All has been quiet on the Ray Toro front since the demise of his long-term band, My Chemical Romance, with the odd exception here and there: The 2013 release of the single “Isn’t That Something?” (track one of the soon-to-be-released “Remember the Laughter,”) 2015’s “For the Lost and the Brave,” written during the Arizona immigration unrest, but released after the suicide of seventeen year old Leelah Alcorn, and left as a stand-alone tribute to her,) 2016’s “Hope for the World” (track thirteen of the new album,) and “Into the Cave We Wander,” a collaboration with former bandmember, Gerard Way, to celebrate the release of Way’s and Jon Rivera’s new comic series, “Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye.”
Since that time, Toro became a parent for the first time, and perfected his first ever almost completely solo project (former My Chem and A Static Lullaby drummer, Jarrod Alexander, provided some drum tracks, while Doug McKean, David C. Hughes and Gene Grimaldi assisted on the engineering side of things.) Ray was kind enough to provide Dying Scene with his first interview as a solo artist since 2015 (and few interviews are more fascinating than the first few days of a new career path and first release – when the artist is super excited and candid, and the information is fresh.)
Check out the interview below. I hope you enjoy reading Ray’s purest of thoughts as much as I enjoyed hearing them.
DJD: Alright, so, first of all: congratulations on the upcoming release; very exciting!
RT: Thank you, thank you!
DJD: You’ve stated that “Remember the Laughter” was a summation of where you were in life at a time that line was written – can you elaborate on that?
RT: I was sitting at my kitchen table late at night with my guitar in hand – maybe like five or six months into being a dad – and I started strumming and then singing the last song on the album, “Remember the Laughter.” I don’t know why; I was realizing that I had just brought this life into the world, and your brain just wanders in all different directions. I ended up thinking about what I would tell my son when I’m about to pass on. It’s a very morbid thought, but I think these are some of the things you think about when you have kids. It was one of those moments when I was just lucky enough to happen to have a guitar in my hand and some good chords that I could sing along to. I just wanted some words of comfort for him when I pass on: you know, a lot of shit can – and will – happen to us, but always try to remember the good times that we had together. So that’s where that line comes from, and the story behind that.
DJD: That’s so sad – and beautiful. Your boy is pretty young, so I won’t tell you where you’re headed next – I’m sure you already know.
RT: (laughing) Yeah, me and my wife have constant talks about what’s coming next for him and us. I guess you have your own kids?
DJD: I do. Mine’s older, but it doesn’t get any better – I hate to break the news to you.
RT (laughing) It’s definitely a daily challenge – like you’re running the gauntlet, sometimes.
DJD: It is exactly like that.
RT: But, I mean, one of those things that every parent says – and we talked like this even before we had kids – they’re the best and worst thing that can happen to you, at the same time. It’s this incredible ride; an incredible journey.
DJD: It is. That’s a very nice way of putting it. By the way, I don’t know a lot about drums, although my son does (sometimes) have a kit in the house, but why do drum kits require holes in floors? I have to understand this.
RT: (laughing) Oh, you must have seen how I damaged our living room floor.
DJD: And how your wife was ready to strangle you, yeah, I saw that too (both laugh.)
RT: Okay, so drum kits have legs that hold the base drum in place, and they have spikes at the end of them. You put your drum kit on a carpet, and you use those spikes, so that, as the drummer is playing, your kit doesn’t go sliding around all over the place. Since I moved into my house, I’ve always talked about tracking drums in the living room, because it has these really high ceilings, and they’re angled just right to create a nice warm tone; a good ambiance. So, me and Jarrod Alexander, who played drums on a few tracks, finally had the chance to do it. We were all excited, making sure that the mics were in place and that everything had been set up just right, but what we didn’t check was how much of the spikes were actually sticking out. So, as soon as he started playing, the spikes went through the carpet and just mangled…I mean, it’s not bad! The cool thing about our house is that it’s very old – from, like, 1920; there are lots of antique, super vibe-y. It’s not the worst thing, but I do wish that it didn’t happen. My wife still jokes about it, whenever she happens to get a good look at it. So, the floor was a casualty, but it was in good service to the record!
