Source: Channel 4 
Date: 2006
Transcribed By: Amiee (@_A_me_)
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[Note: The interviewer’s name is George Lamb and will be referred to as GL]

[Interview interspersed with footage from the “Welcome to the Black Parade” video and the studio performances]

 GL: Welcome to 4 Music Presents My Chemical Romance. After their breakthrough album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge notched up an impressive 2 million album sales, the guys are back with their blistering new album: The Black Parade.

Lifting their name from an Irvine Welsh novel, MCR have gone on to tour with Green Day and played at this years Reading and Leads Festivals.

 With a whole host of awards, sold out tours and their own action figures highlighting their success, Gerard, Mikey, Ray, Bob and Frank are showing no signs of slowing down just yet. Tonight I’ll be catching up with the five-piece as they play exclusive tracks from their new album, right here, in the studio. So performing their stomping new single, “Welcome to the Black Parade,” here are My Chemical Romance.

[After the performance ends, the band and interviewer are sitting on a couch in the studio]

 GL: Guys. Welcome to 4 Music Presents. How are you all?

[All talking over each other] Gerard and Frank: Really good.

Gerard: Thanks for having us here.

GL: Well you’re very welcome. How are you enjoying the UK?

Gerard: Uh, well we always love it here so - you know – [joking] I think we’re here more than we’re in America.

Ray: [nods and smiles]

GL: You’ve played your biggest UK date so far - Reading and Leads Festival this year -

Gerard: [nodding]Right.

GL: How was that?

Gerard: It was amazing. I mean that…that was really -. it’s like a dream to play those things. And we got to play last year but we had to do two shows in one day, so we didn’t get to enjoy it. So this time we got to, you know, do each day proper and it was…it was amazing, both sets…so…yeah [nodding]

 GL: [Inaudible] We um, we just saw you perform your new single. Can you tell us a little bit about the story behind that track?

Gerard: Yeah, um…well it’s a song that we’ve been working on for…for years [turns to Frank]

Frank: [laughing] Yeah, about four-and-a-half years.

Gerard: [laughing] Right. And uh… [serious] I…I feel… it went through a lot of incarnations but in its final incarnation, I think the band really needed to grow and be ready to play that kind of song.

Frank [Nodding in agreement]

Gerard: And it’s something that was always inside of us, um, that kind of sound. Um, because we’d been influenced by bands like Queen and Pink Floyd…uh…Roger Waters Era and…We…we’ve always been dying to do a song like that.

GL: Okay.

Gerard: It’s like a mini epic.

Ray: [smiling]

GL: Now the um… the videos’ amazing. It’s got this kind of whole other-worldly feel to it –

Gerard: Yeah. [nodding]

GL: It…it’s almost kind of Tim Burton-esk –

 Gerard: [thinking] Well…maybe…yeah…a little.

GL:  - And - [clarifies] Which is a good thing in my mind.

Gerard: [Agreeing] Yeah, yeah, yeah… There’s a particular video, uh, “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” by The Smashing Pumpkins, and Sam Bayer shot that, and when he shot that it’s when the ‘Pumpkins had evolved and changed. And we changed in the same way. And uh…so we needed that kind -. we needed to be shot to film it needed to be epic, um, we needed to get the concept across that we were playing this other band in this other world, and uh, so Sam created this world for The Black Parade to live in –

GL: Yep.

Gerard: - and play in and uh, he did an amazing job. [nodding]

GL: He did do an amazing job. Let’s talk about you guys as a band now. I want to kind of look back and find a bit about where you guys met up and how this all started.

Gerard: Okay, um…Well, it’s kind of weird. It actually the born –. the band was really born out of 9/11. It directly affected us and it directly affected me and I saw it happen with my own eyes, and I was doing art in New York and I said, you know, um, I don’t want to do this anymore. It was like commercial and I didn’t like it, and I wanted something that not only I had control over but I wanted to work with a team: I wanted a band. I wanted to be part of something, and I didn’t feel like I was part of something when I was doing art and um…so I just made phone calls, I wrote one song and then we slowly, slowly built the band roster up that way.

GL: Okay.

Gerard: And…it was just really magic in the beginning and it was something that I just found the right people, and they wanted to be a part of that.

GL:  Has music been a big part of your lives growing up?

Frank: Absolutely.

GL: [Spoken to Frank] I know certainly your… your father and your grandfather were both drummers, is that right?

Frank: [Nodding] Yeah, they… they’re still playing.

GL: [Surprised] They’re still drummers?

Gerard and Frank: [Answer together] Yeah!

Frank: My Dad use to do a lot of studio work in the city and –

Bob: He actually… [pauses]

Frank: [To Bob] Go ahead.

Gerard: [Finishes Bob’s sentence] Plays on the record.

Frank: [Smiling]Yeah, he’s on our record.

Bob: Yeah, on the snare part of the record.

GL: Fantastic, that’s pretty cool.

Gerard: [He Plays]In the…In the single.

GL: I know this is always a difficult one because everyone comes from, you know, different times and spaces and all the rest of it but musically, kind of influence wise as a band –

Gerard: Yeah.

GL: - who would you say your influences are?

Gerard: Like, we all agree on certain bands like the Misfits being influential and Black Flag um… but also uh, the Beatles or Queen…or Pink Floyd like –

GL:  I see a lot of Freddie Mercury in you when you perform.

Gerard: [Embarrassed] Oh, thanks [laughs]

GL: [Smiling] And he is the consummate performer.

Gerard: He’s my biggest inspiration and not just as a performer; as a human being.

GL: Yep.

Gerard: He was somebody who was very unashamed of what he was and he didn’t care. I mean, like [joking] he dressed like a Harlequin, rocked half a mic stand. I mean [throws hand in the air for emphasis] but who could beat him?

GL: [In agreement] Who could, who could.

Gerard: So… [Trails of, smiling]

GL: I believe – and this is often the point where you realize a band has truly arrived - you have your own action figures now?

Gerard: Yes.

GL: Is that correct?

Frank: [In confirmation] Mmm hmm.

Gerard: That’s true. That’s something, you know, [Frank laughs in the background] you got to be very careful about what you choose, and like the actual…I think the amount of stuff we say “no” to would probably surprise people, but that was one thing where we were like [joking] “You know what? This is a little over the top but…but when I’m sixty years old I’m gonna have an action figure.”

GL: [joking along] “I’m going to love it.”

Gerard: [laughing] Yeah! [Ray and Bob laugh] Exactly, so -

GL:  - “And my Grandchildren are gonna love this” –

Gerard: [Smiling] Exactly.

GL: “ – Look at your Grandpa [Band laughs], look his eyes move and everything!”

[Video changes to just show the interviewer]

GL: Right, its time to watch another exclusive performance from these guys. Taken from their new album, here they are performing Famous Last Words.

[Part One ends after the performance of “Famous Last Words” is over.]