Despite his debut solo album only being released in 2014, a full Australian tour for Frank Iero and The Patience has been a long time coming.
Iero was originally set to bring his project to our shores as part of this year’s ill-fated Soundwave tour, but fate had different plans. “We were going with the intention to bring a full band, and then of course shit happens and it was out of everyone’s control,” Iero explains. “But I thought like, ‘I can still go if I want to go.’ I wanted to go really bad, so it was like, ‘Fuck it, let’s go!’”
Following the bottoming out of Soundwave, Iero put together a makeshift tour comprising two free in-store acoustic shows, with the Sydney edition taking place at the iconic Utopia Records. The plan for a quick performance and meet-and-greet was blown out of the water when over 600 fans wrapped themselves around the block for the opportunity to meet him.
“I didn’t really have any expectations about how many people would be there or who would be excited,” Iero says. “I just knew that I was excited. So when we showed up it was shocking: it was such an overwhelmingly beautiful experience.”
Frank Iero is not a man that’s unfamiliar with such acts of fanaticism. After all, he spent over a decade playing guitar in My Chemical Romance, one of the most loved and revered bands of the mid ’00s. Even following the group’s disbanding in 2013, hype and attention has followed every move of the one-time band members.
Indeed, the internet experienced a small explosion on Thursday July 21 when My Chemical Romance released a teaser video on the internet that featured the opening piano notes of ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’. Of course, a wildfire of speculation followed in the wake of the announcement, and eventually the band were forced to clear the air, announcing that the surprise was a tenth anniversary reissue of The Black Parade rather than a reformation.
“I think it probably could have been done a little bit better just to cut down on some confusion,” Iero admits. “It was a little bit shocking, but I also think there is still a love for that band that is amazing: people get excited any time anything happens.
“[For the anniversary edition] we went through old hard drives and old recording stuff. It has a lot of stuff that got left on the cutting room floor. The songs that didn’t make the record – it doesn’t mean they’re bad songs. They just weren’t right for the record. So it’s nice to have some of these songs come out … I think people will be excited to hear some of these songs that could have been lost forever.”
Only a few weeks after his old band’s release hits our shores, Iero will be landing in the country to complete a national tour with his new band, Frank Iero and The Patience, formerly known as frnkiero and the cellabration.
Iero argues the moniker change reflects his growing sense of comfort about being his own person: he no longer needs to hide behind a band name. “I’ve learnt a lot about what it is to be a solo artist, or what it is to be a frontman,” Iero explains. “So I didn’t really need that distraction, ‘the cellabration’. ”That’s where ‘Patience’ comes in, by the by: the name is “a constant reminder to take a deep breath and concentrate on the now.
“My girls are six and my son is four,” he explains. “I’m watching them grow and evolve and change. I started to realise that life is very fleeting, and all the clichés that people tell you are true. We are all gonna hit the ground at some point, so it’s nice to have these things to enjoy the fall.”
The Australian tour will be the last run of dates before the release of Parachutes, Iero’s second studio album, one that is a rapid expansion from his debut.“With the first one I wrote, the songs and I had no intention of ever having anyone hearing them,” he explains.
“I just wrote them purely for myself. This time around, I guess I went through a process where I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write another record, or if I even could to be honest. I didn’t do it on purpose the first time. Now I had to actually write a record that people were going to hear. Could I do that? Did I know how to do that?
“I’ve got to say, for me this is probably the most proud I have ever been of anything I have ever made,” Iero continues. “I feel like it’s very rare that you get the opportunity to make a record, or make anything, and I think that maybe this is why I was put here. This was one of those moments, and I feel very fortunate to have that.”
That’s not all there is to celebrate about the upcoming tour; Iero will also be supported on all shows by Walter Schrifels, an elder statesmen with a career that has ranged from hardcore punk to indie rock leanings.
“I look up to him both as a songwriter and performer,” Iero says. “To do a tour like this with him is a total dream come true: I’m so excited.”
Frank Iero plays the Metro Theatre onThursday October 13, with Walter Schreifels.Parachutes is out now through Cooking Vinyl.
