Gerard Arthur Way (born April 9, 1977) is an American singer and

cartoonist. He is the co-founding member of the musical group My

Chemical Romance, as well as lead singer of the band from 2001 to 2013
and then again from 2019. In 2014 he began a solo music career.

Gerard Way was born on April 9, 1977, in Summit, New Jersey, despite
having always lived in the city of Belleville. His parents, Donald and
Donna Way Lee, have Scottish and Italian origins respectively. He spent
his childhood in a particularly dangerous neighborhood, a center of mafia
crimes and drug trafficking, so he was forbidden to go out and play. For
this reason, together with his younger brother Mikey Way he began to
develop his imagination directly from his own room, showing a natural
aptitude for drawing and creating stories and comics. Thanks to the
support of his maternal grandmother Elena Lee Rush, Gerard later also
discovered his passion for music. When Gerard turned eight, Elena
bought him his first guitar, but Gerard was able to learn very little, not
wanting to take private lessons. The following year, Gerard had his first
experience singing in public when he participated in his first musical, at
school, getting the lead role of Peter Pan. Growing up, he will approach
horror films, the punk and metal scene, and horror bands such as Misfits
and Iron Maiden, which he cites as his main influences along with Queen
and David Bowie. In this period, he managed to overcome the obsession
with death that had accompanied him in childhood due to the teachings
of the Catholic Catechism. Themes that, in fact, come back in some
lyrics of my chemical romance. Strong sensitivity will continue to
accompany him throughout his life. During the high school year - also
because he was overweight - he isolated himself and was ignored,
remaining to draw and read comics, his great passion. The comic
Watchmen is cited by Gerard as the work that changed his perspective
and made him realize that he wanted to pursue a career as a cartoonist. It
was at the local comic book store that Gerard found his first job and
loved to read it so much that he was often paid in comics. This
experience ended, marking him, when the store suffered a robbery in
which Gerard was brought to his knees and threatened with a Magnum
pistol pointed at his head. After this episode Gerard returned to focus on
music, forming with his brother Mikey a band called The Raygun Jones.
This project was later abandoned, but Gerard immediately tried to join
another band as a guitarist. He got the job, but when asked to play Sweet
Home Alabama Gerard, both for personal taste and for the difficulty of
the song, he argued with the other band members who sent him away.
This rejection alienated Gerard for a long time when he did not often
leave home, focusing only on his art. After high school he had the first
experiences with alcohol abuse, which accompanied him for a long time.
After high school, he decided to pursue his own aspirations and enroll in
Visual Arts (University of Visual Arts) in New York. Gerard graduated
in 1999, but remained in New York for work, starting as an intern and
then becoming a graphic designer at Cartoon Network. He proposed to
Cartoon Network the comic and cartoon he created, the breakfast
monkey, but it was rejected because it was too similar to a cartoon that
was already in production. On his way to a job interview, he witnessed
the attacks of September 11, 2001. Upset by the event, he decided to
abandon graphic art and adopt the idea of a band to reach people, and
thus my Chemical Romance was born. Gerard wrote the band's first
song, Skylines & Turnstiles, a few days after the attacks, and managed to
gather old acquaintances such as drummer Matt Pelissier and guitarist
Ray Toro to create the project. Later his brother Mikey also joined the
band, especially learning to play bass. Eventually, guitarist Frank Frank
was added. In 2002, their first album, I Brought You My Bullets, You
Brought Me Your Love, was released. This was followed in 2004 by
Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, an album dedicated to the memory of
Gerard and Mikey's grandmother, Elena, who died in November 2003.
For her it is the song Helena. In 2006, My Chemical Romance's third
album, The Black Parade, was released, which established its worldwide
fame. In 2007 Gerard proposed to Dark Horse Comics a comic book he
has been working on for a few years, the Umbrella Academy. The
publisher agreed to produce the comic, fulfilling Gerard's big dream. In
2008, thanks to the Umbrella Academy, he won the prestigious Eisner
Award for Comic Book Authors. Also in 2008 he collaborated with
Julien-K on the remix of sleep when i''m Dead by The Cure, included on
their EP Hypnagogic States. 2009 sees him write and co-produce the
song Safe and Sound, sung by Japanese Kyousuke Himuro as the theme
song for the original version of the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent
Children Complete, the full version of the film, forming part of the
famous Final Fantasy VII compilation Square Enix. In 2010, My
Chemical Romance's fourth studio album, Danger Days: the True Lives
of the Fabulous Killjoys, was released. The inspiration for the concept of
this album is a comic book written by Gerard and Shaun Simon, titled
simply ''Killjoys'', which was illustrated by Becky Cloonan and published
in Free Comic Book Day 2013. In the same year, he participated as
executive producer for the album i''m a UFO in this city of LostAlone in
March 2013, after the publication of the 10 songs belonging to the
album/Collection Conventional Weapons, announces the dissolution of
My Chemical Romance and explains the reasons in a long letter
published on Twitter, which concludes that the band will always be alive
in their hearts, in that of fans like My Chemical Romance they were not
simply a band, but an idea In 2012 Gerard performed with the producer
and DJ Deadmau5 the song Professional Griefers, reaching a new record
for the cost of making the official video. In fact, they are used for video
over 2. 000 fans and more than 2 months of post-production. In October
2013 Gerard announced on Twitter that he was working on something
really important, and posted a part of his drawing in the works. On
October 31, 2019, six years after the band's dissolution, Way – along
with his brother, Mikey Way, Frankero and Ray Toro – announces the
reunion of My Chemical Romance, announcing that the group will
perform together again on December 20 of the same year at the Shrine
Expo Hall in Los Angeles, California; in the following days, the group
announced three new live performances on an international tour,
scheduled for 2020 in Australia, New Zealand and Japan This will be the
cover of the first greatest hits of My Chemical Romance, may death
never stop you. The album, released in March 2014, contains their best-
known songs and an unreleased track, Fake Your Death, composed by
the band members before deciding to break up the group. And, after that,
a tour in North America and other dates will be announced in: Germany,
Italy, England, Russia and Ireland. In April 2014, the news came that
Way had recorded a song for the horror film Tusk, directed by Kevin
Smith and still in post-production. In May 2014, the single "Falling In
Love (Will Kill You)" by Wrongchilde (a solo project by Mat Devine of
Kill Hannah) was released, made with way's Vocal collaboration. On
May 5, 2014, it was announced that Gerard Way had signed a record deal
with Warner Bros Records for the release of his first album. He then
made his live solo debut during the Reading and Leeds festivals in
August 2014, and then announced his own tour with some dates in the
United States, accompanied by the support band "the Hormones". In June
2014 the Single Action Cat was released, which will anticipate the
singer's debut solo album. The title, Hesitant Alien, was revealed on July
14, 2014 by Way on Twitter. Subsequently, the track listing and its
release date, set for September 30, were also announced. On 19 August,
pre-orders for the album were released and the single "No Shows"
premiered the day before on BBC Radio 1. The song is accompanied by
a music video, the singer's first official, released the same day and
directed by Jennifer Juniper Stratford. The album Hesitant Alien was
released on September 30, and a second music video, also directed by
Stratford, was released on October 6 to anticipate the album's third
single, Millions, released on November 17, 2014. On the occasion of
Record Store Day 2016, Gerard Way publishes two unreleased tracks not
included in his debut album, Don''t Try and Pinkish, to "conclude the
chapter of Hesitant Alien". On October 26, 2018, two years after the last
Musical production, Way released a new single titled Baby You''re a
Haunted House. On November 15, another unreleased single was
released, Getting Down the Germs, written with musician Ray Toro,
followed on December 14 by another unreleased single, Dasher, made in
collaboration with Lydia Night, singer of The Regrets. On January 24,
2019, on the occasion of the release of the trailer for the first season of
the television series The Umbrella Academy, Way publishes a version of
Simon & Garfunkel's song to Hazy Shade Of Winter, made in
collaboration with Ray Toro. On February 7, Way released a new song as
part of the Umbrella Academy soundtrack, a cover of The Turtles single
Happy Together, also made in collaboration with Ray Toro.

