If you stuck a warning label on My Chemical Romance, it would probably read: listening to MCR may result in a) the sudden urge to hurt yourself (if you believe everything you read in the Daily Mail), b) an uncontrollable impulse to write homoerotic fan fiction starring the band or c) the desire to rob bassist Mikey Way at gun point in a pizzeria.

Whether you’ve ignored the warning and have chosen to blissfully overdose on the melancholic anthems of these hardcore-pop posterboys or you’ve heeded it and joined the disillusioned fans and foes who’ve dismissed the band’s MySpace to MTV transformation, one thing is for sure: people react strongly to My Chemical Romance.

“You name it — some people are so filled with joy [when they see us] that they’re crying and some people are like, ‘I hate your band, you’re a sellout,’” says Way of the band’s bipolar reception. “It goes anywhere from the happy to the asinine.”

For fans of the band, happiness came when their macabre idols released their third effort, The Black Parade. A brusque meditation on death, the album takes listeners on a journey through the afterlife, as told through the eyes of a fictional character referred to as Patient.

“The concept behind the record is that when you die, death comes to you in a form that is comforting to you,” says lead guitarist Ray Toro. “For the main character in the story, it takes the shape of a parade. It’s the fondest memory that he has as a child – when his father took him to see this parade. So, when he passes, death comes to him in the form of a black parade and he goes through the afterlife meeting other characters who have past [away].”

The album is told largely in the form of bleak symbols and cryptic metaphors (the black parade in question is death, explains Toro, who points to the historical link between parades and funeral processions), but while the band’s lyrics may appear to fixate intensely on death, the band insists that, taken in the context of the entire story, the album is really an exhortation of life.

“To ignore death and to be afraid of it is dumb because everyone is going to face it at some point,” says Toro. “If you look at death and the reality of it, you realize that we’re all going to die, so let’s use this time on Earth to be positive and do good things. That’s the point of this record.”

Not everyone sees it that way. In a Daily Mail article published last August, the band was labelled emo (a designation that they reject) and accused of encouraging kids to harm themselves, mainly because of their morose lyrics and death-related imagery.

“That’s the funny thing about ignorance, you don’t get the full story,” says rhythm guitarist Frank Iero. “The funny, tragic thing about the Daily Mail is that the only youth movement they’ve ever stood behind was the Hitler Nazi Youth. Anything that’s every come about that actually empowers kids or that they felt is detrimental to their way of life, they’ve said is evil.”

The band doggedly refuses to budge on using metaphors, theatricality or the storytelling, which defines their music, even though they run the risk of being misinterpreted and, in a peculiar way, misrepresented. The band’s emphasis on fiction and fantasy has spawned somewhat of an off-kilter trend among fans: fan fiction.

Message boards across the ‘net are peppered with fictional short stories written by MCR fans that depict the band members in some pretty unusual situations. Some stories feature a strong connection between the band and the underworld, while others depict them in sexually explicit scenarios.

“I’ve heard about it but I haven’t read it,” says Iero. “I think I’d be creeped out reading something that I’m a character in and it’d probably creep out the kids who wrote it because they don’t want me to read it. It’s for other fans.

“It’s good that kids are being creative and exploring their creativity,” continues Toro. “Just stop making us have sex with each other in your fan fiction.”

And stop playing stick-up with the band. On two occasions, things got pretty hairy for Way when he encountered some overzealous folks while the band was on tour.

“One time, a guy told me that if I didn’t give him all my money that he was going to shoot everyone in this pizzeria,” recounts Way, of what was becoming a recurrence of hostile reactions. “In which case, I grabbed my friend and ran out of the place. Another time, I was on my cellphone next to the venue, and some kid put a gun to my throat and was like, ‘Gimme all your money.’ I was like: ‘Dude, I don’t have any money.’ So, he just punched me in my throat.”

“The weird thing about that,” quips Iero in one of the band’s most literal moments, “is that both times you were wearing that T-shirt that said: ‘Please hold me up at gunpoint.’”

It might be best to heed that warning label.

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