Big Day Out 2012: My Chemical Romance
By Lydia Jenkin 1:00 PM Thursday Jan 19, 2012

2012 will see My Chemical Romance celebrating 10 years together, 10 years of uniting the teen masses with their anti-establishment messages and powerful punk glam rock.

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My Chemical Romance's 'Kids From Yesterday': Death Of Danger
Fan-made video for 'The Kids From Yesterday' looks back at the band's rise to fame.
By James Montgomery

Really, My Chemical Romance's Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys deserved better. A big, bold re-invention of their sound and swagger, it was, by the band's own admission, a "missile" aimed at destroying the staid state of rock and roll, and perhaps because of that fact, it failed to catch on here in the states.

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MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE "KIDS FROM YESTERDAY" MUSIC VIDEO
Posted 19/11/2010

So My Chemical Romance are back with their newest music video, which has been has been inspired by an online fan and Nova has the first exclusive sneak peek of it right here! Don't bother looking on youtube, it aint there yet kids.

When we asked them about the video the MCR lads said this;

"Our video for 'The Kids From Yesterday' is about who we were, who our fans were, who we are all now, and perhaps a little about who we will all be. It’s about the journey."

Let your fellow MCR heads know all about it and let us know what you think of the video.

Oh and when you are done, you might want to enter our Ultimate My Chemical Romance Competition where you can win a signed Epiphone guitar, go to one of their Australian gigs and meet the band in person! CLICK HERE TO ENTER.

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Mikey Way Builds Dream Bass
By Mike Duffy



For years, Mikey Way had thought about his perfect bass.

How could he combine the booming thump of a Precision Bass with the short scale of a Mustang?

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Frank Iero and Ephiphone team up for the Wilshire Phant-o-Matic
SALES FOR THE NEW AX WILL HELP IN THE FIGHT AGAINST MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS
by Joe Bosso

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MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE are a band constantly progressing in both sound and image as they search for musical enlightenment. Bass player MIKEY WAY tells LINDSEY CUTHBERTSON about the US punk rock group’s most positive changes yet.

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MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE play the Big Day Out at Gold Coast Parklands on Sunday Jan 22, alongside Kanye West, Soundgarden, Parkway Drive and many more. They also play a headline sideshow at Eatons Hill Hotel on Tuesday Jan 24, supported by Closure In Moscow. DANGER DAYS: THE TRUE LIVES OF THE FABULOUS KILLJOYS is out through Warner. See www.bigdayout.com and www.mychemicalromance.com for more.

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DANGER DAYS PROVIDED GERARD WAY WITH ANSWERS HE DIDN'T EVEN REALISE HE WAS SEEKING

Danger Days didn’t just provide My Chemical Romance with an opportunity to break free from The Black Parade’s heavy rules and restrictions. The freedom the quartet experienced throughout the creative process gave them space to not only reflect on their career, but also gain important insight into fundamental decisions they made along the way.

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"My father and grandfather are both drummers, so music was a big part of my childhood," says My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero. "On the weekends, I used to go to clubs to see my grandfather play Dixieland and standards, and then I'd go somewhere else to watch my dad play the blues. A lot of times these were after-hours places where I shouldn't even be. The owners kind of looked the other way."

According to Iero, these experiences were his introductions to the punk-rock ethos. "It was about doing things the way you want, for sheer love of the music," he says. "The blues was my dad's punk rock – guys writing their own music, recording it in their basement and totally playing from the heart. People looked down at the blues at one point, but it really hit a nerve with him. When I discovered my own punk rock, I'm sure I felt the same way that he did."

While in high school, a friend played Iero a mix tape of of local, New Jersey-based punk bands, which the guitarist recalls as a defining musical moment. "Here were people my age putting on shows, making their own music, doing it DIY-style. It blew my mind! You didn’t need to be a virtuoso to start a band – all you needed was passion. I took that idea and ran with it."

Following family tradition, Iero became a musician. “I fell in love with the entire thing," he says, "Starting a band, putting up flyers, playing shows wherever I could – I loved the whole experience. It might have come from my dad and my grandfather, bit it also came from punk. The music was vital, but so was the mindset.

In Iero's view, punk still lives today. "It doesn’t matter what year you were born or what shows you went to," he says. "You can be a teenager in your bedroom, making music on your laptop. It’s about self-expression, going against the grain. As long as you’re doing it for the right reasons, you’re punk rock.”

