The Black Parade at 20: The Guitars Behind the Theater

Rhino marks October 23 as the anniversary of The Black Parade, released in 2006. Twenty years later, My Chemical Romance’s third album deserves another look with the costumes pushed into the background and the guitars brought forward.

We are following the label’s anniversary date here, not claiming a single release date for every territory.

The familiar guitar, not the mythical secret weapon

In a 2007 Seymour Duncan interview, Ray Toro said his main recording guitar was a Gibson Les Paul fitted with Phat Cat pickups. When his live Marshall DSL100 failed during preproduction, producer Rob Cavallo lent him a 100-watt JCM800-series head. Toro said that amp became part of the main recording setup.

Keep the qualification: he identified the JCM800 series, not an exact model number. Turning that recollection into a fully specified rig would add information the interview does not supply.

Two players, more than one job

Toro also explained that his partnership with Frank Iero was less simple than a fixed lead-versus-rhythm split. He associated his own contribution with solos and harmonized parts, while describing Iero’s melodic lines in relation to Gerard Way’s vocals.

The album’s scale fits its subject. Rhino describes a rock opera centered on the Patient and credits Cavallo and the band as co-producers. But the guitar story gives the anniversary a more useful question than whether the record was sufficiently theatrical: how did the players make distinct parts serve one arrangement?

Play a favorite track with that question in mind. Which guitar moment still makes you stop what you are doing?

Want more context on Marshall’s amplifier family? Read our JCM800 2203 guide, while keeping Toro’s unspecified JCM800-series head separate from a confirmed 2203 identification.