Danger Days: True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys!

On a slate-grey afternoon in a dead silent west London suburb, entering the studio where My Chemical Romance are posing for photographs feels like stepping into the primary colour pages of a Marvel comic book. KAPOW! Theres bassist Mikey Way, tiger stripes sig-zagging up his torso. ZAP! Either side of him: guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero, a broad-strokes blur of denim and tattoos.

And at the centre, hands raised high, holding a desert landscape aloft ZONK! Its Gerard Way, Stones T hanging off him, his hair an ink-splash of pillar-box red. He advances towards me, hand extended like a blade. I half expect his words to float in a speech bubble above his head.

NME, right? Mind if go for a cigarette first?

Be my guest. Even superheroes need a fag break.

This is the new My Chemical Romance: the goths who roared back from the grave, exploded from black and white into vivid colour. Their last album, 2006s three-million-selling The Black Parade, was a morbid fantasia about a man dying from cancer. At live shows, Way would clamber aboard a gurney to declaim such cheery lines as Im just soggy from the chemo and Wouldn't it be great if we were dead?

If that record was a death march, the new one is a road trip. Danger Days: THe True Lives Of Te Fabulous Killjoys is a needle-in-the-red desert race, a pop-punk Mint 400 that reeks of polished chrome and scorched engine oil. But its not cartoonishly upbeat. Beneath the burning rubber lies an allegory of environmental collapse, a tale of four outlaws battling a ruthless corporation in the shadow of a cataclysmic event, which is never specified but strongly hinted to be nuclear war. The band call Danger Days a party record, but its hardly Agadoo. Listen carefully, and its clear that this is the party at the end of the world.

Way says the corporation represents many things the US government, the BP oil spill, the temptations of save, 30-something rock n roll. But mostly the records mood of apocalyptic defiance was inspired by a quote he heard on a Duran Duran Classic Albums documentary: We want to be the band thats dancing when the bomb goes off. The message being: the world is fucked, but dont lose hope. The albums key concept, he says, is: Keep running. Dont ever stop. Youve got to keep running to stay free. Swerving madly from digi-punk to classical, and crammed with ideas, it is the most deranged, full-throttle album released this year.

What is so thrilling about Danger Days is that the reference points are not purely musical. Sure, there are hints of early-80s good-time metal (Judas Priest, Def Leppard), and the desparado, pulling-outta-here-to-wing quality of Bruce Springsteen. But it also makes you think of movies, comic books, NASCAR (see panel). As befits a band who play World of Warcraft together on tour, listening to the album is immersive and relentless, like being plunged inside a video game. Way describes it as turning the cannon on rock n roll. I interpret it more as a love note to American trash culture in all its forms, as exemplified by the cheap polyresin raygun that comes with the albums special edition. You don't get that with Lara Marling.

Up close, Gerard Way and Frank Iero are so irritatingly pretty that you want to stretch a bin liner over their heads. Theyre easy in each others company as youd expect from two guys whove been known to French kiss onstage (its on YouTube, if you must look). Both possess the beaming benevolence common to new fathers: Way has an 18-month-old daughter, Bandit Lee: he recorded some of his vocal parts for Danger Days while covered in baby sick. Iero has a pair of newborn twins, Cherry and Lily an experience he describes as awesome, though the guitarist is so unfailingly enthusiastic, you sense hed describe a looming fistulotomy as awesome too.

Both men are rail-thin something Way attributes to not eating, rather than exercise, which he hates. For the new albume he wanted to look staving and on-the-run, though he actually looks healthy, certainly in comparison with his Xanax and cocaine days pre-Black Parade, when he ballooned to 200 pounds and got so blitzed his trousers fell down onstage. Back then, unkind souls dubbed him the emo Meat Loaf, such was his shambolic demeanour. Now he looks more like Christina Ricci.

In the background lurks guitarist Ray Toro the archetypal heavy metal nerd, with corkscrew hair and a wheedling voice. He doesnt look starving and on-the-run: when he takes off his Randy Rhodes, I notice doughy love handles spilling over his belt. Theres Mikey Way too, a silent, bookish presence, and a new drummer, Mike Pedicone, who doesn't reveal himself. He replaces Bob Bryar, who parted with the band in February. Way is quick to point out: My Chemical Romance is the four of us.

