My Chemical Romance just debuted “Fake Your Death,” the final song they recorded together, via BBC Radio 1 and are now streaming it on their website.
Fans who pre-ordered the band’s greatest hits CD/DVD May Death Never Stop You through the band’s website will receive a download code for the song, and it will also be available to download on iTunes with the purchase of the full digital album.
Watch the video for “Fake Your Death” below:
Yesterday, guitarist Frank Iero said of the song, “It’s one of my favorites we ever did,” and in arecent statement, former MCR frontman Gerard Way called “Fake Your Death” a “eulogy for the band:”
“…I consider “Fake Your Death” to be the “last MCR song”, and to me, it is absolutely the final fully realized collaboration between the members of the band. Oddly, or fittingly, it was written while the Los Angeles Kings beat the New Jersey Devils and won the Stanley Cup, though this did not inform or inspire the song as I was unaware (along with James and Doug) that this was happening and have only a small interest in sports. After the game, the rest of the band had arrived at the studio where we added elements to its existing structure, fleshing it out some more, and it started to form. What was not so obvious at the time was that the song was, and would serve as, a eulogy for the band, though I should have known it from the lyrics. I think internally I did, as I felt an odd sense of sadness and loss after hearing back the words on top of the music. I also felt a strange sense of pride in how honest it was, and could not remember a band recording a song of this nature, being so self-aware. Ending felt like something honest, and honest always feels like something new.
So it will exist, and it is no cowardly act to release something of this nature, but a service to those who believed in a band that did not compromise, and a wave goodbye to all. And yes, it is fucking heartbreaking.
And while I don’t believe the lyrics of the chorus today- I did at the time, which to me is a core ingredient to the music of MCR. And it is through that belief, and yours, that we were able to achieve many beautiful things.”
—
The song was originally recorded as a part of My Chemical Romance’s incomplete and unreleased fifth album, which the band said was moving in a very “dark” and “bleak” direction during the recording. The album was set to follow the concept of a support group for parents who had lost their children.
My Chemical Romance‘s greatest hits album, May Death Never Stop You, is set to feature a never-released track titled “Fake Your Death” as well as the attic demos of “Skylines And Turnstiles,” “Cubicles,” and “Knives” (“Our Lady Of Sorrows,” also known as “Bring More Knives.”)
Official pre-orders begin at the band’s official website at 7 a.m. PST/10 a.m. EST, according to Gerard Way. The website-exclusive package includes a CD, DVD, “Thank You For The Venom” T-shirt (as worn by Gerard at their first show) and a funeral brassard (armband).
CD Tracklisting: Fake Your Death (unreleased song) Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For The Two Of Us Vampires Will Never Hurt You Helena You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison I’m Not OK (I Promise) The Ghost Of You Welcome To The Black Parade Cancer Mama Teenagers Famous Last Words Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) SING Planetary (GO!) The Kids From Yesterday Skylines And Turnstiles (Demo) Knives/Sorrow (Demo) Cubicles (Demo)
DVD Tracklisting: “I’m Not OK (I Promise)” Version 1 “I’m Not OK (I Promise)” Version 2 “Helena” “The Ghost of You” “Welcome To The Black Parade” “Famous Last Words” “I Don’t Love You” “Teenagers” “Blood” (*Previously Unreleased) “Na Na Na” & “Art is A Weapon” (*Includes Previously Unreleased “Na Na Na” intro) “SING” “Planetary (GO!)”
The collection will include not only their greatest hits, but also the rare, fan-famous “Attic Demos” (pre-I Brought You My Bullets… recordings) as well as unheard material including one of the last songs the band worked on together from what would have been their fifth album.
Hello all,
On March 25, we will be releasing a greatest hits album entitled “May Death
Never Stop You.” The title is fitting, because as sad as it was to say
goodbye to the band, we look at this collection as a celebration of our best
songs, and hope the memory of them continues to bring joy to you all as they
have for us.
The album also includes some previously unreleased material, including the
infamous “Attic Demos,” and one of the last songs we worked on in the studio
together.
On January 21, we will be opening pre-orders for the album right here on our
site. We hope you take the journey with us into MCR’s past, and enjoy the
When Gerard Way confirmed Warner Brothers will be releasing a My Chemical RomanceGreatest Hitscompilation next year, he also noted that he would be designing the packaging.
Check out Way’s most recent tweet below with what appears to be the artwork for MCR’s Greatest Hits, subtitled May Death Never Stop You:
Recently, the former MCR frontman also teased that he was “working on something special” with the following photo, which you will recognize as a piece from the full image:
This morning, a listing was unearthed from the release calendar of Hits Daily Double claiming My Chemical Romance, who disbanded in March, would have a new release out in January, 2014.
