My Chemical Romance (also shortened to My Chem / MCR or also recently known as alter-egos The Black Parade) is an American rock band. Formed in 2001, the band consists of Gerard Way (lead vocals), Mikey Way (bass), Bob Bryar (drums), Frank Iero (rhythm guitar) and Ray Toro (lead guitar). The band members hail from Belleville and Kearny, New Jersey, except drummer Bob Bryar, who is from Chicago, Illinois. Bassist Mikey Way coined the band's name from a book entitled 'Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance', by Irvine Welsh.

The band was formed by frontman Gerard Way and ex-drummer Matt Pelissier around a week after September 11, 2001 attacks. Gerard had witnessed the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. It influenced his life to the extent that he decided to start a band. Gerard wrote the song "Skylines and Turnstiles" to express his feelings about September 11th. Shortly thereafter, Ray Toro was called up and asked to join the band because Gerard could sing, but felt he couldn't play the guitar as well as Toro could.

The first recording sessions were done in Matt's attic, where the songs "Our Lady of Sorrows" (then called "Bring More Knives") and "Cubicles" were recorded. Mikey Way, the younger brother of Gerard, loved the demo so much that he decided to learn to play the bass and join the band.

My Chemical Romance was signed with Eyeball Records and played in the same room as Pencey Prep and Thursday. It was there that the band met Frank Iero, the lead vocalist and guitarist for Pencey Prep. After Pencey Prep broke up in 2001 or 2002, Frank became a guitarist for My Chemical Romance, just days before the band's debut album was recorded.

Three months after the formation of the band they recorded their debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, subsequently released in 2002 on Eyeball Records. Despite only joining the band a few days before the album recording sessions began, Frank Iero played guitar on two of the tracks, one of them being "Early Sunsets Over Monroeville".

In 2003, the band signed a deal with Reprise Records. Following a tour with Avenged Sevenfold the band began work on their second album, entitled Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. Released in 2004, the album went platinum within a year. The band released three singles from the album: "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)", "Helena" and "The Ghost of You".

It was during this time that the band replaced their drummer, Matt Pelissier with Bob Bryar, after they went to Japan in August 2004. The true nature of Pelissier's departure was due to an argument with band member Ray Toro or as a result of mistakes made by the drummer during live performances.

At the start of 2005, the band was directly supported on the first ever Taste of Chaos tour, and was also the opening act for Green Day on the American Idiot tour. Later that year MCR co-headlined and headlined their own tour,with Alkaline Trio and Reggie and the Full Effect, around the US.

That same year My Chemical Romance and The Used collaborated on a cover of the David Bowie and Queen classic "Under Pressure" that was released as a benefit single on iTunes and other Internet outlets.

On March 21, 2006, a 2 DVD/1 CD set entitled Life on the Murder Scene was released. It includes one DVD chronicling the band's history, and a second DVD with music videos, the making of their videos and a couple of live performances. An unauthorized biography DVD 'Things That Make You Go MMM!' was also released, on June 27, 2006. The DVD does not actually feature any My Chemical Romance music clips or performances, but contains interviews with those who knew the band before much of their fame.

The band started recording their third studio The Black Parade album on April 10, 2006 with Rob Cavallo, producer of many of Green Day's albums. It was originally thought to be titled 'The Rise and Fall of My Chemical Romance', but in an interview with Kerrang! magazine Gerard Way suggested this was just the album's working title, stating "It was never the title of the album, more a spoof, or joke."

On August 3, 2006, the band finished shooting the videos for their first two singles from the album, "Welcome to the Black Parade" and "Famous Last Words", released on January 22, 2007. The video was directed by Sam Bayer, director of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Green Day's American Idiot videos.

During the shoot for "Famous Last Words", band members Gerard Way and Bob Bryar were injured. Way suffered a burn to the leg and torn ligaments in his ankle and Bryar a staph infection that needed constant monitoring in the hospital. Consequently the band was forced to cancel a couple of shows. While these injuries were reported by several news agencies to have been the result of a car accident, a statement released by the band on their website and MySpace page has confirmed that these injuries occurred on the set of the video.