Its hard to square this clean-cut gang with the pantomime villains the Daily Mail described in 2006 as an evil suicide cult. But then, that was always a demented fantasy on Fleet Streets part. Its no wonder My Chemical Romance wanted to reinvent themselves with Danger Days, because ultimately The Black Parade mutated into something monstrous and beyond their control. Most terrifyingly of all, it exposed them to the full, frothing insanity of the British tabloid press.

When 13-year-old MCR fan Hannah Bond hanged herself, the Mail claimed the band's music had led her to it a curious interpretation of an album whose final chorus runs, I am not afraid to keep on living. None of these journalists had a clue one shrieked: No child is safe from the sinister cult of emo. Another listed Russell Brand as an emo icon. But it didn't matter. Other outlets seized on the story, and before long emo was the biggest, dumbest moral panic since acid house.

What was it like, being at the center of this tornado of bullshit?

I get it now, sighs Way, though his resignation curdles to renewed fury as he speaks. Its like Kasabian talking shit about us to sell records. Theyre tabloids, they want to sell newspapers. But what gets me about these journalists they clearly don't communicate with their children. They've been suck rotten, distant parents. And they look at their kid who has problems, and instead of trying to understand them, they find out what the kid is into and they crucify it. Now they'll probably accuse us of pushing drugs on kids. Theyll find something.

Was there not a small part of you, though, that revelled in being cast as dangerous outsiders?

Only once or twice, he says, when we had religious whackos outside our gigs, protesting, saying, Youre the devil. To be targeted by those people felt like a vicctory. But that didn't last long. Pretty quickly I thought, This is really misunderstood, this is getting out of hand. The records were selling [on the strength of] this nonce, I don't want to be selling.

From there, the emo witch-hunt went international. In March 2008, a string of attacks on teenage emo kids culminated in a bloody riot in the Mexican city of Santiago de Querétaro. Four months later, the Russian parliament drafted legislation that sought to ban the dangerous teen trend of, er, wearing eyeliner and having a long black fringe. It was as though the world had lost its mind but way is in no doubt as to who is responsible for this lunacy.

The media incited those hate crimes, he says. We got to New Zealand for Big Day Out and the media was already there, fanning the flames. And that was the worst part: how they involved the kids. If you make a 16-year-old kid a villain, demonise him, make him feel that hes a potential threat your painting a fucking target on this kid.

And yet I wonder if Way feels a little responsible. Everyone knows My Chemical Romance inspire fanaticism. Before the first leg of the UK tour, in Hammersmith, Fans camped out overnight in the rain. The same thing happened at every subsequent date. They call themselves the MCR-my. The point is: that level of to-thedeath devotion is the direct result of Ways adversarial worldview.

More than any other band, MCR understand that being young is a battle, in which rock n roll represents a redemptive shield against a nebulous them. A spirit of fist-aloft defiance defined The Black Parade (Give a cheer for all the broken), and its all over the new album: They dont believe in us (DESTROYA); Think of the bombs they built (The Only Hope For Me Is You). I think a lot of MCR fans thrive on being victimized, see it as a totem of their loyalty.

Way passionately disagrees. Theres no us and them, he insists. We dont need outside conflict. Us versus them is just another marketing tool, and Im not going to sell our fans pre-packed rebellion, they deserve better than that. If it was really us against the world, I should have taken those kids and robbed a bank. I want the message to [our fans] to be, You can do fucking anything, because we did. He eyes my Dictaphone, as if addressing the fans directly. Im not leading you into battle

In other ways, though Way does feel responsible. You know how mainstream youth culture is now all about eyeliner and vampires (Twilight, True Blood etc? Well he started that whole goth thing, and hes mighty pissed off about how lame its become. Predictably, the band were offered huge sums (they wont tell me exactly how much) to contribute a song to the Twilight soundtrack. To their great credit, they refused.

Thats why this record exists, to react against all that, he says, seemingly relieved to address an issue thats been burning him up. Hes at his most articulate when hes angry. Thats why the song Vampire Money i son there, because theres a lot of people chasing that fucking money. Twilight? A lot of people around us were like, Please, for the love of god, do this fucking move. But wed moved on.

Because you loathe what goth has become?

Exactly. Originaly, what we did was take goth and put it with punk and turn it into something dangers and sexy. Back then, nobody in the normal punk world was wearing black clothes, eyeliner. Wed be in a truckstop bathroom, putting make-up on. We did it because we had one mission to polarise, to irritate, to contaminate. Its like, Whos the toughest guy in the club? Us, because were dressed like fucking cupcakes. But then that image gets romanticised. And then it gets commoditised.

