My Chemical Romance, Frank and Ray - Photo By Ros O'Gorman
My Chemical Romance are in the process of building a studio in Los Angeles where they’re going to begin working on their fifth album.
Speaking to Noise11, the band outlined plans for their impending fifth album and how they’re going to approach it.
“Back in L.A. we just got a studio so we’re kind of building that out and basically trying to make a compound where we can be creative and be there whenever we want to be,” guitarist Ray Toro told Noise11.com. “That’s the tough thing doing records in a cycle and you have three or four months where you have to write and record a record and sometimes that’s tough. You can take longer, but you always feel like there’s something over your head like a time constraint and now we’ll have our own place where we can go and make music 24 hours a day. It’s gonna be great!”
The band won’t be doing the production on their own though. They have the help of engineer Doug McKean who has worked on both Welcome to the Black Parade and Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.
“Doug McKean, we’ve done our past two records with him,” Toro continued. “He’s an awesome engineer, so he’s going to be working with us. He knows everything. He’s a genius. He definitely, while we’re in the studio with us, helps shape the sound of songs. He does funny stuff like play back stuff in a different way or change arrangements and trick our ears and we’ll be like “That was awesome! Look at what we did!”
With their last two records being bombastic concept albums designed to be listened to in their entirety, does that leave them room for creativity in the future? What is it about the concept album that attracts them? Will the next record be another concept album? So many questions!
“It can’t just be a collection of songs,” the band’s other guitarist Frank Iero explains. “It’s never going to be ‘Oh, we had these twelve songs so record it real quick and we’ll put them out!’. I don’t think anyone can really do that these days anymore without some sort of thought or vision behind it. I think the days of just filling the time and putting out a disc is over, and I’m glad, because those are some of my least favourite records.
“I think [iTunes] is cool. Write a song and then just put it out, I like the immediacy of that, but I’m talking about full albums, it’s no longer a mixtape mentality. There needs to be a reason why there’s twelve songs, or thirteen songs. It’s not like ‘Oh, we have a single so we need ten more fillers to put it out there,’ but for us, we’re fans of the album. We grew up listening to full records and having an A-side and a B-side. There’s something magical about taking that record and flipping it over, or a tape. Remember when you had to hit the two buttons to flip the tape? I like that. I like hearing what a band is up to when it’s not just writing a single. That’s when you get to really know what a band is all about. That’s when you love a band and not just music.
“There’s a big difference between being just a music fan or a popular music fan and you’re a fan of a band. When you’re a fan of a band you don’t have to like everything, but you have to follow them because they know better than you do what their band is supposed to be doing and when you do follow and you do give it as many listens as it needs to like it or to appreciate it, then that band has opened your mind a little bit and you’re a better person because of that band and that’s why you’re a fan of that band.”
Stay tuned to Noise11 to see the full video interview with Frank Iero and Ray Toro of My Chemical Romance, due online later this week.
Follow the author/interviewer Tim Cashmere on Twitter.
