Albums and songs/videos with their own pages:
Trope-based trivia:
- Creator Breakdown:
- Gerard's past battle with drug addiction and alcoholism are well-known among the fanbase. He's gotten a lot better, though.
- This was also likely the case during the creation of The Black Parade, apparently thanks to working and staying at the Paramour Mansion.
- This was definitely the case, at least for Mikey. He considered suicide or leaving the band as his only options for a while. Luckily, he got better.
- Dyeing for Your Art:
- While Gerard tends to do this, most people seem to overlook the fact that Frank Iero has also had a habit of changing his hair.
- Gerard bleached his hair white for The Black Parade, mimicking the Disease Bleach of The Patient's hair.
- For Danger Days, Gerard's hair is atomic red to portray his punk-outlaw character Party Poison
- Executive Meddling: When the "Teenagers" video originally aired on MTV, it suffered quite a bit of editing, since it came out right around the time of the Virginia Tech shootings. You can find the unedited version on their YouTube channel.
- Fan Community Nicknames: "MCRmy" or "Killjoys".
- He Also Did:
- Gerard is also the writer of The Umbrella Academy and has done guest vocals for songs of other bands, such as "In Defense Of The Genre" by Say Anything..., "Jet black Sunday" by Thursday, and "The Devil In Mexico" by Murder By Death. He also founded the DC Comics imprint Young Animal in 2016.
- Frank Iero was the former vocalist for Pencey Prep, which he left in order to join MCR, and he also does vocals for his hardcore punk and industrial side projects Leathermouth and Death Spells.
- Gerard also co-wrote and directed an episode of The Aquabats! Super Show!, which Mikey starred in as the episode's main villain.
- Magnum Opus Dissonance: While most fans consider Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge or The Black Parade to be My Chemical Romance's magnum opus, Gerard considers Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys as such."It was our best work, my favorite album we've done, and the one I'm most proud of."
- Multi-Disc Work: The Black Parade is a notable example in that its 2-disc LP release only covers three sides across the two records, with the second one's back side featuring aesthetic etching instead.
- The Pete Best: Original drummer Matt Pelissier was fired for undisclosed reasons shortly after the release of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and was replaced by Bob Bryar, just before the band started to blow up.
- Promoted Fanboy: Gerard, a big fan of Queen, had the opportunity to sing onstage with Brian May at the Reading Festival.
- Referenced by...: In the Murder Drones episode "The Promening", one of the things seen in a Freeze-Frame Bonus of Uzi's school locker is a poster of a band called "My Chemical Robots", the name and design blatantly alluding to My Chemical Romance.
- So My Kids Can Watch: Their appearance on Yo Gabba Gabba! performing "Every Snowflake is Different"
might be this, considering it was reportedly the favorite show of Gerard's daughter Bandit. - Troubled Production: My Chemical Romance seems to be a magnet when it comes to Troubled Productions. Every single album they've done has been, on some scale, a troubled one.
- I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love was recorded in a stuffy, small basement studio. Gerard suffered an emergency dental procedure, which left him in pain during vocal takes. When he was complaining, the band's then-manager punched him in the face before he went in to do a vocal performance. Toro also struggled with the complicated compositions, not knowing how to take his musical ideas and simplify them enough for one guitarist to pull off. They ended up rush-hiring Frank Iero to help out.
- Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge showed the band facing problems with alcoholism and drug addiction. Gerard has described the recording process as a blur. He had an emotional breakdown that resulted in him having to face his inner demons and defeat his alcoholism. Being part of a major label for the first time also created tension among fans, who were not enjoying the new "commercial" direction the band was heading in. They also had to fire their drummer at the time, Matt Pellissier, who caused an internet backlash over the situation.
- None of the other albums can hold a candle to The Black Parade. Frustrated from the seemingly directionless concept of Three Cheers, they wanted to aim for a higher concept circulating around death and morbid situations. The problem was that they may have very well overdid the exploration of the concept. The band bickered constantly. Gerard trapped himself alone in a room, forcing himself into a depressive stupor. Mikey had to battle his alcoholism and drug addiction now, taking a vacation away from the band for nearly half the production. The media was also hounding MCR at this point, as the emo controversy had reached its peak. Shortly after the album was released, they embarked an exhaustive three-year-long tour that left them hating the songs they had just written so much that they were enjoying re-exploring Bullets-era songs to try to make up for it. A 13-year-old fan-girl also committed suicide during this time, and Glenn Beck accused them of being occultists. This led to the problems that would later lead to the band's breakup.
- For Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, the band threw out an entire album's worth of material and started from scratch. This album, titled Conventional Weapons, wouldn't see any form of release for almost four years, until a series of five singles with its planned songs came out between 2012 and 2013. Having even more bad luck with drummers, Bob Bryar parted ways with the group. The controversy surrounding the band caused them to become frustrated and attempting to aim for a more light-hearted, fun sound. However, Gerard ended up going with a rather complicated storyline anyways that the band did not entirely care for. Other members were also still sour about Conventional Weapons being ditched. After another exhaustive tour, the band were simply too burned out to keep going and broke up in 2013.
- Two-Hit Wonder: Despite their successful sales and highly attended concert venues, their only singles to chart in the Top 40 on the Hot 100 are "Helena" and "Welcome to the Black Parade", at #33 and #9, respectively.
- Word of God: Gerard Way says a lot of the fanservice (such as the "Frerard" gimmick) is done to piss homophobes off.
- He also says his affinity for red hair dates back to middle and high school.
- What Could Have Been:
- When the band first broke up, they left behind an in-development album named The Paper Kingdom, which was promoted as a Concept Album about a support group for parents suffering the loss of their children, which was also intended to be their final album. Around six songs from this album exist in bootleg form, with "Fake Your Death" being the only one to be completed and given an official release.
- The band was supposed to embark on a long-awaited reunion tour in 2020 but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic until 2022. Gerard Way said he planned on asking the crossover thrash band Power Trip to be one of the opening acts on that tour when it eventually happened, but their frontman Riley Gale died in late 2020 and they went on an indefinite hiatus afterwards.
Miscellaneous trivia:
- MCR is the favorite band (some days) of Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way.