A counter-culture movement becoming santised and co-opted by the mainstream: sound familiar? He could be talking about emo. As much as they insist they never felt part of it, its clear that The Black Parade caught the same cultural wave that made multi-platinum stars of Fall Out Boy and Panic At The Disco. It was the great emo boom of 2006, but it couldn't last: within three years, both bands had split. Were MCR concerned, four years form their last album, that their fans had moved on?

Way winces at the very mention of the word. You know what, I'm not even bummed about being called emo any more. Im sure Eddie Vedder is not bummed about the word grunge: he knows they were just Pearl Jam, and we know were My Chemical Romance. If its called that one year, next year theyll start calling it electro-emo. Theyll find a way. Basically, whatever the fuck ths band is doing, its emo. But we never felt part of that trend. Are we still relevant? Weve got something to say, and that makes us relevant.

Theres a tension here. A songwriter with filmic instincts, Way wants his band to operate on the grandest possible scale. But hes deeply uncomfortable with the trappings of being a big-hitting major-label act. He talks a lot about his terror of being sucked into a safe, 30-something world. Corporate rock. I was horribly opposed to that. What were doing now is a direct reaction.

That word again: reaction. Ironically, it was an obsession with reacting against the past that almost derailed Danger Days..., or at least made it less interesting. Originally, the album was scheduled to come out at the start of this year. And it was done a bare-bones, back-to-basic rock record. Way even did interviews to promote it. There was only one snag: it lacked gravity, and the band didn't believe in it.

The Black Parade had been an art record, explains Iero. So for this one we thought, OK, no concept, no costumes, no flamboyance. Lets strip it down, two guitars bass and drums, thats it. Then we realised that, by making those restrictions, we were tying our arms behind our backs as artists.

So they scrapped the entire album. And then... creative deadlock. Way even wondered if he might quit the band and become a comic book artist full time (hes certainly good enough: his creation The Umbrella Academy won a coveted Eisner award, and is being turned into a film). Disheartened, and on the advice of his new wife Lyn-Z (of the band Mindless Self Indulgence), the singer decamped to the remote Mojave Desert town of Twentynine Palms.

There he wrote a song, Na Na Na, which he describes as a punk-rock Hey Ya! and credits with recharging his creativity. Its become the albums lead single and the bands live opener and calling card, and is the track that best exemplifies the new, turbo-charged iteration of the band: breakneck, full-bore, blazing with colour. Na Na Na was the turning point, he says. It helped him conceive a new look for the band, a kind of futuristic outlaw chic that he describes as My Own Private Idaho meets Blade Runner. I realized then that this was going to be a fight. There were going to be casualties, it was going to be brutal.

Ultimately, it was about finding the right things to reject, and the right things to hold on to. We stopped trying to rebel against ourselves, says Way, and started rebelling against rock. Thats why the album sounds the way it does. Its four guys fighting against being homogenised, against being assimilated by that super-safe, clean, take-your-medication type of world. Its pop art, and its not ashamed of that.

So theres your story: the amazing adventures of My Chemical Romance four black-clad avengers who conquered the world, and then destroyed what theyd created, only to come hurtling back (in new costumes!) to fight another day. Its quite a tale. Someone really ought to write a comic book about it.

Sidebars:

'DANGER DAYS..." NEEDLE IN THE RED RATING

Look Alive, Sunshine
Opening up 'Danger Days...' is this, a portentous spoken word intro courtesy of Dr Death Defying, the album's narrator/mastor of ceremonies, (5 of 10)

Na Na Na
You probably know this one already. And if you don't, you will soon. It's mental. Way says it "sounds like a big gang of children yelling. It's dum as fuck, really." And he's right. (10 of 10)

Bulletproof Heart
A future single, this boasts an urgent lyric with intimations of suicide ("Please just jump and get it over with"). Plus, it quotes The Terminator! (7 of 10)

SING
Lyrically, this is classic MCR call-to-arms ("You've got to be what tomorrow needs"), but with their usual widdly guitars replaced by synths and punk-funk bass lines. (6 of 10)

Planetary (GO!)
Described by way as "a dance song with a vendetta", it has the line "My velocity starts to make you sweat". Absurdly upbeat, the digi-punk bits sound like Enter Shikari. (9 of 10)

The Only Hope For Me Is You
Conceived as a ballad, this has been retooled as a thunderous, robotic thrash, while the shadow of war looms ("Think of the bombs they built"). (8 of 10)

