99Rock Music News: Gerard Way Records New Song for Kevin Smith Horror Film ‘Tusk’
Photo Courtesy – Isaac Brekken/Getty Images
By Jay Tilles
Former My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way took to Twitter Tuesday (April 8) to announce he’d returned to “the grid” to record a song fordirector Kevin Smith’s latest horror film, Tusk. Set to hit theaters this fall, the film stars include Michael Parks, Justin Long, Haley Joel Osment and Ralph Garman, not only an actor, but one of our own DJs.
Tusk is based on an online ad Smith found for a retired Canadian man seeking a roommate. Although the man offers up the room for free, there is a string attached: the new roommate must wear a lifelike walrus costume and act the part. When the homeowner’s obsession takes over, the new roommate finds he’s been surgically transformed into a human walrus.
“It’s an old English folk song written in the 1600s entitled ‘Oh, Waly, Waly’ and sometimes called ‘TheWater is Wide,’” Kevin Smith told Radio.com. “At one point in Tusk, the Michael Parks character sings a few verses, so I thought it might be nice to end the film with the song itself. Gerard turned the piece into this achingly beautiful, haunting declaration of undying, hopeless love.”
He added, “If you’ve ever been in that kind of love, this song will crush you. It’s such a heartbreaker, you can’t help but well up with tears. You could play this track at a wedding or at a funeral and it would be equally appropriate in both places. I love it."
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According to Smith, the song “starts over the end of the film and takes us into the credits. The song’s so beautiful that, even if you’re hated the whole movie, you’ll sit through the credits to hear the rest of the song.”
Choosing the My Chem frontman was a no brainer for Smith. “I’ve always been in love with Welcome to the Black Parade and my daughter is a massive My Chem fan who learned to play the bass guitar because she wanted to be Mikey Way,” he said.
Just over a year ago Smith invited Gerard and Mikey to be guests on 2 episodes of his weekly SModcast, “My Chemical Bromance” and “2 Way Street.”
“After the shows the we kept in touch by email ,” explained Smith. “But because I hadn’t made a movie since Red State, there was really no reason to ask him to record a song for me without sounding like Kathy Bates in Misery. And then, out of nowhere, I made this weird movie Tusk,” he explained. “So I reached out to Gerard and asked if he wanted to do the closing track. The man came over, watched the flick, and went to work. He’s such a tremendous guy with talent to burn. Plus? He’s from New Jersey. Naturally, that’s always a plus in my book.”
Smith tweeted today, “Holy s***! The cherry on top of the TUSK sundae? @GerardWay just recorded the most achingly beautiful closing song for the flick! #WalrusYes.”
Way followed suit with a celebratory tweet of his own.
Except for an occasional mention of My Chemical Romance’s greatest hits album which was released last month, Way has kept mentions of his former band to a minimum.
In a series of tweets he announced he’d no longer be addressing fan correspondence aimed at My Chemical Romance.