DJD: It was bastardized to serve the overall purpose. I’m laughing because I was married to a musician, too, and we produced one, so I understand weird statements like “We should track in the living room!” I was telling my dad recently wouldn’t understand how to get through the day without a guitar in the background, so an amp in the living room sounds about right – but this is a new one, even for me.
RT: (laughing) Yeah, that was a new one for me too, and probably the last one – at least until I figure out the right-sized carpet.
DJD: I think your wife will put a stop to it, like “Um, no dear” (both laugh.) Alright, so you estimate that this album took about three and a half years to come to fruition. Has your mood, your mindset, changed over time about it?
RT: Yeah, I would go through ebbs and flows of inspiration to write and having the right amount of time to work – whether it was family stuff, or just other projects that I was giving time to. And then, at other times, I would just have writer’s block and not know where to go, or what to do. I would have weeks where I was super stoked on it, like “Yeah, this is gonna be great!” and other times where it would be like “Eh, things just aren’t gelling right.” When you write a record over that span of time, you’re growing as a person and changing as a musician. From the genesis of one song, multiple years pass, and then you can come up with something else which sounds completely different.
That was one of the challenges that I had: making all of the songs fit into the same world, and sound cohesive. Sometimes, I would feel like “This isn’t working,” and just put it away for a while, then come back again. I feel now, like I can listen to it without a critical ear. When you’re working on something, you’re constantly listening for what you can fix. It was a huge relief, actually, to finally get the mastered files, like “It what it is now. It’s off to pressing, I can’t change it – it’s going into the world as is.” I can listen to it as a body of work, as opposed to the person who created it. I mean: I love the record, and I couldn’t be happier with how it came out, but I think that any artist – writer, musician, whatever – looks at something they’ve worked on and said “If only I’d had one more day to come up with a different idea.” As a whole, though, I’m extremely proud of the record.
DJD: I never have a day, Ray, where I look at my writing and said “God, I wish I’d done that better.”
RT: (laughing) Yeah, where you think that everything is 100% perfect, like “I’m a genius!”
DJD: I cringe at the bulk of my work, so you’re one step ahead of me.
RT: Yeah, but that’s good, though! I don’t think any artist should ever be satisfied. Once that happens, you become stagnant. Look, I want to do things better, but I’m sure we’re all doing great work, so don’t be so hard on yourself.
DJD: I’ll try to take that note of confidence into the next cringe-y poetry line that I come up with, to convince myself that it’s not as awful as I think it is (both laugh.) But you, on the other hand, did put out a really amazing, flawless fucking product, and I should hope so, after having to wait this long for it!
Ray (laughing) Well, thank you.
DJD: So, I know that your history was basically that you were in this band for a really long period of time, and, prior to that, I just kinda playing around, like kids will do. Is it intimidating, or freeing, to be putting music out completely on your own for the first time over the course of this past few years?
RT: Definitely both. Intimidating, in that it’s a lot of responsibility. When you’re working in a band, you have other people to go to when you don’t have an idea and get stuck, which would happen to me quite a lot during the writing process. Lots of times, I just wasn’t sure where to go next, and maybe needed like a day or two to think about what I was trying to say and get my head wrapped around everything. I’d sing the second chorus or bridge section, and then not be sure how to wrap the whole song up together. When you’re in a band, you have other people’s opinions and talent to draw from. So, that was the intimidating thing, and also singing and writing lyrics – I had never done that myself before. I did write a little in a college English Lit class, like a bit of poetry here and there, but nothing other than that; and this is going back almost twenty years.
DJD: The poems are absolutely beautiful, by the way, I’m reading through them as we speak – just gorgeous.
RT: Oh, cool, thanks! Yeah, that’s the intimidation side of it: just a lot to take on. But then the freeing side of it is that you’re able to express yourself more so than when you’re in a band. In a band, you bring your talents, abilities, and influences – and they’re all wrapped up in how you play, and the parts that you write for the songs, but it’s only one piece of a large puzzle. When you’re a solo artist, you’re the entire puzzle, so you get to fill out more of everything with your own personality and sensibilities of songwriting. So, the freeing thing, for me, was to be able to show more sides of what I can do musically, which you couldn’t show fully in a band.
DJD: Absolutely. How are you going to handle touring – have you thought about that yet?
