Even as a kid- do all kids think about this? I hope they donโt, I hope my kids donโt think about this- I was always thinking about, "Well, what are we doing? What is this all about?"
Frank IeroI was feeling miserable physically, in a lot of pain to the point where it was almost crippling me, especially creatively. I decided to take that and use it as an inspiration for getting out of bed and making something again.
Frank IeroEmo always meant emotional. Any kind of art or music should be emotional. If its not, than it's pretty much just a jingle selling bleach or pizza.
Frank IeroNormally you'll have a structure to a song. You'll have an intro to a verse to a pre-chorus to a chorus, kinda repeat that, maybe there's a bridge, then you'll go out on a chorus - that's the quintessential song structure - sometimes you might do a fake-out, re-do a pre-chorus but the chorus doesn't come until later, but for the most part you follow these tried and true structures.
Frank IeroIf you lose count of how many cookies you ate, the calorie intake ceases to exist. True story.
Frank IeroThe relationship between My Chemical Romance and Michael Pedicone is over. He was caught red-handed stealing from the band and confessed to police after our show last night in Auburn, Washington. We are heartbroken and sick to our stomachs over this entire situation.
Frank IeroI don't understand how people can make such a fuss about people that are happy and in love, when there's people dying of hunger and war and they don't even notice that. I really don't understand that. That makes me so angry!
Frank IeroLove what you do and who you truly are. Be willing to die for it. If you are true to yourself, you can never go wrong
Frank IeroWhen you break it all down, my punk rock is my dad's blues. It's music from the underground, and it's real, and it's written for the downtrodden in uncertain times.
Frank IeroBasically, I thought for a very long time that making music and art projects, that that was just something that I did, and real life was separate. And I'm starting to realize that the things that I do, making music and art and photography and all that, it's not just something that I do. It's who I am. So I don't think I'll ever be able to stop. It's like that curse that you live with, this thing that you love but you also hate it at the same time. It brings you a lot of joy but also a lot of heartbreak.
Frank IeroAt times, it could be a bit difficult to understand everything that's being said when just listening, but I wanted the lyrics to be the first impression.
Frank IeroVery rarely I create things and feel like I don't want to recreate them in a live setting. It's a completely different world, but at the same time that's where I've always come from. Enjoying that give-and-take from a live audience, there's a large part of me that's looking forward to it, and creating that relationship again.
Frank IeroTo kill the misconception, I donโt think the songs we wrote before โDanger Daysโ are bad songs by any means. In fact, I kinda think some of them are among my favorites we have ever written. A lot of them are kinda fโing radโฆ they just so happened to have been created in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and we as their parents were not ready to raise them just yetโฆ and so they sat and waited.
Frank IeroMy tattoos are like a scrapbook of my life. Sometimes you don't feel comfortable in your own skin, so covering it up with pictures helps
Frank IeroI think that's really the beauty of life, like, we're this collection of moments, this collection of experiences that we've had, or little tics that we've stolen from other people, it's like we're this amalgamation of all of that.
Frank IeroYou can only hold on to something for so long and enjoy it just by yourself, what's the point? It's very selfish. For better or for worse, I feel like the point of all of this is to make someone feel something.
Frank IeroI started thinking about how life is a lot like getting pushed out of a plane. You didn't ask to be here, none of us did. But we're all careening through space towards an eventual end that no one's gonna be able to put off. That's the only thing that's definite, this impact. So I started to think about how a lot of us fall at an incredible velocity, and it's over in the blink of an eye.
Frank IeroIt could be anything, give a homeless guy a sandwich, help an old lady across the street like anything to make this world a better place. If everybody just did one good thing for another person like a selfless good deed just think about how much a better place this would be.
Frank IeroI feel like you have to make art because you have to make it. But the end result of it- that last stage- you have to show it to somebody else to hopefully get a rise or reaction out of them- [to see] if itโll affect someone else.
