Gerard Way

GERARD WAY TO RELEASE DEBUT SOLO ALBUM, HESITANT ALIEN, ON SEPTEMBER 30TH ON WARNER BROS. RECORDS

Former My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way will release his debut solo album, entitled Hesitant Alien, on September 30^th via Warner Bros. Records. The new album will be available for pre-order at all digital retailers beginning Tuesday, August 19^th. Exclusive album bundles will also be available for pre-order on GerardWay.com on the same date. Fans who pre-order the album will receive the track “No Shows” instantly as a free download. The music video for “No Shows” will also be released on August 19^th. Please see below for the full track-listing.

Working with producer Doug McKean, Way knew immediately what he wanted Hesitant Alien to sound like. “I wanted to make the small things sound big,” he says. “My intention was to make 100 percent uncompromised art, using the currently least radio-friendly instrument, the guitar. I knew there would be lots of fuzz pedals. I knew I would play Fender instruments. I knew I would look at who my guitar heroes were in art school, Mary Timony and Carrie Brownstein, and I drew a lot of influence from shoe-gaze and Britpop. I want the record to sonically galvanize people.” Hesitant Alien was mixed by Tchad Blake (Arctic Monkeys, Black Keys).

Lyrically, Way wrote about what he knew at the time, “which was struggle, beginnings, finding a newness in the mundane and the abstract,” he says. “I looked to the Britpop poets like Jarvis Cocker and Damon Albarn, drawing upon every day life. I also experimented with the abstract, and looked at Frank Black’s work both with the Pixies, and as a solo artist. There was no concept and no call-to-arms.

Fans will get their first listen to some of the songs on Hesitant Alien when Way performs his first solo shows at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in England. He will perform at Reading on August 22^nd and at Leeds on August 23^rd.

Listen to “Action Cat” here.

The track-listing for Hesitant Alien is as follows:

Bureau
Action Cat
No Shows
Casting Shadows
Millions
Zero Zero
Juarez
Drugstore Perfume
Get The Gang Together
How’s It Going To Be
Maya The Psychic

Photo credit: Eric Ray Davidson

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The Zine

One of the things I learned over the years is that projects grow and change, and you need to be prepared to change with them, providing a new structure for them to stand on.

About 4 months ago, one of the ideas kicking around was a special edition version of Hesitant Alien, and like usual- it was ambitious (maybe a little overly so) and elaborate. Lola played a key element in it, but as time went on and deadlines loomed, the complex nature of the boxed set required more lead-time than we had. And I would rather get my music out there than wait around for factories to turn around art-objects. I also felt that, for this particular album, since I had already done so many things differently than in MCR, I would also handle the launch differently.

Easy peasy pumpkin peasy.

Instead, we thought of doing bundles, which would possibly include some of the elements of the original boxed set. One of them was a zine called The Baby Animal Hospital, which you will learn more about in the zine I’m about to talk about.

To commemorate Hesitant Alien I am doing a zine specific to the album title. It will include a number of things and also, a look into my creative process. Drawing upon notes, mock-ups, and unseen sketches, thoughts. I am hoping the zine will provide some insight into what Hesitant Alien became, and how it got there. But more than a “making of” booklet, it will also contain other art, poetry (a zine has got to have bad poetry), and observations. This first issue will only be available in a bundle, with a limited print run.

I may do future issues with the same title, with Hesitant Alien being a continuing zine, or I may start a brand new one, for some reason I have really been wanting to do a Science Fiction zine so the title fits. I would do these about quarterly, and they would be available on the web, possibly with special printings and color-ways sold only at shows.

If it’s your kind of thing, I’m making it now.