The Black Parade has arrived in the Philippines, making our
country the first leg of their 2008 Asian tour that begins tonight and ends on
January 31 in Indonesia. The American rock stars are raring to perform live
tonight, January 25, at the Fort Bonifacio Open Field, Taguig City.
My Chemical Romance, also called The Black Parade, met the Philippine media for a press conference yesterday, January 24, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Makati City. During the event, the band was presented with a multi-platinum award by Warner Music for their album The Black Parade, which has 20,000 copies sold here in the Philippines.
The studio album
from this New Jersey quintet produced four No. 1 singles such as
"Welcome to the Black Parade," "Famous Last Words," "I Don't Love you," and
"Teenagers." This is their second major
label release following Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (2004), which
also did well especially with their hits like "Helena" and "Ghost of You" and
has sold more than two million copies worldwide.
My Chemical Romance's debut album titled I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (2002) was released under Eyeball Records shortly after they formed the band in 2001. It contained Gerald Way's "Skylines and Turnstiles," which was an expression of the vocalist's feelings regarding the September 11, 2001 attacks. After watching terrorists crash a plane into the World Trade Center, Gerard was inspired to form a band and play "violent, dangerous" music.
THE BLACK PARADE. The quintet is composed of singer Gerard, guitarist Ray toro, bassist Mikey Way, guitarist Frank Iero and drummer Bob Bryar. After their successful 2004 album, the members of MCR have been writing songs that were included in The Black Parade Album. The album was recorded with noted producer Rob Cavallo (producer of Goo Goo Dolls and Alanis Morissette). It also received a Grammy Award for 2008 Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package.
The title of the album, The Black Parade, refers to the premise of the record, which is an epic album about mortality. Gerard said, "I'd like to think that when you die, death comes for you however you want."
The band's hit single, "Welcome the Black Parade," was directed by Samuel Bayer, who has also directed some of the music videos of Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails. When asked to talk about the making of the hit single's music video, Gerard narrated, "For the main character on this record, the patient, his strongest memory is his father taking him to a parade when he was a child. So when death comes for him as he's dying tragically in a hospital, it comes in the form of a black parade."
Gerard admitted that he composed most of the songs in their album. For this, he thanked his fellow band members for trusting him to compose their songs.
"I write all the lyrics," revealed Gerard. "It's really cool. I think they trust me. Well, it's nice to have trust. We do have a lot of trust for this band. I always ask their opinions, though. I ask them if it's too much or if it will make the people sad, you know."
What can their fans expect for the band's upcoming fourth album?
Gerard replied, "Something different. I mean, that's what we do every time. You know, we can never really write a song and sound like the ones we wrote before. I know it's gonna be really different to what we're doing. It's gonna be wilder than what we've done."
After the Philippines, My Chemical Romance will continue their parade in Asia. Their next stop is in Taipei, Taiwan on January 27, then in Hong Kong on January 29, and lastly on January 31 in Jakarta, Indonesia.