My Chemical Romance: Something Incredible This Way Comes by Paul Stenning

by Paul Stenning

This is the first book of its kind on one of the world's hottest new bands. New Jersey band My Chemical Romance have taken the music underground by storm since their incendiary debut album in 2002. Within weeks of its release, major labels across the globe were frantically pulling out their cheque-books in an attempt to capture what is widely regarded as the world's next stadium-selling rock band in the vein of Metallica, Foo Fighters and Green Day. Their biting lyrics, beautiful visuals and relentless touring schedules have ensured that MCR have already captured the hearts and minds of the I-Pod generation - the year 2006 will see them promoted to the very upper echelons of rock music's giants. The first book to tell their tale, setting them in the context of the dormant US rock scene, through to their breakthrough live shows and meteoric success in 2004 and 2005. Mixing metal with ballads, rock with pop, MCR are the next BIG band and this tells you how a bunch of introverted high school friends achieved their dream.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music

Mass Market Paperback

First published March 30, 2006

About the author

Paul Stenning is a ghostwriter and author of 30 books. His work has been published in 15 different languages. He is a best-selling author in several countries – from the UK to Brazil and Bulgaria – and has sold over one million books worldwide.

His best-known work is Success – By Those Who’ve Made It (featuring Mario Andretti, Frank Abagnale, DJ Jazzy Jeff and more) as well as best-selling biographies of Robert Pattinson and Guns N' Roses.
In recent years, Stenning has gone beyond celebrity interviewing to writing books focused on service, self-help, and inspiration. He has worked with several of the leading figures in the genre.

Notable recent ghostwriting clients include The World’s Most Travelled Man, Don Parrish, a pioneering physicist and a Philosophy professor.

Since 1997, Paul has also written for numerous major magazines including FHM, Front, Rolling Stone, and Record Collector.

From 2011, until its closure in 2017, he was a regular columnist for the Cyprus Weekly, the top-selling English language newspaper in Cyprus.

Paul has a keen interest in poetry and his first contribution to a book was as a poet, in the 2000 collection Magical Memories, edited by Poetry Now’s Heather Killingray.

Since 2018 he has been the official poet for the tourist board of Guinea-Bissau, combining his love for poetry and travel writing.

Many of his books have been published in foreign languages; from Japanese to Portuguese. Altogether he has works in 15 different languages.

Outside of writing Paul has worked as assistant to the financial advisor for Take That and once worked at a famous comedy club working directly with many high profile comedians including Peter Kay.

Meat Loaf has sung to him in person and he has been kissed by actress Linda Hamilton!

He has also had hundreds of official photographs taken by the Royal Family photographer, Arthur Edwards MBE.

As a rock DJ he has warmed up the crowd prior to concerts by No Doubt, Motörhead and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Based predominantly in Cyprus, he lives with his wife and home schooled daughter and together they enjoy world travel.

Reviews

[Kelcea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was a great insight into the band,their origin and their beliefs however I was slightly disappointed that the author seemed to focus more on Gerard; even though he is the front man I was expecting a little bit more input about the other members.

[royaevereads · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was, frankly, a delight to read. The edition I have was published before the Black Parade era. It also mentioned Gerard Way’s plans to write a comic book - who knew that would become the Umbrella Academy??

[Olive Schumacher · Rating 2 out of 5]

she got some misinformation in her but to be fair she was written 20 years ago

[Ray Toro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the book a lot, but it was a little upsetting that it focused on Gerard most of the time instead of the others. It also had a bunch of typos/mistakes and a little bit of misinformation but it wasn’t a big deal. Overall a good book though! :)

[Gecko · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to start this by saying I love My Chemical Romance, I picked this up hoping to learn something new about MCR but unfortunately did not. Maybe I know too much about this band 😂

[Rebecca Whelan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wasn’t very well written with lots of mistakes in it but I do always love reading books about my favourite band

[Mari · Rating 3 out of 5]

unofficial & unauthorized is right .... bits of misinformation but overall a fun read

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book as a gift for my birthday and it felt rather fitting to be reading it during my travels to London - after all, I was there to see MCR perform at Wembley and they did not disappoint.

Meanwhile, the book kinda did. I'm very sure it had significantly more appeal back in 2006, but now, 20 years later, it misses a huge part of the band's story: The Black Parade (and subsequent tour), Danger Days, Conventional Weapons, the break-up, May Death Never Stop You, the side projects (including Frank, Gee, and Ray's very prolific careers out-with MCR), the reunion and Swarm tour, the pandemic, Bob's sad death, and obviously the current tour. So it's a bit of a story half-told. It also feels to me that Stenning relied heavily on secondary sources rather than reaching out to the band personally. A compilation of online interviews will only get you so far in terms of candid storytelling. It does help build a cohesive narrative, but I'm not sure I have a better sense of who they are as people after reading this.

Also, some opinions from the time have aged like milk: not quite sure Lostprophets are still the best band to have come out of Wales :/

[Adam Lambert Fan · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was okay, read it because my chemical romance is my favorite band, it wasn’t horrible but if you know a lot about the band, you won’t learn anything new. few errors, some of the information was wrong, but not much. also, incredible is spelled wrong on the side of the book LOL not sure if it’s just my copy or not

[Claudia Amorim]

nice

[Minxx · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it is a nice book to get the basics about Mcr up until the black parade but some of the information are wrong. Mikey doesn't have asthma. Also it kind of annoys me that they mostly focus on Gee. I love Gee but he isn't the only member in Mcr and it's very disrespectful to say "Gerard/Way and co" or "Gerard and My chemical romance" as if the rest doesn't matter. Also some comments in this book are tasteless in my opinion. They talk about Gee and Mikey and then say Gee is the attractive one, degrading Mikey. It's disgusting to see people only care about the vocalist of a band. EVERY BAND MEMBER IS IMPORTANT, VOCALIST OR NOT!