Way's biggest avowed influences are Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden

and Geoff Rickly of Thursday, influences that pushed him to become a
singer. As a young man he also listened to Metallica, Glenn Danzig,
Morrissey, Misfits, The Smiths, The Cure, Queen, David Bowie and
others, which significantly influenced him in writing songs for My
Chemical Romance. Having started his solo career and his way of
writing music has changed significantly, wanting to direct his songs to a
more ADULT audience than that of My Chemical Romance: for the
writing of his debut album he was inspired by artists such as Morrissey,
David Bowie, Pulp, Blur and Pixies.

At the end of the 2004 Japanese tour with My Chemical Romance, due to
misunderstandings, the band's drummer Matt Pelissier was removed from
the band. During this period of tension Gerard falls into a moment of
deep depression and alcohol abuse is added to antidepressants, Xanax
and occasional cocaine use, which one night make him consider suicide.
He called the band's manager Brian Schecter for help, who managed to
calm him down. Later that night, Way decided to quit drugs for good and
detoxify. During the Projekt Revolution tour in which his band
participated in 2007, Gerard met again Lindsey Ballato, Lyn - Z, bassist
of the band Mindless Self Indulgence. The two had met in 2003 when
My Chemical Romance, not yet famous, had opened a concert for their
band. Gerard and Lindsey married on September 5, 2007 and settled in
Los Angeles, California. The couple's first child, Bandit Lee Way, was
born on May 27, 2009.