#mcr articles

"Gerard and Jared for K!'s sexiest female?

However, there's one slightly odd result that the judges had to put their collective foot down on. It seems that the majority of you out there in K! Land nominated My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way and 30 Seconds To Mars vocalist Jared Leto for the much coveted Sexiest Female Of 2007 gong!

As pretty as Mr Way and Mr Leto may be, and as much as they're not adverse to a bit of make-up, unfortunately, we had to disqualify them.

So who actually did you vote as your Sexiest Female Of 2007 then?

"WARPED BULLS

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE

↑The uniforms and armbands suggest a pretentious Boy Scout troop. The bullet-proof vests bring to mind 50 Cent wannabes. And Gerard Way's voice fails to ascend to the heights it does on record. But the makeup makes perfect sense. MCR may have a frantically anthemic sound, but they're memorable live because of Way's divalike flourish. He's an emo-goth mezzo-soprano, pro-jecting his tears, betrayal, and pride so that all in attendance feel like their heartache is a battle they can survive.

"A Virginia cafe owner has received death threats after rock bands My Chemical Romance and Muse got salmonella food poisoning at his restaurant. Welcome to the brown parade!

After a gig at the nearby College of William and Mary on April 28, the bands stopped for a bite at Glenn Gormley's Green Leafe Cafe. Shortly afterwards, the musicians (and other patrons) got sick, which forced MCR and Muse to cancel several dates on their tour. Since then, Gormley says angry My Chemical Romance fans have been leaving him death threats. Holy crap! While the Health Department is investigating the situation, Gormley won't go into details of the threats.

"2005 PLAYBOY - MUSIC AWARDS

Music in 2005 reached a new nadir with the devastation of the Crescent City music scene and the astonishingly dumb deci-sion by Sony BMG to implant its XCP antipiracy software on consumers' computers. But despite the techno hype-the chatter about spyware, the potential for ring tones to eclipse "real" music, the thrill of telephones that play music and iPods that play video-2005 was in many ways a year of familiar old faces. As music videos started to move through the iTunes store, many top sellers were friendly classics. Madonna and Mariah Carey made near-miraculous returns to form, both blazing back onto the dance floor and avoiding the soft sound that had made them strictly chick music for the past few years. Gwen Stefani-fast becoming a latter-day Madonna, able to jump between genres and en-gage men and women alike-provided a playground chant for us all, cre-ating a pleasingly nostalgic feeling of togetherness ("B-A-N-A-N-A-S!") even as the music market continued to splinter into millions of autono-

READERS, YOU HAVE VOTED. NOW IT'S TIME TO REVEAL YOUR CHOICES. WE'VE ENSHRINED YOUR FAVORITES HERE, BUT BEFORE WE GET TO THAT, WE THOUGHT WE'D CONSIDER THE YEAR OF MUSIC GONE BY. WEL-COME RETURNS, EXCITING DEBUTS, CHAOTIC SHIFTS IN TECHNOLOGY-THE SHIT WAS B-A-N-A-N-A-S IN 2005

mous earbud-wearing podcasters of one. Foo Fighters, Coldplay, the White Stripes, the Rolling Stones, Franz Ferdinand and Beck all re-leased new albums, all pretty good. That was a relief, given the way these follow-ups dominated the year in rock. EMI shareholders could breathe a sigh of relief too, since in addition to Coldplay's successful return, Gorillaz also managed a spectacular sophomore album, offering a multicultural mélange of electronics, hip-hop and indie rock able to bring wary listeners to electronica by transforming it into eclectica. In hip-hop, things weren't much different, with Kanye West's second album standing like a colossus over all else. Fear not, early adopters; some new trends had turntables spinning. Biggest of all was the emergence of Houston as a hip-hop hot spot, its slow beats turning the tide against frenetic crunk. There were signs of a revival in Nashville. And the readers' poll favorite in the best breakout artist category, My Chemical Romance, proves that new rock remains a vital part of the musical spectrum.

best breakout artist my chemical romance

The runaway voting in favor of My Chemical Romance shows that new rock is not only alive but thriving, not yet ready to wither away into a niche category. And after flirting with metal acts like Marilyn Manson, Goth is back to form.

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE: A TIMELINE

NEW STARS

BIG TIME

DUAL STEREO

HI WI FI

MIXED IN THE USA

NAMED AFTER A BOOK BY TRAINSPOTTING AUTHOR IRVINE WELSH, THIS JERSEY QUINTET WENT FROM EMO OUTSIDERS TO PLATINUM VICTORS IN A YEAR

January 13, 2005: Plays Late Show With David Letterman.

April 4, 2005: Appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

April 15, 2005: Begins 26-city tour opening for Green Day.