Jet-Star And The Kobra Kid/Traffic Report
Another spoken word sermon from Dr Death Defying, who instructs his disciples to "die with your mask on if you have to." (7 of 10)

Party Poison
A lyrical reference to MC5's 'Kick Out The Jams' and a riff purloined from Judas Priest make this the album's most pedal-to-the-metal moment. (10 of 10)

Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back
A typical MCR declaration of defiance (We can live forever if you've got the time"), featuring a Def Leppard-esque production sheen. (8 of 10)

S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W
A strange, psychedelic pop tune whose swooping chorus belies a bleak meaning. The scarecrow is a metaphor for nuclear annihilation. (8 of 10)

Summertime
Another glistening FM-rock anthem, with a real early-'80s, open-highway feel. It's romantic, too, with its pay-off line: "You can run away with me any time you want". (7 of 10)

DESTROYA
Ultra-heavy funk-metal that fits very neatly in the mould of Jane's Addiction, featuring the none-more-MCR rallying cry: "They don't belive in us!" (9 of 10)

The Kids From Yesterday/Goodnite, Dr Death
We Don't care about the message or the rules they make", sings Way over a pulsing backdrop. (8 of 10)

Vampire Money
A brass band lament morphs into a Ramones-esque pop-punk sprint, via some Fuck Buttons-style speaker-shredding distortion. Indecently thrilling. (10 of 10)

THE INFLUENCES

Blade Runner
Way watched a documentary on this dystopian sci-fi classic while recording and says it was the chief influence.

Vanishing Point
Released in '71, the ultimate high-octane road movie had a muscle car driven by the renegade Kowalski. Primal scream were fans too.

The Warriors
Another '70s cult classic, all about warring gangs in New York. MCR's alter-egos for this album were strongly influenced by the film.

Mad Max
Desperado road warriors charge round a post-apocalyptic desert in turbo-charged car. The 'Na Na Na' video owes a debt.

The Filth
Grant Morrison's compelling comic book series, of which Gerard Way is a massive fan, portrays a complex tale in which a troubled loner, Greg Feely, battles shadowy forces with dark designs on humanity.

The Invisibles
Another comic book set by the influential Morrison, The Invisibles features a ragtag band of freedom fighters. The madcap anti-corporate conspiracy behind 'Danger Days...' owes much to these stories.

Une aprés-midi grise dans le silence de la banlieue ouest de Londres, entrer dans le studio où MCR pose pour les photographes c'est comme sauter dans les pages colorées d'un comic Marvel. Il y a le bassist Mikey Way, des rayures de tigres zigzagant sur son torse, de l'autre côté de lui : les guitaristes Ray Toro et Frank Iero, un mélange de jean et de tatouages.

Et au centre, les mains en l'air, tenant un décor de paysage de désert, c'est Gerard Way, en t-shirt des Stones, les cheveux comme une tache rouge. Il s'avance vers moi, la main tendu comme une arme. Je m'attend à moitié à ce que ses mots flottent dans une bulle au-dessus de sa tête.

"NME c'est ça ? Je peux fumer une cigarette avant ?"

Allez-y. Même les super-héros ont besoin d'une pause cigarette.

C'est le nouveau MCR : les goths qui hurlaient depuis leur tombe, explosent du noir et blanc en des couleurs vives. Leur précédent album, TBP vendu à 3 millions d'exemplaire en 2006, était le fantasme morbide d'un homme mourant d'un cancer. Pendant les concerts, Way se hissait sur un brancard pour déclamer des paroles aussi joyeuses que "I'm just soggy from the chemo" et "would'nt de great if we were dead ?"

Si cet album était une marche funébre, le nouveau est un road trip. Danger Days : The Trues Lives Of the Fabulous Killjoys est une course à fond dans le désert, un Mint 400 (je sais pas ce que c'est XD) pop-punk qui sent le chrome poli et l'huile de moteur brûlée. Mais ce n'est pas joyeux comme un dessin animé. Derrière le plastic brulant il y a une allégorie sur l'effondrement environemental, un conte de quatre hors-la-loi se battant contre une corporation impitoyable dans l'ombre d'un événement cataclysmique, qui n'est jamais spécifié mais est fortement suggéré comme une guerre nucléaire.

