My Chemical Romance Interview - Alternativ News - Paris - 2011

In the “Na Na NA” video, we can see a skeleton with a Black Parade jacket, was it to say that this part of MCR is over for good? Oh, um, kinda. I think it was a… we threw a lot a different easter eggs so to speak. In the video. There’s a lot of different things: like there’s a sign and the café that’s says « Wake up time to dine » which is from Blade Runner: « Wake up time to dine ». The Black Parade jacket, it’s like if you catch it and you know what it is, then you’re in the known it’s kinda cool if not then it kinda breezes by, kinda thing, so… You still play songs from The Black Parade live, have you managed to separate those songs from the concept of the album, and to play those one just like they are punk-rock songs ? You’re meaning like it’s kinda weird to play them outta context kinda thing? I don’t think so, I mean I think that the beauty of some of the songs is that, from songs to songs, if you put them together in the correct order then it tells the story of the Black Parade but if you take those songs out, they’re still « stand alone songs », you know. I think, as much as they tell a story together, apart them tell different stories, you know. It’s one of the things, I think, I find so fascinating sometimes about Gerard’s lyrics is that, you know, it takes different meaning when you play them different ways so… You said that The Black Parade Tour was very tiring, and you felt sick. Gerard and Frank are fathers now, so are you going to tour less because of these changes in your personal lives? Well Definitely smarter I think, we’ll tour smarter Maybe less, you know, maybe less to but also smarter. You know on the Black Parade Tour, we said yes to everything, which is great but I think everything came so back-to-back that we never had really more than a week or two weeks off within that schedule. And um.. you know we were just really « ground down » and I think, you know especially , Frank being a new father and Gerard. You know I think it’s very important for them to spend time with their family, to make sure that those breaks are built-in. I think it’s healthy, ultimately it’s healthy for the whole band so we can get some rest and always make sure we’re playing to the best that we can. But also so they can experience their kids and be part of their lives a little more. You know we were doing runs where we were away for, it felt like five, six months at a clip with maybe having a few days off in and there at home. And you know, with them being fathers, we can’t do that; they gotta see their kids. I’m down for that ! Yeah ! I thought that you were over with concept albums, but danger days seems to be one doesn't it ? Well, it’s this fine line between « conc ept record » and just « high-concept ». I think, the record, it definitely, it’s set in a certain time period and landscape and they are characters involved but when you’re listening to the record from front to back it doesn’t tell a definite story. Doing that it allows us to be creative, and to set up an alternate reality for kids listen to and kinda feel a part of and to experience for themselves but at the same time, not having a definite story doesn’t keep us confine and boxed with the record « This song can’t be on the record ‘cause it’s doesn’t answer the question in the story. » That was the beauty of the record, it that they were no rules. Are the characters from Danger Days closer to you than the ones in The Black Parade ? Are they closer? Yeah, I think so. Yeah I think so. You know it’s based off, you know. The characters are based off who we really are in real life. And I think, the cool thing on this record too is that we kinda… we don’t have to be so heavy and dark all the time ‘cause we’re not really we’re not like that, I mean, we like to have fun, we actually you know, there’s jokes that we tell! But you know we do have a fun time doing this, it’s not all doom and gloom all the time. So I think, bringing the color back and having fun with it, you know especially the tongue in cheek kinda fun is definitely closer to our real personalities. I think to… touring on the Black Parade, I think, we’ve kinda that darkness actually got kinda assimilated a little bit into our personalities. I agree I think that’s another reason why we made it so hard, I think this time, the mood is a lot lighter with the band and we’re in a much more positive spot in our lives. Yeah and that’s the use of colors, you know that’s very reflective of how we feel right now. You covered Desolation Row a few time ago, was it a like bridge, a transition between The Black Parade and Danger Days ? Kinda was, it wasn’t our idea to tell you the truth, I mean… Zack Snyder, the director has an amazing talent. He liked the band and we liked the movie and we liked him and he asked us to do it and it was his idea ‘cause he wanted that song in the movie. And it was really flattering to be involved in a soundtrack like that, I mean, that song is the only newly recorded song in the entire soundtrack which are just classics songs. So um, to be on the same record with Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, I mean, it’s ridiculous! But when we recorded that song, the take that we had on that song, I think that was the bridge between The Black Parade and Danger Days. There is that dirtiness and there is that punk sound. You know, you definitely hear say in « Na Na » and « Vampire Money » you definitely hear that energy that we captured on « Desolation Row », so it definitely was a bridge. What were your influences and your guiding line on this record ? Well, influences were all over the place, I mean, from music that we listened to as kids to even like you know some other bands that we’ve been kinda getting into. But mostly influences really came from films and from books, you