| | Articles de presse | |
|
+53Broken-Romance Kamille scorpix74 From Yesterday lucas Revenge BoboxX Smoothy Yeh-Shen vivien Romance Drumline Foxxy Alpo Un-Belin Girl-r0mance Boubaloups psoupsou Punk-Of-Blood Ummagumma Lutzy K w ii K punk attitude dirtyhandkerchief catarinette *°¤ Alice ¤°* Charl0tte xXBa$sXx Eryn. MyHeart'Break-Coeur Sandrine Kald ~GeeisthewAy~ Pewf choupinette14 My_BeauTiFuL_RoManCe_ melle-punk's-love Helena666 my-blOody-romance Amy ge767 Vive_le_Québec!!! marianne X ThE_UsEd MCRrox Ghost of Romance My_Chemical_Romance_4ever [xl°o°l AlexOu l°o°lx] MCR_girl gégéforever Bloody Romance My BruTaL RoMaNcE 57 participants | |
Auteur | Message |
---|
Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Mar 14 Juil 2009 - 22:54 | |
| Voici voilà des scans de l'édition Juillet 2009 du magazine Alternative Press où MCR est mentionné par rapport au Warped Tour. - Spoiler:
Aussi la réponse de Billie Joe Armstrong de Green Day, quand on lui demande "que pensez-vous de groupes comme mcr ou fob?" (Rock Sound) Si besoin d'une traduction pas de problème | |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Ven 21 Aoû 2009 - 3:04 | |
| Article dans Rolling Stone posté sur le twitter du Roxy Theater - Citation :
- My Chemical Romance @theroxy in Rolling Stone! toooooo cooool!!!
- Spoiler:
| |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Ven 11 Sep 2009 - 22:57 | |
| BUZZ Magazine: Summersonic 09 - Spoiler:
(cliquez pour HD) Version redimensionnées - Spoiler:
AAAARGH - Spoiler:
| |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Lun 28 Sep 2009 - 18:56 | |
| Désolé, je sais pas d'où c'est tiré :s | |
| | | Lemoon Demolition Dust
Sexe : Posts : 659 Age : 28 Localisation : Adalia's House, looking for her... Inscription : 10/05/2009
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Mer 11 Nov 2009 - 16:48 | |
| Nouvel article révelateur dans Kerrang! avec des nouvelles photos du studio et des paroles de chansons ! omg - Spoiler:
- Spoiler:
| |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Ven 13 Nov 2009 - 0:07 | |
| Article de Rolling Stone aussi à propos du prochain album. Retranscription :Early in the recording of My Chemical Romance's fourth album, the band gave mixer Rich Costey a preview. "Everything he heard was just noise and spitting," remembers singer Gerard Way. Taken aback, Costy asked, "What are these songs?" "They're protest songs," Way told him. "It's the sound of 'no.'" Only later did Way realize exactly what he was protesting: "I was protesting us." After a grueling tour behind 2006's The Black Parade, MCR were worn out and fed up. "I thought the band was going to break up," says guitarist Frank Iero. "I was expecting a call from Gerard saying, 'We can't do it anymore.'" Instead, they took a year off and changed managers. This past February, they went into the old A&M studios in L.A. with Pearl Jam producer Brendan O'Brien. "The plan was to knock it out and not to overthink it," says drummer Bob Bryar. They expected to be done by April, but the record ended up taking all year. The goal, Way says, was to drop the theatricality of The Black Parade - which had lots of Floyd-ian pomp and a Liza Minnelli cameo - and "to harness everything that's great about this band into shorter songs. Almost protopunk, like the Stooges or the MC5." The song that pushed them in the right direction was "Trans Am." It begins with the lyric "I got a bulletproof heart" and then stomps through four minutes of fist-pumping rock. With that new direction - impassioned but melodic - MCR put aside the noisier material they had been working on and wrote a new batch of songs: the fast-and-dirty "Still Alive," the anthemic "The Only Hope for Me Is You" and the super-catchy "Death Before Disco" (featuring the chorus "Everybody pay attention to me"). "We simply embraced rock & roll and where we're from," Way says. "We learned how to be an American rock band instead of a British rock band." On an October afternoon in L.A., MCR are polishing the album. There's only a month or two of work left: some mixing, some overdums, and sequencing. Today, Way is working on that pivotal cut, "Trans Am" - which he thinks would be enhanced by "1.2 seconds of Queen." So he warms up his vocal cords, slips on some headphones, and asks, "Can I get a little bit of reverb? Yeah, it's a crutch." Then he sings, "These pigs are after me, after you" a dozen times, creating a "Bohemian Rhapsody" harmony. His performance is sylized, almost like a yodel. With a grin, he announces, "When I start sounding teenage-girlish, that's the sweet stuff." Way's in a good mood, and not just because he's almost done with the record. In 2007, he married Lyn-Z (bassist for the band Mindless Self Indulgence); this May, they had a baby girl, Bandit. Way took two weeks off and came back to work "like a zombie, long hair and unshaven." But fatherhood gave him a new perspective on his lyrics, which focused on despair and death. "I wasn't writing a record about becoming a dad, and I wasn't writing a record for my baby girl, but I was writing a record for the person that she would turn into when she was 15, if anything ever happened to me." | |
| | | Lemoon Demolition Dust
Sexe : Posts : 659 Age : 28 Localisation : Adalia's House, looking for her... Inscription : 10/05/2009
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Jeu 19 Nov 2009 - 20:37 | |
| J'hésitait à le mettre ici ou dans "Photos du groupe" (si c'est pas la bonne place, changez hein ^^")http://www.altpress.com/apmag/258.htm | |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Jeu 19 Nov 2009 - 23:04 | |
| | |
| | | Lemoon Demolition Dust
Sexe : Posts : 659 Age : 28 Localisation : Adalia's House, looking for her... Inscription : 10/05/2009
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Dim 29 Nov 2009 - 15:31 | |
| Articles & photos de Alternative Press ! - Spoiler:
- Spoiler:
Retranscription de l'article : - Spoiler:
THE ARTICLE The first column is just the author talking about the studio the band is in and how it's confusing it its layout. The top of the second column is Bob talking about when he decided to have surgery. The drummer from the Offspring filled in for him on the Australia tour. Bob was going to re-join the band in Europe, but picked up a can of soda in the airport and dropped it because of the pain in his arm. The drummer from Thursday, I believe, stepped in. Bob played the last leg of the US tour holding the drumsticks only with his first two fingers. The last part before it gets cut off is when he's talking about going into surgery and the surgeon told him he would either be able to relearn how to do everything, or he wouldn't.
...basketball hoop or in the parking lot. You half expect one of the doors at the end of these hallways to lead to a soundstage hosting Daisy of Love or, at the very least, a Baja Fresh manned by rock dudes from decades past. (Someone tell one of those Night Ranger twerps the hot sauce station needs refilled.)
