mY cheMicaL roMaNcE.
like phantoms forever, oXXOOXXOx
“be
yourself , don't take anyone's shit, and never let them take youalive ...” — gerard way
relevant links
from bullets to black we survived them all...
as a first-generation mexican-american, i didn't grow up listening to any music in english. i listened to what my mom and dad would listen to—anything from durangense, banda, or cumbia. as i got older and started exploring my own music taste, though, i quickly fell in love with anything alternative and fast.
most of the video games i'd play featured soundtracks with hip hop, electronic music, and alternative rock. these would be the genres that would end up greatly influencing my teenage years. i was enamored with the idea that my favorite music genres had unique fashion styles. and so, after months of begging, my mom finally let me cut my hair into choppy layers with a fringe that covered nearly half my face—the classic scene kid look. i was slowly discovering metalcore acts such as suicide silence and bring me the horizon, mainly through youtube and grooveshark playlists. with the help of my internet friends, i also discovered punk acts such as the misfits and the descendents. my irl friends at the time were also really into bands like black veil brides and panic! at the disco, so naturally, i found out about those bands through them or just by checking out whatever neon-monster-style hot topic shirt some upperclassman was wearing.
before getting into "scene kid" music, i was into edm. i loved artists like skrillex and deadmau5, and it was cool to see just how similar edm was to post-hardcore and metalcore. some of the artists even had direct ties to the scene; before becoming a grammy-winning artist, skrillex was diving off stages and blowing his vocal cords as the frontman of from first to last. deadmau5, at the time, had just released a new single, "professional griefers" featuring gerard way. i didn't know anything about gerard at the time, nevermind the fact that he was better known as the charismatic frontman of my chemical romance—i guess i just didn't recognize him without the black hair dye and guyliner. nonetheless, "professional griefers" was my summer anthem that year, and it wouldn't be the last time i spent obsessing over gerard's vocals gracing my eardrums.
i was scrolling tumblr as any teen in the 2010s would when i came across an audio post for the track "boy division" by the band my chemical romance. apparently, this was their latest release in over three years, following their 2010 album, danger days. i found the title of the song so funny, especially because i knew a joy division song or two (thanks, tony hawk's project 8). nonetheless, i hit play, and for the next two minutes and fifty-five seconds, my world was changed, and i craved finding out more about this band. if only i had learned more about this gerard way dude in the months leading up to this release...
since "boy division" and "tomorrow's money" were my chem's latest releases at the time, it was the perfect time to do a deep dive on their discography. this was long before spotify ai-generated playlists or tiktok suggestions, so i worked my way backwards through their discography—starting with danger days. at this point in time, i was getting pretty advanced with what i knew about graphic design and image manipulation in photoshop. naturally, any time i fixated on a new artist or song, i would rush home after school to crack open my laptop and get started on a new wallpaper inspired by said artist. since i was learning new techniques, and i was loving the energy and lyrical optimism from songs like "party poison" and "vampire money," i hunkered down to create my first piece of my chem fanart—the first of so many yet to come.
looking at this piece almost 13 years later, it's easy to see that this was just four landscape images digitally-collaged together with a my chem logo and some crazy color grading slapped over the top. but at the time, i remember this piece taking quite a few hours to pull off, and all of that time was of course spent listening to my chem in the background and watching their music videos in between editing.
if danger days was this addictive, surely that meant the rest of their albums would be, too. it didn't take very long for me to fall in love with i brought you my bullets, you brought me your love. out of all their albums, this one was the one i was drawn to the most, especially for how much it bordered with that post-hardcore sound i had fallen in love with years prior. on tumblr, i was quickly indoctrinated into the mcrmy, primarily through fanart and graphics.
i was so immersed in the worlds my chem built. every drawing i penned, every pixel i pushed, every thought i had—everything had to be about my chem. at this point i was also just obsessing about music beyond a listener standpoint, i wanted to start learning how to play music of my own, too. after enough convincing, my dad bought me my first guitar: an all-black ibanez gio. the very first song i taught myself how to play would be "our lady of sorrows".
“
— cassie whittmy chemical romance wasn't just a band [...] It was this all-encompassing experience. they built art and narrative around the music that you could get lost in and interpret.”
the remainder of 2012 heading into 2013 was spent trying to follow as many my chem blogs on tumblr as humanly possible. it was also around this time i formed a few friendships because we all liked the same band, a couple which i still keep in contact with to this day. and then it happened...
on march 12, 2013, my chemical romance would announce that they would be breaking up. i am not exaggerating when i say that as a 14-year-old, i was inconsolable. i was both angry and sad that the one band i chose to revolve my life around was simply just ceasing to exist. the same band that taught me to be unafraid, to embrace my inner turmoil in order to overcome it; was no longer going to be there for me. but just because the band members weren't actively touring or making music, it didn’t mean that fans like me were going to move on to the next big thing. my chem was irreplaceable, and to a lot of us, it meant sticking closer together and eagerly wait for the members' post-breakup projects.
i remember my earliest days of twitter fandom. i made an account just so i could keep up with the my chem guys. admittedly, i was always more interested in gerard as he was my biggest celebrity crush at the time, and when he announced his solo debut hesitant alien, i was quick to pre-order it. the pre-order came with an exclusive t-shirt, a button pack, and a zine—which was my introduction to this form of media. just like with his music, i spent hours dissecting every piece of prose and art carefully curated in that zine. i would also reference its structure and page layout every time i had to create visual components for school assignments, as i thought it was a more effective way of compiling information as opposed to a powerpoint slideshow.
as i got older and the prospect of an mcr return dwindled, i slowly loss that need to obsess over every aspect of the band. however, it was hard to deny the way their work kept me inspired throughout my adolescence. gerard was an illustrator, a writer, and a musician; basically a modern-day renaissance man. i wanted to embody that same work ethic too. i simply had too many interests and i wanted to be able to dedicate time to hopefully master all of them.
as of writing this shrine, my chem has been reunited since 2019 and have since then been doing reunion tours and even released a new song, "the foundations of decay". in 2024, the band announced a new tour called long live the black parade, where they will perform the black parade in its entirety. i've never had a chance to see them live before, but if the concert ticket gods are looking out for me, i'm hoping that they bless me to see my chem for this tour.
some of my mcr fanart over the years...