RT: I have given it some thought. The thing is that some of the songs have less going on, and others have much larger arrangements: strings, piano, horns – very heavily layered. Even from writing, I’d always wanted to pull these songs off live with as many organic instruments as I could, but you run into budgetary concerns and finding personnel. The more people that you add onto a stage, the more that you have to pay to put food on the table and put everybody up for the night. So, I’m trying to figure out a way that I can balance organic instruments with backing tracks. The cool thing nowadays is that kids are used to seeing artists perform on their own with a computer onstage. Back when we were doing My Chem, after “The Black Parade,” we used backing tracks very sparingly – really only for interludes in between songs. Back then, as much as you could pull off live, that’s what you wanted to do. Now, I think that things have changed, to where it’s a little bit more accepted to use backing tracks. Larger-scale bands are using them way more than anybody would know, but even smaller-scale bands are using them to fill out their arrangements. I’ve got to find the right balance, and hopefully figure it out for next year.
DJD: Didn’t Rush use backing tracks, back in the day?
RT: You know what? I think, from what I know about Rush, that Geddy would play bass parts with his feet and keyboards with his hand – or vice-versa. Samples were triggered by Peart. I don’t think backing tracks were very common back when they were really going. Maybe now, I don’t know, but those guys are like way, way more talented than me.
DJD: They weren’t common, and I shouldn’t have used God as an example of what people can do onstage – but maybe you can do like a “DJ Ray” type of thing onstage, like a Skrillex vibe.
RT: (laughing) That’s another thing that I definitely could not pull off – I one hundred percent need an instrument on me to feel comfortable.
DJD: I don’t know, you’re from Jersey, so you probably could throw a rock and hit twenty-five people that you could call up and play with.
RT: Yeah, that’s true. It’s just about finding time for the rehearsals and all. Every bit of this has been a journey, so that’s the next learning experience for me. I figured out how to record an album and play most of the instruments myself, so now how do I present this live? That’s going to be the next challenge, but a fun one.
DJD: It has to translate live, but it doesn’t have to translate the same way that it did on the cd.
RT: And that’s the best thing about playing live, right? The songs should take on a new life. That interplay, between your audience and yourself, enhances everything. It’s like you’re creating something new in the moment.
DJD: Together, you reshape the song.
RT: Yeah, absolutely.
DJD: Word on the street is that you are an uber perfectionist – would you agree with this contention?
RT: I mean, there are some things that I let go and leave on the record, because sometimes mistakes like that are truly amazing, you know? I’ve also become like this OCD clean freak, like I clean my house constantly. So, I guess I am a little bit of a perfectionist.
DJD: Are you sure that’s not just because of the four-year-old? They’re really messy.
RT: (laughing) Oh, he keeps me busy, for sure! It’s funny: I sent out a tweet the other day about how many steps I walk in a day – I have a fitness tracker on me all the time.
DJD: You’ve become that guy already, really? It’s the California, isn’t it? California does that to you.
RT: Yeah, maybe it’s the California, but I don’t have a big house, by any means at all, and I found myself walking eight to nine miles a day constantly pacing around the house.
DJD: Yeah, chasing the four-year-old.
RT: If the record doesn’t work out, maybe I should start a cleaning service.
DJD: Or maybe run like a cool step class.
RT: (laughing) The sad thing is that I’m only in okay shape – I mean; I’m weigh-healthier now than I think I’ve ever been.
DJD: Well, that’s because you don’t have time to eat anymore.
RT: Oh yeah, it’s like you’re scrounging.
DJD: So, did you ever figure out who had hacked your account?
RT: Oh – no, I didn’t! That was super weird. There are so many places now that you order from online, and if you use the same e-mail address and password on different sites, there are people who just try everything, right? I had an Uber account – maybe the leak came from there? I was sitting in my house one day, and I got an Uber notification that came for a pickup in Mexico – I was like “What the fuck?” So, someone had hacked into my Uber account and that wound up with people trying to get into my Instagram account as well, but it’s all settled.
DJD: How the hell does somebody wind up with your Uber information in Mexico? Friggin’ technology!
RT: Yeah, basically, you cannot use the same password for any two sites. I know it’s difficult to remember them all. There’s this app that I use: 1Password, which saves them for you, so you can just copy and paste – I think that’s the best way. I went back through everything and changed all of my passwords – I haven’t had any hack attempts since, which is good.
