My Chemical Romance was formed in 2001. The current members of the band are Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Frank Lero, Ray Toro and Bob Bryar. Eyeball Records signed the band shortly after being established.
Gerard Way and Matt Pelissier formed the band around a week after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Witnessing the planes crash into the World Trade Center influenced Way’s life to the extent that he decided to start a band. He wrote the song “Skylines and Turnstiles” to express his feelings about September 11th. The first recording sessions were done in Pelissier’s attic. Mikey Way, Gerard’s younger brother, loved the demo so much that he decided to join the band, and in order to do so dropped out of college and learned bass guitar.
My Chemical Romance was signed with Eyeball Records, where they met Frank Lero, who joined the band after his former band, Pencey Prep, broke up.
In 2003, the band signed a deal with Reprise Records, and started working on their second album after going on tour with Avenged Sevenfold. They titled their second album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, which was released in 2004. The album went platinum within a year, including the singles “I’m Not Okay”, “Helena” and “The Ghost of You”.
In the beginning of 2005, the band was directly supported on the first ever Taste of Chaos tour, and was the opening act for Green Day. That summer they co-headlined the Warped Tour 2005 with Fall Out Boy.
On March 21, 2006, they released a 2 DVD/1 CD set entitled Life on the Murder Scene.
The band started recording their third studio album on April 10, 2006. They released the singles “Welcome to the Black Parade” and “Famous Last Words” that were released January 22, 2007. During the video shoot for “Famous Last Words”, band members Gerard Way and Bob Bryar were injured. Way suffered torn ligaments in his ankles, and Bryar a burn to the leg, which caused a severe staph infection. The band was forced to cancel a few tour dates. Their injuries were reported by several news agencies as being the result of a car accident, but the band confirmed that the injuries occurred on the set of the video.
On August 22, 2006, the band played a special one-off show at the 1800-capacity London Hammersmith Palais. The show sold out in 15 minutes prompting tickets being sold on eBay for well over their face value. The name of their album, The Black Parade was announced and 20 people dressed in black capes with their faces obscured paraded around Hammersmith, followed by a large group of fans and street team members with signs reading, “The Black Parade”. The first single, “Welcome to the Black Parade” had its first radio airing September 11, 2006.
In Kerrang! Magazine, 2006, My Chemical Romance won the categories: Best Band, Worst Band, Best Album (The Black Parade), Worst Album (The Black Parade), Best Track (“Welcome to the Black Parade”), Best Video (“Welcome to the Black Parade”), Best live Show, Best Thing About 2006, Worst Thing About 2006, Hero of 2006 (Gerard Way), and Villian of 2006 (Gerard Way).
