Plucked from the midst of recording their next album, New Jersey’s
own My Chemical Romance were announced last week as being the
last-minute replacement for pop-punk forebears Blink-182 at this year’s
Bamboozle. The two bands toured together last year, and as Blink-182
drummer Travis Barker was reportedly admitted for an emergency
tonsillectomy (he’ll get ice cream!), My Chem seemed the most natural
fit. In the 10 years that this fest has been happening, they’ve played
30 times. We don’t even know how it happened, but that’s 100 percent
true.
When we sent guitarist Frank Iero the questions for this email
interview, he and the rest of the band were holed up in the studio in
Los Angeles, working once more with Doug McKean on a new batch of songs.
Iero was tight-lipped on the particulars of the material—as you’ll
see—but managed to reveal that it’ll be drummer Jarrod Alexander playing
on the album and that the band is looking forward to being back in what
they (no doubt lovingly) refer to as “the NJ.”
