Ladies and gentlemen, ready your eyeliner: New Jersey-based angst-rockers My Chemical Romance are coming to the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester tonight. Fresh off a tour through Europe, Australia and New Zealand, MCR bassist Mikey Way took a few minutes to talk about The Black Parade, the goth-rock album that has taken malls and the MySpace community by storm. Call MCR theatrical, call them over the top - but please, Way said, just don't call them emo.

Concord Monitor: You're calling me in New Hampshire. We're going to be your first stop in the States after your European tour. Have you been to New Hampshire before?

Mikey Way: I don't think we've played there before. Yeah, it's our first stop in our headlining tour, so it's the first time we'll see all the production and everything. I'm pretty excited.

Where are you calling from now?

Australia.

What do goth kids in Australia look like?

You know what? Actually, they look just like the kids from the U.S. They're pretty identical.

Let's get right to the important stuff. How do you guys clean your marching band uniforms while you're on the road?

We dry-clean them every day, which sort of sketches me out, because I keep being afraid someone's going to steal them.

You don't have duplicates?

Well, we're getting some made, but they're not ready yet. So that's why I'm worried.

I read an interview recently in which your brother (lead singer Gerard Way) claimed that no matter how much you guys sweat in them, the outfits never start to reek. I'm sorry, but I have to call him out on that. I just don't believe him.

We catch 'em quick enough. We dry-clean them the next day, you know, so they never really have a chance to start to reek. But I can only speak for myself.

Have you been surprised by the success of The Black Parade?

Yeah! I was surprised at how fast it happened. I knew that people would connect to it, but I didn't think it would happen right off the bat. It's been unbelievable.

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