On the theoretical tip, Sunset's layout is the perfect metaphor to describe the artistic trajectory of My Chemical Romance. Think about it: When anyone expected the band to go in one direction, they ricocheted toward something else. MCR -- frontman Gerard Way, guitarists Frank Iero and Ray Toro, bassist Mikey Way and drummer Bob Bryar -- went from no-name underdogs slogging it out in basement gigs and dank clubs to highly unlikely major-label stars in two years, eclipsing many of their colleagues and mentors. After conquering Generation Warped, they cut their ambition loose with the high-concept, classic-rock pageantry of The Black Parade, reinventing themselves as the Sgt. Pepper of the Adderall set, while piquing the attention of both critics and a legion of older music fans willing to remove their arthritic talons from the musical memories of their youth to realize that yeah, maybe there were some new bands worth checking out.
In 2009, My Chemical Romance wrote and recorded close to two albums' worth of material with producer Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine) at the helm. But unlike a writer burdened by a miniscule sense of direction -- or a lesser band of musicians willing to give up control and vision for alleged economic certainity -- MCR know exactly where they want to go. Not surprisingly, the current artist-hostile climates of download culture and the diminished value of music have made the band even more passionate toward their craft.
"I think that our audience is our audience," says Gerard Way, sitting on the end of a black leather couch in one of Sunset's mixing suites. "I haven't noticed a lack of devotion to our band. What I've really noticed is that there's a level of excitement for My Chemical Romacne that I did not expect. From basic encounters that I've had -- in line with people for coffee or random people at comic-cons -- there's this crazy anticipation for a My Chemical Romance record. I feel like if we're not making music, something is missing. I don't know how much current culture weighs on us."
He pauses to light a cigarette. "I think subconsciously," he begins, exhaling some smoke, "we're hostile right back."
THE MOOD AT THE STUDIO is equal parts enthusiastic and productive. As the band listen to some rough mixes O'Brien made for them a few days prior, acclaimed engineer Rich Costey is in one of the other suites, preparing final versions. The band members (minus guitarist Toro; more on that in a bit) share laughs with some studio assistants (it's the day after the Heene family "balloon boy" story broke) and pass around takeout menus, preparing for the long evening ahead. When Iero enters the studio, Gerard greets him with a big smile and a high-five like he hasn't seen him in years. Given all of the positive vibes surrounding them today, it's downright hard to fathom that approximately 16 months ago, My Chemical Romance were on the precipice of disintegrating. Two weeks before this writer arrived in L.A., he revealed the assignment to a member of a prominent New York/New Jersey band. "Wait," the band dude responded, sincerely but shocked. "They're actually making a new record?"
The touring campaign for The Black Parade had the band traveling all over the world for two-and-a-half years. The experience left them feeling like a 3 a.m. steak dinner from an all-nigth dinner: burnt around teh edges and way too tender on the inside. Granted, the trek wasn't all bad: The 3,000 fans showing up at an airport in South America gave MCR a genuine Beatlemania moment. After the first leg of the arena tour, Mikey took a leave of absence to lay down some semblance of domestic life with his wife Alicia, leaving longtime guitar tech Mike [sic] Cortez to cover the bass duties on the band's brilliantly burning stint on the Linkin Park-curated Projekt Revolution tour. During Projekt Rev, Gerard got married to his soul mate (Mindless Self Indulgence bassist Lindsey) and was wrapping up the first installment of his acclaimed Dark Horse comic The Umbrella Academy.
Other band members weren't that lucky: Although Iero got married in March 2008 to his girlfriend Jamia, he had to bow out of the Pacific Rim part of the tour when on the band's flight to Japan, he began to bleed profusely from his nose and mouth. Weeks before the trip, the guitarist had some impacted wisdom teeth removed, but the surgeon damaged the bottom layer of his sinuses, resulting in a massive infection. ("It smelled like rotten turkey!" he remembers, laughing at the experience.) Later on, he was diagnosed with a stomach ailment that required him to take a regiment of steroids and antibiotics that, in his words, "made me feel fat and horrible."
But if you require a poster boy to convey suffering for your art, look no further than Bob Bryar. He was manning the first float in My Chem's psychic Parade march, after a round of blood poisoning from a burn injury on a video shoot formed an abscess on his brain. But that, too, was only the beginning: Three-quarters of the way through the New Jersey clubs et on the band's The Black Parade Is Dead DVD, the tendon on his ring finger snapped, and rolled up his into his elbow. "It's like a hoodie string that popped," he says, rolling up the right sleeve of his Dark Funeral hooded sweatshirt to show the lump where his new tendon was installed. Pete Parade of the Offspring was called in to cover...
...this being able to relearn how to do everything and get stuff right, or you can come out never playing again. But I couldn't play anyway, so I decided to take the chance."
The grand stroke of irony about The Black Parade is that the fictional construct the band created was manifesting itself in reality. When the band landed in the U.K., Britain's archconservative tabloid The Daily Mail branded MCR as a "death cult," misaligning the album's storyline as evidence. In Australia, Gerard was visibly shaken upon learning that many of the band's fans were targets of violence by goons, a situation seemingly prefacing Mexico's warring "emo cleansing" rock subcultures by a year. But the most egregious mistake about the Black Parade tour was that it was the dictionary definition of relentless. Everyone in the band readily admits that instead of ending on the high that was Projekt Revolution (which had both fans and critics agreeing that MCR owned the tour), their fatal flaw was the theater campaign that followed at the top of 2008. When the members look back on that time, they felt more like foxhole buddies than a rock band.
"At one point during that tour, Frank looked at me and said, 'You're not having fun, are you?'" Gerard remembers all too well. "And I said, 'No, I'm not. But thank you for asking.'" He erupts into laughter. "It had nothing to do with the fans or the songs. By then, I felt that I had grown away from what a lot of The Black Parade songs were about. The beauty of the songs on Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge was that when we played them and our lives changed, they started to mean different things. About 16 shows after Projekt Rev, my voice started cracking, and I felt disconnected from everything. I became numb that The Black Parade was beginning to feel like real life."
On May 9, 2008, the band headlined Madison Square Garden on the final night of the touring cycle behind Parade. The men of My Chemical Romance had simultaneous feelings of joy, sadness, exhaustion, and blessed relief. Gerard has fond memories of the night, despite being informed by management that immediately after the show, he had to go back to his hotel room and approve the final edit of the band's The Black Parade Is Dead live DVD.
"It was like, 'Fuck, I've been living this for two years," he remembers, rolling his eyes at the very memory. "Now I gotta go watch it?
"We wanted to be sensational with our music," the singer says, putting his feet up on the couch. "We have never had some kind of shock-rock agenda, nor do we have the desire to please people anymore. I'm fine with that."
WITH THE PARADE HAVING LEFT TOWN, the band members set off on personal pursuits, including, but not limited to domestic bliss (the Way brothers), adventures in home recording (Iero's hardcore-punk outfit Leathermouth), wedding plans (Toro) and surgery (Bryar). The band swear that unlike most outfits who have to l ook at the same faces daily for 28 months, the grueling touring experience never got inwardly hateful. They kept in touch via texting and e-mails, and reconvened at Toro's wedding in August 2008. However, no one could deny the bigger elephant in the room - the distinct possibility that MCR had netiher a valid direction, nor anything left to say to their fans.
