Interview: Gerard Way on Britpop, The Crow, and writing Spider-Man

As the frontman and primary architect behind beloved emo band My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way has often opted for high-concept ideas, from the sprawling scope of 2006’s The Black Parade, to his Eisner-winning comic series The Umbrella Academy.

Yet, for Hesitant Alien, his first solo album since the dissolution of My Chemical Romance in 2013, Way has gone back to his 90’s roots, embracing the low-concept but high-energy sound of early Britpop. Citing Blur and Pulp as his primary influences, Hesitant Alien pulses with a contagious buzz-pop sound that brings to mind the glory days of the mid-90’s Alternative radio era, when Britpop was just beginning to take hold.

We got Way on the phone just before the start of this current tour to discuss his fascination with the UK, the making of Hesitant Alien, and what it was like to write Spider-Man (sort of). For all upcoming tour dates visit gerardway.com.

When did the idea for Hesitant Alien take hold? Were you still in My Chemical Romance at the time?

It was really just one of these things where I was making music, because it’s just what I did, and I wasn’t thinking about an album. I was just kind of going into the studio, whatever studio I could find, and I just kept making what was inside. I just kept making music with [producer Doug Mckean] and he was definitely helping me, in this kind of semi-depressed state, get out of bed and go to the studio. He was definitely encouraging me to do that. So it was actually quite some time before I realized, “Oh hey, I’m making an album.” I was just kind of making music.

A lot of your writing for My Chemical Romance was very high concept—did you approach the writing of what turned into Hesitant Alien differently?

Yeah, I totally approached it differently. I was not overthinking. I wasn’t sitting there being this kind of major architect of something, I was letting it kind of spill out. And I wasn’t thinking about context or anything, I was just thinking about this music and this sound—this kind of fuzz pop, this kind of drone.

Everything you read about this record mentions how it was inspired by Britpop—what about Britpop excited you?

It was the music that always stayed with me. Basically, 90’s alternative and Britpop just stayed with me over the years, and resonate with me in a big way still. And it wasn’t like nostalgia when I listened to it. It’s just always the music that I kept listening to. As a kid in New Jersey, I really connected with it, as opposed to grunge.

I didn’t connect with grunge at all, I felt that Britpop was speaking more to a place where I was coming from, about being from this kind of working class town, where you’re kind of expected to grow up there and die there and work there, you know? And I felt like Britpop was singing about that.

What were some of the bands that really spoke to you from that era?

I’d say the most important ones to me were Lush—even though I consider Lush very 90’s Alternative, but they’re sometimes lumped in with Britpop—and Pulp, Blur. Those are the really big ones.

Was there ever the idea of trying to incorporate that sound into My Chemical Romance? Do you think it would have worked?

I think it pops in here and there. I mean, if you listen to Danger Days, there’s a song called “Planetary (Go!)”, that’s basically “Boys and Girls” from Blur. So there’s little bits here and there. There’s definitely bits of [Pulp’s] This is Hardcore buried on Black Parade in various places. So it is in there. It’s just difficult to find.

Is it more freeing when you’re producing under your own name as opposed to working with a full band?

It’s a lot more freeing. Besides from the filtering process being different, you also have the feeling that the art you make isn’t going to affect four other people’s lives. Which is a big lifting of the burden. So it falls on you. If it works it falls on you, and if it doesn’t work it falls on you, which alleviates some of the pressure, so you can just make the art you want.

Are you more influenced by British culture in general?

Yeah, I took a trip after art school to England, to visit my buddy who was in the military, and I knew even before I got there that it was a place that spoke to me, and that the culture was something that I was interested in. So when I got there, it confirmed it. It was one of those places where very early on, it was like, “Oh, I could live here, I could get used to a place like this.”

How is your music received over there? Do you notice a difference between audiences there versus North America?

Well, the show is bigger over there. A lot of the shows are over 4,000 people, in a really big room. So yeah, the shows are just different; they’re bigger. I think that rock music in general—even if it doesn’t have the easiest time on the radio—people still kind of believe in rock over there. People do believe in it here too, but maybe just not in a mainstream sense. So a show here is more like you’re playing a big theatre, whereas there you’re playing in a giant theatre. So there’s that difference.

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