Emo History (1) - My Chemical Romance

To begin, I'm going to detail some of the history surrounding My Chemical Romance - because it fits the overall premise of my profile, and seems to mesh with a lot of our interests on here.

My Chemical Romance: A band that seemingly stream-lined mid 2000's Emo music. I know a lot of people don't classify MCR as Emo and instead associate the term with bands that sound like "The Cure". I try to explain this as a specific type of music under a larger category. The "Emo Trilogy" is made up of : MCR, Panic at the Disco, & Fall Out Boy. A lot of bands fall under this category, but I would give the lesser associated band "The Used" the same amount of notoriety.

Speaking of The Used, I think this is a good segway into understanding MCR's history. In the early days, Gerard Way and Bert McCracken were best friends - wasting their days away to lengthy drug and alcohol induced benders.

But before all of that, MCR was just a thought in Gerard's mind. He wanted to create music as much as he wanted to create art - and his comic career was stressing him out. On the morning of 9/11, Gerard took a train to a meeting in the city and found himself face-to-face with the terrorist attacks on the twin towers. This was the spark that set the band in motion, as he "knew he was destined for great things". In fact, Gerard has made mention that he never questioned that the band would blow up - they were something different, a thorough combination of his musical influences meeting theater. 

"I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love" came out in 2002 - a story of two demolition lovers, trying to survive in a society plagued by vampire-zombies. By this point, Gerard had a band, but no bassist - so he went to his brother Mikey, who had no knowledge of playing the bass. Nonetheless, he forced himself to learn and became a staple member of the band. During this time, Gerard printed out handmade shirts with the words "Thank you for the venom".

Following this, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge came out with a song featuring those same words - and a cover art of the "Demolition Lovers". This album was meant as a continuation, but transpired into something more. A story of a man in search of his lover, forced into homicide to bring her back from the grave. Slightly inspired by the loss of his grandmother, the album also showcased the drunken charades of both Bert and Gerard - their nights in the Hotel Bella Muerte, Bert's vocals and assisted lyrical genius. 

But what follows next? A following out between Bert and Gerard, Gerard's crazy ex-girlfriend, a sad voicemail from Frankie? 

Stay tuned for the second part to this... :)