Gerard Way
Gerard Way
Gerard Arthur Wayis an American singer, songwriter, musician, and comic book writer who was the lead vocalist and co-founder of the American alternative rock band My Chemical Romance from its formation in September 2001 until its split in March 2013. His debut solo album Hesitant Alien was released on September 30, 2014. He also wrote the comic mini-series The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys and the Eisner Award-winning comic book The Umbrella Academy...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth9 April 1977
CitySummit, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
I think my favorite medium is music, with my main tools being my voice and a guitar. But I do find every other medium extremely fulfilling and useful in helping everything I do. Sometimes I need to make a song just for a comic. All of the art and mediums are connected for me.
My parents didn't have records, they didn't have radios, and they didn't listen to music. My grandmother was my main connection to art and music. She could play piano very well, and she had perfect pitch.
There's not a lot of art forms where you can control your presentation and your ideas.
I went to art school and interned at DC, and then did the band. When that stuff comes up, you've gotta embrace it and run with it for as long as you can, and I did. I did that for as long as I felt I could.
I don't like to write a script unless I know who the artist is. A lot of people can do it without that, and that's cool, but I like to look at the art.
When I did The Umbrella Academy, I studied Gabriel Bá's art. I said, "Oh, this is what he likes to do here. Maybe I can push him to do a little more of this." You can play to those strengths. It's a different scenario with each artist.
If something was bugging you, you talk about it. But that's the cool thing: we [My Chemical Romance] don't bug each other. We just have deep discussions about art and music like friends. And we disagree about stuff but the disagreements are so healthy and intelligently thought out. We're very respectful of each other's opinions, especially about music.
Comics are my first love, and I hate seeing an art form that I love suffer.
I went to art school, and that's how I got the internship, and then I started a band. But I always missed comics, I always wanted to do them.
I would like to continue to make art by being able to do what I love and have that make it possible for me to support my family. I'd like to make people happy, show people a good time, and hopefully inspire some people.
I went to school in drag, in art school and my day was completely different because everybody thought I was a chick. You should see me as a chick. So I went as a girl, as like an experiment and it worked really well and everyone was really nice to me but I couldn't talk obviously...you know train conductors were really cool to me on my commute...HA! I looked hot as a chick!
I feel like my mission is to be honest with myself. My mission is to share my truth - share, not give. I think that's what an artist is supposed to do: I think they share.
Just draw 'cause you love it, you know, I think that's why you should be doing it. You should always be doing art for the right reasons, um, and with the best intentions. Anything at all is completely possible and I think that's what I like about drawing. I think it's just really fun. You can do anything you want. And that's part of, like, what's really enjoyable about it... is kind of losing yourself in it.
If you chase the art, you really can't fail because you'll always be able to look at yourself in the mirror. And that's not about making angry decisions, either, it's about always doing the right thing for you, your fans and your art.