Where we had dinner. In the lobby at Warner Bro. Records
Me and Mikael Me, Mikael and Cassie
Being from a small town in Mississippi you don’t get very many chances to do things you only dream about. You live a happy life and are thankful for what you have.
You watch TV and movies and think “What it must be to live like that and get to do some of the things they do.” You aren’t jealous but just for a few moments you wonder what it is like being them, I know I have.
If you know me and know me well, you know that I am obsessive. I have an addictive personality so if I enjoy something I go all out. I don’t just like it, I love it. I love it so much that I usually eat, sleep and breathe it. That much can be said about the music I like. I love music. I can remember when I was really small loving Elvis. Now I’m not talking 10 years old here, I am talking around 4 years old. I can remember my dad playing Elvis and various Motown groups from way back. My love of music came honest. On my mother’s side I have a whole line of musicians and music lovers. It is true, I can’t live without music.
I was first introduced to My Chemical Romance about 6 and a half years ago. They had just put out their second album. Actually I think they had only released some singles from that album and hadn’t released the whole album yet. I saw their “I’m Not Okay” video on MTV and thought, “Hmmmm, who is this?” The song was one of those songs that you hear and you can’t stop singing it. It sort of sticks with you so you have to listen to it again. Then I started paying attention to the words. It wasn’t your rhyming just because you needed to stick some words in a song, lyrics. It was like he was screaming them at someone and meant every word that came out of his mouth. It hit home and I related to the lyrics. That is when I wanted to hear more.
So my brother-in-law had always liked “different” music so I emailed him and asked him had he heard of My Chemical Romance. Of course he had and by that time the 2nd album had been released. Danny sent me a copy of “I brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love” (their first record) and “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” (second one). I was hooked. I loved them both. Bullets was a no holds barred punch in the gut and head. It was raw punk at its finest. Every single song had something to say and by God you were gonna listen!
At that time in my life I had really been through some rough stuff. I wasn’t in the best place. The songs on their second album really had me reeling (in a good way). It was like MCR had looked into my life and wrote an entire album (Three Cheers) about it. It wasn’t just the slap you in the face punk like the first album. It resembled a more pop punk sound with rock undertones in some of the tracks.
That’s when I turned the silver Rodeo into the My Chemical Romance mobile. If they had a sticker I bought it and put it on the back of my truck. If they had a t-shirt I owned it. I even had my kid writing with MCR pencils. When their third album came out I went so far as to use some of the album art as a giant tattoo on my leg!
You get what I am trying to say. I love My Chemical Romance and every song they have ever written or for that matter, sang. There is a connection with their music I have never been able to explain. I don’t care what they look like. Freaks, Geeks or GQ models, that’s never mattered. The lyrics and music. They suck you in and you are stuck forever.
Two years ago I decided to start a website devoted specifically to news about the band. Anything that went on that I heard about or found on the internet I wanted to post it as a one-stop site for all MCR fans that wanted up-to-the-minute info on the band and the band member’s side projects.
So with the help of Ashlee Hayes, I bought the My Chemical Freak domain and my next obsession started. Ashlee said “I will fix you up a layout”. I was estatic because the one I was using was a generic CSS theme and that great. That site has looked amazing ever since! But I digress…
Over the last two years I have been very fortunate, when it comes to the site. I have gotten opportunities from Warner Brothers to give coupon codes specifically to my readers to use in the MCR official store. I have also been fortunate to have a small partnership with Things From Another World, a sister company of Dark Horse Comics that has sent me items to give away on the site. I am sure you are asking yourself why in the world I partnered with a comic book store. Gerard Way, the lead singer of MCR, has his own comic book series.
This time… let’s just say I found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and Warner Bros. Music Group was waiting at the end of it, not a leprechaun!
