After the Glasgow show, hundreds linger near the tour bus, hoping for one last glimpse of MCR. Grant Morrison, Gerard’s comic-book hero, is outside their dressing room, praising their ability to bring light from darkness. “You gotta embrace that stuff, and absorb it,” he says. “Steal it back, make it life-affirming again.”
And that, according to Gerard, is the real message of The Black Parade. “It’s that you can survive,” he says. “Life is very, very short, and you can choose to live it how you want. You can choose to dumb yourself down and not express yourself just so you can fit in, just so people won’t dislike you.
’‘Or,” he concludes, voicing what might as well be his band’s motto, “you can f—in’ live.”
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.
Gerard Way, Black Parade Special Edition
Shooting with Chris was some of the most fun we ever had at a photo shoot. I can’t be sure but I think I heard him call me a ‘motherfucker’ while trying to get my solo shot…he wanted me as intense as possible and he chain-smoked as he worked. I’m way into this guy and I feel like I gained a collaborator and a friend. He had brought so many wonderful things to the shoot, so many great extras…he even referenced the makeup of the WWI soldiers to match Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Dreams,’ my favorite scene in a movie ever. One of the best parts of the photograph is that with the exception of the gray sky and the zeppelins, everything is real. Every single person, every prop down to the taxidermy wolf were all there with us, no computer tricks. It is one the craziest photographs ever taken. I should note that Dante, who played The Patient for the photos, was very sweet.
Gerard Way, Black Parade Special Edition
We [note: he’s talking about himself and James Jean] had a second meeting about the album artwork at his house. At this meeting I finally had some music to play him and he seemed very intrigued by it. I played him ‘Mama,’ and I remember him thinking it was crazy. I told him to just go off on the artwork, showing him a sketch I had done based on ‘March Of The Saints’…he was ready to start working. As I snapped photos of his studios and his cat, Taffy, we heard a commotion from the kitchen. His wife (who is lovely) was very distraught because a bird had flown into the kitchen window and died on impact. It was a very strange moment outside, looking at the bird, and I snapped some photos of it. It felt like either bad mojo or a good omen…I’m still trying to figure out which.
Gerard Way, Black Parade Special Edition
