’s death, Gerard started taking Xanax. It was around this time that taking drugs and alcohol started to become a problem that flourished when they went to LA.

They had a preproduction period before going to record at Bay 7 Studios, Valley Village / Sparky Dark Studio, Calabasas, California. They went to there instead of recording in Jersey again because they wanted California to ruin them, to feel like outcasts. In LA they were surrounded by people trying to pick up the pieces of their musical careers, and they really wanted to be in that element. When they weren’t in the studio, everyone except Ray would go partying. Frank would take pills on Friday night and wake up on Monday with no memory of the weekend. They would all vanish for days when they weren’t working on the album. Gerard took cocaine once and couldn’t sing the next day. He felt really guilty about it, so he talked to Ray about it, and never did anything like it again while they were recording. Apart from this instance, Ray didn’t have any idea that kind of thing was happening.

Howard Benson

Howard Benson produced Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.  He had previously produced four Motörhead records and is well known for his track pants. He was like a coach to the band, and used a lot of basketball references to get his points across. He taught them the golden rules of song structure, putting an end to their tendency to have long songs without a real chorus. Benson made them write parts that fit with the song instead of just writing randomly. He gave them a bit of self-doubt, which made them a better band.

Benson made Gerard’s vocals the main focus of the band. He hadn’t been impressed with their demos, but could see that Gerard had the potential to become a star singer. Benson encouraged Gerard to access his emotions while singing and to take on different identities for each song. Most of the vocals were sung in an attic away from everyone else. This was hard for Gerard at first, as he was used to performing to people. However, the isolation allowed him to really focus on what he was singing. Halfway through tracking he finally figured out how to be a studio singer. This breakthrough led him to scrap all the vocals that had been recorded and do them again. Benson encouraged him to get really weird in the studio, so Gerard would go crazy while singing, hitting things and taking off his clothes when it got too hot. To inspire him, Gerard had A Clockwork Orange and porn running while he was singing.

Near the end of recording, Gerard ran off to “find himself in the hills of Hollywood”, leaving behind an enigmatic note that said something about him being the next Jim Morrison and life being a bag of shit. Frank posted a voice message on the band’s website appealing to anyone that had seen him to contact them. Fans were very concerned, and a few suggested he had committed suicide. After a few days, Gerard showed up again. He had had 2 more songs and the album artwork to finish, and so had decided to get a room and some liquor and just focus on the work. The concern shown by fans made him feel very loved, but at the same time guilty for being so irresponsible and scaring people.

You can download the Revenge era voice messages here. This collection also includes messages from after the band had finished recording and were on tour.

Here are some videos of songs while the band was in pre-production/recording:

To The End

Deathwish

Prison

The Ghost Of You

I'm Not Okay

A random cover (sounds like AC/DC?)

Eating Twizzlers

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.