Last week I got an email from Warner Bros. Community Director, New Media. I, being the paranoid crazy woman I am, automatically thought I had done something wrong with MCR info on my site and was going to be asked to remove it. So I emailed them back and waited for their response. Boy was it ever a response. They wanted me to come out to Los Angeles, California and attend a listening party for My Chemical Romance’s fourth album,” Danger Days: The true lives of the Fabulous Killjoys”. Wait it gets better! They paid for me to go! I didn’t spend one single dime.
I was picked up from the airport on Monday evening by Mikael (the head honcho mentioned above), and taken to the hotel. Later in the evening he took me and another girl who writes music news based out of Ohio, to the famous Mel’s Drive In near Hollywood Blvd. for dinner (it was really good, check it out if you are ever out there). We also took a speed tour of the Los Angeles/Burbank area. WB records are directly beside/behind Warner Brother Studios. So we got to see this “fake” town they had built that they use for street shots in TV shows. It was surreal. Mikael had brought the new, yet to be released MCR CD with him and we got to preview 4 songs off of Danger Days while blowing down Sunset Blvd. I don’t even have words for that. To know that I was one of the first people to hear those songs was just well, I could cry thinking about it! The songs themselves were amazing.
With every record MCR just keeps getting better. And after listening to each album you wonder how that can even be possible, but they always out do themselves.
After dinner and a mad dash through Hollywood, we headed back to the hotel. And I must say it was a VERY nice hotel. I could get used to that sort of treatment! I hung out with Cassie ( mentioned above) a bit as we discussed various things about the music and MCR world. She was really nice and I was glad to have someone to sort of stick with for most of the trip.
The next morning we were up bright and early and ready to go! Mikael returned to the hotel to grab us and off to Warner Bro. Records we went. I was a nervous wreck! You see all this stuff on TV. You hear the names of all these people with WB on the internet, the news and here I am MEETING THEM. I think I was in a daze. I couldn’t actually process the fact that I was in L.A. at a record label, much less listening to an album from my favorite band that wasn’t even released yet! It still gives me goose bumps when I think about it.
We got our visitor passes and Mikael took us in and introduced us to so many people I barely can remember some of them. Alexis, the lady that runs the My Chemical Romance store. Jeremy and Jeff, two very important people in the MCR world. A guy named Chris who was extremely nice. Brandy with a Y originally from Georgia. And quite a few others. I was winding in and out of offices, up and down stairs, it was awesome. Then Mikael took us to eat breakfast.
A hand full of fans were invited, via a contest on the band’s site, to the listening party so after they arrived and were seated the fun began. They started Danger Days and we listened straight through. I got to meet a couple of people that I had talked to on the internet (through other MCR sites and Twitter) as well as Bree who writes for Buzznet.com. The room was decked out with promo posters that hadn’t even been released yet. I got an MCR swag bag packed full of items that hadn’t been put in the MCR store yet, including a t-shirt. They went all out. There was a spread of food that would make the most anorexic person want to eat. Then we were asked our stand out favorite songs off the album. It was pretty much a general consensus that included 3 songs. None of which were any of the singles (not that the singles are bad, that is simply a testament to how GREAT the entire album is). After a Q&A about some things the other fans left and it was time for Cassie to head to the airport. I hung out in Mikael’s office while he dropped Cassie off. When he got back we chatted about various things and he showed me some of the Costume Contest contestant’s pictures (there were over 5000 he had to go through and narrow them down).
He also showed me some of the statistics of my website. It was pretty cool.
I also got to see some of the ORIGINAL artwork by Gerard Way (the lead singer) where he pitched WB the idea for the concept of their third album, The Black Parade. I was sitting there looking at it and thinking, “Wow that started it all.” That one piece of fabric attached to wood with black paint scrawled across it. Then it was time for me to head to the airport and catch my flight home.
I didn’t leave empty handed by any means. They gave me signed posters, lithographs, extra t-shirts and much more. So much more in fact, I couldn’t even get it all home. They are having to mail me most of it! They treated me so awesome. I can never thank them enough for allowing me the opportunity to review the album and for treating this small town girl like a “big” somebody!