Even with the caveat that this could most likely be nothing more than a singles compilation, fan hopes immediately ran wild. So, we reached out to the band’s camp for further information in hopes of diminishing the rumors stirred by the vague listing.
Midday, we received confirmation that the release, slated for January 21, 2014, would not be new MCR material and tweeted the clarification to fans.
Lots of rumors circulating throughout the #MCRmy today. We have received confirmation that #MCR's alleged Jan. release is NOT new material.
In a new episode of South Park titled Goth Kids 3: Dawn Of The Posers (which aired last night in the US) the cartoon has tackled the stereotyping of ’emos’.Parodied bands in the episode include Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Sunny Day Real Estate, Coheed And Cambria, Jimmy Eat World, Hawthorne Heights, Saosin and more. My Chemical Romance, for example, are referred to as My Medical Relationship… see clips from the show, below.
Nada Recording Studio, with whom My Chemical Romance recorded their debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love have released an instagram video with unseen footage from the recording session.
At the time of Bullets’ recording in early 2002, according to MCR in their 2006 documentary Life On The Murder Scene, Nada was merely “John Naclerio’s basement,” where they would often have to pause their work while Naclerio’s mother vacuumed upstairs.
Watch them work on “Drowning Lessons,” “Headfirst For Halos” and more in the brief video below:
July 23 is the fan-proclaimed International My Chemical Romance Day (better known as IMCRD), and though MCR announced their breakup in late March, the MCRmy is still holding strong to this holiday celebrated on the release anniversary of MCR’s first album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.
“The most common question I’ve been getting since the break up was whether IMCRD would go on at all,” says Devan Mickell, a long-time fan who is manning the @IMCRD Twitter account which helps direct fans on the big day, this year.
“I was actually really surprised by how many people thought that MCR’s break up would jeopardize IMCRD. Yes, it’s about celebrating our love and appreciation for a band, but it’s also about the experiences we’ve shared, the friends we’ve made the family we’ve gained, and how we’ve all grown and changed over the years with one another. To me, IMCRD is far more about the MCRmy than anything else”
For many of fans of the band, it was tough finding ways to connect with other members of the fanbase, especially in the early days when beyond spotting other kids in MCR shirts, going to shows and lurking the now defunct WBR Street Network message boards, there was no way to really connect.
The advances in technology since then opened very simple ways to find other fans and to stay in touch, both online and in real life. IMCRD celebrates the beauty of that, of fan unity and of a strong community built around mutual passion for the band.
Throughout the years, this grassroots holiday has spawned large-scale fan meetups, charity fund-raisers, effortless Twitter trending and many creative endeavors from the fan community.
20 Ways to celebrate IMCRD 2013
1. Attend A Meetup Head to the “Gangs” section of the MCRmy (which will continue to remain active) or to your local fan page to see if local fans are planning to meet.
2. Create Something (Anything!) Any Killjoy worth his or her weight in spraypaint and Zone dust knows that “art is the weapon.” Likewise, anyone who followsGerard Way on Twitterknows that “#ArtIsSmart.” So pick up your weapon of choice today and make something.
4. Listen to MCR in a new light A couple months ago,Gerard Waytook to Twitter to have listening parties for each of the band’s album’s offering his perspective and behind-the-scenes facts. Listening to the albums while perusing his Twitter commentary is one way to enrich your listening experience.
5. Get anMCR tattoo This is something that has been on my personal to-do list since I was 14. Why wait? Tomorrow doesn’t exist.
6. Spam your Twitter followers This year’s official IMCRD hashtag is#MCRmyForLife. Use it to celebrate the band’s career and tell others why you’re in it for life.
8.Bask in nostalgia If you’re like me, you have overflowing archives of endless MCR information. Here’s a quick directory of AP issues on which MCR have been on the cover or have been featured prominently:
10. Write a letter to Gerard Way Shortly after MCR broke up, Gerard Way published an addressand asked fans to write to him or send him anything that could fit in an envelope. When we spoke to the singer a month later, he told us it was tough, and he was surprised by the response, but he’s still going to try to get through all the letters he receives. Send yours to:
Warner Bros Records c/o Gerard Way 3300 Warner Blvd Burbank, CA 91505
Just don’t send any packages. And “don’t make it weird.”
11. Go on a scavenger hunt to find a new copy of Bullets on CD for a reasonable price
Seriously. We’re not sure what it is—Eyeball Records going out of business, opportunists scalping because of the breakup, or what—but for whatever reason, finding a copy of I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love on CD online is quite the task these days.
