Welcome to ‘Distraction Or Despair’.
Gerard Way has put four previously unreleased songs on his Soundcloud.
Made up of both bits and pieces of musical ideas (‘Crate Amp_2’, ‘Success!’, ‘Welcome To The Hotel’) and more rounded songs (‘Phoning It In’), the four tracks perhaps were never supposed to see the light of day, but it appears that current cicrumstance has inspired Gerard to share. In his words “I’m just winging it, keeping it casual.”
In a post on Instagram Gerard explained more in detail his reasoning for dropping the tracks now:
“Hey all, with all this uncertainty I just wanted to start uploading some unreleased stuff. Just so people can check it out and have something to listen to. Just felt like sharing. 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?
Oh yeah, the music is on my soundcloud, which I haven’t really used in ages. The link is in my linktree, along with a link to the Covid-19 Response Fund.
In case you are wondering, this is a picture of my vocal cords, from when I went to see the ear/nose/throat doc before embarking on this my chem journey, to make sure everything was in order. He said, “It’s a little red, but looking good”. I’m calling all of this stuff Distraction Or Despair, since that seems to be the two things I keep shifting between. Probably a lot of other people too. But I think only some of the tracks are tied to an “album” of that name. I’m just winging it, keeping it casual. May add some notes to the tracks.
Hope everyone is safe and healthy. Rock on.”
A post shared by Gerard Way (@gerardway) on
Yeah, those are really his vocal chords.
Anyway, here’s the Soundcloud ready and waiting for you to indulge in these new tracks:
It’s the first “new” solo music we have heard from Gerard since his covers of ‘Happy Together’ and ‘Hazy Shade Of Winter’ which appeared on the soundtrack for the Netflix adaptation of his comic book Umbrella Academy, and both also feature Ray Toro.
You can also listen to those on that Soundcloud link above.