On the following pages, Frank Iero lists what he calls the 10 greatest punk records of all time - in chronological order. "To me, that's the only way to do it," he says. "Saying one record is the best, as in THE BEST...I just couldn't go there."

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My Chemical Romance's Frank Iero Designs Guitar for Charity
Guitarist also says new MCR music could come out by next summer

By STEVE BALTIN

My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero has designed a six-string guitar for Epiphone called the Phant-o-matic. "I took the body from the Wilshire, I took the Anico Humbuckers out of the Les Paul, I put the Les Paul neck on it and headstock, changed the tuners around, and fucked a little bit with the electronics – and we made the Phant-o-matic," Iero tells Rolling Stone.

As a kid, Iero says he had his dream celebrity guitar, the Kurt Cobain-created Jag-Stang. But being approached by Epiphone to make his own model made Iero think about his family before any guitar legends. "Basically when given this opportunity the first thing that came to mind was my dad buying me my first guitar," he says. "And the reason I got into music was my grandfather and dads played drums and were in bands forever."

So, what did his dad say about the Frank Iero Phant-o-matic? "They were like, 'Are you serious? That’s crazy,'" he says. "My dad was super psyched." And to pay tribute to his family, Iero is turning the venture into a philanthropic endeavor. "About six years ago my family was affected by multiple sclerosis and that was the first thing that came to mind. The only reason I would be doing this is because of my family, so why not give back?" he says, adding that Epiphone is matching every dollar he gives to MS.

Designing guitars hasn't been his only recent burst of creativity. He says MCR have been very inspired of late as well. "Whether it be writing a new My Chem record or working on a different kind of project, there are a couple of things that are coming in the works," he says. "But I definitely see new music coming out or at least being worked on throughout the rest of this year and hopefully maybe something coming out by summer."

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Fox News pundit singled out the song, performed on 'Glee' in February, during his broadcast Thursday.
by James Montgomery

Having apparently run out of things to terrify your parents (and your aunt in Arizona) with, conservative radio host/Fox News pundit Glenn Beck is now turning his attention to My Chemical Romance and their song "Sing," which he describes as "propaganda."

During Thursday's broadcast of his self-titled daily Fox News show, Beck — who in the past has vilified everyone from Barack Obama to "reform rabbis" — launched into an attack that was, at first, about the content of the TV show "Glee" (which he admitted he watched in "stunned horror and admiring awe"), but then quickly segued into a dissection of "Sing's" lyrics, which Beck read aloud with fervent terror.

"Pay attention to the lyrics," he cautioned. "This is propaganda ... it's an anthem saying 'Join us.' How can you and I possibly win against that?"

Beck was bringing up "Sing's" lyrics (which he attributed to "Chemical Romance") because, as he warned his viewers, our children "are not tethered to anything" and parents "have to be über vigilant" about the shows they watch, since "our whole culture right now is set up for you and the values you grew up on to lose."

"You don't have to live by the standards that society has set," he said. "You know what is right."

"Sing" was performed on an episode of "Glee" back in February, and My Chemical Romance has since reissued the song to raise money for the Red Cross' ongoing disaster relief efforts in Japan, in part because, as they told MTV News last week, they noticed their fans had begun using the lyrics to send messages of hope to the nation.

"We talked about something that we could do, and at first we were thinking about writing a new song to raise money for charity," MCR guitarist Ray Toro said. "And on Twitter, something we had seen was #SINGitforjapan, and it was kids starting this Twitter feed, writing messages of hope. And that really inspired us, and we just set to work, and after a couple weeks, we were able to pull this thing together."

A spokesperson for the band did not respond to MTV News' request for comment on Beck's statements, but in a tweet Thursday, Toro wrote simply, "Mission accomplished," and included a link to Beck's segment on the song. Guitarist Frank Iero was less polite, tweeting, "Yay! F--- that dude's face with Obama's birth certificate."

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by Tim Karan

In today's edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck broadcast, conservative host Beck cites an episode of Glee in which the cast perform "Sing" by My Chemical Romance. Beck calls the show "horrific" and says that the MCR lyrics are propaganda.

The lyrics in question: "Cleaned up corporation progress dying in the process / children that can talk about it living on the railways / people moving sideways / sell it till your last days / buy yourself the motivation / generation nothing / nothing but a dead scene / product of a white dream."

Check out the clip from Beck's show below and let us know if you agree or disagree.