Summer 2005: Travels with Vans Warped Tour for second summer in a row.

September 15, 2005: Kicks off first headlining tour, in Colum-bus, Ohio.

October 18, 2005: MCR's cover of the Misfits' "Astro Zombies" is released on Tony Hawk's Ameri-can Wasteland soundtrack.

November 2, 2005: MCR wins Woodie of the Year at mtvU's second annual Woodie Awards.

November 9, 2005: Frontman for the Used. Bert McCracken-who duetted with MCR singer Gerard Way on a charity cover of "Under Pressure," originally by Queen and David Bowie-reports he has fallen out with his former friends in MCR. "We don't speak at all," he says.

November 26, 2005: Gerard makes number 20 on the annual Cool List in British music bible NME. The magazine's definition of cool people? "People want to lick Nutella off their privates, and they never have to queue for drinks."

December 2, 2005: SEG toys releases MCR action figures that stand five inches tall and have 16 points of articulation.

"Last December, My Chemical Romance were focused on writing and recording the follow-up to 2006’s The Black Parade, the multi-platinum smash that established them as one of the decade’s biggest new bands. Frontman Gerard Way had completed nearly seven songs, which were inspired by everything from Judas Priest and Def Leppard to the Hives and the Killers.

But then the band – Way, guitarist Ray Toro, guitarist Frank Iero, bassist Mikey Way, and drummer Bob Bryar – decided to start over from scratch. (Drummer Bob Bryar also split amicably from the group around the same time.) “The way we’ve been looking at it is instead of an album getting scrapped, it was just one long writing process,” guitarist Ray Toro tells SPIN.com. “Some songs we just had to get out of our system and some of those songs we kept and reworked.”

My Chem will reveal those years of hard work on their new album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, which hits stores November 22. Like Black Parade, My Chem regrouped with producer Rob Cavallo, although the record finds the band exploring new sonic territory, mixing their contemporary emo-punk sound with older influences like punk and psychedelic rock.

“We put up a lot of rules about the songs we could write and what the sound was supposed to be for this record,” says Toro. “But Rob took all those walls down for us and was like ‘You know what? The sky’s the limit, just write great music and use your creativity.’ He’s a master at doing that.”

As for a unifying theme, Toro says Way’s lyrics focus on ideas of alientation and escape, and feature a group of outsider characters called the Killjoys. “The overall theme in the music is finding a sense of freedom and using creativity and art as the weapon, as opposed to worrying about the end result,” says Toro, adding that the Killjoys are a loose interpretation of the band itself. “Some people are going to think it’s a departure. That’s the fun of being in the band, having the blessing to explore the music and try different things.”

SPIN caught up with Toro to discuss four of the more experimental tracks on the album.

“Party Poison” One of the salvaged songs from My Chem’s earlier sessions, “Party Poison” may be the most straight-forward punk tune on Danger Days: buzzsaw guitar riffs, clattering beats, and Way howling over the chorus. There’s even a shout-out to the MC5’s 1969 proto-punk classic “Kick Out the Jams.” (My Chem actually met with MC5 frontman Wayne Kramer to play him new material, although this track was written before that meeting.) “This was the cream of the crop of the stripped-down style we were going for,” Toro says of the earlier sessions. “And just the spirit and energy of the MC5 – that fuels this song.”

“Planetary (GO!)” Blistering punk-funk that sounds like Franz Ferdinand at their fiercest. Over blippy electronic sequencing and slicing guitars, Way delivers a raucous call-to-arms, shouting phrases like ‘Fame is now injectable!” and “We just get up and go!” The band found unlikely inspiration in the Rolling Stones for this cut. “Mikey, Gerard and I were listening to the Stones and we noticed how their songs are very repetitive but one guitar is playing throughout,” says Toro, referring to the Stones’ “Paint it Black.” “And the way we built a lot of the record was by taking it eight or 16 bars at a time and used melodies that would work over an entire verse. Which is kind of strange.”

“S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W” On this sweet, mid-tempo tune, Way’s vocals are treated with a liquid vibrato effect similar to John Lennon’s vocals on “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” Way sings about falling for a girl’s “lip-gloss smile” over chiming guitars, layered vocals, and spacey effects. “This shows off the more artsy side of the band,” says Toro. “The Beatles are a huge influence and with the backup harmonies and effect on Gerard’s vocals, it’s our best stab at doing a song like [“Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”]. It takes a psychedelic journey.” As for the unconventional, forward-slash-heavy punctuation, Toro says it refers to the police force that’s out to get the Killjoys. “In the world of the Killjoys, S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W is almost like a defense force so that’s the reason for the slashes,” he says.