DJD: I would be so confused; I would never remember my password. I usually just add numbers to them.
RT: That’s a good idea too. The more passwords that you can have out there, the better. This way, if one gets hacked…
DJD: They don’t hit up all of them. Did the hackers post any nudes, or anything embarrassing, or just stupid shit?
RT: No, they never got in, luckily. I was just receiving e-mails from Instagram saying that someone was trying to, and asking if it was me. The other day, too, on some shopping site, the same thing happened. It’s crazy.
DJD: You can’t be too careful out there. So, you’re kind of a technophile, right? You did this whole album by yourself, you’ve got a studio. Are your services leasable? Because I can’t even figure out how to edit a fucking video – I don’t know what I’m doing.
RT: (laughing) That can be like an extra fee from my cleaning service: video production.
DJD: Nobody’s hit that angle yet – I think it could work.
RT: There’s got to be a reason why though.
DJD: Just keep your passwords secret. Would you ever consider doing session or production work on a regular basis? Or is that not really what you want to do?
RT: I actually have a huge interest in producing, and writing with other artists, for other bands. I love being in the studio; it’s a really magical place for me. You’re just put into a room (or multiple ones, if you’re lucky enough,) and you have all of these tools at your disposal to make something cool; to make music, to make art. I just love the interplay between me and other musicians – the collaboration that happens; how one idea can just spark another idea. You can go into the studio with a song, and the whole thing can completely change because of one little moment. Anything can happen there, so I would to like to do more production work. One of the main reasons for me to put out a record personally was just to show people what else I am capable of, I guess – kind of like a resume, in a sense. I don’t know how many more solo records there will be after this – if there is more music that needs to be written, then it will happen. But, right now, I’m just trying to focus on this one record, and seeing what comes of it. If there is demand, or if I’m inspired to write more, I will. I would love to get more into the production side of things, though.
DJD: That could be really lucrative too.
RT: It’s just fun, you know?
DJD: Yeah. So, how does kid like the album? Or is it not “Peppa Pig” enough for him?
RT: Oh, he loves it! If you check on my site, you’ll see it written that he’s my first and biggest fan. He sings the songs all the time, and he asks to hear them. He’s probably heard these songs millions of times at this point, because I constantly go around the house listening on a Solo speaker, or an iPad or iPhone, just to check mixes – and I’ll bring him into the studio to help me do stuff. If you go by any recommendation, my son has great taste in music; he loves the record. He is biased though, definitely.
DJD: And it’s not like you threatened to withhold ice cream or anything, if he didn’t say that, right? (both laugh.)
RT: He knows that he won’t get dinner if he says any other record.
DJD: “What was that, Boy?” Do you think he’ll get bitten by the music bug? Because your brother plays, right? It’s usually in the family. Like, my boy got it from his father, for sure.
RT: I’m into letting him find his own thing. If he shows an interest in it, then absolutely, I would love to cultivate that and be a part of that with him, if he wanted. He likes to play drums all the time, but that’s a common thing with kids. Just the other day, though, he did talk to his friends about wanting to start a band, so that’s something. I don’t know; I don’t want to force anything on him. I want him to be whoever he wants to be. But it would be great – I would love the opportunity to play music with my son. I know that that was one of the more exciting things back in the day: like me, Frank (from My Chem) and his father, and Mikey – we jammed out. Frank’s father is a drummer.
DJD: Wasn’t it also on “Mama,” that you guys collaborated with your families?
RT: Yeah, we brought some of our moms into the studio to record some backing vocals on that. But Frank’s father is a jazz drummer – he used to do a lot of session work in the 1970s and 1980s; he played gigs all of the time. So, when I saw them playing together, I felt lucky to be a part of that. I would love to have that moment with my kid, if he does take up guitar, drums, or bass – whatever he happens to take up. I would love that.
DJD: That would be fun: I think that’s something that everybody should get to do at least once with their parents. “Isn’t That Something” was the first single that we heard, a while back – was it written in response to anything in particular, or just the general state of affairs?
RT: I think if you read the lyrics, it’s pretty clear. I wrote it not too long after My Chem broke up, so I think, if anything, it’s about picking yourself up and realizing that it’s okay. Just keep moving forward and you’ll be alright. I probably wrote that song for myself.
DJD: Are those band breakups sad – is it like getting divorced?