know. There’s a lot of « Blade Runner » in there, « Mad Max » And just trying to broaden your horizon as far as writing, creating music, like trying to tear down as many rules as we possibly could. Once we figured out that, you know, there wasn’t a barrier on what we could put on this record, that’s when like the doors kinda blew up- Sometimes you get scared, like « We’re a rock band, or we’re My Chemical Romance, so we can’t do that » why not? Why can’t we *** do that? You know what I mean. We’re My Chemical Romance, we can do that! Like a song like "Na Na Na" ? Yeah, exactly! And that was the bar, you know, we wrote a bunch of songs, recorded a bunch of songs, like twenty to thirty songs. And then we took about a week off and we wrote « Na Na Na ». And once we wrote « Na Na Na » that became the cornerstone of the record, we built everything off of that, that was our foundation. So that’s why I think everything was so batshit crazy because that’s where we started you know. Apparently you have recorded a first album that you threw away before Danger Days. Are these the songs from Mad Gear And Missile Kid's EP ? Yeah, well there is songs that when we first recorded the record  There is songs that just kinda came out, you know, and we started playing with them. We didn’t really know where they fitted within the rounds of the band or within the rounds of the record, but we just knew they were fun to play. So when we re-recorded everything, those songs weren’t even really at the forefront when we were recording things, And once we started to figure out what the concept was going to be the high-concept again, not the concept record!  We were like « Oh ***, what if there’s a band in this world that the Killjoys listen to? » you know. Like « What if we just make up a new band? » then the possibilities were endless ‘cause it’s not us, it’s this other band. And if you look closely in some of the videos, in « Na Na Na » and stuff there is show posters for Mad Gear And The Missile Kid. So we though it’d be really fun if we recorded an EP for that band. Will you realease a deluxe edition, for this album ? It’s in the … Special edition! It's with a gun and the mask and all and the record, it come with an EP, it’s three songs from Mad Gear And The Missile Kid. Will you do a video for each song, or why not a movie ? I don’t know if every songs, you know, it’s cool for on The Black Parade, the first two videos were kinda connected and the rest of them were very different I think. It’s kinda fun right now ‘cause we wanna stay in this model a little bit so I think the first couple of videos will kinda tell a story, have a story arc. And then we’ll go from there. People want more music and want us to make more videos and we love it, it’s so much fun to… you know when you’re writing a song and then listening to it and you start seeing things in your head and visualizing like how you can represent the song, that’s exiting for us, we love to do it. We’ll take that. On you latest shows you played songs from your first record, those are about 10 years ago, do you like them in a different way now, and do you have any songs into your discography that you don't like anymore ? You know, there’s a few songs of the first record I would imagine us probably not play, like « Cubicles » I think and maybe like « Drowning Lessons »… « Drowning Lessons » has a bad yeah, go ahead Every time we try to play this song, « Drowning Lessons » live something will always happened where it would just go horribly wrong like one of us would forget to tune down the strings down to D or we’d miss a whole verse or chorus or something… No matter how many time we’d practice… We’d never did it good. One time there was a fight that broke up and we tried to get back into it, it just didn’t work, it was like « WTF ? » That song will never play… You know, we’ve been playing « Honey this mirror isn’t big enough for the two of us » and « Our Lady Of Sorrows » which is a lot of fun. It definitely bring back memories, you know, it brings you back to when the band first started and we wrote it, you know we wrote those songs in the practice space in an attic, we played them in a basement. It’s fun to tape to that energy because I think that Danger Days is definitely connected to that energy. And it’s nice to you know the show is really cool know now ‘cause it’s really like a retrospective almost, you really get a taste of the My Chemical Romance in every area in a way. Does Frank will record a new album with Leathermouth ?  Oh man, I don’t know. It’s weird like, I did that record in my basement and it was really fun and it wasn’t supposed to be anything and then I liked it so much and other people started to hear it and liked it too, we were like ”*** it, let’s put it out and go on tour” but I messed up and wrote a song called “I’m going to kill the president of the USA” and then the secrets services got involved and they got really mad at me… Not sure why… Yeah I don’t know, they couldn’t take a *** joke I guess ! If we were legally able to do something else I don’t know maybe… Hopefully, it’d be fun. Ray do you guys have any side projects into the music, comics, or whatever ?  No, you know, I write songs here and there but nothing This kid needs to score a movie ! Seriously. That would yeah, I think the whole band would be great at that actually. That’s actually really cool to kinda get out the box of writing songs and just writing to screen and kinda playing off the emotion off the scene. Can you sing something in french for us ? We can botch you something, I'm sure. Merry christmas but I forgot Yeah that was a couple years ago. I don't know. Do you know some words in french ? I know "merci beaucoup" I know "oui" Teach us something. What's good to know ? "Je vous aime" We gonna write these things. That's gonna be good for the show. "Je vous aime"