Frank IeroI also remember the second band I was in ever. We were called Hybrid. We got a show at this local street fair, and we were playing on the back of a flatbed truck. There was an ad in the paper, and it said that 'Hybird' is playing. I was so mad.
Frank IeroI've always been in bands writing songs with friends in order to play shows or record a future record.
Frank IeroMy name is Frank Iero and I hate mushrooms. All mushrooms. No matter how they're prepared, I feel like they're all slimy and they taste like dirt.
Frank IeroI think the fun thing about doing a project under your own name is that literally anything could be a follow up, it doesn't necessarily need to be a record, it could be film related, it could be book related, it could be anything.
Frank IeroThere's lots of bands where somebody will write lyrics and somebody else will sing them. It works for a lot of people, but that feels weird to me. I don't mean this in a bad way at all but it just feels fake.. I guess in my heart of hearts, whether the person has a good voice or not I want [the songs] to come from them. I don't know why.
Frank IeroWe're all gonna land, we don't have rocket packs that last forever. But these things that we love, these things that give us purpose, these moments along the way are our parachutes. So I feel very fortunate to have all of these. Art and my family are pretty much my biggest parachutes.
Frank IeroWhen my creative side isn't being fulfilled, I see it affect me in a negative way and I'm not able to become that father/husband/man that I want to be. So it's almost like this dark half that you have to satiate in order to become full, in order to become a good person.
Frank IeroMy first show was when I was a high school freshman, but it was at the junior class dance. My older friend and bandmate booked it.
Frank IeroI made songs really for myself - I didn't ever expect to put it out there and make this a record for mass consumption, this was really just a way for me to get out of my own situation and reclaim that part of myself - so when making the songs, I wanted a testament to what I'd gone through, I wanted a snapshot of those moments.
Frank IeroNo one is born with hate in their heart. Hate is something that has been taught. It is not an innate survival skill that we need; It is a form of stupidity that penetrates our minds and will eventually destroy us.
Frank IeroWhere my heart lies is in the real-life, but at the same time part of it lies in this creative realm where I need to go in and put out that fire, scratch that itch, in order to be all rounded.
Frank IeroI feel like the older I get, the more I start to think about life in general. All the clichรฉs that people tell you, the ones that you hear over and over and over again, there's a reason they're clichรฉ, there's a reason you hear them over and over again, because it's all true. As much as you don't wanna hear it, it's true. You'll find out later on, like "Man, they're all right."
Frank IeroI have a split - of my real home-life side that's real-life, and then the creative side that is not necessarily real-life, but it intersects my real-life so much.
Frank IeroThe best music happens when you have a personal connection to it. That same philosophy can extend to the instrument you hold in your hands: if a guitar means something special, you're bound to do great things with it.
Frank IeroI love players like Thurston Moore. I mean, you can put notes down on a sheet of paper, and if you practice and get your chops up, you can play like an Eddie Van Halen or a Steve Vai. But nobody can do what Thurston Moore does; he's his own guy. He talks through his instrument in a language that's all his own.
Frank IeroReally I don't know anything other than Jersey. I like the dirtiness of it. Now I'm getting to see the world, and it's great, but it's not better than Jersey.
Frank IeroI've always been a fan of the band setting. I've always been a believer in bands, and I've always been in bands. That's where my comfort zone is. So to stand outside of that, that was never my intention or goal. I never had the dream of, 'I'm gonna go into all these bands as a spring board for my solo work.' But life takes you on different journeys sometimes. I ended up playing a bunch of songs and some of them I really liked.
Frank IeroIf I could've picked a birthday it would've been on Halloween. Yeah, it's always been my favorite holiday. Not because it was my birthday, but actually because, I think it was the freedom, you know? When you were a little kid, you got to go out and be an adult for a couple of hours. You got to, like, just go out with your friends and knock on peoples' doors and be nuts and pull pranks and stuff like that. You could be whoever you wanted to be, you know, I guess that was the appeal to it.
Frank Iero