RT: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I’m sure some, more than others. The cool thing is that we’ve all kept in communication, and we’re all friends. So it’s not like none of us are talking, or not at all cool with each other, or anything shitty like that. Right when it happens, it does feel, not even like a breakup, but like a loss. You had something that you created together, and now, it’s not there anymore. Everybody processes that in different ways, and everybody’s got their own path in getting themselves back to normalcy. It was such a huge part of everybody’s lives for close to eleven years – we spent all of our time with each other.
So that’s definitely where that song’s genesis is, but that’s my experience with it. I want people to bring their own experiences to it, and take from their lyrics what they want to take from them.
DJD: Fair enough. I think that’s how it should always be. You’ve said that the lyrics tie the album together, and that it’s a concept album – how so? Do you feel like it’s a political statement, or more of a personal statement?
RT: I’d say it’s a personal statement. The base concept of it is a middle-aged man returning to his childhood home, and hearing a familiar melody coming from the attic. There, he finds a memory box, and, in going through it, he finds pictures, letters, and mementos from his life and his parents’ lives, which get him to recall different memories, which each song represents. It could be a memory that his father had at the time, for instance. I couldn’t really do the booklet that I had wanted to do because of budgetary reasons, but the images that are on the website are connected to each individual song. There is also a little bit there which is supposed to represent what he found inside the box. The cd artwork actually has a picture of the memory box, and you get to see some of the items in there. Schematically, there is a theme of family, and the generational circle of life that happens. I got to thinking about all of that, of course, as soon as I had a kid. I started taking stock of what kind of world I had just brought my kid into. What do I want to tell my kid about the world, and how do I want to help guide him, just like my parents guided me through the shit that could come up in life? That’s basically what the record is about. The songs are mostly consistent of words that I would use to talk to my son. If I could impart any knowledge about my experiences in life so far, that’s what I would share with him, so that’s kind of the main theme that runs through the record.
DJD: Now that I know that, I get it. Really cool idea. Switching gears for a moment. No offense to the lovely Christa, but look, ratings are ratings, Ray, so… fuck, marry, kill, are you ready? Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Kirk Cameron. Go.
RT: Oh, God! Well, I want to kill them all, but I can’t do that. I definitely don’t want to fuck anyone, either, though. So, um…I don’t want to do anything with Sarah Palin, so okay: kill Donald Trump, and I guess marry Kirk Cameron? Geez, this is hard! Can I think about it?
DJD: You want me to help you out here? It’s a trick question. The correct answer is “Fuck them all.”
RT: Oh, that’s clever!
DJD: Now you have something to take with you when you go – you can toss it out there during the next awkward pause in a conversation. You’re welcome. Okay, last question: if you were able to bring everyone together with your art, what would you hope that the outcome would be?
RT: I would hope that the outcome would be that everyone would listen to one another, rather than waiting for someone to finish speaking so that they can interject with their own thoughts on the matter. If everyone really listened to one another, I think that would solve a lot of problems.
DJD: So “Remember the Laughter” at the inauguration then?
RT: I think it might help!
DJD: You should have released it a couple of weeks earlier, so we could play it at the voting booths.
RT: That would have been great.
DJD: Are you concerned about touring, with a new young boy at home?
RT: That’s the thing, you know: I didn’t have him yet when we were in My Chem, but Gerard and Frank had kids then – that must have been hard. I know Frankie is a really devoted father and husband, and he’s always worked. He’s got, like, three different projects going at any given moment in time – I don’t know how he does it. I’m not sure how I’m going to feel yet – I’ve never been away from my son a day in his life, except maybe once in a while at night or something.
DJD: Maybe you can pull an Ozzy and take him out on the road with you.
RT: You know, it’s funny: my wife and I have always talked about getting an RV.
DJD: My son’s girlfriend’s sister and her boyfriend do that, but they don’t have kids. I don’t know how easy that is to do with little kids in tow.
RT: Yeah, we’ll see.
DJD: Well, if you see a Partridge-family-like structure rolling down the highway, Kids, it just might be the Toro family. Say hi, and bring gas! Thank you so much for your time today, Ray, and best of luck with the album.
RT: Thanks, that was fun!
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“Remember the Laughter” hits a store near you on November 18. Don’t miss out!
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