There is one thing that Frank Iero loves more than the freedom of punk rock: family. When he pushes up the sleeves of his Marduk hoodie, his forearms display tattooed portraiture of his two grandmothers (rendered by acclaimed artist Kat Von D), strong matriarchal figures who passed away a couple of months from each other; an image of his grandfather graces his shoulder. The guitarist appreciated the break away from the road, but was concerned about having a permanent vacation from his brothers in rock.
"After two weeks at home, I wanted to play," Iero admits. "I honestly felt deep down that I was going to get a call from Gerard and we weren't going to do it anymore. About the third day, I wanted to call everybody and say, 'Uh, hey, I just want you to know this is really special and we shouldn't turn our backs on this.' He laughs like he's listening to a wounded guy trying to reconnect with a girl who dumped him. "We always said when it stops being fun, we'll quit. And it was starting to get un-fun." Iero would later sate his lust for decibels touring with Leathermouth, as well as being a member of Reggie And The Full Effect, the solo vehicle for MCR touring keyboardist James Dewees.
"We were all shell-shocked when we got home," says Mikey Way, whose dark memories of last year are undercut by the exuberance he's feeling about the work in the studio today. "We'd essentially been on tour for seven years; it felt like our entire adult life was spent in a bus going from venue to venue. It felt great that the tour was over, but it was sad. You get all reflective when an album cycle ends. There were two or three months when I didn't leave the house. We laid low like we were in the Witness Protection Program. The Black Parade was like a monster that had its way with us," he begins to laugh, "and then skipped town! What do you do after that?
"We didn't know what was going to happen to the band next, because we did not know where we wanted to go," Mikey reveals, nodding his head while recalling the uncertainty. "We hadn't talked about it; we never had that 'what do we do next' discussioni. We're off the road; we're not the Black Parade anymore -- we're My Chem again. And that's scary, because what is My Chem now, anyway? Who are we?"
The answer came in the form of an invite for MCR to participate in the soundtrack to the film adaptation of Alan Moore's respected comic, The Watchmen. Mikey credits the series as a huge influence on his brother, acting as a gateway to discovering both graphic and musical artists ("To us, that comic was as important to us as Thriller, Nevermind or Siamese Dream"). The band reconvened in NYC's Electric Lady Studios to record their Chemical-laden version of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row," an appropriate choice for the film's underlying vigilante-corruption theme.
Suddenly everything seemed crystal clear. Although MCR came up in the contemporary punk scene zeitgeist (pop-punk, emo, screamo, etc.) they will be the first to tell you they never consciously played to those seats. (Gerard: "Timing-wise, we were connected to all of that stuff. But we're not spiritually connected to any of that shit -- we're connected to stuff from our childhood.") Forget marching band uniforms, scene hair, and call-out research hooks for radio-programmer scum -- MCR were going to be a straight-up, unpretentious rock band.
Earlier this year, the band reconvened at Mates Inc., a rehearsal facility in Los Angeles to figure out their next direction. "Gerard had made a mix of songs he felt had the essence of what he wanted to capture," recalls Iero. "The Stooges, the MC5, 'Neat, Neat, Neat' by the Damned. And I was like, 'Wow, that's the kind of stuff I'm writing.'" It's made perfectly clear by MCR's career arc that Gerard Way isn't interested in doing the same thing twice. What he is interested in are the romantic notions of rock 'n' roll, embodied in attitude, passion, dedication and sincerity -- delivered with equal heaping portions of arrogance and sweat equity.
"Proto-punk comes up because we were trying to channel what we felt on Project [sic] Rev," he says. "'Would that be the last show we ever do?' I think that's the goal: to drive everything so far into the sun that the rubber off the tires is shredded, the eingine blows up and everyone -- our fans, our peers, ourselves -- should feel like we're not going to do another record. I want each record to feel like it's potentially the last. Because we don't know when it's not going to be."
MEANWHILE, RAY TORO -- THE MASTER SHREDDER to Iero's punk pummeler -- is at home in New Jersey with his wife Christa, keeping vigil over their beloved Yorkshire Terrier, Bauer. The dog was Christa's best friend while Toro was traversing the planet for the past two years; sadly, he's developed kidney failure. The guitarist finished laying down his parts in late summer, returning home so he could be with Christa and their loyal pet. He finds the situation ironic: During the whole course of making and touring behind The Black Parade, Toro dodged all of the personal travails that seemingly plagued his bandmates. Though his dog and Christa's well being are never far from his mind, he's significantly psyched about MCR's current evolution.
"This is the first time I've been away from the band while they're working on something," he says on the phone from his rural New Jersey home. "But it's kinda working out cool. I don't hear the songs, mixing-wise, the way the guys are. I get a sound file, get in the car, and crank it. I want people to race down the highway and hear the music, with the pedal to the metal. Success is doing 85 mph to your record. We don't care if we sell a couple million -- we just want to strike a chord in kids' hearts."
Toro says the atmosphere around the band's space was exuberant and inspiring, and the music decidedly raw. During rehearsals, the quintet would do things like yell out a band name (anybody from the Police to Van Halen) and start vamping on something in an effort to sound like them. Gerard had taken to playing guitar, which yielded a series of short, sharp energy blasts in the 90-second range. By the end of the writing phase, the band had 10 to 13 fast 'n' loose songs to present to producer O'Brien [see sidebar]. They recorded with the intention of actually releasing a new album at this year's end. Further stoking their enthusiasm, they accepted an offer to play Summer Sonic, the respected Japanese rock festival, taking place in Osaka and Tokyo a few weeks after they tracked with O'Brien. Some special secret warm-up shows at L.A.'s Roxy Theatre were set up to gie some of the new songs a public test drive. My Chemical Romance had reinvented themselves yet again, ready to rocket into the sun with all the subtlety of a shrieking jet turbine.
Not quite. The visit to Japan gave the band a cold, stark epiphany. In their crusade to recharge their psychic batteries, they forgot how to be themselves.
"We were traveling the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka, listening to the tracks we had recorded," Toro remembers. "G felt that what we had wasn't strong enough for a record. That, coupled with doing these shows, playing our older material and seeing the kids get way into it [changed everything]. If we had continued in that vein of writing, we would've ignored our strengths. We felt that we had maxed that out and we were left wondering, 'What else can we do?'
"I feel like we have gotten back to the best of what we do," Toro finishes, confidently. "We got back to the roots of the band -- but better."
DURING HIS JAPAN VISIT, Gerard Way stopped into a store to buy a notebook. For a guy whose mind was constantly generating ideas for everything from storylines to songs, this is no big deal; when you're on the road, inspiration can strike at any time. But on the first page of the empty notebook, the singer left a message for himself: Start Again.
