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Gerard Arthur Way Biography
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| Gerard Arthur Way |
Gerard Way was born April 9, 1977 in Summit, New Jersey to Donna Lee and Donald Way. He has Italian ancestry on his mother's side and Scottish ancestry on his father's. He was raised in Belleville, New Jersey and first began singing publicly in the fourth grade, when he played the role of Peter Pan in a school musical production. His maternal grandmother, Elena Lee Rush, was a great creative influence who taught him to sing, paint, and perform from a young age; he has said that "she has taught me everything I know". Also, while in elementary school, the glam metal band Bon Jovi was instrumental in forming his love of music.
At the age of 15, Way was held at gunpoint, as he said in an April 2008 Rolling Stone interview: "I got held up with a .357 Magnum, had a gun pointed to my head and put on the floor, execution-style." He went on to say that "no matter how ugly the world gets or how stupid it shows me it is, I always have faith."
Hatched and reared amidst the soot-dappled streets of Newark and Belleville, Gerard Way kept musically active during his teens by performing in local bands with some of his school friends. After completing high school he took an animation job in New York City, but still hankered for a career with a higher public profile, and one that would allow him to wear excessive amounts of mascara. Eventually he contacted drummer Matt Pelissier, a former bandmate who had been experiencing similar urges, and the pair convened to resurrect their musical activities together and create some new songs. Guitarist Ray Toro was enlisted shortly afterwards. The line-up for what would become My Chemical Romance was ultimately rounded out by Way's younger brother Mikey (who had pinched the band's name from the drug-oriented writings of Irvine Welsh), and extensive gigging was undertaken around the New York area.