MusicRadar

Ray Toro rocks out during a My Chemical Romance concert in Taiwan, 2008. © Nicky Loh/Reuters/Corbis

With the upcoming release of Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, My Chemical Romance are intent on building on the success they enjoyed with 2006's multi-platinum The Black Parade.

Already the album's first single from Danger Days, the memorably titled and positively bouncy Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na), is making a serious dent at radio. And the album as a whole is a joyride of exuberant, slamming rock that leaves a listener little time to catch one's breath - a far cry from the dark-tinged themes and musical soundscapes that made up The Black Parade.

Getting there wasn't so easy, however, for the New Jersey-based band, which consists of singer Gerard Way, his bassist brother Mikey, along with guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero (drummer Bob Bryar departed earlier this year). Throughout 2009, the group worked with producer Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, Bruce Springsteen), desperately trying to reinvent themselves and capture magic...to no avail. At the beginning of 2010, the band made the painful (and no doubt costly) decision to shelve the album and start all over again, this time reuniting with Black Parade producer (and newly minted Warner Bros Records Label Group Chairman) Rob Cavallo.

"It was a hard decision to scrap the record we had made with Brendan, but in the end it was the right decision," says Toro. "Nobody was feeling quite right about what we had done. There was no joy in the record. It had nothing to do with Brendan. We were the problem."

MusicRadar recently sat down with Ray Toro to discuss the making - and remaking - of Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys and to talk guitar. We also got the skinny on what it's like to play one of Jimi Hendrix's Stratocasters.

The difficulties in recording Danger Days the first time, is there anything specific you can point to?

"We were just burnt out. The touring schedule on The Black Parade was very hectic, and it probably went on six months longer than it should have. When we started talking about what the next album should be, we saw The Black Parade as the enemy - it was a big, theatrical rock record, and we were wearing the costumes and stuff. We wanted to go the other way.

"So we spent 2009 writing and recording and trying to do a real stripped-down record. I remember distinctly, whereas in the past I would have laid down a bunch of different guitar tracks, harmonies and stuff, this time I said, 'No, I can't do that.' After a while, it started to feel like I was going against my nature."

Did Brendan ever say to you guys, "This is good, but it's not great?"

"He was really trying; he did the best he could with us. He knew things weren't clicking, and he'd try to rally us. I remember he said, 'Hey, on some songs, I'd love to hear you do what you did on The Black Parade.' Because there wasn't any of the harmonized guitar parts or the stacking that I usually do. He was trying to get us to make one record, and we wanted to make something totally different.

"Musically, we wanted to go back to our basement. But just because we wanted to do something different didn't make it easy. In many ways, we felt as though we were holding ourselves back creatively. We were going through the motions. Some of the songs were good, but we weren't happy with all of them."

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