Frank Iero on festivals, ten years of MCR, and why Pitchfork is never going to like their records.
This summer is going to be a pretty big one for My Chemical Romance.
With several festival appearances lined up they’ve come a long way since
the days of the Daily Mail’s emo cult. But when they’ve been on the
receiving end of some hostility at UK festivals in the past, are they
worried about how the crowd will react this time? We spoke to Frank Iero
to find out.
Where are you and what are you up to at the moment?
I’m in Los Angeles right now. I had a day off yesterday, and we’re
actually driving up to Bakersfield, California today for a show tonight.
How are you preparing for your UK festival appearances this summer?
Man, it’s crazy. When we were first talking about these festivals it
felt like there was a lot of time, but there’s not at all. We did a
headline tour here in the States, playing an hour-and-a-half every
night, honing the songs that we hadn’t played in a long time. Now it’s
like getting in shape for the big race. We’re going to be doing these
headlining festival slots where we’re going to be playing for a long
period of time, we’re going to do as much production as we can humanly
bring to all these places and really just focus on the music that spans
the ten years that we’ve been a band - and that’s what we’ve been
practicing on this tour.
Reading & Leeds will be the first time you’ve headlined a UK festival since 2007. What’s changed for MCR since then?
Life’s definitely changed. We’re all married now and some of us have
kids. We took some time after ‘The Black Parade’ to re-assess why we
love doing this and who we are as people, then came back older and
wiser, more comfortable in our own skin, and wrote a record that we’re
really, really proud of. So you have a band that’s matured and grown up.
We’re just really proud to come back and do these festivals in a
headline slot. It’s something that, as a kid, I never thought we’d be
able to do, and we have this opportunity so you wanna get out there and
show why you’ve been around for ten years and we’re not going away.
Do you feel like you deserve it?
Well (laughs), y’know it’s one of those things where you’ve got
to have a limit... It’s having the confidence without being cocky. I
don’t think I’ll ever feel like, “Holy shit, we deserve these sets that
legendary bands have had!,” y’know? But, at the same time - do I feel
like we deserve what’s come to us because we’ve worked that hard? Yeah.
It’s a strange thing, I guess it depends on the day you ask me.
You’ve been on the receiving end of some - ahem - rather unfriendly welcomes. Are you hoping to put an end to that this year?
Ah, who knows? I think the one thing that’s working for us is that Slayer’s not on the [Reading & Leeds] bill! (Laughs)
But yeah, it’s one of those things, it's a tradition. You can either
fuckin’ be a pussy about it and walk off, or you fuckin’ get up there
and you man up and you do it. I mean, it’s a Blues Brothers moment,
y’know? (Laughs) I’ve been there in other bands too, it wasn’t at
a huge festival of course, but you took a lot of shit, being a young
band growing up in a punk rock scene, playing in basements and stuff
like that. You get used to it, y’know? And, I dunno... a couple of
bottles will never scare me.
Do you feel like you’ve got a point to prove to some people this summer?
Um... (long pause) Nah, I don’t have to prove anything to
anybody. I am who I am, we are who we are - we’ve been around for ten
years, y’know? It’s one of those things where I’m proud of the band I’m
in, of who we are, of who my best friends are, and if somebody doesn’t
get that then that’s bad on them. I don’t have to prove that shit to
anybody.
So what can we expect from your festival appearances this year? Presumably they won’t be low-key affairs...
Yeah, I don’t think we ever do anything low-key, except for the
aftershow! I think that’s the thing about the band - I mean, I don’t
even know what’s expected. It’s fun being in a band where nothing’s
planned. I think you can expect us to give our all - blood, sweat and
tears - but that’s all I can promise, that we’re going to give it 150%
every single show.
I’m sure you’d love to put your feet up and chill out after Reading
& Leeds, but you’re heading home to for the absolutely massive Honda
Civic Tour with Blink 182 just four days later - how are you managing
to find time to prepare for that as well as all of your upcoming
festival dates?
It’s crazy, it starts on the 5th August, so we’re actually touring the
States, then flying over to do Reading and Leeds, then flying back and
we’re still on tour. There’s no rest for the weak and weary y’know, it’s
constant... but that’s the way we like it. We’re lucky enough to be
doing a big tour where we can have a room where we can have warm-ups, so
while we’re touring on one we’re going to be preparing for the other.
But right now I’m just worrying about what we have at hand, and then I
think we have two weeks off to really get our heads together for the
festival run, and then we’re right on tour again.
You recently played at Radio One’s Big Weekend in Carlisle - did it
feel a bit strange to be playing in between Taio Cruz and Lady Gaga?