Way dit que la corporation représente beaucoup de choses du gouvernement des USA, la marée noire de BP, la tentation de sauver, du rock n'roll trentenaire. Mais principalement, l'humeur de méfiance apocalyptique de l'album a été inspiré par une citation qu'il a entendu dans le documentaire de Duran Duran "Classic Album" : Nous voulons être le groupe qui dansent quand les bombes tombent. Le message étant : le monde est foutu, mais ne perdez pas espoir. Le concept clé de l'album est, dit-il : "continuez de courir. N'arrêtez jamais. Vous devez continuer de courir pour rester libre". S'étirant entre du digi-punk et du classique, bourré d'idées, c'est l'album le plus dérangé sorti cette année.

Le plus excitant avec Danger Days c'est que les références ne sont pas que musicales. Bien sur il y a des allusions au bon vieux métal du début des années 80 (Judas Priest, Def Leppard), et la qualité désespérée de Bruce Springsteen. Mais il vous fait aussi penser à des livres, des comic, NASCAR (course de stock-car). Comme il convient à un groupe qui joue ensemble à WoW pendant les tournées, l'écoute de l'album est immersive et incessante, comme être plongé dans un jeu vidéo. Way le décrit comme un tournant dans le rock n'roll. Je l'interprête plus comme une lettre d'amour à la culture trash américaine dans toutes ses formes, comme l'illustre les pistolets laser en résine bon marché qui sont avec l'édition spéciale de l'album. Vous n'avez pas ça avec Lara Marling.

De prés, Gerard Way et Frank Iero sont si mignons (pretty est quand même assez péjoratif quand on parle d'un homme) que vous avez envie de leur mettre un sac poubelle sur la tête. Ils sont à l'aise en compagnie l'un de l'autre, comme on peut l'attendre de deux hommes qui sont connus pour s'être embrassés sur scéne (c'est sur Youtube, si vous devez regarder). Tous deux posséde la bienveillance rayonnante commune aux nouveaux péres : Way a une fille de 18 mois, Bandit Lee : il a enregistré certaines parties de l'album recouvert de vomi. Iero a une paire de jumelles nouveaux-nés, Cherry et Lily, une expérience qu'il décrit comme grandiose, cependant le guitariste est d'un enthousiasme si indéflectible, vous sentez qu'il pourrait décrire une fistulotomie (je vous laisse chercher ce que c'est...) comme grandiose également.

Les deux hommes sont minces, ce que Way attribu au fait de ne pas manger, plutôt qu'à de l'exercice, qu'il déteste. Pour le nouvel album, il voulait un look affamé et "en fuite", cependant il a l'air en forme, certainement en comparaison avec sa période Xanax et cocaïne d'avant TBP, quand il pesé dans les 90kg et était si déchiré que son pantalon tombé sur scéne. A ce moment là les âmes cruelles le surnommaient le Meat Loaf emo, tel était son comportement bordélique. Maintenant il ressemble plus à Christina Ricci.

Dans le fond observe passivement le guitariste Ray Toro, l'archétype du nerd heavy métal, avec ses cheveux en tire-bouchon et sa voix enjôleuse. Il n'a pas l'air affamé et en fuite : quand il enlève son Randy Rhodes (je sais pas qui/ce que c'est mais ça n'existe pas, par contre Randy Roads est un célébre guitariste...) je remarque de bonnes poignées d'amour dépassant de sa ceinture. Il y a Mikey Way aussi, une présence silencieuse et studieuse, et un nouveau batteur, Mike Pedicone, qui ne s'est pas présenté. Il remplace Bob Bryar, qui a quitté le groupe en février. Way est prompt à mettre les choses au clair : "MCR c'est juste nous quatre."

C'est dur de faire cadrer ce groupe bien propre avec les méchants que le Daily Mail en 2006 décrivait comme un culte du suicide satanique . Ce n'est pas une surprise que MCR ai voulut se réinventer avec Danger Days, parce qu'en fin de compte TBP avait muté en quelque chose de monstreux et hors de leur contrôle. Le plus terrifiant de tous ça, ça les exposèrent à la folie compléte des tabloid anglais.

Quand une fan de 13 ans, Hannah Bond, se pend, le Mail prétend que la musique du groupe l'y a conduite, une interprétation curieuse d'un album dont le dernier refrain est "I am not afraid to keep on living". Aucun de ces journalistes n'avaient la moindre idée, un seul hurlait : aucun enfant n'est à l'abris du sinistre culte emo. Un autre a listé Russell Brand comme une icône emo. Mais ça n'a pas d'importance. Les autres saisirent l'histoire, et sous peu l'emo était le plus grande et stupide panique morale depuis l'acid house.