Frank Iero has had a diversely successful music career. He has written lyrics and sung for post-hardcore group Leathermouth and toured with his electronic hardcore band Death Spells. That’s apart from his role as the rhythm guitarist in My Chemical Romance. Now soaring solo under the name Frnkiero Andthe Cellabration, he has signed to Staple Records and his debut albumStomachachesis out this month.
Despite his success and suffering a chronic stomach condition, Iero remains one of the nicest and most genuine musicians in the biz – and he’s psyched about the upcoming release. “I had a lot of fun experimenting and doing different shit – seeing what would work to make the emotions come to life,” he says.
Using songs he demoed in his basement studio, creating the album was a lengthy but rewarding process. “It took close to a year all up,” Iero says. “My friend Jarrod Alexander flew out from California and we did the drums over maybe four or five days. But then I had shit to do, and didn’t come back to getting the core tracks down until months and months later.”
The multi-skilled Iero played every instrument on the album apart from drums. “Except for one song called ‘Joyriding’,which didn’t come until much later so I had to play drums on that. Which is why if you’re listening to it you might think, ‘These drums aren’t up to par!’”
Writing and recording the songs on Stomachaches was a particular experience for Iero. “In making them I didn’t feel like I was writing a record to put out. I just wrote because I needed to in order to keep my sanity and keep my mind off how I felt physically. The good thing is that I never censored myself.” Ultimately revealing the songs to the public is a confronting prospect. “It’s like letting people read a diary,” Iero says. “I’m excited about touring the songs but I’m also scared shitless.”
Indeed, some of Iero’s songs were too personal to release. “There are a few that I kept just for myself. A few I wrote just for my kids. I thought it would be really awesome if each kid and my wife had a theme song. Like a character in a movie where every time they come in this song plays. We have this amazing thing called Sonos. You put portable speakers in different rooms and then there’s a box that you hook up to your Wi-Fi and then you can control from your phone what songs play in all different rooms. So I have that and whenever my daughter Lily comes in, if I feel in the mood, I hit the button and her theme will play. They are super into it. I would say they love it second to the Frozen theme song.”
One song that did make the album is called ‘She’s The Prettiest Girl At The Party And She Can Prove It With A Solid Right Hook’.“That’s a true story,” says Iero. “That was one of the earliest times I hung out with my wife. We were at this party and there was this drunk girl that she didn’t like. It just so happened that the drunk girl was walking around the party asking people to punch her in the face. She asked a bunch of people, they all said no, but when she finally got to my wife she couldn’t even finish the sentence and my wife cracked her so hard in the face. That was when I knew she was going to be my wife.”
Stomachaches out Friday August 29 through Staple Records / Cooking Vinyl.
