Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance) had a lot of fun recording his new record, Hesitant Alien.
So much fun, in fact, that he scared the salt out of Warner Bros.
"Me doing fun stuff freaked people out," he told Kerrang! "Some people almost recoiled from the more fun songs. Like, 'God, we can't sell this stuff! He's become happy! What are we gonna do?'"
Needless to say, it ended up working out.
"The best part of this whole record is that I never really started making music seriously," he said. "I think that's what I liked about it.
"I never thought about what I was doing. I never thought, 'What's this going to mean to somebody?' And thank God I didn't take it too seriously, because it was fun just sitting there and plugging in the fuzz pedals and trying stuff out. I think that's kinda when I'm making my best music. Like, with 'The Black Parade', I was laughing the whole time. I didn't take any of that seriously. I thought it was super-funny."
Of course, Way also had to address the (temporary?) break that My Chemical Romance is currently going through.
"If My Chem never had success, I'd have probably called time at the same point," he said. "I felt it was time. I could play for 70,000 people or seven. And I really mean that."
Here are his upcoming North American dates:
10/12: San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
10/13: West Hollywood, CA @ Troubadour
10/14: Los Angeles, CA @ Fonda Theatre
10/17: Philadelphia, PA @ Trocadero Theatre
10/19: Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
10/20: New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
10/22: Sayreville, NJ @ Starland Ballroom
10/23: New York, NY @ Webster Hall
