Frank Iero: Good Things Come To Those With Patience
Thursday, 21 September 2017
Written by Alec Chillingworth
I remember buying ‘The Black Parade’ in Woolworths. We were on holiday at the seaside. My sister already had the album but I wanted to listen to it on my own shitty personal stereo, so I dragged my Dad into the now-defunct high street shop and asked if I could use my holiday money for it. It had a Parental Advisory sticker, so Dad had to tell the cashier that, yes, I could handle teenagers scaring the shit out of Gerard Way.
I’m young enough to have been swept up by My Chemical Romance’s pomp but old enough to know their place in the musical landscape. I’m old enough to have seen them live but young enough to have been personally offended by ‘Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys’ to the extent that I didn’t buy a ticket for its accompanying tour as a personal protest. Dickhead, I know.
Since the band split on March 22, 2013 – my fucking birthday – it’s been genuinely interesting to follow their career trajectories. Vocalist Gerard Way has started making spangly Britpop, guitarist Ray Toro has had a crack at cinematic acoustica, bassist Mikey Way has started doing synthy electronic pop and the band’s various drummers are doing…well, that’s anyone’s guess.
It’s always been a particular pleasure to keep track of rhythm guitarist Frank Iero’s movements. He’s the one I could relate to most: a small dude with loads of Misfits memorabilia. Over the years he’s made digital hardcore with Death Spells, morbid post-hardcore with Leathermouth and, in his most successful outfit, he churns out heartfelt, scratchy punk as Frank Iero and the Patience – formerly frnkiero andthe cellabration.
Iero is the affable bloke you’d imagine him being. He loves my Skinny Puppy shirt. He asks my name because he didn’t properly catch it the first time around. But he’s also quite, ahem, frank. When I mention the ridiculous fan reaction to last year’s ‘The Black Parade’ reissue, he snorts and tells me to pick a better question. Not, like, Henry Rollins telling that poor kid to pick a better question. As in: ‘You can do better than that. Give me more stuff to talk about. I want to give you better answers to better questions.’
He’s always been something of an open book. He’s never shied away from the tough stuff, and that’s become increasingly evident in the past 12 months. On October 13 last year, Frank Iero and the Patience were unloading their van to play an acoustic gig in Sydney, Australia.
The release of their new record, ‘Parachutes’, was just a fortnight away. But then a bus crashed into Iero, guitarist Evan Nestor, drummer Matt Olsson and the band's manager, Paul Clegg. They were hospitalised for two weeks, and were lucky to have walked away with their lives. The accident is something that’ll stay with Iero forever.
“I’m coming to grips with the fact that I’m a completely different person now,” he says. “I will never be the same and that’s OK. It’s neither good nor bad, it’s just different. So I’m learning that. And to go up on stage and be that different person, to learn how to play certain parts because of different things I feel now and counteracting some of the problems I had with my shoulder, my grip…it’s weird.
"I’ve been in bands since I was 11 years old, so having to relearn how to do this stuff again is scary and a little bit fun at the same time. It took me a little while, but now I feel like I’m starting to get my sea-legs back – it feels right again. That’s exciting.”
The eccentricities and unique fragments of Iero’s personality shine throughout our chat, and that biting humour crawls into even the darkest of topics. The crash is something I can’t relate to. So to hear Iero speak so candidly about a deadly personal thing is just…strange. He talks about the trauma of the event, how he’s not sure he’s even here right now. Who’s to tell him he’s not in a dream, and he’s hooked up to a machine somewhere?
“Confronting death is something people should only go through once in life, and then it should be over,” he explains. “To have gone through it and then, in that moment, come to peace with the fact that it’s over, and then realise it’s not, and you have to go through it again…it’s borderline disappointing, to be honest.”
‘Parachutes’ went under the radar a little, perhaps understandably given the circumstances. But it deserves revisiting. It fucking rips. It’s a cohesive, deeply personal collection of songs that fell into the hands of Ross Robinson, a producer infamous for his warped methods of emotional manipulation. He made Robert Smith from the Cure cry. He made Korn’s Jonathan Davis cry. He managed to make the first two Slipknot records.
“When I wrote the songs on ‘Parachutes’, I knew that I needed to dig deeper than I ever had before,” Iero says. “I called a mutual friend and he said, ‘There are a trillion guys you can work with and make a great-sounding record. If you just wanna make a kickass-sounding record, there’s nothing wrong with that; go out there and make your kickass-sounding record with any of these guys.