12. Catch up on issues one and two ofThe True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys The comic series (which began as a comic series that informed the album, then became informed by the album) follows the life of “The Girl” depicted in the band’s Danger Days videos several years later. For bonus fun: Go on a hunt with some fellow MCR fans for the issues’ alternate covers! (Current issues and preorders available.)
13.Watch Life On The Murder Scene You’ve probably seen it a million times, and you’re probably going to cry, but it never hurts. Plus sitting on your couch watching a DVD is “easy-peasy pumpkin-peasy. Pumpkin pie, motherfucker!” While you’re at it, you might as well whip outThe Black Parade Is Dead!and ¡Venganza!
14. Dress up
Be fearless. Go to work in full Killjoys garb! Well, depending on your job or school, that is. If you can’t go to that extreme, or if you don’t want to go with the full on unholy living dead look, wearing aT-shirt, badge or subtle writing on your arm to show your support works just fine.
16. Help out a fellow fan Whether you’re an older fan who wants to welcome a younger one to the MCRmy or if you simply notice someone who wants or needs help, extend a helping hand and feel better for having done something nice.
17. Read Frank Iero’s writing You can find the former MCR guitarist’s fiction-writing, poetry, rants, reviews, meme-generation and photography atfrank-iero.com.
18. Celebrate with cupcakes
19. Revisit the “Helena” and “Sweet Revenge” flash games from the old website.
20.Heed this advicefrom Frank Iero: “Your Imagination is the Ammunition. Stay Dirty, and Stay Dangerous. Create and Destroy as you see fit. Embrace your Originality. The Aftermath is Secondary. You can and should do Anything.”
Now, GET UP AND GO!
How will you celebrate today? Reply with your plans and share on Twitter using the #MCRmyForLife tag. You might see your photo here later!
“I WIPE THE MAKE-UP OFF; I TAKE THE SUIT OFF; I TAKE THE TIE OFF AND EVERYTHING. I’M NORMAL AGAIN. I’M GERARD AGAIN.” -Gerard Way
Pelissier, who now works as a mechanic back in Jersey, is still searching for answers, insisting, “I was flat-out told the only reason I’m being kicked out of the band is because ‘We don’t feel comfortable with you onstage anymore because one, you don’t play to the click track, and two, those couple times you messed up, we just don’t fell comfortable.’ Even through Gerard was drunk every night and messed up every night…” His voice trails off.”They haven’t even avoiding the subject.”
“People probably though it was weird that we didn’t make any kind of statement beforehand or really talk about what happened,” Toro responds, carefully. “It must’ve been weird for people to notice, ‘Wow! One of the members who started the band and has been in the band for three years is now gone, and they haven’t said anything.’ The main reason why we decided to do that is because we didn’t want to get into a pissing match, and we didn’t want to have this sort of he-said, she-said bullshit.
“There are obviously things that went along with that [decision],” Toro continues, ‘like a lack of getting along with him and a lack of being able to play songs the same way every night. But the main reason was that we weren’t having fun being in the band… he had to have known in this heart-whether he’ll admit it or not-that he wasn’t performing up to the way we needed to perform. You had to have been fucking blind to not see the relationship problems between each of us and him-that we just didn’t get along. When I started getting into the reasons of why we made the decision, he just walked away. That was the last time I spoke to him.”
Pelissier, obviously, doesn’t see things the way his former bandmates do. “I had Ray come up to me once or twice and ask me to play to a click track [a metronome-type machine that helps a drummer keep time] live, and I said no. Pretty much no drummer does, because it takes away the whole live feeling. And that was it. I got back from Japan, and only Ray come to my house with [manager] Schechter. It’s like your whole world comes crashing down, after I gave everything I ever did, everything I ever owned to make sure the band would survive, and that’s the thanks I get.”
While Pelissier dealt with the blow, the rest of the band had to find a replacement. Enter well-respected soundman and secret MCR wannabe Bryar. “It was at Irving Plaza, maybe a year-and-a-half ago, and My Chemical Romance [were playing with] Finch and the Used,” recalls Bryar. “My Chem finished playing, and I walked into the back and said something to [their manager] like, ‘I wish I could do that.'” At this point. Bryar was just a cellmate the band met along the way. The band didn’t even know he could play drums, but after flying him out for a test run, there was no doubt Bryar was the perfect blend of personality and technical ability they were looking for.