"I filled that entire notebook with vocal fixes, song fixes, new lyrics..." he lists, seemingly chronicling another creative jumpstart he was feeling. "That's why we recorded 21 songs. Not because the stuff we had done wasn't good and shouldn't be on the record; I just felt there was another part missing. I hit the inspiration where I was like, 'Yeah, I could write another 40 songs.'"
The band returned to Henson Recording in Hollywood with O'Brien for another 10 songs, imbuing their knack for solid, anthemic melodies alongside the furious rock abandon they were running up upon. The proto-punk vibes the band were working were positioning them as the spiritual ofspring of late-'60s Detroit (the Stooges, MC5), and assorted historical British music cultures (late-'60s mod a la the Who, bubblegum glam a la the Sweet); the newer songs were definitely a reactionary, one-fingered salute to the sonic excesses of the previous Parade route. It was then that Gerard polished up that deep, dark mirror in his psyche and realized what he was railing against.
"In a way, this record is a response to The Black Parade," he begins, readjusting his feet on the couch. "Early on, I played Rich Costey some of the stuff. He asked me, 'What are you doing here? What kind of record is this?' I said it was a protest record. And he said, 'Well, what are you protesting?' And I didn't have an answer.
"Over time, I realized tha tthe thing I was protesting was us," he says. "By protesting us, I could protest the scene that we were attached to. I wanted to get away from anything considered 'scene.' There's so much crap going on: Where's the sentiment? All of this ADD music: What's the song about? Punch me in the face -- be direct with me. But I'm not hearing anything vague, either -- just collections of buzzwords. Nobody is talking to me. I think about our fans and what the lyrics might mean to them. What am I going to say for them?"
MCR have always had a deep connection to their fans, whether it was sneaking them into sold-out shows via fire exits or holding exhausting, post-show meet-and-greets. Each member of the band can regale you with multiple stories of fans explicitly telling them how they had their lives "saved" by My Chemical Romance. Gerard Way understands this better than anyone, but it took an outside influence to navigate him through his cognitive dissonance. Namely, his baby girl Bandit, who entered the world in late May.
"The biggest thing I want to get across with this record is [to tell listeners] don't let the world define who you are," Way says with great convinction. "If anything were to happen to me, I would want Bandit to hear this record and think of her dad as something more than what people made him or his band to be. I don't want her to think that her father was a victim, nor do I want her to think she was one, too. That goes for our fans, as well.
"The whole 'My Chemical Romance saves lives' thing is a misrepresentation," he continues. "We are grateful and touched that you got something out of our music. But, ultimately i twas you who worked through your reality. That's my message to the world: Get in the clear, we'll take care of this."
ONE OF THE INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATIVES from Warner Bros. Records told MCR about a trip he had taken to the label's Japanese headquarters. During a meeting in front of the assembled executives, the company's director said, "Emo is dead. Only survivor: My Chemical Romance." That might be some commentary about that Japanese style of management being way more prescient than the American model in everything from airlines to auto manufacturing. But there's no denying that after My Chemical Romance's fourth studio album drops in the spring of 2010, everyone on both sides of the as-yet-to-be-titled release -- from the band to their fans -- are going to revel in the party.
"Once the record is finally out, I hope to be talking less about it and more about the shows," says Gerard, enthusiastically. "It's no longer about what I can say onstage. It's about getting fired up. We've been a band long enough that we can fire up the engines -- that's what I want. The shows should blow you back like you're trapped in a wind tunnel. This band will always sacrifice something -- mental or physical health -- and it will always be that way. Ten years from now, it will still be that way."
He gets up from the couch and pauses like he's been hit with an afterthought. "We'll probably get tired a lot faster, though!"
SIDEBAR
ROCK-IT LAUNCH
IN OCTOBER, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE INVITED AP INTO THE STUDIO TO HEAR SOME OF THE 21 TRACKS THEY RECORDED FOR THEIR FOURTH STUDIO ALBUM, TENTATIVELY SET FOR RELEASE THIS COMING SPRING. GERARD WAY TOLD US THE STORIES BEHIND SOME OF THE NEW SONGS.
"DEATH BEFORE DISCO" Described as an "anti-party party song" (and one of the first tracks the band wrote prior to their Japan trip), this rave-up was directly inspired by the original Detroit punks, the Stooges and the MC5. The band actually got to play it for MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer when they met him during one of this Jail Guitar Doors charity initiatives.
"THE LIGHT BEHIND YOUR EYES" An atmospheric track that wouldn't sound out of place on a playlist between the Church and Talk Talk. According to Gerard, the band were going for a late-period Pink Floyd vibe, ca. The Division Bell. "We really went for something cinematic with it. Sort of like the sunset before the gunfight."
"HAIL TO THE KING" My Chemical Zeppelin, anyone? This song -- formerly tagged "L.A. Heavy" -- sounds like Queens of the Stone Age manning a fleet of 1986 Monte Carlos and taking over a small town with an army of fist-pumping kids in leather vests and ratty jeans. "It's all about playing a rock show with a who-gives-shit-what-the-song-means type of thing."
"STILL ALIVE" A chapter of My Chem mythology committed to song, this Britpop-sounding rocker is centered on the legendary story of the band getting a bottle of urine thrown at them at the Reading Festival in the U.K. -- from the thrower's point of view.
"TRANS AM" This song -- seemingly influenced by the Midwest crime drama Badlands and the modern sci-fi classic Blade Runner -- sounds like the kind of thing coming out at top volume of a rusted-out primer-coated, um, Trans Am. "Violence and automobiles are such a huge part of the American mythology."
"SAVE YOURSELF, I'LL HOLD THEM BACK" "I kept referencing 'Living After Midnight' by Judas Priest. The verses were Judas Priest, the choruses were Bon Jovi with a little bit of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge thrown in. I wanted it to be kind of a leather-metal song. That song is about the importance of a believer over a victim."
"THE ONLY HOPE FOR ME IS YOU" A cousin to "Famous Last Words" (the most optimistic cut from The Black Parade), this song encapsulates the band's knack for both the anthemic and the melodic. "'Famous Last Words' was very direct in the choruses. This one is even more direct. For me, it's looking at the beginning of my life -- which is, for me, 9/11. It's about a lot of things, like bringing a child into the world and being worried that there's going to be something lousy [your child] is going to have to live through."
