On September 11, 2001, My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way witnessed the terrorist attack firsthand from Hoboken. Though he had played guitar in a couple of bands in his teen years, he was focused at the time on being a comic book artist. But after seeing such a senseless tragedy, Gerard knew he had a bigger purpose. He wanted to help others who were struggling with their mental health, and now terrified of what was to come, find light amid the darkness. Shortly after 9/11, Gerard came up with “Skylines and Turnstiles,” the first-ever track written for My Chemical Romance, which is featured in their debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.
Like many My Chemical Romance fans, I found Bullets after becoming obsessed with Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. It’s a record that, despite its imperfections, I look back at fondly, with lyrics from songs like “Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough for the Two of Us” making their way into my MSN Messenger away messages. While Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge is My Chemical Romance’s strongest album, turning the New Jersey band into stadium-performing emo superstars, Bullets is a record that shows how much promise the band had from the start, leading to them being signed to major label Reprise shortly after its release. In Bullets, Gerard learns to connect his nerdy interests as a horror movie and comic book enthusiast to the rock star realm. The shy, introverted Gerard is nowhere to be found here; instead, he introduces an alluring persona that feels like the lovechild of David Bowie and Glenn Danzig.
My Chemical Romance didn’t start out as a group of seasoned musicians who had it all figured out, but rather as a new creative outlet for Gerard, who roped in his brother Mikey to play bass (an instrument he was still at a beginner level with) and acquaintance Matt Pelissier to play drums (who was replaced following their debut album). Though Gerard was a proficient guitarist, he had Ray Toro, a fixture in the local New Jersey scene, play guitar; meanwhile, Frank Iero, then a member of Pencey Prep, was convinced to join as the rhythm guitarist during the process of recording Bullets, despite his bandmates being practically strangers to him.
The band got signed to Eyeball Records, a label run by their longtime friend Alex Saavedra, who already had My Chemical Romance’s friends, Thursday, on their roster. While Saavedra could see the potential in this new group, Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly wasn’t convinced. “I was like, ‘These guys are fucking hopeless. Nothing good will ever happen for these guys. Like, I love them, I’d want them to do a comic with me someday, but nothing good is ever gonna come from this band,'” Rickly recalled to Chris Payne in his mainstream emo oral history book, Where Are Your Boys Tonight?
Thankfully, My Chemical Romance proved Rickly wrong. After catching the band practice, Rickly advised Gerard, “Don’t go down somebody else’s road. Think about your comic books. Think about characters. Draw yourself as a character. Imagine yourself as a superhero.” Gerard took that advice to heart and thus was born My Chemical Romance’s first album, which Rickly ended up producing. In Bullets, Way finds a way to express himself through characters: vampires, zombies, and other monsters. The band decided to record it just a little over three months after forming. The rush would come to their detriment, with an uneven album that gives glimpses at what was about to become one of the biggest bands in the country, taking emo to the mainstream.
Gerard made his love for horror known with the opening, instrumental track “Romance,” a cover of “Romance Anonimo,” a song used in Dawn of the Dead. Giving it their own spin, My Chemical Romance adds radio static to the flamenco-style acoustic melody, making it sound even more haunting than in the zombie classic. It transitions into the zestful “Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For The Two of Us,” with guitar riffs that veer into metal and Gerard’s voice shifting from soft wails to explosive screams. Its energy immediately hooks you with its winning combination of heavy instrumentals with an ultra-catchy, sing-along chorus.
It’s a rare, blatantly personal song, where instead of hiding behind a character, Gerard is being candid about his substance abuse, taking ownership of his decision to go a toxic route while ending a relationship that doesn’t fit with his mistakes, as there is no room for someone else when you’re focused on an easy fix for escapism. While other tracks like “Vampires Will Never Hurt You” and “Demolition Lovers” became fan-favorites, “Honey” was a middle school favorite of mine, and revisiting it as an adult 20 years later, I still feel the euphoric, cathartic, rageful energy it brought me growing up.
“Honey” is followed by “Vampires Will Never Hurt You,” which matches its essence. With moody, gothic Western guitars, Gerard sings from the perspective of a vampire, used as a metaphor for his mental health struggles. He begs to be taken out with a spike through the heart and pleads for help before it’s too late: “Someone get me to the doctor / Someone get me to a church / Where they can pump this venom gaping hole.” The urgency of Gerard’s words is felt in the closing chorus, as the song accelerates in a pulsating beat. You can feel the emotion coming through Gerard’s wails, and that’s perhaps because during the day of recording the track, he was dealing with wisdom teeth pain and had the molars taken out. When he arrived at the studio, he was drowsy on painkillers and in no shape to perform, so Saavedra hid his meds and took an unorthodox approach to not waste time: he punched Gerard’s mouth.