No one in the band has talked to Pelissier since returning from Japan, except for Iero. “I called him right after it happened and was like, ‘Yo, I wanted to be there, but I understand why Ray wanted to talk to you alone. I hope that we can be mature about this after everything.
THE JETSET LIFE IS GONNA THRILL YOU
In three short years, My Chemical Romance have done things some bands only dream about-dueting with punk-rock royalty, hanging with hip-hop heavyweights and chilling with Frodo Baggins. But that’s not to say the men of MCR still don’t get starstruck. Here are their top three out-of-body encounters that had them scratching their heads, wondering. “Is this really happening?”
Attending a 2004 post-Oscar bash attended by the cast of The Lord Of The Rings and other A-List celebs.
“The whole time I’m thinking, ‘I don’t belong here. What am I doing with these people?'” remember Ray Toro, eyes wide. “I was sitting this close to Kirsten Dunst. I could’ve literally touched her.” In addition to lighting his hair on fire and seeing Countney Love moon a deck full of innocent bystanders. Toro and the rest of the band also watched as an actor (known to play an all powerful wizard) eyed Mikey Way “like he was a piece of chicken” Mikey refused to comment on the poultry comparison, but did say it ranked as his craziest night in Los Angels.
Giving Keith Morris vocal lessons during the recording sessions for Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.
“I wasn’t coaching him,” Frank Iero insists, “but the was asking me how we wanted it.” The band invited the Circle Jerks singer to sing on “Hang Em High,” and it was all Iero could do not to pinch himself in the vocal booth. “Basically, I was like, ‘Do it like this.’ Then he’d do it, and I’d say, ‘Done one more take.’ We just sat down, ate Chinese food and he just talked to me for hours and hours. Ir was so fucking cool.”
Being invited to tea apt Rubin’s house.
After an MCR show with Piebald at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, a mysterious man came up to Gerard Way and said, “Rick Rubin would like to meet you.” Legend has if that the producer rarely leaves his house and hardly ever goes to see bands, so Way was intrigued. Rubin eventually invited the band over to his house to talk about abour music, and MCR jumped at the chance.
“We get to his house, and they asked us all to take off our shoes and they hand us these giant bottles of water,” Gerard recalls. ‘We sat in his library with a huge stufed polar bear and picture all over the wall-original points of John Lennon photographs and Black Flag. He came in and sat across from us I don’t think he blinked at all. He stared right into our souls. And then somebody comes to the door and asks if we can close the two doors to the library, and it’s Cedric [Baler Zavala] We all turn to each other and go, ‘Was that Cedric?’ Then we ask, is that the Mars Volta in there? Can we meet them?’ We totally nerded out. So Rick gets right up, opens the doors and goes into the piano room. It was their last day. They were finishing De-loused In The Comatorum. He goes, ‘Would you mind meeting these guy?’ They were the coolest guys. I remember Omar [A Rodriguez Lopez ] went. ‘I really like your belt.’ What the Fuck? That was huge!”[LS]
Actually, they’re more of a pill-and-booze-induced haze. Since releasing MCR’s sophomore album on Warner Bros, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, nothing’s been the same. Exceeding anyone’s expectations, the sales were bigger (Revenge sold in one week what Bullets sold in nearly two years), the show were bigger-and the drinking problem that had been plaguing Gerard for years was now officially out of control. “I can’t believe that they’re even still a band,” says Rickly, incredulously. “Who can go from zero to 120 like that? I heard stories that Gerard was drinking so much and going so many drugs that I through, ‘Somebody’s gonna die; the band’s gonna fall apart, and it’s gonna be awful.'”
With an unyielding momentum, My Chemical Romance embarked on the Vans Warped Tour ’04 and soon started making fans out of their idols like Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba. “I wandered out into the crowd. [MCR] started playing, and I got kind of the same feeling that I got going to see Naked Raygun shows,” Skiba remembers fondly “They were so good and sounded so great, and the energy exchange with the crowd was something that I hadn’t seen in a long time. I had no choice. I had to start dancing. My drink was full when I walked in there, and five seconds later, it was all over a bunch of kids ‘heads.'”
Warped was one big traveling circus, and MCR were becoming the star attraction. But the devastating heal, the overwhelming schedule and Gerard’s increasing chemical addiction were starting to affect the band and their performance. Rickly saw the self-destruction firsthand when both bands were on the tour and he wondered if he should intervene. “It’s weird to say, because the’re a band and they can do what they want, ” Rickly pauses. “But those are our friends. You don’t want to see them get sucked into something you’ve had your band get sucked into.”
At the height of the band’s success on Warped, Gerard was going through $150 worth of illegal pills per month, mostly Xanax, and drinking a bottle of vodka every day to day and a half.