"BLACK DRAGON FIGHTING SOCIETY" The most head-swiveling, 1-2-fuck you, live-in-the-studio moment in the entire MCR catalog, this song is 98 seconds of over-caffeinated, overmodulated, downstroked frenzy, replete with toy ray guns and a guitar battle royal between Frank Iero, Ray Toro, and Gerard. "It kind of reminds me of one of my favorite songs, 'Heart Attack Man' from the Beastie Boys' Ill Communication. There's about two hours of production on it, yet it still sounds like My Chemical Romance."
| |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Jeu 3 Déc 2009 - 19:54 | |
| Gerard interviewé dans Rock Sound - Spoiler:
Retranscription :MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE Interview: Andrew Kelham Have you thought about how My Chemical Romance will reintroduce themselves to music fans in 2010? Do you ever wonder if your band is still needed in music? Says Gerard Way (vocals): "It's funny because the musical landscape is ever changing, but I think there's always a place for us and I think we're absolutely needed, especially now. I don't say that with any arrogance, I just really believe in my band and I believe that our band does what it does better than anybody else. There's no one that can do this like us. I feel a gap when we are gone and I hope people do too, if they don't then we're not doing our job properly. I think we're absolutely needed, but I'm glad we're coming back in 2010 because, as much as people need us, I think they needed a break from us too. I hope we got the balance of that right." What have you tried to achieve with your forthcoming fourth album? How is it different from you past work? "With this record we tried to ignore all the cosmetic nonsense and focus on becoming a truly great rock band. We felt that the world needed a really straight and pure rock band, you're hard pressed to find a lot of those these days. It was less about the theatricality and more about how we become the greatest young American rock band musically." How are you adapting to fatherhood? "It's great, it's amazing. Obviously we just wanted a healthy baby, but I was excited to have a girl as there are things I can see myself helping a girl with that I could never do with a guy, things like picking out clothes and stealing eyeliner, all that sort of stuff!" | |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Mer 20 Jan 2010 - 13:01 | |
| Scans de NME /!\ HEAVY- Spoiler:
| |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Sam 30 Jan 2010 - 23:37 | |
| Photo de MCR dans le calendrier de Rockin' On mag MCR dans Big Cheese #119 - Citation :
- My Chemical Romance are featured on the cover of the new issue of Big Cheese Magazine (issue 119). Pre-order a copy now and you’ll also recieve a free My Chemical Romance patch and 15-track complimation CD. Pre-order now from BigCheeseMagazine.com.
> source | |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Jeu 11 Fév 2010 - 23:06 | |
| Big Cheese #119 - Spoiler:
+ retranscription : - Spoiler:
Currently holed up in the studio working on the follow up to global smash The Black Parade, My Chemical Romance are toiling hard on their fourth album. So where do they go from here?
It doesn't seem like five minutes ago that the world fell in love with My Chemical Romance. They were selling out arenas all over the world for pretty much every night of 2007 and 2008 and you couldn't walk down the stree without seeing someone sporting some of their merch. They even became tabloid fodder, with the Daily Mail declaring emo as evil, and piercing My Chemical Romance at the centre of the "cult." Not that this bothered the band; they were riding a wave of success that could not be stopped by overprotective middle-class parents.
But that was a few years ago now, and it's been pretty quiet on teh MCR front. Towards the end of the Black Parade tour, band members were missing shows for various reasons. Mikey Way took a break to get married to fellow musician Alicia Simmons, Frank took a break due to a family bereavement, and Bob Bryar began having problems with his wrists. Fans began to get worried, as it was beginning to look as though My Chemical Romance were never coming back. Guitarist Frank Iero filled us in on the post-Parade aftermath...
"At the end of The Black Parade tour cycle we were absolutely exhausted so it was kind of hard to reflect on everything because we were so exhausted. We were kind of fed up with the ways that things were being handled. We weren't sick of our careers, or sick of playing shows, we just weren't happy. We decided to take an extended break after touring, which was new to us because we'd never really had that kind of time off. Then we started to think 'Could this be permanent?'
"We wanted to reflect, because we felt like we were losing control, and it was started to be un-fun, and did we really want to do it anymore? But then we thought about the good stuff, like the music and the fans, and they were the things that made us want to keep going, and we had to deal with the other shit that comes with the territory."
Despite all the internal struggles of the band, they never left it affect their performances, putting on an amazing show every night. However, Frank confessed there were even points where he doubted the future of the band:
"At the end of the Black Parade tour, we all came home and spent the first month calling each other up and missing everyone. And I was waiting for the phone call when we would decide whether we wanted to continue to be a band or just rest a little longer. And I was concerned, because I didn't want the guys to forget it was great. Sometiems it is better to end it, rather than just dragging things out. But we dealt with any issues we had and we're really strong now."
Touring had clearly broken the band down, which was unfortunate due to the fact that playing live shows is pretty much the only way a band can survive in the current musical climate. After all the ups and down that came with consistent touring, how did the guys get over all the stress?
"We decided to make it fun again and take the band back. We wanted to test what it was like. So we waited for Bob Bryar's wrist to heal, then we got together Christmas of 2008, and we ended up writing two new songs. Which was good because things were new and exciting again. Then we went home for Christmas and went to LA in February 2009 to get things started again."
But it's not as though the band have been resting on their laurels while they took a break. Lead singer Gerard Way is now a father to Bandit Lee Way, as well as continuing to write his critically acclaimed comic book series "The Umbrella Academy". Frank Iero released an album with his other band Leathermouth in the form of "XO", allowing him to step up as the lead singer. The band also made a contribution to the soundtrack for the movie adaption of Watchmen, a wonderfully acerbic cover of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row". They were specifically requested to appear by director Zack Snyder, indicating that interest in the band was still apparent.
But right now, My Chemical Romance are putting the finishing touches to their new album, something which fans have anticipating for what must feel like a lifetime. The band premiered some new material at a secret show in Los Angeles in August 2009, with titles such as "Death Before Disco". However, it looks like they won't just settle for "good enough" with their new material.
"In the past we've been like 'Hey, this is done' once we think an album is finished. But on this album we had a really inspiring time while we were writing. We've been inspiring each other and we don't really want to stop. We even had a meeting yester because we might be recording two new songs after Christmas. Bands are supposed to write songs, why should we stop? We should keep going, we shouldn't write songs just because we've got an album coming out."
Frank is understandably guarded about giving away specific details, but is extremely enthusiastic about the quality of music the band is making:
"We've got a few songs that we're really, really excited about. There are a couple of songs that are so different than anything we've ever attempted. There are new elements and we're using new techniques, we've been encouraging each other to tke risks. We're working really well together. There is a huge different between ciriticism and constructive criticism. You just learn how to be in a band after a while."
Given the number of fans the band attracted, and the critical accolades The Black Parade received, there are high expectations for the new material. Are the band swaggering or sneaking bak into the scene?
"Coming back is kind of daunting, we've taken risks and it's been challenging, but it's really fun. As artists it is important that we re-invent ourselves, we'd kill the band if we didn't try. We've tried to not stay in the same spot. I thought the fans would hate The Black Parade even though I liked it, and they loved it. So I don't know how the fans are going to react to the record. We've taken a lot of chances, but we'll be around as long as the fanbase wants us. I can't wait to get out on the road and play these new songs, and I can't wait for people to hear them, as they're the best songs we've ever written. And I can't wait to re-hear them."
So how long before the fans will be able to get their hands on this highly-anticipated new material?
"Unfortunately, there is a big difference between the music and the music business. The label will decide when they are going to release it. We're not being given a deadline to hit or anything, but we're hoping to get the album out for early spring or summer."
There is no denying the landscape of recorded music is changing, with artists question the relevancy of the tradition album format. Frank believes there is still a place for the album.
