G has finally beaten his demons and changed from troubled singer to totally chilled out rock god...

He’s loved by rock fans all over the world, but we still feel sorry for My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way. He’s been attacked by newspaper claims that his band encourages self-harm, he’s been heart broken and he’s battled addiction. Yet Gerard always puts a positive spin on his life. Here he answers our most pressing MCR questions...

You formed MCR after seeing the Twin Towers attack on 9/11. How did witnessing that make you feel?
 “In that moment, everything I had known and put value on became valueless. Everything I’d been chasing up to that point seemed ridiculous. Within a week I was writing songs. This band was born from a very hard, emotional place.”

Would you say it was a life wake-up call for you?
“If 9/11 said anything to me as a human being, it said that life is short, so don’t waste your time. And I think the band has never wasted time.”

No wonder you guys are dark. Is there light at the end of the tunnel?
“I’ve always seen [dark subject matter] as a way to get to the hopeful stuff. It’s a dark view on things, but it always leads to a positive thing in the end. I don’t think we’re using it in an extremely dark way.”

It’s exciting. I’m grateful to have a second chance

 You’ve had to deal with some tough stuff – especially your drink problem. Is it still something you have to tackle daily?
“If I didn’t deal with it every day I’d leave myself open to a relapse. I worked with a therapist and she said I could go to AA. Even without being famous, I’m the sort of guy who stands out in a crowd, so I was nervous about going. But I was made to feel really welcome.”

And it’s sorted you out?
“Well, it’s been almost three years that I’ve been clean and sober. It’s starting to get to the point where it’s part of my past. It’s one of the reasons I have everything I have today. It’s exciting. I’m grateful to have a second chance.”

But it must be hard dealing with something so difficult and being seen as a role model?
“It’s certainly a learning process! The problem is, there aren’t many people I can ask for advice. From time to time I’ve talked to Billie Joe from Green Day. But he’s having downtime at the minute so I don’t want to bother him.”

 Wow! Chatting to the big BJ about your problems? Your life’s far from normal, eh?
“As a general rule, anything normal is incompatible with this life. If you aren’t in it for financial reasons, but spiritual ones, and you think you’re on a mission, the sacrifices are much harder to make. We don’t get to enjoy some of the normal things that others take for granted.”

So what other stuff do you have to face that perhaps we might not?
“A guy told me that if I didn’t give him all my money he was going to shoot everyone in the pizzeria I was in. Another time a kid put a gun to my throat and was like, ‘Gimme your money.’ I was like, ‘I don’t have any money.’ So he punched me in my throat… but the craziest thing was being attacked by a blackbird. It pecked the sh*t out of my head!” 

If you think you’re cooler than that 13-year-old girl with a Dookie shirt in the front row at a punk show, then you’re much mistaken

Finally, we’ve had a lot of mail from MCR fans that think it’s wrong for you to be in magazines like Sugar. What do you think?
“Our objective is to reach a lot of people and change the world, and change lives. To destroy the bullsh*t music scene, we have to reach a lot of people. So once that decision was made there was nothing that would come up that was like, ‘Is this wrong for us to do?’”

So everyone should be given a chance to like MCR, right?
“I think people often make the mistake of discounting a younger audience, which is a form of elitism. For us, discounting our young audience would be the lamest, most contradictory thing in the world for us to do, because we’ve always been about accepting everyone. If you think you’re cooler than that 13-year-old girl with a Dookie shirt in the front row at a punk show, then you’re much mistaken. You were that same person – you didn’t come out of your mom with a mohawk.”