Name: My Chemical Romance
aka: My Chem, MCR, The Black Parade
Formed: 2001, New Jersey

Members: Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Ray Toro, Frank Iero
Additional Members: James Dewees (touring keyboardist), Matt Cortez (stand-in for Mikey/Frank).

My Chemical Romance were formed in 2001 by Gerard Way and ex-drummer Matt Pelissier around a week after September 11, 2001. After witnessing the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, Gerard wrote the song “Skylines and Turnstiles” to express his feelings and soon contacted Ray Toro to play guitar.

The name ‘My Chemical Romance’ was coined by Mikey Way – whilst working in a Borders bookstore, he saw the book title ‘Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance’, by Irvine Welsh and decided it would be a good name for a band. Gerard, who at that time was heavily dependent on alcohol and antidepressants, loved the name and so Mikey joined the band as bass player, in return for giving them their name.

MCR were signed to Eyeball Records soon after creating their first demo, which included the songs “Our Lady of Sorrows” (then known as “Bring More Knives”) and “Cubicles”. They shared the same practise/recording space with other local bands, including Thursday and Pencey Prep. Three months after they formed, MCR recorded their debut album, “I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love”. Days before starting to record, Pencey Prep broke up and lead vocalist Frank Iero joined MCR on rhythm guitar. Frank’s contributions to the first album can be heard on only two tracks, one being “Early Sunsets Over Monroeville”.

Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge

In 2003, MCR signed to Reprise Records, and began working on their second album, “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge”. It was released in 2004 and went platinum within the year. Four tracks were released as singles: “Thank You For The Venom”, “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)”, “Helena” and “The Ghost of You”. The band received across-the-board praise for “Three Cheers”, but received criticism from fans who thought the band were changing from their underground sound and image to a more conventional look. Drummer Matt Pelissier was also replaced by sound engineer Bob Bryar during a trip to Japan in August 2004.

MCR started 2005 by becoming the opening act on Green Day’s “American Idiot” tour. During the summer they were seen on the first ever “Taste of Chaos” tour, and later in the year co-headlined and headlined their own tour, with support from Alkaline Trio and Reggie and the Full Effect. During the “Warped Tour”, MCR became friends with The Used, and ended up collaborating on the David Bowie/Queen track “Under Pressure”, which was released as a benfit single.

On March 21, 2006, a CD/DVD set entitled “Life on the Murder Scene” was released. The DVD chronicled the band’s history, along with featuring life videos, music videos and the MTV making of their videos.

The Black Parade

During 2006, the band recorded their thirs studio album “The Black Parade”. It was originally thought to be titled ‘The Rise and Fall of My Chemical Romance’, but in an interview with Kerrang! magazine Gerard Way suggested this was just the album’s working title, stating “It was never the title of the album, more a spoof, or joke.” The band released four singles from this album: “Welcome to the Black Parade”, “Famous Last Words”, “I Don’t Love You” and “Teenagers”. It was thought that “Mama” was going to be the 5th single, but a video was never made and it was never released, despite the band mentioning several times about it being made a single.

First single “Welcome to the Black Parade” gave MCR their first number one in the UK on October 15, 2006. The album was released on October 21, and The Black Parade World Tour began on February 22, 2007 with Rise Against, Thursday and Muse as their support acts.

As a result of the new album, MCR received mixed accolades – In Kerrang! magazine, MCR won awards in the following categories: Best Band, Worst Band, Best Album (The Black Parade), Worst Album (The Black Parade), Best Track (“Welcome to the Black Parade”), Best Video (“Welcome to the Black Parade”), Best Live Show, Best Thing about 2006, Worst Thing about 2006, Hero of 2006 (Gerard Way), Villain of 2006 (Gerard Way), and Sexiest Male (Gerard Way). Strangely, Gerard Way also finished third in the Sexiest Female category. Also, in issue 1139, Kerrang! rated The Black Parade as the 4th Greatest Album of 2006. In Rolling Stone magazine’s ranking of the top 50 albums of 2006, The Black Parade was voted the 20th best album of the year. My Chemical Romance won the award for “Best International Band” at the 2007 NME Awards. Gerard also won the “Hero of the Year” award.

In April of 2007, Mikey Way temporarily left the band in order to spend time with his new wife, Alicia Simmons-Way. He was replaced by guitar tech Matt Cortez, and Mikey returned on October 4, 2007. In the summer of ’07, MCR co-headlined alongside Linkin Park in the Projekt Revolution tour, which also featured Placebo, Mindless Self Indulgence and Taking Back Sunday. On the last night of this tour, Gerard got married to MSI bassist Lyn-Z backstage. During their tour of the UK in November 2007, only Ray, Gerard and Mikey appeared, as Bob Bryar was suffering with wrist problems and Frank Iero returned home due to the death of his grandmother. A Live CD/DVD was released on July 1, “The Black Parade Is Dead!”, which marked the end of The Black Parade, meaning that MCR would no longer be playing the third album in its entirety and in the Parade “uniform”. The band then took a break for most of 2008, though most had side projects – Gerard brought out two series of Eisner Award-winning comic book “The Umbrella Academy”, Mikey worked on a special Halloween comic for DC whilst Frank toured on his side project, Leathermouth. Gerard’s wife Lyn-Z also gave birth to daughter Bandit Lee Way on May 27, 2009, the first of the MCR Babies.

Fourth Album

In an interview with NME magazine, Gerard said the band’s next record would be a rock album saying “I think (the next album) will definitely be stripped down. I think the band misses being a rock band.” On May 27, 2009, their web designer Jeff Watson announced that the band were headed to the studio to record their fourth full-length album with producer Brendan O’Brien, who has worked with AC/DC, Mastodon, and Pearl Jam.

On July 31 and August 1, My Chemical Romance played two secret shows at The Roxy Theater in Los Angeles, their first since Madison Square Garden in May 2008. The band also premiered several new songs said to be from the fourth album, one reportedly titled “Death Before Disco”, a song front-man Gerard Way has noted he is particularly excited about.

On August 13, 2009, My Chemical Romance were announced to be co-headlining Australian music festival Soundwave 2010. Though, due to throat injuries sustained while recording their upcoming album, Way, on medical advice, had no choice but to cancel their participation to ensure his voice could heal properly. This was confirmed on the February 4, 2010 through their official website/blog.

On March 3, 2010, Iero announced on their official website that Bob Bryar had left the band. He wrote:

“As of 4 weeks ago, My Chemical Romance and Bob Bryar parted ways. This was a painful decision for all of us to make and was not taken lightly. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors and expect you all to do the same.”