"I think it's valid if the material is worth an album, if it has a full idea. An album's an art form and I think it is relevant but artists have to think as song as like chapters in a novel."
Given how long the band toured The Black Parade, how are the guys going to ensure they don't bring the band to the brink of destruction again?
"Things will be different than when we toured The Black Parade. We're going to work a lot smarter, and we're going to work for ourselves rather than trying to please anyone else. I think we're on the right path, and we're really strong as a band at the moment. During the process of recording issues arise and that helps the outcome of the record. You can either cause a rift or just get through it. As a band we're the best at trying to get through it."
As we reach the end of our time together it's clear that Frank won't give any more teasers about the albu. Instead, he leaves us with his personal thoughts on the new material.
"Fans should expect the unexpected with this album. There are melodies on there that have haunted me since I head them!"
My Chemical Romance's as-yet untitled fourth album is out later this year on Warner Bros. --Tracey Lowe
| |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Mar 16 Mar 2010 - 16:46 | |
| Couverture de l'édition spéciale de "Spin" - Avril 2010 - Citation :
- For Spin's 25th Anniversary: SPIN magazine will also be getting special treatment during the 25th Anniversary celebration. The March, April, and May issues will all be special editions with unique content and packaging. March and April include such features as "Where Are They Now?" "The Greatest Rock Fashion Icons of the Past 25 Years," and "Under the Influence: Musicians Interview Their Idols." Finally, in May, SPIN will present its Official 25th Anniversary Issue, which will be dedicated to the 100 Moments That Rocked Music in this past quarter century. The issue will feature pieces written by such past contributors as SPIN founder Bob Guccione, Jr., Chuck Klosterman, Marc Spitz, Jim Greer, Craig Marks, and Sue Cummings.
| |
| | | Lemoon Demolition Dust
Sexe : Posts : 659 Age : 28 Localisation : Adalia's House, looking for her... Inscription : 10/05/2009
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Ven 26 Mar 2010 - 21:41 | |
| L'article de SPIN : - Spoiler:
J'ai pas trouvé de retranscription, desolée. | |
| | | Romance Administratrice
Sexe : Posts : 2220 Localisation : Monroeville Inscription : 08/08/2007
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Ven 2 Avr 2010 - 19:10 | |
| Les autres photos du photoshoot posté par Pikabow (Nylon Guys magazine) - Spoiler:
L'article https://2img.net/h/oi41.tinypic.com/66966t.jpg https://2img.net/h/oi39.tinypic.com/21abslv.jpg https://2img.net/h/oi42.tinypic.com/wuo09d.jpg | |
| | | Kamille Cold Hard Bitch
Sexe : Posts : 2817 Localisation : Pair of Sauconys Inscription : 30/10/2007
| | | | Eryn. Lightbulbs
Sexe : Posts : 8259 Age : 31 Inscription : 30/11/2006
| | | | Eryn. Lightbulbs
Sexe : Posts : 8259 Age : 31 Inscription : 30/11/2006
| | | | Eryn. Lightbulbs
Sexe : Posts : 8259 Age : 31 Inscription : 30/11/2006
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Jeu 11 Nov 2010 - 20:36 | |
| | |
| | | Eryn. Lightbulbs
Sexe : Posts : 8259 Age : 31 Inscription : 30/11/2006
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Jeu 18 Nov 2010 - 10:31 | |
| | |
| | | doush.k Langue pendue
Sexe : Posts : 222 Age : 113 Localisation : Toulouse Inscription : 07/10/2010
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Sam 20 Nov 2010 - 9:21 | |
| L'article de Spin : - Spoiler:
Et la retranscription : - Spoiler:
PANDAMONIUM
They scrapped a whole album, lost a drummer, and are besieged by pesky Draculoids. Why is it that the crazier thigns get for My Chemical Romance, the happier they seem?
by Josh Eels/Photographs by Ture Lillegraven
Around this time last year, all Gerard Way could talk about was how different the next My Chemical Romance record was going to be. The band were coming off two long years of supporting their 2006 album, The Black Parade, a rock opera about cancer and dying that sold more than three million copies worldwide. The two albums before that, 2002's I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love and 2004's Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, were also conceptual, chronicling a couple's journey to hell after dying in a desert shoot-out. But the new record, Way kept promising, was going to be back to basics. No epic plotlines. No crazy uniforms. No makeup. And definitely no shoot-outs in the desert.
Thus it is with no shortage of irony that the four members of My Chemical Romance find themselves in the Joshua-tree scrublands of Southern California, preparing to have a shoot-out in the desert. It's a Wednesday in September, 99 degrees, and My Chem are in the parking lot of an abandoned gas station 65 miles outside L.A., filming the video for their awesomely titled single "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)." They're decked out in color-coordinated leather jackets and Mad Max biker boots, and carrying matching Duck Hunt-style laser guns. And they're preparing to do battle with a blood-thirsty pack of evil vampires
But hey--at least they're not wearing makeup.
So, about that whole back-to-basics thing: Who were they kidding? No band does big quite like My Chemical Romance. They love to commit, the more outlandish the idea the better. Want to cruise through the Mojave fighting bad guys? Sure! In a vintage Trans Am painted like the American flag? Okay! Driven by a stuntman from The Fast and the Furious? Why not? Wearing outfits that Way created with Tim Burton's costume designer? Fuck it! (Fans will have a chance to see the Trans Am themselves when the band bring it along on their upcoming arena tour, while a $70 box set of the new album comes with replica ray guns.)
My Chem's opus is called Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, and it's exactly as over-the-top as that title would lead you to suspect. The premise? The year is 2019, and some unspecified environmental catastrophe has befallen America. The survivors are ruled by a nefarious corporation called Better Living Industries, which employs an army of masked vampires called Draculoids. It's up to our heroes, a motorcycle-riding gang of "rogue artists" called the Killjoys -- a.k.a. My Chem -- to save the day.
"It's high concept," explains guitarist Frank Iero, 29, "but it's not a concept record." Met with a look of not-quite-comprehension, he laughs like a man who's been there himself. "Yeah," he nods. "When Gerard says it, too, I go, Okaaay…" But the band trust their frontman. "He likes to say we're his bullshit detectors."
"Gerard has a cool mind," says guitarist Ray Toro, 33. "He's tapped into things people are thinking about before they even know it." Way conceives of the band's looks, codirects their videos (this one with Nate Weaver and someone named Roboshobo), and even scoured costume stores for the Draculoids' masks. "He's the master, the dreamer-schemer, the giant beating heart," says Rob Cavallo, the album's producer and the new boss of Warner Bros. Records. "He almost reminds me more of Robert Rodriguez or Tarantino than any musical person -- he's an auteur."
"I don't know what he's not good at," says Mikey Way, 30, MCR bassist and Gerard's little brother. "He wasn't trained for any of it, but he's amazing at all of it." A few years ago Gerard, 33, wrote a comic book, The Umbrella Academy, that won the medium's equivalent of an Oscar; now he's helping adapt it into a film. He's also writing a Fabulous Killjoys comic book and recently pitched a Hollywood studio on another idea, based on a fairy tale.