On August 22, 2006, the band played a special one-off show at the 1800-capacity London Hammersmith Palais. The show sold out in 15 minutes prompting tickets being sold on eBay well over face value. The name of the album they promoted was announced and 20 people dressed in black capes with their faces obscured paraded around Hammersmith, followed by a large group of fans and street team members with signs saying "The Black Parade". Later during the show the album title and the UK release date were confirmed. Prior to the band taking the stage it was announced that "My Chemical Romance" were unable to play, but they would be replaced by "The Black Parade". After initial crowd hostility it became clear the band were simply performing under a pseudonym in keeping with the theme of the album. When the set began, the backdrop art displayed the words "The Black Parade".

On September 2, 2006, My Chemical Romance posted "Welcome to the Black Parade" on their Myspace page and their purevolume page. "Welcome to the Black Parade" had its first radio airing on September 11, 2006. On September 26, 2006 the "Welcome to the Black Parade" music video was released in the UK, and on September 27 in the US.

On October 12, 2006, My Chemical Romance made a rare in-store performance to 500 fans at Virgin Megastores on London's Oxford Street. In order to get wristbands for the event, many fans slept outside the shop the previous night. British band Towers Of London caused trouble at the event when the Towers guitarist, Dirk Tourette, allegedly flicked a cigarette butt at Bob Bryar while he was performing.

"Welcome to the Black Parade" reached number one on October 15, 2006, on the UK Singles Chart, giving them their first number one.

October 21, 2006 marked their first appearance on Saturday Night Live as the musical guests where they played "Welcome to the Black Parade" and "Cancer".

The Black Parade was released on October 23, 2006 in the United Kingdom and on October 24 in the United States.

My Chemical Romance played six dates from January 19 to February 4, 2007 in the world renowned Big Day Out festival in Australia and New Zealand. They were billed alongside Tool, Muse, The Killers, and Jet.

In Kerrang! magazine, issue 1138, My Chemical Romance won the following categories in the 2006 poll: Best Band, Worst Band, Best Album (The Black Parade), Worst Album (The Black Parade), Best Track ("Welcome to the Black Parade"), Best Video ("Welcome to the Black Parade"), Best Live Show, Best Thing About 2006, Worst Thing About 2006, Hero of 2006 (Gerard Way), Villain of 2006 (Gerard Way), and Sexiest Male (Gerard Way). In issue 1139, Kerrang! rated The Black Parade as the 4th Greatest Album of 2006.

Recently, My Chemical Romance performed Famous Last Words on top of the Pontiac Building on MTV's New Years Special. Another notable detail from this performance was Gerard's return to his natural black hair.

On April 2, My Chemical Romance released "I Don't Love You" as their third single from The Black Parade album. This single was a UK only release. To coincide with this release date, the band performed an exclusive gig for BBC Radio 1 at the KOKO venue in London. Tickets were made exclusively available as competition prizes. The show was broadcast live on Radio 1 and was broadcast later on BBC 2.

In May, My Chemical Romance headlined the first day of New Jersey's annual rock festival, Bamboozle, despite band members Ray Toro and Bob Bryar being still ill with salmonella poisoning which had caused previous gigs to be cancelled.They are also confirmed to play at Oxegen '07 in Ireland in July.

My Chemical Romance will also be headlining Friday night of the Download Festival in 2007. Festival organisers were criticized by many fans of the festival who felt did the band failed to fit the rock/metal festival, and the official announcement received thousands of negative responses to the choice.

The band recently announced that the next single to be released will be "Teenagers", which was to be released on April 30th/May 1st, 2007 according to FMQB. FMQB has since moved their release date for "Teenagers" to May 15, 2007.

On April 19, 2007, it was announced that Mikey Way would temporarily leave My Chemical Romance's current tour to spend time with his new wife Alicia Simmons/Way. Mikey's temporary replacement is Matt Cortez, Frank Iero's guitar tech, and friend of the band.