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tothetune2010-12-16 01:14 pm
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My Chemical Romance – Interview with Mikey Way
So I have to ask you, before the big explosion happened with the new album trailer, you guys hyped fans up with secret twitter accounts with different character names. Who was who, who thought of the idea, and were you guys entertained by all the theories the fans were coming up with?
It’s such a multi-layered album and project that it was tricky to think about how to present it and how people are going to see it for the first time. We wanted it to start very subtle; we did a couple of things where it pulled the carpet out from underneath people. It was all in fun and fans were really excited and we wanted to go about it in a way that we had never gone about it before. We really wanted to use every bit of different mediums to our advantage. This is really just a fantastic pop art project for all of us. Just from the very beginning, everything has to be done with very high standard of quality.
You guys all have different names. You are Kobra Kid, then there is Jet Star and Party Poison, Fun Ghoul etc. How did you guys come up with these alter egos?
When Gerard was doing the artwork for the record he would asks us these questions like “what’s your favorite color, or what’s your favorite animal?” He would ask us certain things and then he would formulate the theme for our characters and guns. The names started as names for the guns and then they became the name of the characters in the videos.
Are there going to be videos for every song since you guys are depicting a storyline through the videos? Also, this time you guys are more cinematic this time it seems, than ever.
I think movies influence us as much as music does, when we record an album we always have the TV on with some movie on. We always talk about movies, watch movies, trade movies with each other and it was a great to go for this in a way that we always had imagined. In our older videos, some of them were done in a very cinematic feel and we figured that this time we wanted to go for something that we had always wanted to do, which is make something sweeping and cinematic.
This time your journey is a bit different as you guys don’t have a permanent drummer. From here on out will it just be the four of you or do you see another official drummer joining you guys in the near future?
You know, for the time being and the foreseeable future, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE is going to be just the four guys. I mean we play with a lot of friends live and we don’t like to mark things down with labels and give people titles. We just like playing with friends. I mean, James Dewees has been hanging out with us for four years now, playing keyboard and Mike Pedicone has just hopped on to play drums, so we just like to have some fun. We will just keep things the way they have been.
The NME article that just came out recently has caused a bit of stir with fans and even seemed to have irritated you guys, what is your take on the whole article?
I read it, and there were a lot of things that disappointed me about it. I don’t know, its a hard question to answer because it is still going on right now.
Of all the albums you guys have released this is completely different in a sense that it is so comic book and in technicolor, were you guys worried that maybe older fans who are used to your dark aesthetics wouldn’t be as open minded to the change?
Yeah, we really wanted to show a different side of the band, but at the same time, that side has always been there. We may have been this really dark looking, sinister band onstage, but offstage that wasn’t necessarily who we always were. We like a lot of different things, I mean we like to wear colors, but you know, everyone in the band has a great sense of humor, and we all are really light-hearted. It wasn’t necessarily always shining through in our music, you know? We all really wanted to do something vastly different. We wanted an evolution and we wanted to make something very different, and we wanted to touch ground that we had never touched before. You know, whatever you thought about MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, that was just the tip of the iceberg. There is all this different stuff [about the band].
This band has done a lot for a lot of people. It has brought people out of depression, introduced people to music, made people passionate about art, etc. So what would you say is the number one thing this band has done for you?
It’s changed me a great deal, it’s made be not be such a defeatist about things, to be more confident in myself, it taught me to constantly create, and constantly evolve. It gave me the power to be the best version of me, any day. I think for that I am eternally grateful.
Will you guys ever release any of the 28 songs that you guys ended up scrapping as maybe B-sides in the future?
You know, I would love for people to hear the record because it would give people a very clear indication of how we got to the conclusion that we came to. There are songs on there that I really miss; luckily we got to save a couple of them. There are some of them that I would love for them to see the life of day, but who knows, maybe they will show up on future albums. Maybe we will do some kind of compilation with some of the songs on it down the line. Some of them were to good just to disappear forever.
Gerard was misquoted as saying this was the bands “last adventure.” To clarify for all your anxious fans, do you see yourselves writing more albums done the line?
That was just a really nice statement that was taken out of context. He was basically saying, live each day as if it were your last. They took this as, ‘this is your last album’ it’s like no you didn’t read the second half of that quote. We are actually very excited about the next decade of this band. We all got the bad stuff out of the way, now we got the good stuff, so why should we stop now, you know?
Is it ever had for you guys being in the spotlight sometimes, or is it hard to be looked up to has heroes at times?
As long as you don’t think about it. I mean we try not to think about any of that stuff because it’s just going to fuck with your head. At one point in anyone’s success there is a point where you just get over yourself. I mean we all got over ourselves a long time ago. We are in it for fun, we are in it to create, we are in it for the fans, our friends, our family. We are in it for the greater good, we aren’t in it for the fuckin’ awards. If that stuff comes, that’s cool too, but we are in just to have fun, we never try to think about, “Aw, man this song is going to be huge.” It’s not our driving source in doing anything. We are just going to create what we want to create. If people love it, they love it, if they don’t like it, then hey, they didn’t like it.
For the North American leg of the tour are you guys planning on having crazy aesthetics for the show with costumes and all?
We are trying to figure that out right now. We are going to incorporate things to the live show, I mean the tour that’s about to come to North America is just a tiny taste of what’s to come.
Dr. Death’s broadcast from his layer was a creative way to get album out there for the first time, you guys are doing a lot of crazy stuff this time…
Yeah it’s been great because we got to work with a lot of artists. It’s been our dream to work with them. We got to work with Grant Morrison finally because we were talking about working to work with him for a long time. I mean he was supposed to be in one of The Black Parade videos but it’s great to finally be able to work with him, he’s one of our best friends. Steve and Jimmy from MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE have been such a huge help, and they are so talented and amazing, they have been a huge inspiration for us. It’s been great to hangout with your friends and just make stuff.
