| MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE - Bowie, Battery City, & [comic] Books. |
| Written by Shahlin Graves / Q&A: SUPPLIED |
| Friday, 22 October 2010 23:26 |
 A transcript from an almost two hour long interview with MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE landed in my inbox today, on coincidentally, the beginning of exactly one month remaining in the lead-up to the release of the band's forthcoming album - 'DANGER DAYS: THE TRUE LIVES OF THE FABULOUS KILLJOYS'. As someone whose imagination has been completely captivated by the striking imagery and vivid narrative showcased in the lead single 'Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)''s music video, I couldn't bear to cut any of the thirty-seven pages up, lest any of the finer details (that are always important to a fan) to be learned, be lost. So read on, for Part I of our twenty-five part countdown to the worldwide release of 'Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys', with a new section of the supplied interview to be posted every day as we count down to November 22nd! - and Coup De Main's advance album listening party on the 11th which you can find out more about HERE. Bowie, Battery City, & [comic] Books... GERARD WAY: I think [that] Ziggy Stardust has been a giant influence, like even to me since art school. And then, we all love David Bowie and there's some Bowie, a lot of Bowie on ['The] Black Parade' as well. I guess Black Parade is kind of when the glam kind of started. And it's very much alive and well in this one, but oddly enough, this record started to feel a bit like 'Diamond Dogs' in a weird way, 'cause that was kind of his last hurrah with glam. And towards the completion of the album, I started to see a lot of parallels in 'Danger Days' and 'Diamond Dogs'. He talks about a city in there called Hunger City. We talk about a city called Battery City. There's, it's obviously a lot of lyrics, very kind of futuristic. Like he says, you know, he talks about an oxygen tank and getting out of it. There's stuff like that in the record, just talking about like laser beams and things like that. So it felt like, you know, he made this. And I don't think 'Diamond Dogs' is a concept album, and I don't think 'Danger Days' is a concept album either. I think it has, they both have a high concept, and you really get a lot of the story in just one track and then the rest is just kind of, just all different world views. FRANK IERO: I mean, I think the concept was fully realized probably towards the end of the record, like the story and the world came to fruition as the record was coming to fruition, which made it feel very organic. And we weren't trying to like, shove things into little spots, like: oh, this song's great, but it doesn't fit because the story is this. It was like... our world story is now this because of the song. RAY TORO: Yeah, that's definitely right. I think the big thing for this record was it was more thematic than story-based, you know? And I think it worked out better to our advantage. Yeah, like he said, you kind of, when you're trying to tell a story, you definitely sometimes get yourself stuck a little bit because you're like: oh, we need this style of song or this... you know, this part to complete the story. And it's really just having more based on themes and like he was saying, like the language being used, like that's where the concept is coming from. GERARD: Well, it started out as a comic, me and my friend Shaun Simon, who's a friend, actually was in Frank's first band and he was - he helped us out in the beginning. Like, we all got in the band together basically, and he was the friend that we brought with us. And we, when you're young and it's your first time out seeing America for the first time and you're [a] young, kind of starving rock band and starving artist and you're doing that, you start to formulate opinions on the world and the country you live in and just really make observations. So years later, he and I had an idea for a comic and I had an idea for a comic and we just kind of joined those things up. And, but in making it an album, it, I love that 'Danger Days' is the main title and 'The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys' being its secondary title, because much like 'The Black Parade', I felt like The Fabulous Killjoys are us, they're the fans, they're the artists that we know. It's Shaun, it's Becky, it's Gabriel and Fabio, you know? It's like all these people and it's... It's like all our artist friends, Grant and Kristan. And it felt like a much better and more accurate way to describe the band as people, as artists, their friends and the fans. So, it's connected to Black Parade in a weird way like that. And they're a gang from 2019. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE's new album 'Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys' is released in New Zealand on November 22nd - features the lead-single 'Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)'. Find out how you could win the chance to hear the new album eleven days before it hits stores HERE - as well as about our ART IS THE WEAPON event. |