Yet to Gerard, today running around in mirrored aviators and white jeans turned brown by dust, this kind of omnivorousness is the most natural thing in the world. "I love it all," he says during a break between setups. "There's not a lot of art forms where you can control your presentation and your ideas. I mean, you spend two years working on a record. Why wouldn't you spend two years working on everything else?"
The next afternoon, Way answers the door to his home in Los Angeles' Mt. Washington neighborhood in aqua-blue socks, a sleeveless black tee, and a pair of black cutoffs that would violate most school dress codes. The house, which Way and his wife, Lindsey, bought on Valentine's Day 2008, is cozy and secluded, with stucco walls and lots of exposed wood beams. It was built in the '30s by a woman from Mexico who made her fortune in the crouton business ("the Colonel Sanders of croutons," Way jokes), and a sign over the front gate still testifies to her grateful good vibes: CASA DE MIS SUEÑOS -- House of My Dreams.
"You want to take the tour?" Way asks, an unlit Marlboro between his lips. The first stop is his office, stacked floor to ceiling with comic books, novels, and DVDs. On the desk next to his computer there's a life-size replica of a Boba Fett helmet, and hidden in a closet somewhere, a collection of droids. Way grew up in New Jersey, in an area where riding bikes wasn't safe, so he and Mikey had to invent their own fun, acting out Star Wars movies (usually The Empire Strikes Back, on account of the snow) and episodes of G.I. Joe. Gerard even remembers sending off sketches for action figures to the good people at Hasbro. (They never responded.)
Outside the bathroom -- where a potty-training toilet sits on the floor -- Way has to swerve to avoid stepping on a stuffed Elmo doll. In May 2009, Lindsey, who plays bass with electro-punks Mindless Self Indulgence, gave birth to their first kid, a daughter named Bandit Lee. Way says he loves everything about fatherhood, even changing diapers, with just one exception. "I'm not great at giving baths, because it makes me nervous. I don't want to bang her head. Lindsey calls me Safety Inspector. My whole life I was protective of Mikey because I felt that was my job, and that's totally transferred to Bandit."
For his day gig, he's the same way. In My Chem's music, Way casts himself as a kind of safety inspector of emotions, plugging baby-proof stoppers into the electrical sockets of adolescence. On The Black Parade he dubbed himself "the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned," and he established for the band the modest goal of rescuing the world. "I thought if we made an album that tried to change the world, or give it hope, it would really happen," Way says, cheerfully. "But all people found was death and destruction and misery and self-hate. I learned that the world doesn't want to be saved, and it will fucking punch you in the face if you try."
We make our way downstairs, through the master bedroom (fireplace, unmade bed, framed black-and-white photo of a romantic-looking couple splattered by blood), and into the backyard. It's a magnificent place, with a stunning canyon view. "I never really come out here," he says a little sheepishly as we poke past a small grove of orange trees, the fruit overripe and unpicked. Near the bottom of the hill there's another tree, boasting an oddly shaped green fruit. Way stops short. "I've never even seen this before." He plucks one and takes a bite. "It's an apple!"
For a guy who once famously sang, on their breakthrough single, "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)," that he was "not o-fucking-kay," Way seems…well, pretty okay. I ask him what he'd say now to the kid who wrote that song, and he laughs. "I would say, 'Fucking lighten up, dude! Don't torture yourself. You're going to meet an awesome girl and have a daughter, and when that happens, make sure you're fucking happy.' " But these days, he's charmingly self-mocking about the idea of "trying to win the world over with a musical, wearing marching-band uniforms, and singing about our feelings."
In 2004, just as the band was getting huge, Way had a bad night of boozing and pill-popping in Japan and decided to quit drugs and alcohol cold turkey. Recently, though, he's been enjoying the occasional drink. It's not about the high, so much as loosening his own self-imposed restraints. "[Sobriety] became such a thing," he says. "It was so goddamn important to everyone but me. You start to feel like the two guys in the Smiths who wanted to eat cheeseburgers but had to pretend not to. I understand that kids look up to me, that some people might have gotten sober because of me. But it's not an important thing for me anymore."
You're no one's savior, you mean.
"Hell no." He pauses. "But that was a fun image to play with. Because even if you miss the mark, you're probably gonna be a pretty remarkable person. Shoot for savior, and end up being rad."
On a sunny afternoon in September, Mikey Way is eating a hamburger at a Mexican restaurant in Hollywood, talking about his new adoptive hometown. East Coast pale and skyline-skinny (130 punds!), Way--indeed, all of MCR--is an unlikely sight among the toned, tanned Melrose masses. Yet aside from Iero, who lives with his wife and their seven-week-old twin girls back in Jersey, the band members are all Angelenos now. Toro and MIkey both admit they followed Gerard, more or less, but they're warming to the place. "When I first came here, I thought it was kind of awful," Mikey says. "But the more I came, I started to understand what people saw. In New Jersey, when the snow came, there were, like, three months where you're crippled. Here, the sunshine inspires you to go out the front door." (Toro, meanwhile, is just happy he "finally found a good slice of pizza.")
For a while there, getting out that front door was hard. "Towards the end of the Black Parade tour, we were all shell-shocked," Mikey says. "It was out of our control. I wasn't happy." An anxious person to begin with, he had to take a brief hiatus, ostensibly to get married, but mostly to decompress and regroup.
Iero had a tough time, too. "Living that record, truly living it--putting on those costumes for two years, being away from family and friends--that was hard." By the time the cycle wrapped in May 2008, they "were exhausted creatively, physically, and emotionally." For a while, Iero wasn't even sure they'd make another record.
When the band went into the studio a few months later with producer Brendan O'Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam), the plan was to make a raw, down-and-dirty punk record. In an interview with SPIN last April, Way worried that success had made him complacent and name-checked the Stooges and the MC5 as touchstones. The band had set down a bunch of ground rules detailing what they weren't allowed to do, to strip away The Black Parade's extravagant theatricality. It made sense in theory, but it was also kind of perverse--ditching the try-anything grandiosity that made them great in the first place.
"We were so squashed down by the heaviness, we wanted to run away and do everything opposite from that," Iero says. But as the sessions progressed, that less-is-more approach began to backfire. "It turned into another rule we had to abide by."
For a long time, the band couldn't shake the feeling that the music was too joyless, too flat. "In my heart, I knew some of the stuff could be better," Toro says. "But it was a big fear to throw it all away." It wasn't until the record was being mixed that they finally admitted to themselves that they could do better. THey called the label to say they wanted to go back into the studio with Cavallo to record a new song. One song became two, two became four, and before they knew it, they'd decided to scrap everything and start over. (Three of the initial songs were re-recorded for the new album; Toro says they hope to release the rest someday, possibly for free.)
