My Chemical Romance's Danger Days Was The Perfect Unintentional Goodbye Letter

By Grant Sharples


On December 20, 2019, beloved emo outfit My Chemical Romance made their grand, highly anticipated return at The Shrine in Los Angeles. Right after temporarily disbanding in 2013, Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Ray Toro, and Frank Iero played a reunion show that sold out in mere minutes and consisted of both fan favorites, like “Helena” and “Teenagers,” and deep cuts, like “Our Lady of Sorrows” and “Give ‘Em Hell, Kid.” The fictitious Dr. Death Defying introduced the quartet by means of the an audio intro, just as he opened their fourth and final record, 2010’s Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.


Despite the fact that the Jonas Brothers spilled the beans on the MCR reunion, their official return in 2019 was a crucial one: The year also serves because the post-apocalyptic setting for Danger Days, a concept album that follows protagonists the Killjoys as they traverse the Californian deserts of Battery City to take out the evil Better Living Industries. Each musical group member has a Killjoy tweak ego, with Gerard Way as Party Poison, Mikey as Kobra Kid, Toro as Jet-Star, and Iero as Fun Ghoul, all futuristic warriors wielding laser guns against the Draculoids, the company’s evil minions. Their whole adventure is narrated by Dr. Death Defying, a pirate-radio DJ who provides music and intel. However an end-of-the-world sci-fi narrative felt alien in the particular 2019, it turns out MCR was just each year off, given 2020’s upending of society by way of the a raging pandemic, ongoing racial-justice protests, a threatened peaceful transfer of government power, and more.


Given the record’s ambitious concept, it’s no surprise that Gerard Way eventually developed it into a full-fledged comic book series. Although as he told The Village Voice, the comic idea actually came first. Gerard and Shaun Simon, who sold the band’s merch and co-wrote the six-part series, “had the idea for this comic that really was in a weird way semi-autobiographical, yet had nothing to do with [the band], and [they] weren’t in it.” That much eventually changed; the musical group members perform as their respective Killjoy characters in the music videos for “Na Na Na” and “Sing.” Both visualize the musical group taking down Draculoids and driving a vehicle adorned with the Killjoys logo, a spider with eight legs, cut by way of the middle with a lightning bolt, which also adorns the album cover. Danger Days was the catalyst that set off Way’s comics career — a fruitful second life that’s also seen him launch The Umbrella Academy, right now a popular Netflix series. Although in 2008, it wasn’t exactly clear what shape Way’s latest creative task to undertake would take.


after the massive commercial success of 2006’s The Black Parade — a theatrical concept in its own right — Way told NME, “I think [the next album] will certainly be more stripped down.” There was reason to believe his next project would discard the dramatics: MCR had begun abandoning the theatricality and pyrotechnics toward the end of The Black Parade’s tour.  You can mention that they gave up the gothic outfits and eyeliner, however Danger Days still shows the quartet at a theatrical zenith. The sheer ambition of its plot line, characters, and music videos showed that My Chemical Romance still had plenty of bombast left. Simply put, this musical group is a lot. Nevertheless it’s also what makes them so enduringly intriguing.


On The Black Parade, they popularized the marriage of horror-punk beauty and Broadway-esque histrionics, and it’s why “Welcome to the Black Parade” is one of the highest-charting emo songs ever written (it peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100). They even worked with producer Rob Cavallo again for Danger Days, who produced not only The Black Parade, yet also Green Day’s rock opera American Idiot and the soundtrack of the Broadway musical Rent’s film adaptation. Although, My Chemical Romance changed both their music and aesthetic substantially with the release of Danger Days. As several emo fans know, whenever the ringleader changes their hair color, a seismic shift is likely to follow.


Danger Days is a monumental departure from the violent catharsis the musical group had come to be known for. This album drew from influences like MC5’s 1969 live record Kick Out the Jams, The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” and David Bowie’s eighth LP Diamond Dogs. Consequently, Danger Days is more akin to psych-rock than, mention, pop-punk. My Chemical Romance also imbued their sound with eclectic, pop-forward songwriting, particularly on songs like “Sing” and “Planetary (Go!).” The musical group even made their momentous Glee debut with former. However in spite of the fact that the songs are much poppier than what the musical group had generally written, they’re also more reminiscent of pure rock music in the vein of Smashing Pumpkins, one of the band’s clearest influences. “Destroya” mixes a Jimmy Chamberlin-esque drum pattern with a driving guitar hook. Closer “Vampire Money” is a thrash-rock take on a I-IV-V chord progression, and the call-and-response intro pays homage to Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz.”


On a lyrical note, it may seem like Danger Days is complete fiction at first glance. However in a track-by-track breakdown with Billboard, Way mentions that some of those tracks are at least somewhat autobiographical. “Summertime,” specifically, is “one of the lyrically personalized songs” and is simply Gerard “talking about [his] worldview,” strongly offered to be about his partner, Lyn-Z. The chorus features the line, “You can run away with me anytime you want,” and yes it contains two phrases that the couple would write on each other before each of these performed. “Bulletproof Heart” is identically emotionally susceptible (“I got a bulletproof heart / You got a hollow-point smile”), as is “The Only Hope for Me Is You” (If there’s a place that I would be / Then I’d be another memory / Can I be the only hope for you? / Because you’re the only hope for me”). You can mention that these songs follow the escapades of the evil-fighting, anti-corporate Killjoys, nevertheless these songs are personalized because the lyrics noticed on 2004 breakthrough Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge or The Black Parade.


Then there’s “The Kids from Yesterday,” the song that foreshadowed the group’s hiatus from its beginning line: “Well, right now, this might would be last all of the rides we take.” As if there wasn’t already a hint of unintentional finality to the apocalyptic Danger Days, “The Kids from Yesterday” was the final song the musical group wrote for the record. They didn’t exactly count on it having the conclusiveness that it did. They were even reportedly working on their fifth album in 2012, nevertheless that didn’t stop the track from serving as a temporary) goodbye letter. This song was even the final one in the main set at their reunion show.


Danger Days hasn’t gone on to occupy the same cultural throne as The Black Parade or Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, yet it’s still an integral piece of the group’s history. It’s definitely not My Chemical Romance’s most popular album, however it's a milestone in their oeuvre, offering fans with an odyssey-like storyline, wide-ranging musical influences, and also a return — immediately after nine years — to a global about to be plunged into a similar madness tackled by the album’s bold concept. “We’re gonna continue to punish you,” Way mentioned to The Shrine’s audience soon after performing “House of Wolves.” The world didn’t aspire to be punished by a pandemic, although it’ll take the punishment of a MCR show any day.