Taking The Lead

When My Chemical Romance vocalist Gerard Way announced that the band was splitting up in March 2013, legions of fans worldwide were left stunned. The group had released four studio albums over a dozen years, and questions were raised quickly as to the reasoning behind the band’s sudden demise. For Iero, that time seems forever and a day ago, but looking back, the split was necessary for individual band members to continue their musical growth. That being said, the transition out of the band environment was not an easy one.

“I felt miserable,” Iero recalls. “I needed something to get me out of bed and be a human again. I was basically just like, ‘Fuck this, I need to write songs or something, I need to be doing something.’”

The idea of building a solo career, however, did not come naturally to the former lead guitarist. “I don’t think I ever thought about the ‘solo career’,” Iero says thoughtfully, “that never entered my head, ever. It was funny, I was talking to someone yesterday about when the break-up announcement happened, and to be honest, everyone in the band knew what they were going to do a few months before we announced it. I had some time to just take a step back and look at everything – take a moment to sigh.

“As far as the solo thing is concerned, that only came to be when I signed to Staple Records. They were like, ‘So, what are we calling it?’ and I was like, ‘Fuck, uh...’ and yeah, it just kind of happened. I started putting these songs together, and before I knew it I had this collection that I was proud of.”

And so began an entirely new chapter of Iero’s life. He plays every instrument on Stomachaches bar the drums, which were handled by friend Jarrod Alexander. The decision, while difficult in practice, was vital to Iero’s transition into the solo world.

“I made the decision to go about my solo career in this way, so I had to stick to it. It was a challenge though, definitely. My job, so to speak, in My Chem, was that we’d come up with the core of the song, and then I’d step back and look at where the vocals were laying. For the most part, what you hear my guitar doing is floating between the rhythms and the vocal melody. It was basically about picking my moments of supporting the vocal line and playing off of it. It’s a fine line, because at times it could get a bit too busy, so you have to pick your moments, when we hit it correctly, it’s pretty great. You get a tingle.

“With this, I’ve come up with everything, but I’ve started the same way as I did before and included the main bits, like lead guitar, after trying to slide it in among everything else. There’s this song on the record called Neverenders, and I felt like in that song, the lead guitar is more important than the vocal, so writing that song, I wrote the lead guitar first, and fit everything else around that.”

My Chemical Romance fans were and still are known for their undying passion for the group, and as such, Iero has recognised that most of them have followed his solo work with a curious interest. Thankfully, the response has been extremely positive, and it allows him a huge sense of relief.

“It’s overwhelming, man. Even prior to doing this project, it’s been so nice to have people around who genuinely care. When I started this and people started hearing about what I was doing, the positive vibes were just great, and it felt amazing. You can put something out that’s wholeheartedly you, and you can love and hate it at the same time, but it’s more or less you, so you put it out to the world, and who knows what’s going to happen? It could come back to you in a good way or a bad way, but to have people say to you, ‘I enjoy this, I get this,’ it’s an amazing feeling.

“Now, and ever since we finished and announced the record, things have been insane. It’s been non-stop, and it’s great. I’m super busy, I’m trying my best to get everything done, but I’m loving it. I’ve got a US tour coming up, and there’s so many other places I want to go with this album, but it’s so hard financially. We’re still a bare bones project, and we’re still trying to find our legs, so as soon as we can make everything work, we will.”