10 Bands That Have Musical Alter Egos

Going into every single My Chemical Romance album, Gerard Way seemed to have a certain vision for what he wanted his records to say. Born and bred out of a world filled with comic books, Gerard liked playing with the idea of narrative in his work, with both I Brought You My Bullets and Three Cheers being continuations on the same story of a doomed romance. 2006 was time for something different, and MCR came through with a persona that was worthy of the great rock operas of old.

Taking the concept of death to heart, The Black Parade is a loose narrative revolving around a man who has been given a terminal cancer diagnosis and just a few weeks to live. While Gerard gives a voice to the Patient in every one of his lyrics, the persona of The Black Parade comes to fruition in the title track, as death comes for the protagonist in the form of the happiest memory he had, which in his case was when his father took him to see a marching band when he was little.

Donning the traditional marching band garb, My Chem also threw it back to rock of decades old, pulling from the Beatles and Queen to make the kind of rock and roll record that they would have loved to listen to as kids. The rest of the emo bands of the time may have seemed too whiny for their own good, but there was some genuine storytelling going on here that you were never going to find in the rest of the scene.