Gerard Way Never Saw My Chemical Romance Going Past ‘Black Parade’
Former My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way admitted in an interview with NME that he never saw his beloved emo outfit continuing past their third album, 2006’s The Black Parade, but added he was still proud of their output up until the band split in 2013.
“I plan things pretty far in advance, and before we’d even done the first record, I’d written out titles of things,” Way said. “I definitely knew I had the title of the second album before we’d even recorded the first… by the time I got to the third album, which didn’t have a name, I felt like that was the end. Basically the time spent after Black Parade was me fighting against that instinct, fighting against myself. The end of Black Parade felt like a very natural end. To go beyond that felt like betraying some sort of artistic command that I had within myself.”
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After The Black Parade, My Chemical Romance continued to tour extensively, releasing the live album The Black Parade Is Dead! in 2008, and then one more studio effort, 2010’s Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. “I’m still proud of the shows we played, especially of the music we played after Black Parade,” Way added. “But I definitely didn’t have anything planned after the third.”
Way went on to talk about his upcoming solo debut, saying he assumed he’d end up living a normal life after MCR’s breakup and that he didn’t see the solo project coming. “But all of a sudden, I started to plan out what a solo career would be like, and maybe plan it less,” he said. “I definitely thought of the artists I loved like Nick Cave, Morrissey, Brian Eno — especially those early glammy records — Bowie, Iggy, PJ Harvey, Björk. I thought about all those artists and I was like, ‘That’s what I want my arc to be.’ I would be so lucky to have a quarter of what any of them had, in terms of their story.”
Way is set to debut a bunch of new material at sets at two of the U.K.’s biggest festivals, Leeds and Reading, both of which take place August 22nd to 24th. In a previous interview with NME, Way said his new material was heavily rooted in British influences, citing Britpop era bands like Blur and Pulp to post-punk outfits like Wire and Gang of Four.
“It’s not a concept record, it’s not high concept at all, and that’s new for me,” he added in the new interview. “But it’s got its own look and its own feeling, and it’ll move on to a different one. I imagine reinvention is something that’s such a part of me that I don’t think that will ever stop.”
Way announced that he’d signed to Warner Bros. as a solo artist back in May, promising new music in the near future, though there’s still no word on a release date or title for the LP. His solo venture comes just a little over a year after My Chemical Romance split up following an impressive 12 years together.