October 2011

Happy 5th Anniversary The Black Parade

I cannot believe it’s been 5 years since that album was released.  It seems like yesterday.  I’m so proud of My Chemical Romance.  They’ve been through so much and evolved so much.  Hearing The Black Parade for the first time was so exciting.  It is such a masterpiece.

"We are all just a black parade"

As a band, it felt like the name The Black Parade summed up the band almost better than My Chemical Romance.  It represented everything that made us up: the irony, the black humour, the celebratory nature of our music yet the darkness at the same time.  The cohesiveness and the defiance, the camaraderie.  It would become our alter ego for this album.  We needed to become a new band in order to face what life had thrown us, the hardships and the turmoil, the fear.  We would tear off our skin and expose the bones.  We would become a band known as The Black Parade.  Not a shell but a declaration:

“You cannot destroy us." 
"I am not afraid to live.”
“We will carry on.”

As people, it summed up our fans.  Our connection to the fans is very important to us.  It’s always been us against the world and we all know the punchline to the big black joke.  What better way to show that than to make them part of it. 

“We are all just a black parade.”

- Gerard Way (from the limited edition of The Black Parade)