It takes a lot of fearlessness--or recklessness--to abandon a project you've been working on for more than a year, and apparently not everyone was on board. Four days into the band's sessions with Cavallo, it was decided that drummer Bob Bryar would leave the group. THe band won't go into specifics. ("There's legal stuff going on," Toro says.) Studio vet and current Meat Love drummer John Miceli plays on the album; Michael Pedicone, formerly of the Bled, will tour with them, but they have no plans to add a full-time replacement.
"It quickly became apparent that [Bryar] was obstructing their creative process," Cavallo says. "It was a sad thing, but he was throwing water on their fire."
"There were great reasons were were together for five years, and you don't want to forget those," says Iero. "But you can't be in an artistic-driven band with a person who doesn't love creating."
Iero, the band's punk conscience, sees the album's Killjoys versus Draculoids narrative partly as a metaphor for the age-old struggle between art and commerce--for "that corporate seeping in, trying to steal the magic, and your resistance against it." In reality, though, "that corporate" may be their greatest weapon. For years My Chem had the good fortune to work with Warner Bros. chairman Tom Whalley, one of their longtime champions. Then, when Whalley left the label in September, he was replaced by Cavallo--the band's closest collaborator of the past five years and a guy Mikey Way calls their "fifth member." It's ahrd to imagine a dynamic between overambitious rock band and major label suits that's less antagonistic.
"Most people's impression is that the label is there to step on the bands," says Toro. "We're one of the few bands that has a great relationship with our label. We've become friends with them." As such, they're unusually adept at using the machine to their advantage. Iero estimates they'd sunk six figures into the album before they decided to start over; by Gerard's estimate, there are only five bands who could have gotten the same go-ahead (and even that seems high).
"There was zero hesitation," says Craig Aaronson, the band's A&R rep. "They wanted to take it to another level, and we wanted to make sure they had the resources to do that." Cavallo maintains that Warners would have done the same for any act on the label. But after some prodding, he also admits, "When it comes down to it, there are favorites.
"Clearly we would rather the band have the concept ahead of time," he says wryly. "But life isn't always perfect. My Chemical Romance have sold millions of records. We need, and want, to continue that success. Wo whatever it takes, we're going to do."
You should check out our art studio," Gerard Way says. "It's not far."
He climbs behind the wheel of his black Porsche Carrera, cranks up the stereo (KUSC--classical) and heads down the hill to a space the band rent a few miles away. Lindsey, a painter and dioramist has a studio in the same complex, and on the way Gerard gushes about her art and career more enthusiastically than he does his own. (Fact: Mrs. Way has become something of a mentor to an aspiring artist named Frances Bean Cobain. "We were her favorite band," Gerard says. "Courtney [Love] brought her to a show for her birthday, and now me and Lindsey are friends with her. She's a fucking rad kid.")
As we pull into the parking lot, Lindsey Way just happens to be leaving. A bleached-blonde beauty, she's tall and tattooed, wearing a gold necklace with a charm that spells out BANDIT. Gerard hops out and rushes to give her a kiss. "I'll be home soon," he tells her. "I love you."
Inside the studio, I have a realization: This is what Gerard's brain must look like. There are colored-pencil sketches of costumes and cars; slogans scrawled on a chalkboard in pastel pink and yellow (ART IS THE WEAPON; THE AFTERMATH IS SECONDARY; LOOK ALIVE, SUNSHINE). The whole room is awash in primary colors, all laser-beam reds and egg-yolk yellows. Everything is bright, bold, splashy--the opposite of the "bummers" Mikey says they're known for.
If My Chemical Romance are a franchise, then Danger Days is the reboot. Gone are the scowls, the omnipresent black; instead, says Toro, "We're bringing color back." For proof, look no further than Gerard's hair. For The Black Parade, it was chopped short and dyed white, to symbolize death; now his locks are a vibrant red.
"Black became such an expected thing," Gerard says. "It's like this vampire culture that's forced on us. It's taking this monter that's really awesome and ugly, and throwing makeup on it, taking the fangs out." I ask him for his take on Twilight and the whole sexy-vampire trend, and he sighs. "To be honest, he says, "I hate it. I grew up watching amazing fils like From Dusk Till Dawn and Near Dark, and I think even if vampire aren't ugly, they should be really fucking dangers. I mean, what the fuck--you don't see anyone dating the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The craziest thing that the guy is like, a thousand years old, trying to fuck a 16-year-old. What if that guy looked his age? He's so much more emotionally advanced than her. It's not fair!"
Way delivers the rant with a smile, but there's some bite behind it. The last song on Danger Days is called "Vampire Money," which is about bands jockeying for a spot on the Twilight soundtracks, and My Chem's refusal to follow suit. "People were chasing that vampire money so hard," Way says. "And people kept assuming we were going to, too. I know Paramore did it, and they're sweet kids. But we're nothing like them."
Way thinks a lot about the business of music. "We're in a real fucking fear-driven industry right now," he says, lighting up a Marlboro. "Why are we slumming it, battling it out with other guys with guitars to get a better spot on a radio format that kinda sucks and is losing its foothold anyway? Everything is going into pop. So how do you make rock important again? By fucking moving into enemy territory."
For Way, that means taking the tools of pop and turning them against themselves. My Chem have never been short on hooks, but Danger Days goes even further, delving into contemporary pop's most reliable tricks--slick-sounding keyboards, propulsive dance beats, Glee-ready Broadway melodies. "To a lot of people, pop is a dirty word," he says. "But it's all about using pup as a weapon. I told the guys I wanted this record to sound like you're pointing a .357 at the sun, squeezing the trigger until it's empty." He also loves Lady Gaga, and even wanted to tour with her before she took of into the stratosphere. "A lot of the imagery in 'Bad Romance' is what we've been playing around with for years," he says. "I sometimes wonder if she'd heard one of our records or seen what we'd done."
As Way talks, you can hear those old savior tendencies starting to creep back in. The epaulets and crew cuts may be gone, but that doesn't mean there isn't a war to be fought. (As Craig Aaronson says: "Gerard is very driven, and he wants to win.")
Way is quiet for a second remembering a story, "After Black Parade," he recalls, "a friend said to me, 'Don't retreat into this rock stuff yet. You may think you just made Magical Mystery Tour, but you really just made Revolver.'" In other words, there are still worlds to explore, costumes to don, gunfights to be had. Boundaries to push.
Way smiles. "I still haven't found the crazy shit yet."
| |
| | | ~sonny~ The Sharpest Lives
Sexe : Posts : 1005 Age : 34 Localisation : Chambéry (73) Inscription : 28/07/2009
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse Mer 17 Aoû 2011 - 16:21 | |
| Kerrang, pour le dixième anniversaire du groupe. Vous pouvez voir les scans ici http://mcrupdates.tumblr.com/post/8731292456/my-chemical-romance-a-10-year-celebration-kerrang | |
| | | Contenu sponsorisé
| Sujet: Re: Articles de presse | |
| |
| | | | Articles de presse | |
|
| Permission de ce forum: | Vous ne pouvez pas répondre aux sujets dans ce forum
| |
| |
| |