Before we shot the photos or even had the costumes we needed to choose a director for the first single ‘Welcome To The Black Parade.’ It needed to be the definitive video for the record, an immediate knockout punch to accompany the mini-epic that summed up the album. It would include every major character and would see us transformed into the band. The Black Parade.

I met Samuel Bayer when Bob and I presented an award at an annual music industry award ceremony, which was fun. Sam received an award for lifetime achievement and as they ran his reel, highlights of his work, I saw so many of the videos that had impacted me throughout my life.

One video in particular, ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ by the Smashing Pumpkins, stirred a lot of emotion in me. It was one of my favorite videos of all time because before that video, the Pumpkins never looked so dangerous. Rock bands had started to look boring again and nothing was daring, everyone looked the same in ripped jeans and ‘I could give a fuck!’ flannels. The Smashing Pumpkins looked like they just landed from space to annihilate the Earth. They looked liked a new band.