How 9/11 led to the formation of My Chemical Romance
It felt like the earth stopped moving for a minute on 9/11 – the date we all now recognise as September 11th attacks, 2001. Although it may have been the US that was targeted, it was the entire world that felt significantly more dangerous when those towers went down, casting a melancholy haze across the globe that no one would recover from. There’s always light, even in the darkest places, and the seeds of what would become My Chemical Romance were planted on that fateful day.
Granted, the first reaction from rock fans tended to be more guarded than anything else. Coming out the day after the attacks, albums by bands like The Strokes were being modified in light of recent events, including taking their iconic track ‘New York City Cops’ off the first pressing of Is This It. As the buildings collapsed in the middle of Manhattan, a young Gerard Way watched from a nearby train.
Years later, Way recalled: “It was like being in a science fiction film. You didn’t believe it. All the people around me had friends and family in those buildings, so when that first building went, it was like an A-bomb of emotion. I was more upset for the people around me than for myself. The first thing I thought of was, ‘Well, what does this mean for the world?'”.
For all of the blood spilt that day, it didn’t take long for the music community to help however they could. In the days following the disaster, artists like Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen would put events together to help pick up the pieces of New York City, bringing thousands of people together in defiance of the terrorist threats that went down that day.
While Way had been working on getting a cartoon off the ground with Cartoon Network, that tragedy completely restructured his plans. He explained: “I was like, ‘I have to do something that actually means something or my life’s going to mean nothing’. It doesn’t mean go out and save the world because you can’t, but it means go out there and make some kind of difference and say something that has some value to it.”
Within the next few years, Way had put together the beginnings of what would become My Chemical Romance, crafting songs that had much more edge than the traditional rock on the radio. Although the rock legends were more known for embracing the dark side of life on albums like Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, Way never lost sight of the bigger picture behind the group.
Throughout their magnum opus, The Black Parade, Way’s lyrics paint dark pictures around the concept of a man in his final hours as he wonders where he will land in the afterlife. Despite the depressing subject matter, the triumphant music behind him is the drive that most listeners needed to carry on with their lives, as they left behind all of the pain holding them back.
My Chemical Romance wouldn’t be the only ones affected by 9/11, with artists writing tribute songs to those lost on that tragic day and Bruce Springsteen crafting a response to it on his album, The Rising. While Way may have had a lot on his mind when putting together MCR, never has a band been able to take songs about mortality that make fans feel more alive for having listened to them.