This was the first My Chemical Romance song to gain traction online after Thursday shared it on their website. It’s also the track that made Rickly realize that Saavedra was right—these guys had something special that would make them big someday. I wouldn’t have expected a song about being vampires would become the track that has aged the best from Bullets, but it somehow works without feeling gimmicky. It’s funny to think that this song is what most likely led to My Chemical Romance being asked to be part of the Twilight soundtrack, and instead of taking the cash grab, they went on to write the diss track “Vampire Money” for their last album, Danger Days.
“Vampires” isn’t the only song on the album that relies on horror movie-inspired storytelling, but it’s the one that executes it best. “Early Sunsets Over Monroeville,” which takes its title from the filming location for Dawn of the Dead, shows a gentler side to My Chemical Romance, as an impassioned punk ballad that finds Gerard playing the role of a zombie apocalypse survivor who has to kill his zombie girlfriend. While Rickly’s advice to Gerard about using comic book tropes in his music helped Gerard find his voice as a songwriter, the bandleader was too overreliant on those existing references, without creating original stories. Eventually, Gerard mastered the art of storytelling through music five years later for The Black Parade.
Frontloading the album with two of its best songs, “Honey” and “Vampires,” only accentuates the flaws in My Chemical Romance’s early music. “Drowning Lessons,” “This Is the Best Day Ever,” and “Cubicles” are pretty forgettable when stacked against the rest of My Chemical Romance’s songs, with generic pop punk riffs that feel like they’re trying to emulate Thursday rather than tap into the distinctive sound they found in “Honey” and “Vampires.” And while “Our Lady of Sorrows” heads in the right direction, with chugging metal guitars and theatrical vocals, we see My Chemical Romance handle this direction better on Three Cheers‘ “Hang ‘Em High.”
That’s not to say there aren’t any standouts beyond the two opening tracks. “Headfirst for Halos,” which follows “Our Lady of Sorrows,” is vibrant, with glam rock riffs and drums contrasting the dark, tongue-in-cheek lyrics about Gerard’s drug dependency amid being clinically depressed: “Well let’s go back to the middle of the day that starts it all / I can’t begin to let you know just what I’m feeling / And now, the red ones make me fly / And the blue ones help me fall / And I think I’ll blow my brains against the ceiling.”
It’s a striking contrast to have “Halos” come right before “Skylines and Turnstiles,” Gerard’s song about the harrowing experience of watching people die in the horrific attack. “Skylines” isn’t one of the best tracks sonically, but it’s not among the weakest. It stands out with its raw, emotional lyrics, as Gerard grapples with the complex emotions that come after a tragedy, which has made those like himself who were already struggling with their mental health feel even more downcast. “And after seeing what we saw / Can we still reclaim our innocence? / And if the world needs something better / Let’s give them one more reason now,” Gerard declares, sharing his mission statement for My Chemical Romance.
The album closes with “Demolition Lovers,” a track that, alongside “Honey” and “Vampires,” completes the trifecta of the songs that put My Chemical Romance on the map as a band to watch. It’s a punk ballad that takes various turns during its 6-minute runtime, with Gerard declaring his dedication to stand till eternity with his partner in crime, even as they meet their demise with a rain of bullets. At its start, Gerard’s vocals are at their softest, coming through as a ghostly whisper, but as the song picks up the pace, the frontman’s voice intensifies in loudness until reaching a screamo screech. But as the song reaches an abrupt halt at the halfway mark, it restarts with the same pattern.
I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love isn’t perfect. It was a learning curve for My Chemical Romance, as they dealt with a bassist who was just learning to play bass, a second guitarist who joined a band last minute without having an established relationship with its members, and a drummer who wasn’t taking the gig seriously. But with Gerard’s unwavering motivation to make it work, the band persevered, learning from their weaknesses to turn their following record, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, into a decade-defining masterpiece. While it pales in comparison to its successor, its best moments are so strong that it remains beloved by fans over 20 years later.
Tatiana Tenreyro is Paste‘s associate music editor, based in New York City. You can also find her writing at SPIN, NME, PAPER Magazine, The A.V. Club, and other outlets.
