My Chemical Romance interview from 2010 translation :)

Magazine: La repubblica XL (italy)

Date: november 2010

mcr interview

 "The band from Belleville, New Jersey, publishes a new album, Danger Days... which is a cartoonish imaginary but sounds "adult". The interview"

"My Chemical Romance"

"The crazy power of imaginary will shake this world"

"Gerard, Ray and Mikey. Colorful hair. concepts and clear words: this is the juice of our encounter with My Chemical Romance (only Frank Iero is missing) attached to the verse of a song that haunts me: "even if in the desert your story is lost in the sand, your shadow survives forever". "Na Na Na (na ana nananana)", this is how the single from the new album Danger Days: the true lives of the fabulous killjoys, which comes out on november 22nd, produced by the "guru" Rob Cavallo, starts. The single is born as a promo for the video "art is the weapon", where the band doesnt wear the monochromatic costumes and dark uniform from the previous goth-glam-punk album "The black parade" anymore, and gets into a retro-futuristic scenario in the middle of the desert, distant 120km from los angeles, which reminds of the madness and psychedelic colors from the Joker by Heath Ledger in "The dark knight" and Dennis Hopper in "Easy rider"."

""Art is the weapon", our weapon is art, you say. 

"We all went through a phase in our existence where we lived life like a disease, symptom of social intolerance. To fight it, i wrote and drew comics" tells the singer Gerard Way. "I found out art is important, especially to be free from this sadness. Compared to the '70s we dont have to use violence to spread and express our ideas anymore. No more molotovs, the power of the imaginary will shake the world from the numbness. You just need to put into play an army of creative people: web, graffiti, comics, lowbrow art. We can create the future even by sitting on the couch, on the most remot lands of the earth."

What is the difference, musically speaking, between the first album and the last one?

"Our band was born right after 9/11" says Way, "and we quickly got along with thousands of fans thanks to our lyrics. "skylines and turnstiles", our song about 9/11, was an emotional reaction to a situation we couldnt rationally control. Our songs have suffered the social pressure of the moment, we played music because we had no other choice, it was the therapy which brought us to be the people we are now. We know that with music we can make a change, imagine a better future. And even though we have a family and kids, we arent losers, our message doesnt change."

These four years distance from the last album was to help you grow as men?

"After "the black parade" we went two years on tour", explains the guitarist Ray Toro, "other than the virtual connection with our fans through blogs, we feel the need to be on stage. Like Gerard said, we are a band born on the streets, thanks to Helena, Gerard's grandma, who gifted us the first van where we shared our musical passions: Stooges, Damned, MC5, and all the subversive proto-punk, the one which spits on your face the cruel truth. Instead of asking ourselves why we couldnt write music like that, we decided to write our own songs. "danger days" is a direct album, loyal to the noble rock tradition, a lot of concepts and less stories, important words even though the music, to a first-time listen, seems more catchy than in the past. Stop associating us with emos, we are a creative band, who expresses itself also using costumes. We also want to be more interesting visually than many others."

In the "Art is the weapon" video a real passion for comics is shown, embodied also by the presence of the genius Grant Morrison.

"comics taught me how to read" confirms Mikey Way, bassist, "we were raised in Belleville, a shitty periphery of Newark, in Jersey. Since we were young, we know the meaning of real words like pain, suffering and marginalization. This is why heroes arent enough anymore and we need superheroes to help us from unfairnesses. We sing "we are the kids of yesterday... today" to say who we are now. Its not easy to accept the responsibility of succes, now the adults in the recording room are us and all our choices are born from the hope to have a more deep impact with the public."

What did you learn from your last album?

"to appreciate life" ends Gerard, "even more after the birth of Bandit, my daughter. The respect for our personalitys that, even if different, have a goal in common: the awareness that when you get old you dont fear saying what you need to say anymore."

Soon, the World Contamination Tour will come to Europe (no Italy, even though they know Bocelli, Argento and Carrelan). And dont forget that "even if in the desert your story is lost in the sand, your shadow survives forever"."

translation by me lol