My Chemical Romance Have Finally, Truly, Reformed

Every adult emo fan and rock music writer will remember the Halloween of 2019 as the greatest Samhain since their childhoods. That's because My Chemical Romance have just announced they’re coming back. Reforming. Reuniting. Going to play live again.

The band will perform at Stadium MK, Milton Keynes on June 20th, with no other UK dates currently announced.

Why now? To simply shake up 'rock music' as a concept? Because this year marks the 15th anniversary of Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge? Look, maybe the band realised that old millennial fans had finally become as anxious and depressed as they were as teenagers, having been slowly deteriorating via the insecure job and housing markets for 15 years since first hearing the misery anthem on Kerrang! TV? My Chem made headlines in June after Joe Jonas (lol) supposedly heard they were rehearsing near the Jonas Brothers. He mentioned it on the radio and the music news cycle was fed for another day. Fans wondered: is this bullshit? Could he have just seen guitarist Frank Iero's band rehearsing? Could he be trolling a new generation of emo fans who never got to see the New Jersey punks the first time around? Or, of course, there was another possibility. Could Joe Jonas actually… be fucking right?

But My Chemical Romance have had to answer this question many times, pretending they might not come back, when in all honestly they probably never knew if they would. All of the band are still working musicians and so catapult themselves into promo cycles and every time Gerard does a comic book, a publicist has cleared that the poor guy has to answer the obligatory questions about MCR for the leading quote.

When discussing his on the comic book Doom Patrol, in 2017, Gerard Way told Billboard, "I wouldn't count [a reunion] out, but at the same time everybody's doing stuff in their lives now that they're really enjoying."

Later in 2017 Gerard spoke to i, to confirm much of the same sentiment: “We all got together recently and it was wonderful – we didn’t even talk about the band or playing shows again. I don’t know if anything will happen in the future, but what I do know is everyone has a really great life right now.” He added: “I think [My Chemical Romance] will always be there for us if we want it, but it adds a layer of stress. When something gets really big like that, it’s hard on you for many reasons, and it’s very stressful, so I wouldn’t want to disrupt anybody’s life right now.”

In a Guardian interview at the start of 2019, a reunion seemed a while off, if at all. “We definitely get offers regularly to reunite – it’s a constant thing,” Gerard said. “It’s flattering, it’s really nice of people… I miss playing with the guys, but I don’t think so…”

But if they ever reformed MCR, “we wouldn’t be in that machine any more. It would literally just be like: ‘Here’s a new piece of music, we’re putting this out and that’s it, this is not up for debate.’” Promising!

And then, famously, in June 2019, Joe Jonas broke the seal. After he shared his "gossip" on the radio, Frank Iero, gently mocked him on someone's Instagram stories. “Hey, got a little dirt for ya, a little scoopy poop,” he said, in some sort of Joe Jonas impression, including fake eyebrows. “Apparently the Ramones are playing down the hall from us in Moscow. Thought those guys were supposed to be dead or something. I don’t know what that’s about.”

But real fans have always known there'd be a return, eventually. Gerard doesn’t lie, OK. Gerard has never said the word “never”. But you know what he once did say? Once upon a time, back in the rich and bountiful alternative scene of 2003, he wrote on their website's blog: “People cannot change music, it's music that changes people. It is bigger than you and me put together. It's a neutron bomb with the detonator set on 'kill' waiting for you to push the button.”

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE HAVE PUSHED THE BUTTON.

@hannahrosewens