My Chemical Romance Bassist Compares Split to Losing a Family Member
My Chemical Romance bassist Mikey Way compared the band’s 2013 breakup to “the passing of a family member” in a new interview with Kerrang (via NME).
While initially difficult, Way says that the past year has allowed him to find joy in a new kind of reflection: “I was able to truly put on some songs and be like, ‘Wow, we really did something. We cracked the heavens.’ With MCR, we were so busy. I was never able to stop and smell the roses, or evaluate myself completely. That’s what the past year was all about. I was able to dig deep inside myself and become the man I always wanted to be.”
My Chemical Romance released a new greatest hits collection this week, May Death Never Stop You, that includes a new track, “Fake Your Death,” which the band has called their “eulogy.” The collection comes as either a standard or deluxe edition, with the later including a bonus DVD with two hours of previously unseen music video footage; a physical deluxe edition with the CD and 180-gram vinyl set is also available.
After MCR disbanded, frontman Gerard Way posted a lengthy note in which he spoke about adjusting to his new reality before delving into the reasons behind the split, which he referred to partly as a “fail-safe” to keep the band from compromising itself in any way or moving in uncomfortable directions.
The point was, Way wrote: “To protect the idea – at all costs. This probably sounds like something ripped from the pages of a four-color comic book, and that’s the point. No compromise. No surrender. No fucking shit. To me that’s rock & roll. And I believe in rock & roll.”