† NillaMora †

MCR wax passionate about their rabid fans, contemplate saviorhood and recount the (near) death march that became The Black Parade.

My Chemical Romance / Photo by Jennifer Tzar

You rock...
You are my life...
You are many people's lives...
You save lives...*

It's the kind of cute, gimmicky slogan that tempts headline writers whenever the morbidly military-garbed superstars grace the press with their cosmetically clouded faces and lofty declarations about mortality. Yet it's not until you surf the pages of ImNotOkay.net and MyChemicalRomanceForum.com, or witness a thousand teens in the pit, roaring, "I am not afraid to keep on living!" in a communal burst of affirmation, that this claim of salvation becomes a palpable principle.

"It's the mantra of the band," says bassist Mikey Way, from MCR's tour bus, which has just traveled 34 hours, from San Diego to the Riverside Theater, in frigid Milwaukee. "Kids would say they were gonna kill themselves, then they heard our music. It's great when you can impact someone like that. It's our mission."

I even wrote my suicide letter. I even planned a date that I was going to kill myself. But then, My Chemical Romance came into my life....They helped me believe that I wasn't alone, that someone actually cares. Their music inspires me so much. And I cannot thank them enough for giving me a reason to live. For giving me a reason to be myself. Thank you, MCR, for saving my fucking life.

The My Chemical Romance phenomenon bridges two of the new millennium's most significant, if far-flung, cultural convulsions: the tragedy of 9/11 and the launch of MySpace. That's heady stuff for a Jersey band that thrashed around that state's basement punk scene before graduating, in 2004, to lavish arena rock and the kind of worshipful success that has made earnest believers of even themselves. Not that the role of pomp rock'n'roll savior didn't take some getting used to. With every online post crediting them with rescuing another soul, devotion to the band approaches religious fervor. "I'd meet these kids that were outsiders," says frontman Gerard Way. "And I realized they're looking to us for the answer. It started to scare me."

Clockwise from bottom left: Gerard Way, Ray Toro, Bob Bryar, Frank Iero, Mikey Way / Photo by Jennifer Tzar

Any fear of that responsibility has since turned into an embrace.

On the strength of their 2002 debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, these former misfits -- Mikey, 26, his brother Gerard, 29, drummer Bob Bryar, 27, and guitarists Frank Iero, 25, and Ray Toro, 29 -- built a die-hard following playing New Jersey basements and VFW halls. But it wasn't until 2004's Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and the video-driven success of its post-Weezer anthem of teenage disaffection "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" and the maniacal dirge "Helena" that My Chemical Romance found their voice. And the voice of a new generation of jaded youth -- the unloved, the overlooked, the burned, bruised, and battered, punks, preps, jocks, and the sworn enemies of punks, preps, and jocks.

Fittingly for a band that, more than any other since Smashing Pumpkins' mid-'90s run, has had tremendous therapeutic impact on its fan base, they often soundcheck with the Pumpkins' "Zero." Consummate Corgan pupils that they are, MCR followed Three Cheers with a dip into the infinite sadness: last fall's ambitious The Black Parade, replete with Mellon Collie-meets-Night at the Opera bravado, plus a flash of Sgt. Pepper's panache.

They appeal to the darker side of my personality that I suppress to be the happy bunny most people think I am.

Read the complete My Chemical Romance cover story in the February 2007 issue of Spin, on newsstands now.

Source: spin.com