Gerard Way is a former frontman of the rock band My Chemical Romance. At the moment he is engaged in solo work. His debut solo album "Hesitant Alien" ("Indecisive Alien") went on sale in 2014. Way is also known as the author of the popular comic strip Umbrella Academy, which recently shot the series.
Early biography
Gerard Way was born in 1977 in the American town of Summit (New Jersey). His father's name was Donald, and his mother Donna Lee.
It is known that a great influence on little Gerard had his grandmother - Elena. She taught him how to draw, and also bought him a guitar when he was only eight. After that, he began to play in one-day children's groups. However, Gerard soon abandoned the music, preferring to draw. The thing is that then he did not feel great musical talent.
In general, in his school years, Way was not popular among peers, he gained a reputation as a "loser."
In 1995, Way decided to try his hand at the comic book industry and moved from his native state to New York. Here he studied at the School of Visual Arts, and in 1991 he graduated with a bachelor's degree. After that, Way spent some time doing an internship on the cartoon network Cartoon Network.
Gerard Way as part of My Chemical Romance
During the terrible terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, Gerard was in New York. This tragedy greatly shocked him and inspired him to write the first song (it was called "Skylines and Turnstiles"). Soon after, Gerard formed the band My Chemical Romance (MCR) and became its vocalist.
The band held their first rehearsals in the attic in the house of one of its members, drummer Matt Pelissier. Three months after their formation, MCR musicians signed an agreement with Eyeball Records and began recording their debut album. It took them only ten days, from May 15 to 25, 2002.
The first album was called "I Brought You My Bullets", You Brought Me Your Love "(" I Give You Bullets, You Give Me My Love ") and was released on July 23 of the same year 2002.
Two years later, in 2004, the second album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, was released. And in just a year, he was able to get platinum status. One of the tracks from this album is called "Helena". The text for this composition was written by Way and it was dedicated to his grandmother, who at that time was no longer alive.
In the fall of 2006, the third My Chemical Romance album, The Black Parade, was released. And almost immediately she won the second position in the ranking of Billboard magazine. The first week in the United States, 240, 000 copies were sold. Interestingly, the cover for this album (as well as the previous one) was drawn directly by Gerard.
In November 2010, MCR released their next album, "Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys", produced by Rob Cavallo. Among the songs present on this album, the song "Na Na Na", the clip for which was in MTV rotation for quite some time, should be highlighted. In addition, the album included the song "The Only Hope For Me Is You", which became the soundtrack to the famous blockbuster "Transformers 3: The Dark Side of the Moon."
In the fall of 2011, the media reported that soon the rock band would begin recording their fifth album, but these plans were not destined to come true. March 22, 2013 on the official portal My Chemical Romance there was a record of the breakup of the team, and this was a big surprise for many. About why the band ceased to exist, its fans are still wondering.
Solo work
On August 19, 2014, Gerard uploaded a video on the network for the first single from his debut album - the song "No Shows". The album itself was released next month - September 30, it was called "Hesitant Alien". In it, Way turned to the Britpop genre, and in general the sound of the record was different from the sound of My Chemical Romance.
In 2016, the musician published two exclusive, previously unreleased tracks - “Don't Try” and “Pinkish”.
In 2018, Gerard Way presented three of his new songs to the public. The first is called "Baby You're a Haunted House". The video for this song, posted on Youtube in October 2018, has already gained more than three million views. In November 2018, the second song, "Getting down the Microms", was released, it was co-written with former MCR colleague Ray Toro. And finally, in December 2018, the song "Dasher" appeared, in the recording of which Lydia Knight, the vocalist of the punk ensemble The Regrettes, also took part.
Gerard Way as a comic book writer
Gerard created his first full-fledged comic book series, On the Wings of a Raven, back in 1993. Publisher Bonyard Press even published two issues from this series, but then ceased cooperation with the young author.
In 2007, Way began work on a pilot release of the comic books Umbrella Academy: Suite of the Apocalypse. Gerard wrote not only the text, but also made his own drawings. However, soon the artist Gabriel Ba became a full-fledged illustrator of the project. The comic tells the story of a team of superheroes - seven people with superpowers. They were all born in 1989. Even in infancy, their adopted father was Professor Reginald Hargreaves, who is actually an alien. And when the Hargreaves died, six out of seven members of the superhero team arrived at his funeral
.In 2008, a sequel was published under the name Umbrella Academy: Dallas.
Later, Gerard Way, co-authored with Sean Simon and Becky Clunan, worked on the comic strip The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. This comic consists of six issues; they were first published by Dark Horse Comics from June 2013 to January 2014. Conceptually, this comic echoes the fourth disc of My Chemical Romance, which has a similar name.
In 2014, Gerard, in collaboration with Marvel Studios, wrote an alternative comic story about Spider-Man "Edge of Spider-Verse". This series was produced from September 10 to October 15, 2014.
In early 2019, Netflix began broadcasting the first season of the television series Umbrella Academy, based on the work of Way.
