Pass-Through Frequencies is a music interview podcast about songwriting, hosted by Jimmy Eat World lead vocalist and guitarist Jim Adkins. Thus far, the show has hosted notable figures in the music industry such as blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba, Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, and Matt Pryor of The Get Up Kids, to name a few. Today, none other than My Chemical Romance’s frontman and creator of the hit comic series The Umbrella Academy, Gerard Way, joins Adkins for episode 12!
The episode summary is as follows:
Gerard and Jim talk about making intentional choices to get around expectations psyching you out and how unlikely it may be that anyone reads the episode notes.
Pass-Through Frequencies is not only an audio podcast — video is recorded for each episode as well. You can watch the video for today’s episode below.
In this episode, Adkins and Way open up by discussing setting (and subsequently letting go of) expectations during quarantine. Later, Way talks about the creative process, learning to enjoy the craft itself rather than focusing on what the outcome may be, collaborating on music and comics, and using voice memos on his phone to build song ideas. Way also touched on the way that his songwriting process has grown and changed, from creating early My Chem songs “Skylines and Turnstiles” and “Vampires Will Never Hurt You” himself with a guitar, to then eventually workshopping ideas with bandmates Ray Toro and Frank Iero on guitar instead, and then how things changed once the band broke up and he began pursuing his solo music career.
Though the My Chemical Romance reunion tour was unfortunately postponed until 2021 due to COVID-19, fans of Way can still keep up with his latest work in the comic world, which includes the brand new The Umbrella Academy Klaus Hargreeves spinoff You Look Like Death, and the upcoming The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: National Anthem.
If you’re on the go, you can listen to today’s episode of Pass-Through Frequencies via the official website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts. Fans of the podcast can also order their own Pass-Through Frequencies mug here!