“I worked out a system,” Gerard says as he takes a swing from this bottle of vitaminwater, “where if we played at noon, I was basically just hung over, still drunk probably from the night before. If we were playing at 1 or 2. I was already drunk if [I wasn’t] fully drunk, then I was trying to get drunk at any signings we had to do. After that, I would continue to get drunk well until the [day’s tour stop] was done, until bus call. Bus call would come , or sometimes before it, and I would pop an bunch of Xanax and basically be cracked out. It was the only thing at that point that would put me to sleep and shut my brain off.”
The name My Chemical Romance was no longer homage to Irvine Welsh’s book, Ecstasy: Three Takes Of Chemical Romance; it was now Gerard’s mantra. The band jumped off Warped’s traveling punk-rock circus in mid-July, and immediately embarked on a co-headlining tour with Senses Fail. Both bands were sharing a tour bus and partying it up, but things went too far on a tour stop somewhere in the Midwest.
“I had done to see the Killers and got really drunk,” recalls Gerard. “I found a way to get cocaine, and I bought a whole fucking eight ball and pretty much did the whole fucking thing. I did so much cocaine that I was in the middle of the street, throwing up everywhere. My head was pounding; it felt twice its size. All the veins in my head felt like they were going to explode. The next day, I woke up, and I was more suicidal that morning than I had ever been in my entire life-and it was completely amazing to me. “Nobody in my band knew,” he adds. “I had a really good way of hiding stuff.”
Or if they did know, they certainly didn’t acknowledge it as a problem. “I think I was accepting because I was equally bad as he was at one point,” explains Mikey. “I was even worse than him at some points early on in the band’s career. I thought it’d be really hypocritical to say, ‘Put that vodka down!'”
“Any time you mix drinking with narcotics, something bad can happen,” adds Iero. “And depression-mixing the three of them is really bad. Every time you do it, it changes your whole body chemistry. When we were touring, no one really thought about it, because we were all doing it together.” After making a call to his manager, who talked him down for the next three hours, Gerard managed to snap out of his suicidal stupor in time to finish the tour and head back to Jersey to regroup-but not for long. The band were scheduled and the one place he feared he wouldn’t return from.
“I was terrified,” he remembers. “All I did was sweat two days before Japan, I sweat buckets, drank and loaded up on my pills for the trip.” He loaded up on liquor at the airport bar, popped a whole bar of Xanax and woke up in a completely different country. Doped up and unsure how he even made it through customs, Gerard was on autopilot. He overindulged in sake, entertained more thoughts of ending his life and played two of the largest shows of the band’s career completely wasted.
“My intention was to make it a memorable experience for everyone, and I did,” he says with a shrug and a sheepish grin. “But it’s kind of like marking a deal with the devil. I made it a memorable experience for everyone-but in the worst possible way.”
“It’s weird, because usually when we’re playing, me and Gerard can look at each other and no matter what’s going on, I can pull back to it and go for it,” say Iero. “When I looked for him [in Osaka] and he was underneath the stage being drunk, I just wanted to [put my guitar down] and go.”
“I walked offstage and I threw up for 45 minutes straight in this garbage can, like I had never thrown up before,” Gerard says as he lights another cigarette. “I puked everything out. The whole band was there, and I was sitting on the couch in the corner. Ray turns to Brian [Schechter, Manager] and says. ‘You need to get him to the doctor. Listen to him. He’s really sick.’ Sitting there, I still have vomit all over myself, and I just thought, ‘This has to be the end.’ I was still really suicidal and depressed, but I was just like, ‘I have to stop drinking. I don’t know how, but this has to be the end.’
“I didn’t know what was was going to happen when I got back to the U.S.” Gerard continues. “I got off the plane and was really upset, I knew what was going to happen to Otter, and I think that’s another reason why I was upset. I said goodbye to him and knew that I probably was not going to see him again. At the same time, I didn’t know if I was going to be alive the next day. I said goodbye to everybody and I had tears in my eyes because I wasn’t really sure if I was going to see anyone in my band again.”
“THE LAST TIME I SAW OR HEAR FROM GERARD,” say Pelissier, “it was when I gave him a hug at the airport.” While Gerard was dealing with getting clean, MCR were struggling with and ever larger challenge-building up the courage to ask their drummer to leave the band he helped start. “It was like the moment that you break up with someone you’ve been dating for three of four years that you used to love in the beginning of the relationship and things went sour, but for some reason you’re still together,” explains Toro, who, along with the band’s manager, went to Pelissier’s house to break the news.
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