Interview: Frank Iero on the frnkiero andthe cellabration album, 'Stomachaches'.

Some time before My Chemical Romance officially announced their break-up in March 2013, guitarist Frank Iero says that in late 2012 he "started to experience an increase in my already painful digestive issues and my creative side started to wither under the weight of not ever feeling well." And being the D.I.Y. musician that he is, Iero decided to turn his basement office into a makeshift home studio.

Frank further explains: "Every time I felt the pain coming on I'd go downstairs and hammer out an idea. After a few months I started to take a look at what I was making, I had for the first time in my life written a large grip of songs completely alone and without any expectations or plans of what they would be for. I've always been in bands writing songs with friends in order to play shows or record a future record. But this was different. These songs, they were all mine. They started inside me as these wretched stomachaches and I had to dig them out of me in order to survive. They were my disease and ultimately became my cure."

And thus, frnkiero andthe cellabration was born - with Iero playing every instrument on the 12-track album, 'Stomachaches’, except for drums (which were recorded by Jarrod Alexander).

"…Where my heart lies is in the real-life, but at the same time part of it lies in this creative realm where I need to go in and put out that fire, scratch that itch, in order to be all rounded."

COUP DE MAIN: I really like that you have all the lyrics for the new album posted on your website - that fans got to read the lyrics first, before hearing the songs for the first time. It makes me feel like you’re letting us in on reading your diary.
FRANK IERO: I thought it’d be a good idea to let people in on what was actually being said, and the direction of the lyrical content of the record before they actually heard everything. At times, it could be a bit difficult to understand everything that’s being said when just listening, but I wanted the lyrics to be the first impression.

CDM: And it’s a pretty powerful first impression. The lyrics feel to me like a stream of consciousness, like you’re just pouring out your mind.
FRANK: Yeah there’s a certain truth to that. I would say that it was very much a gushing of sentiment and stories this time around - it’s kind of how it came out, a lot of the songs came with music first and words weren’t too hard to find, they usually followed very quickly and flowed pretty close to the final outcome.

CDM: What was the most difficult song for you to write for this album?
FRANK: I think different songs provided difficult obstacles. I’ll just pick one instance, a song like ‘Stitches’, that song was very difficult to finish. I made this promise to myself that I was going to keep everything as pure and immediate as humanly possible, so a song like that has a very bizarre structure to it. I first demoed it with just electronic drums and bass, and the bass-line dictated where the song was going. Normally you’ll have a structure to a song. You’ll have an intro to a verse to a pre-chorus to a chorus, kinda repeat that, maybe there’s a bridge, then you’ll go out on a chorus - that’s the quintessential song structure - sometimes you might do a fake-out, re-do a pre-chorus but the chorus doesn’t come until later, but for the most part you follow these tried and true structures. In this instance, it didn’t do that at all. It almost started to take on a life of its own, and I when brought in my friend Jarrod Alexander to come in and do the drum tracks, I hadn’t changed any of that. So explaining, "Well it’s section A and then section B and then weird section C part that goes back to B and then goes back to the C part and then there’s a D part and then it goes to E", we almost had to have a chart going. In doing that, I laid down the guitars for it - you can hear on the track that I’m almost trying to figure out what the song is going to be. I ended up actually going in and going to re-record the guitars, and when I went to listened back to that take it didn’t seem right, it felt like I was manufacturing it - whereas the demo guitars were just this one take of pure exploration and that felt like what the song needed. So you ended up having the demo guitar tracks with mistakes included - that was a difficult song to flesh out.

CDM: There’s a lot of emotion unleashed in all of the album tracks. Is there anything in particular that you were channelling or really feeling whilst recording them?
FRANK: I feel like the idea of how the record really came to life was a cathartic experience. Because of that I think what I’m channeling is this physical turmoil inside, where I’m trying to create something positive out of a negative situation. That was the point - I was feeling miserable physically, in a lot of pain to the point where it was almost crippling me, especially creatively. I decided to take that and use it as an inspiration for getting out of bed and making something again. I think you maybe hear that struggle on the songs, and I feel like the way that it was written and the way that it was recorded kind of gives it a very intimate quality. I feel like a lot of the songs on the record, you can feel like you’re in the room, in that basement studio listening to a song being birthed and at any point everything could fall apart. I really wanted to capture that - that was the reality of the situation.

