Sing-alongs, stretching and… scrubbing?! Life on the road with Frank Iero

New Jersey punk hero Frank Iero started performing with bands in his local scene when he was just 11 years old. Over three decades later he’s still going strong with L.S. Dunes and My Chemical Romance, and so, of course, he’s got some brilliantly funny (and occasionally weird) dos and don’ts from his many years on the road.

Here, the guitarist gives us a brutally honest look back at a lifetime of playing shows.

“A back scrubber. On a handle. You need something to wash that tour crud off your body, man. When I finally do get to shower on tour, I want to make sure I’m scrubbing off all of the dead skin, spit and sweat that you pick up along the way. It’s not like a loofah, it’s more like a fucking brush on a handle. I bought it on Amazon and if you want a link I can probably share it, but please don’t buy them all because I need them.”

“When I had gotten my wisdom teeth taken out and I was assured that I would be able to go back on tour in the timeframe I had. We were flying to Japan, and halfway through the flight my tooth was so impacted that it broke the barrier between the sinus and the mouth, so it got infected and exploded in my head. I don’t want to get gross with you, but it smelled like turkey, dude. I thought I was going to die. When we got to Japan, I started to bleed from my nose and from my mouth, so I had to go to hospital, and I couldn’t really communicate what was happening. They put me on a plane and sent me right back to America where I got grounded for a month until my face healed.”

“In my early days I played outside of a hot dog stand, and one time I played on the back of a flatbed truck as it was moving down the street. But the winner is probably when I played in Russia with The Patience and we had a gig in this place that was split over three levels. [The] ground level was a sandwich shop, second level was a strip club, where we played, and the third level was a daycare where the people that worked at the strip club would bring their kids. Oh, and there was no PA. The guy who owned the PA just never showed up. Luckily, our amazing sound guy figured out a way to make the monitor system a PA at the same time, so we were able to play.”

“Stretching is key. Especially at my ripe old age of 42. Honestly, I’m just at the point now where I need to stay slightly unhealthier than my wife. I don’t ever want to outlast her, you know what I mean? If she goes before me, I’m fucked.”

“CBGBs, hands down. That shit was urgh. Even having to pee there, you were scared that you were going to catch something. At the end of that long, piss-filled hallway there was that toilet on a pedestal and fuck, dude, that was rough. God forbid ever having to do anything more than piss in there. It was always the smart choice to go to the gallery across the street instead. None of the DIY clubs are The Ritz-Carlton, but CBGBs was something else.”

“I’m biased, because I’m a Jersey guy, but in New Jersey we have a Jon Bon Jovi service station. It’s literally just named after him and there’s an image on the wall that’s like this hologram that winks at you, but it’s pretty awesome. In the UK, the best service station is that one in a hundred where you get a Nando’s.”

“Here’s the thing: when you’re playing these big, iconic venues, it’s usually just pipe and drape. It’s awesome and somebody puts a lot of work in to make it beautiful [for you], but they all end up looking the same. It’s essentially just a locker room. I’ve also done the thing where I’ve played [Glasgow] King Tut’s and a biker gang is cooking you soup. That just feels more homely and nice to me, like you’ve made it to this great little Hobbit hole, and you’re welcomed in like family.”

“A crowd singing along, by far. I remember the first time a crowd ever moshed, that was amazing, but to really move people to sing the words, that’s the best feeling in the world. When My Chemical Romance played the Roundhouse in London [in 2011] it felt like one of the greatest shows of my life, and I feel blessed that it was taped. All three of the Milton Keynes shows we did two years ago had those moments, too. When we play Famous Last Words – my unpopular opinion is that is not my favourite song to play – it’s always one of my favourite moments in the set, when the kids sing along.”

“In My Chem, we had done this crazy flight, there was this press conference and we were joking around when I said something like, ‘Well, at least I’m not a communist!’ That would be easy to brush off, but this was in Hong Kong. It was flippant and ridiculous, but I said it in the worst possible place.”

This article originally appeared in the summer print issue of the magazine.

Read this next:

• L.S. Dunes: “These experiences are a once-in-a-lifetime thing… Every second is brand new”
• The story of My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade: “When it was done, I knew that we’d created a monster”
• Frank Iero: “I’m still surprised and excited by everything that goes along with this life”