Frank Iero Contemplates The Inevitability Of Death After A Recent Close Call

"Alright, so... Death is inevitable, right? We're never gonna escape that. We're never gonna put off that eventual impact into the ground. But if life is a lot like being pushed out of a plane, like you didn't ask to be here but we're all on this trajectory to an eventual end... We're all falling at an incredible rate and for some of us, it's all over faster than the others. 

"But the lucky ones, we meet these people along the way that bring us joy, that show us what love is, they bring us purpose. These parachutes— we're all gonna hit the ground, but some of us get to hover and enjoy the fall. That's the idea of Parachutes."

It's a sobering answer to transcribe, particularly given FRANK IERO and the PATIENCE found themselves in a horrific bus crash a mere two hours after our chat in their Sydney hotel. Though Iero, the band and his crew are not in life-threatening conditions, the band's management and label remain tight-lipped about the situation, with no official statements until last Friday when Iero released a heartfelt note on his website.

The band are in town promoting Iero's newest incarnation of his solo project - previously called Frnkiero andthe Cellabration., Iero cheerily explains why the outfit have undergone the facelift.

"See, [the Cellabration.] wasn't spelled wrong, it was spelled correct!" he giggles. Iero is a generous giggler, letting it shake his entire body between sips of his tea. "All of it was spelled correctly, for me! It's all in the eye of the beholder, really, what is anything? What are words? I changed the name because I felt like... every time you go into the studio to make a new record, you need to reinvent yourself and everything and [he slurs this like it's one big word] to-reinvent-yourself-and-the-band's-gonna-sound-different-then-you-need-to-call-yourself-something-different. That just makes sense."

Describing the Cellabration. as the need for a distraction from his newfound frontman duties — "the idea that you have to get up on stage and talk to people and engage them and have people look at you and talk to you about shit? NEVER ever crossed my mind as something fun to do" — Iero purports that the PATIENCE is an encapsulation of "the ability to take that step back, take a breath and enjoy the now".

"Here's the thing — I come from a long line of people where if you compliment yourself, you're an asshole, so..."

"I have three kids now, so at this point patience is a fuckin' virtue," he laughs. "You need to be patient and understand that other people think differently than you... there's so many pitfalls in life of misunderstandings; if you really just took the time to get to know each other and understand, we'd probably be in a better situation," he finishes democratically.

Iero is a chatterbox. He's always got a smile on his face, makes gracious references to the last time he and I met and absentmindedly picks at his ripped knees, tattoos poking out through the holes in his jeans. He's so humble that he finds it difficult to admit that he's damn good at being a frontman, even though it's way out of his comfort zone.

"Here's the thing — I come from a long line of people where if you compliment yourself, you're an asshole, so..." Iero chuckles. "It's very east coast. You can't ever say you're good at something — only jerk-offs say that… but I've realised I can do this, I can write songs, I can sing the songs that I write and be in the centre of that stage and get attention and be okay with it."

You can tell Iero idolises legendary metal/punk producer Ross Robinson (Slipknot, At The Drive-In, The Cure), having worked with him on Parachutes. Describing the experience as "heartbreaking yet uplifting, depleting yet inspiring", Iero explains that "the folklore and the legend of Ross Robinson, what I thought to be this imposing, aggressive figure, was at times too much to bear".

"This time around I wrote these songs and I knew they demanded to be pushed. Going into that — I was like, 'oh man, I'm gonna get destroyed on this,' and I did, but in a completely different way than I thought," he says animatedly.

"This goes back to the boasting thing — the east coast thing is, in order to get better, you have to hate yourself. You beat yourself down, you tell yourself you don't deserve the things you have or to get to the next level and even if you try harder you won't get there, and you feel that bolster you, like, 'no, fuck you! I CAN get there!' That's been every experience I've had in studio... but Ross is the exact opposite of that. He threw shit at me, but not in an aggressive 'I hate you' way, it was always in a positive way. Ross never broke any of us down. He said, 'Listen, you are amazing. You deserve this. You are the best you that you can be and if you don't believe it, I believe it and I can show you why.' The idea of not breaking you down to build you up is so simple, but such a huge realisation for me." As Iero speaks, it's like he's hit the realisation all over again.

"[Ross] does this thing called mental surgery — that's what he calls it. You're in the room with your band and you're all playing the song and he stops you and he's like, 'okay, what is this song about?'" For the next few minutes, Iero begins to describe a hypothetical song about a car given to him by his father, and the ensuing conversation Robinson would have had with Iero about it. 

"You go deeper and deeper and deeper and then you start to find out, this song isn't really about a car. It's about my relationship with my father and why now I feel certain ways about that car... or being given these certain gifts of freedom," he ponders, allowing himself a chuckle for fabricating a totally believable hypothetical song. 

"You start to realise and find out things about yourself as an artist and the songs you're writing that you didn't know at first, and why you feel ways about things that you didn't fully understand. Getting to the core of these emotions of these songs that you're writing, it… it… it's SO depleting. It's so exhausting, to the point where you're bawling and crying about these things that happened or you wish happened as a kid, and you're doing this in a room with ALL your friends. Now everyone knows what these songs are about and then he goes, 'alright, so, how do YOU feel about this? Has this ever happened to you?'"

Iero's storytelling is so vivid, it's easy to feel as shaken as the musicians in that studio with Robinson. "You're now playing the song thinking about how this song relates to you and your life... Now you're all on the same wavelength. Now that I've done it with Ross, I don't know why you'd do [it] any other way."