You know, it’s strange, man. It’s something that we’ve never gotten to
do before, but I like those kinds of things because you’re playing for
people that you’ve never had the opportunity to play in front of before,
and you’re getting to play with bands that you never would have played
with before. It’s a strange situation, I feel very fortunate that our
band is able to do those kind of things.
Ever since My Chemical Romance first came into the public’s
consciousness, you’ve had a bit of a struggle to shake off the dreaded
‘emo’ tag. Do you feel that being labelled with a word that’s so often
used in a derogatory manner has ever held you back as a band, or has it
helped spur you on?
(Laughs) Oh, well from a personal aspect it’s never held us back.
I think maybe it’s held other people back from getting to know the band
and realising that it’s more than just this label... but I think it
stems from a lazy way of figuring out what a band is. These days there’s
so much content out there - there’s so many new bands and new movements
and whatnot that are very fleeting, so people are like "Oh, let me look
at this real quick... oh, it looks like this... alright, let’s throw it
in that pile," and that’s what it’ll be labelled for the next five
years, and it’s a way to kinda shake things off. But for us, we never
really paid attention to it. It’s kinda one of those things, like “So,
how do you feel being the new emo taste of the month?” and I’m like "Ah,
who fucking cares? I don’t even know what that means. Do you know what
that means? ‘Cause I don’t know what that means." It’s the same thing
that happened in the ‘90s with grunge and alternative, the alternative
became the mainstream, and who knows what the term even meant anymore. I
think it’s kinda funny though, to be lumped into a genre that was so
fleeting and didn’t mean anything, and then to still be around ten years
later. People will be like "Oh, I guess you’re not that genre, huh?"
and we’re like, "Yeah, well we never said we were!"
One thing that is really noticeable about My Chemical Romance is how
much your fans seem to really adore you - it must feel great to know
that you have such a loyal following that has stuck with you from the
very beginning?
Yeah, ever since we started the kids that would come to the shows and
were fans of the band and the art and the amount of work and time that
we put into it, they would appreciate it so much, and we were lucky
enough to be a part of this. It’s really like a community - they’re very
artistic and creative and they do their own thing, and they really,
truly love the band, and we’ve always been appreciative of that, and I
think that they know that. And now to be ten years old and to have the
kids who grew up with the band bringing their families, it’s crazy.
We’ll play these shows and Gerard will ask how many people have never
seen us before and it’ll be, like, half the crowd, and how many people
have seen us, like, five or ten times and it’s the other half. So
y’know, we’re coming into this time in the band where it’s really like
we’re playing to this huge stretch of audience - it’s young kids, and
there’s parents and they’re bringing their kids, and there’s older
cousins or friends ushering in this new crowd, and it really feels like
how I got into all my favourite bands as a kid. Y’know, your older
friend or sibling would hand you a mixtape and be like “Hey, check this
out,” and that’s how it feels - and that’s the way it should be. It
should be organic like that.
It’s always best for a band when their following is built up naturally over time...
Absolutely, and when you first get into a band, it feels like you’ve
found this band, and it becomes yours, and you feel an identity in that
and I think that’s something that’s really important. And then they can
go back and be like “Holy shit!” When I was in grammar school this
Revenge record came out, and they’re just finding out about it now - and
that’s kinda cool.
You mentioned that you’ve got a much wider target audience now, but
you’ve always seemed to relish being the ‘outsiders’ of the mainstream
music scene - do you feel at all uncomfortable with your world-famous,
multi-platinum status now?
It’s kinda OK because, if you think about it, we’re kinda still the
outsiders. Like when we’re doing a show like the show in Carlisle, you
still feel like "Wow, they sent the invitation to the wrong people!" (Laughs)
It’s a very strange thing because we’re not a mainstream band, so we’re
not gonna be thought of in the pop world as a heavy-hitter, we’re
always an underdog in that - but we’re not cool enough to be on the
white belt websites, y’know, Pitchfork is never going to say that they
like our records. It’s never accepted anywhere - and you know what?
That’s OK - fuck it. I like being in our own little group. I don’t need
to be accepted by the cool kids or the too-cool-for-school kids y’know? I
don’t like labels, I like being who we are, and we’re never going to
pander to either.
And one final question: If you were going to a UK festival as a punter and could only take ONE thing with you, what would it be?
Oh man... it would probably be wellies or some sort of wading outfit
like galoshes, because I know that, even if it’s not raining, there’s
mud, and it’s usually piss-mud and that shit is gross (Laughs).
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