Here’s Why My Chemical Romance Really Split Up

My Chemical Romance may have called it quits, but the members didn’t stop talking about their time as a band. Lead singer Gerard Way spoke to The Guardian in February 2019, offering his thoughts on why the band fell apart. “I like being super-creative all the time, and, unfortunately, when you’re in a really big band you’re actually doing a lot of boring stuff, like being on the road and missing your family. A lot of it is business,” Way said. The singer married Lindsey Ann Way in 2007, and the two welcomed a daughter, Bandit Lee Way, in 2009, per Hollywood Mask. He added, “Now I get to stay home with them, and make my comics and sit in my office, and I don’t have to leave the house, or those people.”

Part of what broke the band apart was their success; the anxiety of their own influence became too much to bear. “When things start to succeed and go really well,” Way explained, “that’s when a lot of people start to have an opinion and that’s when you run into struggle.” Their fan base got too big, with expectations that proved challenging. Way said “The Black Parade” meant that “everybody had a fu***ng opinion about what MCR should be,” he explained. “So it made it difficult to figure out what direction to take next. You get caught up in this trap of ‘Is it ever gonna be good enough?'” That’s a tough challenge to face.