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When My Chemical Romance first learned of the devastating natural disasters that struck Japan in March, they didn't wonder, "Should we help?" Instead, their first thought was "How can we help?"

"Japan has always held a special place in our hearts, really from the first time we had a show there. ... We just had such an amazing response there, and we're just such fans of the culture," MCR guitarist Ray Toro explained. "And then all of the fans we met out there, they're just so polite and there's just a really great energy over there. And we've been back there many times and have a really strong connection.

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My Chemical Romance's fearless leader talks about mocking his own concept albums and rebelling vicariously through his hair.

What are your favorite post-apocalyptic movies?

Night of the Comet, Mad Max obviously--I actually prefer the first one. A Boy and His Dog. I think those are like the three main classics.

You've said the new album's "Look Alive, Sunshine" intro was inspired by A Clockwork Orange, but it also reminded me of Vanishing Point, have you seen it? It's a 1971 car-chase flick with a guy on the radio sending messages to the driver so he can escape the police.

Yes! Vanishing Point and The Warriors were two very big reference points for the album. I definitely wanted it to feel like there was this DJ out there like, inspiring these lunatics to drive around. And I also wanted it to feel a little bit like The Warriors as well. But yeah, I love both of those movies.

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Ten years ago, My Chemical Romance (due at the Fillmore this Saturday) was just another aspiring band in a van hoping to make it big. With a handful of three-chord punk rock songs hastily written and recorded in the attic of a house in New Jersey, the young outfit had no idea it would someday be elected to be the unofficial spokespeople for an entire generation of alienated kids.

Now more than a decade after those early attic practice sessions, My Chemical Romance has easily moved from the beer and sweat-soaked clubs to the flashing lights and complicated stage sets of arena shows. In advance of this Saturday night's show at the Fillmore, we spoke with guitarist Ray Toro about some of the things that have changed over the last decade, as well as a couple questions about Hot Topic clothes and the people who wear them.

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How superheroes and Duran Duran kept Gerard Way from an early grave. “I’m not injuring myself. There’s no death wish anymore.”



Gerard Way is older than he seems. He has boyish looks and hair dyed as red as horror-movie blood. The New Jersey native fronts punk band My Chemical Romance. He created a successful comic-book franchise, the Umbrella Academy. In the videos promoting his band’s latest, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, MCR sports superhero alter egos and ray guns. Surprisingly, Way turns 34 on Saturday 9. He has settled in L.A. with wife Lindsey and their two-year-old daughter, Bandit. It’s a remarkable lifestyle change for someone who says he once subscribed to the notion of “live fast, die young.”

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Walking onstage without fanfare, marching band uniforms, or fancy staging, the My Chemical Romance that kicked off the North American leg of its World Contamination Tour is far more straightforward than the prog-glam behemoth that brought us The Black Parade. Now a four-piece joined on this tour by drummer Michael Pedicone and keyboardist James Dewees, the Jersey-bred ensemble (currently residing, mostly, in Los Angeles) has morphed back into a polished punk-pop band, one that's scaled down its theatrics considerably.

That didn't stop singer Gerard Way from painting his neck bright red, or his blonde bassist brother Mikey Way resembling Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes at the peak of his androgynous powers. Mikey wore a sleeveless T-shirt declaring "Art Is the Weapon," while Gerard's only change in costume was to remove the jacket of his white suit toward the end of his set, and then return for the night's encore with it reinstated. The others looked almost disturbingly ordinary.

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My Chemical Romance seemed poised to become the next Green Day in 2006 after the release of its third studio album, "The Black Parade."

That it has ended up being just another Good Charlotte is a major disappointment.

On Thursday, the New Jersey group, led by vocalist Gerard Way, did next to nothing to differentiate itself from the pack of bland emo-pop-punk acts out there during a sold-out show at the Fox Theater in Oakland.

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Formed a week after 9/11, the 10-year rise of My Chemical Romance from goth-metal outsiders to mainstream has been slow, steady, focused and strategic – but often with ‘fierce battles of attrition’, frontman Gerard Way tells TONY CLAYTON LEA

FROM TOP TO toe, the lead singer of My Chemical Romance is a riot of colours – purple/red hair, white shirt, black jeans, blue socks, silver runners with a lime green trim. Gerard Way is tucked into a small room somewhere in the upper floors of Dublin’s O2 venue – the floors and rooms most people don’t get to see, but which, after the band’s quietly spectacular show, will be full of teenagers lucky enough to have been picked for the US band’s meet’n’greet.

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