Gerard Way says one of his newly-released solo tracks was intended for a band that he wanted to call Baby Animal Hospital.
Following the surprise release of four solo songs over the weekend, Gerard Way has provided a whole bunch of background information on the newly-heard tracks – including the fact that one of them was intended for a post-My Chemical Romance band that never materialised.
Before he went all Britpop on us for his excellent 2014 debut solo album Hesitant Alien, Gerard reveals that he planned to "start a band and just sing and play guitar" after My Chem parted ways in 2013.
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"The name of the band was going to be Baby Animal Hospital (the record label hated the name, especially since it included both the words ‘baby’ and ‘hospital’ in the same phrase), and I did a bunch of rough graphic design for it, but in the end, it really felt like a solo thing, so that’s what it became," Gerard explains.
Going on to record Success! for this project, he remembers: "But when it was Baby Animal Hospital (I wanted something that sounded warm and fuzzy and loud, like the tones) I recorded this track with Doug for the opening of the record. The lyrics/sounds are just the word BAH over and over again, which where the first letters of each word of the band name, but that wasn’t intentional, I just liked the sound. And this was us really messing with auto-tune to try and make it sound like an instrument. It was supposed to be this track as track one and go right into Action Cat. Later on, I figured I would just make a zine with the name Baby Animal Hospital, but I didn’t get very far with it. Still like the name, and may do something with it in the future. Maybe one day I’ll share all the graphic design I did for it when it was a band, a lot of which was cut and paste by hand."
It is a pretty ace name, tbf. Check out the song below:
In addition to Success!, Gerard also unveiled the songs Welcome To The Hotel, Crate Amp_2 and Phoning It In (2) VOC. Announcing the release of this material, the musician said he was using "this uncertainty" in the world right now “to start uploading some unreleased stuff. Just so people can check it out and have something to listen to.”
“Just felt like sharing,” he continued. “I think I have a bunch of this stuff, as Doug and I have been recording little bits here and there over the years. Some of these, like Phoning It In, were things that I planned on releasing as singles, and I may still do that at some point when I finish them, but I figured why not. It feels good to share. Who knows if some of this stuff would have ever come out?”