Source
It’s such a multi-layered album and project that it was tricky to think about how to present it and how people are going to see it for the first time. We wanted it to start very subtle; we did a couple of things where it pulled the carpet out from underneath people. It was all in fun and fans were really excited and we wanted to go about it in a way that we had never gone about it before. We really wanted to use every bit of different mediums to our advantage. This is really just a fantastic pop art project for all of us. Just from the very beginning, everything has to be done with very high standard of quality.
You guys all have different names. You are Kobra Kid, then there is Jet Star and Party Poison, Fun Ghoul etc. How did you guys come up with these alter egos?
When Gerard was doing the artwork for the record he would asks us these questions like “what’s your favorite color, or what’s your favorite animal?” He would ask us certain things and then he would formulate the theme for our characters and guns. The names started as names for the guns and then they became the name of the characters in the videos.
Are there going to be videos for every song since you guys are depicting a storyline through the videos? Also, this time you guys are more cinematic this time it seems, than ever.
I think movies influence us as much as music does, when we record an album we always have the TV on with some movie on. We always talk about movies, watch movies, trade movies with each other and it was a great to go for this in a way that we always had imagined. In our older videos, some of them were done in a very cinematic feel and we figured that this time we wanted to go for something that we had always wanted to do, which is make something sweeping and cinematic.
This time your journey is a bit different as you guys don’t have a permanent drummer. From here on out will it just be the four of you or do you see another official drummer joining you guys in the near future?
You know, for the time being and the foreseeable future, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE is going to be just the four guys. I mean we play with a lot of friends live and we don’t like to mark things down with labels and give people titles. We just like playing with friends. I mean, James Dewees has been hanging out with us for four years now, playing keyboard and Mike Pedicone has just hopped on to play drums, so we just like to have some fun. We will just keep things the way they have been.
The NME article that just came out recently has caused a bit of stir with fans and even seemed to have irritated you guys, what is your take on the whole article?
I read it, and there were a lot of things that disappointed me about it. I don’t know, its a hard question to answer because it is still going on right now.
Of all the albums you guys have released this is completely different in a sense that it is so comic book and in technicolor, were you guys worried that maybe older fans who are used to your dark aesthetics wouldn’t be as open minded to the change?
Yeah, we really wanted to show a different side of the band, but at the same time, that side has always been there. We may have been this really dark looking, sinister band onstage, but offstage that wasn’t necessarily who we always were. We like a lot of different things, I mean we like to wear colors, but you know, everyone in the band has a great sense of humor, and we all are really light-hearted. It wasn’t necessarily always shining through in our music, you know? We all really wanted to do something vastly different. We wanted an evolution and we wanted to make something very different, and we wanted to touch ground that we had never touched before. You know, whatever you thought about MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, that was just the tip of the iceberg. There is all this different stuff [about the band].
This band has done a lot for a lot of people. It has brought people out of depression, introduced people to music, made people passionate about art, etc. So what would you say is the number one thing this band has done for you?
It’s changed me a great deal, it’s made be not be such a defeatist about things, to be more confident in myself, it taught me to constantly create, and constantly evolve. It gave me the power to be the best version of me, any day. I think for that I am eternally grateful.
Will you guys ever release any of the 28 songs that you guys ended up scrapping as maybe B-sides in the future?
You know, I would love for people to hear the record because it would give people a very clear indication of how we got to the conclusion that we came to. There are songs on there that I really miss; luckily we got to save a couple of them. There are some of them that I would love for them to see the life of day, but who knows, maybe they will show up on future albums. Maybe we will do some kind of compilation with some of the songs on it down the line. Some of them were to good just to disappear forever.
Gerard was misquoted as saying this was the bands “last adventure.” To clarify for all your anxious fans, do you see yourselves writing more albums done the line?
That was just a really nice statement that was taken out of context. He was basically saying, live each day as if it were your last. They took this as, ‘this is your last album’ it’s like no you didn’t read the second half of that quote. We are actually very excited about the next decade of this band. We all got the bad stuff out of the way, now we got the good stuff, so why should we stop now, you know?
Is it ever had for you guys being in the spotlight sometimes, or is it hard to be looked up to has heroes at times?
As long as you don’t think about it. I mean we try not to think about any of that stuff because it’s just going to fuck with your head. At one point in anyone’s success there is a point where you just get over yourself. I mean we all got over ourselves a long time ago. We are in it for fun, we are in it to create, we are in it for the fans, our friends, our family. We are in it for the greater good, we aren’t in it for the fuckin’ awards. If that stuff comes, that’s cool too, but we are in just to have fun, we never try to think about, “Aw, man this song is going to be huge.” It’s not our driving source in doing anything. We are just going to create what we want to create. If people love it, they love it, if they don’t like it, then hey, they didn’t like it.
For the North American leg of the tour are you guys planning on having crazy aesthetics for the show with costumes and all?
We are trying to figure that out right now. We are going to incorporate things to the live show, I mean the tour that’s about to come to North America is just a tiny taste of what’s to come.
Dr. Death’s broadcast from his layer was a creative way to get album out there for the first time, you guys are doing a lot of crazy stuff this time…
Yeah it’s been great because we got to work with a lot of artists. It’s been our dream to work with them. We got to work with Grant Morrison finally because we were talking about working to work with him for a long time. I mean he was supposed to be in one of The Black Parade videos but it’s great to finally be able to work with him, he’s one of our best friends. Steve and Jimmy from MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE have been such a huge help, and they are so talented and amazing, they have been a huge inspiration for us. It’s been great to hangout with your friends and just make stuff.
Source