“But if you want to find out things about yourself as an artist and the songs that you’re writing that you’d never realised before and make a kickass-sounding record, then you need to work with one person and that person’s Ross.’ I heard every story there was to hear about Ross over the years, but I found out that he’s not an aggressive, imposing figure. He’s such a positive addition to the creative process. I don’t know this for sure, but I’m pretty sure he can tailor the way he works to what you need. He really got in there with us and became our guide on this soul-search.
“I’ve never worked with somebody before who only built you up,” he continues. “When you work with some guys, they feel like they need to break you down in order to build you up. He doesn’t do that. He says, ‘Wherever you are right now is the best person you can be, but let’s see what else you can do.
"The reason you’re here is because you’re great at what you do, so let’s fire it on all cylinders and make it even better.’ When he throws stuff, it’s to get you psyched, like, ‘LET’S FUCKIN’ DO THIS!’ He never hurt us or anything, he just threw shit. There wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t bawl my fuckin’ eyes out. I also had to visit the doctor, like, three times to get steroid shots to finish the record.”
But Iero wasn’t done with legendary producers. Far from it. Hitting shelves later this week is 'Keep The Coffins Coming', an EP recorded with Steve Albini. You know, the guy from Big Black and Shellac who also taped Nirvana, Pixies and company. The disc was entirely funded by Iero. “I just needed to do it,” he says. This is big. This is blowing my mind.
“Mine too!” Iero laughs. “When we were done touring ‘STOMACHACHES.’, I talked to my manager, Paul, about what we should do. I had my bucket list and one of the things on there was to work with Steve Albini. Paul asked how long I’d wanted to work with Steve and I was like, ‘Since I was, like, 11!’ I wanted to make a Steve Albini record!
“Paul said he’d call him and I was like, ‘You can’t do that… that would be weird. Don’t do it.’ And he was like, ‘That’s my job!’ He called him, Steve said he could do it and he had three days. Next phone call I made was U-Haul; I fuckin’ packed the U-Haul up and drove the band to Chicago. I got to record an EP with my friends and one of my heroes in this, like, giant firehouse building in Chicago. The EP is this missing link between ‘STOMACHACHES.’ and ‘Parachutes’. It’s everything I wanted it to be. It’s fuckin’ awesome.”
Now in his mid-30s, Iero has an ageless quality to his face. You might ID him if he went to buy some booze. You might not give him a second glance at a show full of teenagers. But he was part of one of the most important musical institutions of the 21st century. And he’s out to eclipse that. There are no laurels to rest on for him.
What he’s doing right now is the most important thing he’s done for himself, for his fans, for everyone. ‘Parachutes’ is the record Frank Iero has always threatened to make. Now he’s gone and done it, the idea of something better following on isn’t a dream. It’s something I expect. And although I can never recreate that moment in Woolworths’ Cromer branch over a decade ago, I know the passion put into the Patience will more than make up for it.
'Keep The Coffins Coming' is out on Sept. 22 through Hassle.
Frank Iero and the Patience Tour Dates are as follows:
Thu September 21 2017 - LIVERPOOL Arts Club
Fri September 22 2017 - LEEDS Key Club
Sun September 24 2017 - MANCHESTER Academy 3
Mon September 25 2017 - BRIGHTON Concorde 2
Tue September 26 2017 - BRISTOL THE FLEECE
Wed September 27 2017 - LONDON Dome, Tufnell Park
Sun October 08 2017 - CARDIFF Globe
Mon October 09 2017 - NORWICH Waterfront Norwich
Wed October 11 2017 - EDINBURGH La Belle Angele
Thu October 12 2017 - ABERDEEN Garage
Fri October 13 2017 - GLASGOW Garage
Sun October 15 2017 - SHEFFIELD Plug
Mon October 16 2017 - NOTTINGHAM Rescue Rooms
Tue October 17 2017 - COLCHESTER Arts Centre
Wed October 18 2017 - PORTSMOUTH Wedgewood Rooms
Thu October 19 2017 - WOLVERHAMPTON Slade Rooms
Fri October 20 2017 - ALDERSHOT West End Centre
Sat October 21 2017 - LONDON Omeara
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