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.
Monday, 5 December 2011
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.
I'm Not Okay (I Promise)
The day after Gerard’s official sobriety day, on July 12 2004, My Chemical Romance started shooting the music video for I’m Not Okay (I Promise). There was already a music video for this song produced by Rafaela Monfradini and Greg Kaplan, but it was merely a montage of the band’s life on tour. Marc Webb (director of 500 Days Of Summer and The Amazing Spiderman) directed the second version. He decided to make it as if it were a teen movie trailer instead of a music video. They filmed in Alexander Hamilton High School and Loyola High School in Los Angeles. Alexander Hamilton has been used as a filming location for some episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Donnie Darko was filmed at Loyola High.
The concept of the video was that the band was the outcasts in high school that everybody picked on, and one day they decide to get revenge and go after the jocks with croquet mallets. They did scenes were all the “characters” were recapped like many trailers do before the credits. Mikey hijacks the intercom with an old-school tape deck, Frank jumps out of a locker to scare a girl, Ray eats a crayon to impress a girl, and Gerard is tackled while playing croquet, amongst other things. Brian had to get dressed up as the school mascot and get tackled by the band as part of their revenge. There is also a scene in which people are dancing in the library, which is homage to The Fisher King, (Robin Williams and Amanda Plummer meet during a huge waltz in the middle of Grand Central Terminal).
These scenes were intercut with shots of the band rehearsing in a garage. Because Bob had only just joined the band, he is not included in any of the scenes in high school, and is only seen when he is playing the drums in the garage. The video begins with a rating (“R for Revenge”) and fake production company animation of the Demolition Lovers. At the end of the video, credits are shown movie trailer-style. Bob is not included in these either, and Frank’s surname is misspelt as “Lero”.
The Drummer Situation
As well as Gerard’s drinking problem, My Chemical Romance was also having problems with their drummer, Matt “Otter” Pelissier. They didn’t feel comfortable with him on stage as his drumming was inconsistent, and they didn’t like not being able to play song the same way every night. Ray had asked him to play with a click-track, but he refused because it “takes away the whole live feeling”. Also, they hadn’t been getting along with him for some time – some sources suggest they were having problems while they were recording. The band wasn’t having fun with him or performing the was they wanted to, so Ray and Brian went to his house right after they got back from Japan to break the news to him.
Otter commented on the situation by saying, “It’s like your whole world comes down, after I gave everything I ever did, everything I ever owned to make sure that band would survive, and that’s the thanks I get.” Immediately after being kicked out by Ray and Brian, Otter posted on the band’s message boards, writing “They told me I’m out of the band because they are uncomfortable with me onstage and they're afraid I’ll mess up. I’ve had a few whoppers on occasion – I’ll never deny I’m human, but we all make mistakes… Do I think I’ve been shafted? Yeah. What happened to the five brothers that loved each other more than anything else on Earth? I gave up everything for each one of them.”
Immediately after Ray and Brian broke the news to Otter, Frank called him to say something along the lines of “I wanted to be there, but I understand why Ray wanted to talk to you alone. I hope that we can be mature about this after everything blows over. I hope you keep playing music, but I’m sorry it had to go down this way. Call me if you ever want to.” A few days later, Otter rang Frank at 3 o'clock in the morning because he couldn’t get into the band’s trailer to get his stuff out. Frank said that he would arrange to get the stuff out. Later, Frank went to the band’s practice space, only to find that Matt and a friend had locked him out and left nasty notes everywhere, so Frank had to break in. He called Otter afterwards and told him to call back when he had grown up.
My Chemical Romance did not make a formal statement regarding the situation with Otter because they didn’t want to get into a pissing match with him. Matt Pelissier is now a mechanic.
Around this time, My Chemical Romance was preparing to start shooting a music video for I’m Not Okay (I Promise). They needed a drummer urgently, and so decided to call in Bob Bryar.
Bob was born on December 31, 1979, in Chicago. He started playing drums when he was 3, and was the kind of kid who liked to take apart radios and other machines and try and put them back together. He is a jazz-trained drummer, and was in marching band and concert band in school. When he was at school in Florida he worked at Disneyland for extra money. He played on the Little Mermaid theme show and the Aladdin stage show, but quit after he was yelled at about his sideburns.
He worked his way into the music industry by getting involved at music stores and record shops. He started doing some drum tech work, then moved on to doing sound for The Used and Thrice. He discovered My Chemical Romance after they went on tour with The Used, and did sound for them on their Europe tour for free because he loved them so much. Once, after My Chem had finished playing a show with Finch and The Used in February 2003, Bob walked backstage and casually mentioned to Brian “I wish I could do that”. He said “I had been trying to play drums for so long and I couldn’t find anyone to be in a band with that cared about playing music and touring and was willing to devote their whole life to it”.
The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You
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.
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
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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:
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
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