CDM: It’s kind of like a 3D hologram in music-form of us being there with you during that time while you were recording.
FRANK: Yeah it’s creepy, isn’t it? Almost like a voyeur situation; I wanted that. I made songs really for myself - I didn’t ever expect to put it out there and make this a record for mass consumption, this was really just a way for me to get out of my own situation and reclaim that part of myself - so when making the songs, I wanted a testament to what I’d gone through, I wanted a snapshot of those moments. That’s what’s so scary about releasing this into the world, people will have that same interpretation. It’s a beautiful thing, but at the same time it’s a very hard thing to just show. You hope people will appreciate it and understand it, but at the same time I guess ultimately it just really doesn’t matter. That wasn’t the point. The point was to just make it. And everything after was kind of just a happy bonus.

CDM: The songs on the album explore feelings of unworthiness and yearning for love and acceptance, which are very universal themes, everyone can relate to them. Is that kind of sincerity in your music something that’s really important to you?
FRANK: I think that’s the eternal struggle. Almost the point of existence, feeling alone in the world or in the universe and hoping that you finally find your place in all of this - like, what does it all mean? Where do I belong? Where can I finally feel safe to be myself and become the person that I need to be? Why am I here? To me, those are very real questions and very universal - that yearning for love and a place that you belong. I think anybody that hasn’t gone through that is either lying or not very trustful. It’s a theme I’ve always been fascinated with and as I listen back to the collection of songs I’ve made, I felt like it was very unifying theme throughout a lot of the stories I’m telling on this record.

CDM: If home is where the heart is, where’s home for you?
FRANK: Oh man! I guess, wherever my family is. It’s weird because I have this split - of my real home-life side that’s real-life, and then the creative side that is not necessarily real-life, but it intersects my real-life so much. As separate as my creative side and my ‘husband/dad/human-being’ side is, they’re so connected that they affect one another. When my creative side isn’t being fulfilled, I see it affect me in a negative way and I’m not able to become that father/husband/man that I want to be. So it’s almost like this dark half that you have to satiate in order to become full, in order to become a good person. Where my heart lies is in the real-life, but at the same time part of it lies in this creative realm where I need to go in and put out that fire, scratch that itch, in order to be all rounded.

CDM: Except for drums, you played every instrument on the album. That sounds exhausting!
FRANK: Well I didn’t do it all at the same time! <laughs> It’s one of those things where when you are taking on a project like this, you have to do a lot of things out of necessity, and that was the thing - it was just me in a room, I would have these ideas, I would hear these things and I would need to figure out a way to create them. I ended up playing drums on ‘Joyriding’ - that’s the only song that I play live drums on, Jarrod Alexander does the rest of the drums on the record - and then I did the programmed electronic drums. I played all the stringed instruments and a little bit of piano on there - it’s daunting, but at the same time when you’re writing the stuff and no-one else is there coming in and playing other ideas, it’s interesting that nothing on the record didn’t come out of my head or my heart. That’s an interesting concept; it’s a great situation to be a part of - it’s either something you can be really proud of, or at the same time you’re like, "Oh shit, maybe I should’ve had someone else come in and come up with another idea." For some reason, a lot of songs stemmed from me playing bass, and I never really set up to do that, it just happened to be that way. So once the songs came from that track, then I really did need to do everything else. It was fun to explore.

CDM: Are there any things that you miss from the My Chemical Romance time in your life?
FRANK: I feel completely fulfilled with that aspect of my life. I feel like when we started that project, we had a couple of goals or expectations and we surpassed everything that we could have ever have possibly imagined, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. As far as that project, I feel it was bookended perfectly.

CDM: You’ve already showed that you’re a great storyteller via your music and photography, and I also really enjoy reading the prose and short-stories on your blog. Could you ever see yourself publishing a book one day?
FRANK: Yes, I would absolutely love to do that. Thank you very much by the way, I really appreciate that you like what I do. It’s huge passion of mine, and if I had even a free second right now, that would probably be what I was working on. I look forward to doing that in the hopefully not too distant future. As of right this second, I’m trying to do that thing where I focus on one thing at a time, which I’ve never done before - I feel like it could be the downfall of certain projects. I’m trying my best to focus and do other projects when I have the time to do them. But yes, I can see myself doing that.

CDM: And lastly, can we hope that you’ll maybe tour this album in New Zealand one day?
FRANK: I would love to! That’s one of the most beautiful places in the world - I really feel like this record would be fantastic to play over there. Unfortunately there’s no definite plans as of this moment, but I’m hoping that they come soon - hopefully early next year, that would be wonderful.

frnkiero andthe cellabration’s album, 'Stomachaches', is out now - featuring the singles 'Weighted' and 'Joyriding'. Click here to purchase now via iTunes.

Watch the 'Joyriding' music video below…