Q&A with My Chemical Romance - Music Connection [January Issue]

Music Connection: You recently performed at an NFL football game in Europe. What was behind the  decision to play at a sporting event?

Gerard Way: First and foremost, the guys are really big football fans. As a child, I was a big football fan. I gotta be honest, and maybe this is shooting myself in the foot, but with anything like that, subversion is my main objective.

Frank Iero: It was nerve racking to say the least. It was one of the biggest crowds we’ve ever played to. They do these international games once a year. You come, play two songs for 90,000 people and watch a game. It was such an interesting and different situation than what we’re used to.

MC: In preparing for the tour, you’ve probably been listening to your older material. What do you think when you hear it?

Iero: We had to relearn the old songs. It’s crazy to listen back. It’s like time traveling. Ten years later you’re playing the new songs back to back and it’s fun to see how they work together.

Way: There’s nostalgia. It’s kind of crazy because I remember where I was when we wrote the songs, recorded them; what they used to mean and what they mean to me now.

MC: And once you’ve finished recording, how involved is the band in the mixing and mastering process?

Iero: You need to be there every step of the way to have your vision shine through. I’ve heard horror stories where someone’s recorded an album and loved it, but then it gets in the hands of the mixer and it becomes something completely different. We’re very hands on. At the end of the day, how it’s digested is through that mixing and mastering. Chris [Lord-Alge] who mixed this record is very good at his craft and knows how to use a large amount of tracks and still have the best quality.

MC: Early on, your band used to offer free downloads through Myspace and Pure Volume. How do you feel now about fans getting your music free?

Way: For a band as different as ours to get as far as we have, we owe a lot to the fact that we were traded, pirated. We were the internet band. That’s great and I embrace that, but at the same time, in order for us to grow as a band, to make the videos we make, we have to spend money to do that. If people want to keep seeing that, they should choose to support it, by just simply buying an album. We don’t ask more than that. I’m not one of those guys who are bitter or angry about [downloads]. We fill the seats. But pirating is something I feel really strongly about. I feel that if you make something great, me personally, I wanna buy it. I understand now it’s different, but when something is great I want it in my life; something physical from it: sticker, t-shirt, hopefully a CD.

MC: You’ve had both indie and major label deals. What’s been the difference for you?

Way: To me, it’s the same thing, but one’s larger. The misconception about the indie labels that bands starting out need to know is that indies can be worse than majors. Not all indies. Some are great, but I’ve seen indies far greedier than majors. I’ve experienced that a lot of bands on indies, like Victory Records, have just brutalized my friends’ bands. That’s an indie label that backs itself on scene cred but they’ve taken advantage of bands. Those label guys are very well off now. It’s easy to throw a molotov cocktail at major labels, meanwhile you’ve got an indie label abusing bands, taking total advantage and getting giant houses off the work your friends did in a basement. To me, [majors] are the lesser of to fucking evils. I would ask, “What’s your aspiration?” If you wanna be indie and play intimate shows, start your own label. Don’t go to these hucksters. They’re worse than the majors. You will not get phone calls back. You will not get royalties.

MC: Do you all share songwriting credit?

Way: We share songwriting credit because we all write songs together. I know traditionally lyricists make more, but I learned this early on from Geoff Rickly of Thursday. He always shared his lyric royalties with his band, because without the band, what are you going to write lyrics to? That whole“lyricists makes more money” is an old guard way of thinking. The guys have to stand up there every night and support whatever I’m saying. My band is muchstronger than bands where the frontman lives in a mansion and his guys live in apartments.

MC: How did you go about selecting a producer? You began with one producer and ultimately wound up working with your old producer Rob Cavallo.

Way: Everything that went wrong on the first attempt had to do with rules. My Chem had this rule: go with a new producer because the band changes everytime. What we hadn’t considered about Rob is that he changes as much as us. We foolishly followed the rule. We went with a new producer and Brendan [O’Brien] is an amazing guy, but we really found our match when we made Parade. Embracing Rob as the fifth member and the true final producer for the rest of our careers is why Danger Days exists.