Album was learning experience for Chemical Romance

When the band members of My Chemical Romance were preparing songs for their latest album, they didn't know what to expect.

"We had written songs while we were on tour," Frank Iero said by phone from Los Angeles. "But when we got home, we looked at them and threw most of them away. Then we went back to some and realized that we had some good ones and decided to work on them to make them better."

Once in the studio, the band — composed of guitarist Iero, vocalist Gerald Way; Way's younger brother, bassist Mikey Way; lead guitarist Raymond Manuel Toro; and drummer Bob Bryar — felt comfortable with the collection of songs.

"We had no idea what an impact the album would be," said Iero. "I mean, if we thought about each album and the potential impact, then we'd probably drive ourselves crazy. But we liked what we had, and we finished recording the album.

"But once we were done, we listened to the album in sequence and realized one of the songs wasn't up to par. I mean we knew this was going to be a concept album and we needed to introduce the character of Death. And the song we had finished wasn't giving us the feel we wanted. So we redid everything."

It was a tough decision to make, Iero said, adding, "I'm glad we did, because if we would have just left the song the way it was, then the album wouldn't have been what it became."

The album, titled "Welcome to the Black Parade," officially burst on the scene when it was released on Halloween last year. (It was leaked onto the Internet 11 days earlier.)

While critics were split between liking it and hating it, fans helped the album debut at No. 2 on Billboard's Top 200 album charts and it has since sold more than 500,000 copies, making it a certified gold album. "We were lucky to have worked with Rob (Cavallo) as our producer on the album. He cares about music. We've met a lot of producers and some of them approach the music from a business point of view. They help bands create a couple of great songs, and then complete the album with low-grade filler.

"Bob, on the other hand, cares about music as an art form. When we were getting 'Black Parade' ready, he was looking and listening to the music as one thing. And he had all these different ideas about what sounds we could do to enhance the track list."