MCR

My Chemical Romance (often shortened to MCR or My Chem[1]) is an American rock quintet that formed in 2001. The current members of the band are Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Frank Iero, Ray Toro and Bob Bryar. Shortly after forming, the band signed to Eyeball Records and released their debut album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love in 2002. They signed with Reprise Records the next year and released their major label debut Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge in 2004. The album was a major commercial success, selling over one million copies due in part to the success of the singles “Helena”, “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)”, and “The Ghost of You”. The band followed this success with 2006’s The Black Parade, featuring their hit singles, “Welcome to the Black Parade”, “Famous Last Words”, “I Don’t Love You”, and “Teenagers”. The band also recently filmed a live DVD in Mexico City, which is due for release in early 2008.[2]

Early career (2001–2002)
The band was formed by frontman Gerard Way and ex-drummer Matt Pelissier around a week after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Witnessing the planes crash into the World Trade Center influenced Way’s life to the extent that he decided to start a band. Way wrote the song “Skylines and Turnstiles” to express his feelings about September 11th. Shortly thereafter, Ray Toro was called up and asked to join the band because at the time Way couldn’t sing and play the guitar at the same time.[3] The first recording sessions were done in Pelissier’s attic, where the songs “Our Lady of Sorrows” (formerly called “Bring More Knives”) and “Cubicles” were recorded. Mikey Way, the younger brother of Gerard, loved the demo so much that he decided to join the band, dropping out of college and learning the bass guitar in order to do so.[3]

My Chemical Romance was signed with Eyeball Records and played in the same room as Pencey Prep and Thursday. It was there that the band met Frank Iero, the lead vocalist and guitarist for Pencey Prep. After Pencey Prep broke up in 2001/2002, Frank became a guitarist for My Chemical Romance, just days before the band’s debut album was recorded.[3] Three months after the formation of the band they recorded their debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, subsequently released in 2002 on Eyeball Records. Despite only joining the band a few days before the album recording sessions began, Iero played guitar on two of the tracks, one of them being “Early Sunsets Over Monroeville,” and the other being “Demolition Lovers.” During this time, the band was booked at the infamous venue, Big Daddy’s, where they began to receive mainstream attention. [4][5]

Criticism
My Chemical Romance was among the first bands to achieve prominence by offering free downloads through PureVolume[33] and the social networking site MySpace, where MCR gathered its first few thousand fans.[34] The band has clearly grown well beyond those initial numbers, expanding their fan base beyond the typical fans of their musical style and direction,[35] partially helped by the more mainstream sound of their 2004 album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. MCR are sometimes maligned by the “grassroots” fans, for the expanded fan base, after the release of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. Due to the increased amount of new fans, some of the old fanbase considers the band a “sellout” and the new MCR fans “posers”. The fans are particularly vocal on online forums.[36][37]

Numerous artists in other bands have criticized the band openly in the media, Marilyn Manson among them; rumors circulated for some time that he wrote the song “Mutilation is the Most Sincere Form of Flattery” as an attack on the band for his Eat Me, Drink Me release (which he later denied, saying that it was aimed at bands in general seeking to imitate him). In another interview Manson stated that “I’m embarrassed to be me because these people are doing a really sad, pitiful, shallow version of what I’ve done”. In response to this, Gerard Way claimed nothing Manson could say would bring the band down.[38]

Gerard Way struck out against fans and bands that classify My Chemical Romance as “Emo”, saying that; “I think emo is fucking garbage, it’s bullshit. I think there’s bands that unfortunately we get lumped in with that are considered emo and by default that starts to make us emo.” and, “I think emo’s a pile of shit.” This caused much outcry from fans and critics alike.[28]