Bob Bryar, the longtime My Chemical Romance drummer who played on The Black Parade and Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, has died, the band confirmed on Instagram. “It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to Bob Bryar, our former bandmate and an important part of the history of My Chemical Romance,” their post reads. “We send our deepest condolences to his friends and family at this time. May he rest in peace.” He was 44.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 30, 1979, Bryar fell in love with the drums after being gifted a toy drum set as a child. He soon upgraded to a real kit, joined his high school’s marching and jazz bands, and started playing shows in clubs around the city. After studying sound engineering at the University of Florida, he landed the in-house job at Chicago’s House of Blues. He soon transitioned to sound engineer roles for other bands on the road like Thrice and the Used, during which he met My Chemical Romance in person for the first time.
While My Chemical Romance were touring behind their sophomore album, 2004’s Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, they parted ways with their original drummer, Matt Pelissier, and reached out to Bryar to see if he would be interested in taking his place – all without ever having heard Bryar play before, according to Billboard. At the time, Bryar would “constantly get bummed out” that he was mixing bands side stage instead of playing as a full-time drummer, so he jumped at the opportunity.
Though Bryar appears in most of the music videos for Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge’s singles and performs on its ensuing live LPs, Life on the Murder Scene and ¡Venganza!, he didn’t get his first formal co-writing credits until The Black Parade. My Chemical Romance’s massive 2006 concept album was a breakthrough success and their best-selling record to date, climbing to No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and becoming certified 4x platinum. Bryar’s drumming style is an essential part of that album’s melodramatic sound, from the marching band drumrolls in “Welcome to the Black Parade” to the jaunty, hard-hitting fills in “Dead!” and beyond.
Bryar performed on multiple legs of the band’s world tour supporting The Black Parade, but ultimately suffered painful injuries on his hands and legs from shooting the “Famous Last Words” music video—stemming from third-degree burns, which singer Gerard Way also got—and later developed a lump in his wrist that damaged his sense of feeling in his fingers.
In 2009, My Chemical Romance entered the recording studio to track songs that would become their fourth album, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. While Bryar co-wrote all of the songs on The Black Parade, he only received credits for half of the new LP’s tracklist, including the singles “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)” and “The Only Hope for Me Is You.” But before the album came out in 2010, Bryar officially left My Chemical Romance, with the band calling it “a painful decision for all of us to make and was not taken lightly.” He largely stayed out of the spotlight since then.
In 2012 and 2013, Bryar played on ten previously unreleased My Chemical Romance songs that would appear on the compilation album Conventional Weapons, all of which were recorded prior to his departure. Next year, My Chemical Romance will perform a stadium tour celebrating The Black Parade; Bryar was not slated to rejoin, having officially retired from drumming in 2021.
