Frank Iero

Name:	Frank Anthony Iero Jr
Also Known As:	Frankie
Occupation:	Musician (rhythm guitarist of My Chemical Romance, lead singer of Leathermouth)
Medium:	Music
Works:	My Chemical Romance Discography Leathermouth Discography
Official Website(s):	Official Site Twitter page My Chemical Romance Official Site Leathermouth Official Site
Fan Website(s):
On Fanlore:	Related pages

flower crown!Frank manip by releasethedoves (2013)

demon edit of Frank by ghostalienpunkers (2014)

Frank Iero is best known as the rhythm guitarist of American alternative rock band My Chemical Romance, one of the bands that constitute the Bandom canon. He fronted post-hardcore punk band Leathermouth (often written as LeATHERMØUTH), providing lyrics and lead vocals, as a side project. His first post-MCR project was frnkiero and the cellabration (Stomachaches album released August 25, 2014); he renamed his band Frank Iero and the Patience for the second album (Parachutes, 2016). He has also released an album with James Dewees as Death Spells.

Bio

Born on October 31, 1981 in New Jersey, Frank is well known for his love of his home state, and even has a tattoo of the initials "NJ" on the inside of his lower lip. He frequently suffered from bronchitis as a child, and his generally poor immune system has often prevented him from playing shows. He is also lactose intolerant and allergic to many foods.

His parents divorced when he was a child, and he was brought up by his mother, although he still had contact with his father. Both Frank's father and grandfather were musicians, and were big influences on him. His father encouraged him to play drums, but Frank instead chose to take up the guitar.

He was involved in many different punk bands from the age of 11 onwards. His first major band was Pencey Prep, who were signed to Eyeball Records and released one album, Heartbreak In Stereo, before disbanding. Frank attended Rutgers University on a scholarship, majoring in Psychology, but dropped out to join My Chemical Romance. He has said in interviews that MCR were one of his favourite bands, and being asked to join them was a huge honour for him.

He married his long-time girlfriend Jamia Nestor in 2007, with whom he co-founded the independent record label Skeleton Crew. Architects, sometimes considered another member of Bandom, were first signed to this label.

Frank and Jamia have three children.

See Wikipedia page for more detail.

Tattoos and other trademarks

Frank Iero has many tattoos including logos for the bands Black Flag and The Misfits, symbols of his love for his home state, New Jersey, a pumpkin relating to his Halloween birthday, a matching 'revenge' tattoo with James Dewees and others by acclaimed tattoo artist Kat Von D: a Frankenstein's monster and portraits of his grandmothers and grandfather, all of which were featured in Von D's book High Voltage Tattoo and the latter of which was done on an episode of her reality show LA Ink in which Iero featured. In the aforementioned book, Von D states that she was present at Iero's wedding indicating that the two have remained close friends.

During the Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge era, he was known for wearing fingerless gloves decorated with skeleton hands and makeup with black crosses over his eyes. He often played a white Gibson Les Paul guitar named Pansy. He's also collaborated with Epiphone to produce the Wilshire Phant-O-Matic, his own custom guitar.

In fanart

• Flick of the Switch by Durfindel on deviantart. Traditional/digital color art showing Frank with black crosses over his eyes, a white guitar, and his Our Lady of Sorrows arm tattoo. (September 11, 2005)
• Scream by ihni on deviantart. Frank with a white guitar; acrylic paint, ink and pens on canvas. (August 12, 2007)
• Sunsets are for Muggers by delilah88 on deviantart. Digital painting of RevengeEra!Frank. (March 2, 2009)
• Frank and Pansy by MCRpixieStixx on Deviantar. Also on tumblr. Photorealistic pencil drawing that shows the skeleton fingerless gloves, the scorpion tattoo, and the white guitar. (August 20, 2012)

Ships

As of Sept 12, 2014, there are 4891 works tagged 'Frank Iero' on AO3.

Popular Ships

The most popular AO3 ship tags involving Frank are (non-exclusive numbers as of Sept 12, 2014):

• Frank/Gerard with MCR frontman Gerard Way, by far the most common Frank ship with 3689 occurrences.
• Frank/Mikey with MCR bassist Mikey Way: 354 occurrences.

Minor Ships

Other AO3 ship tags involving Gerard (non-exclusive numbers as of Sept 12, 2014):

• Canon het pairing with wife Jamia Nestor (Frank/Jamia): 208 occurrences.
• Frank/Bob with former MCR drummer Bob Bryar: 127 occurrences.
• Frank/Grant(/Gerard) with comic writer and Danger Days verse villain Grant Morrisson: 40+ occurrences.
• Various other OT3 and OT4 ships such as Frank/Gerard+wives, Frank/Gerard/Mikey as well as MCR GSF.

Depiction in Fanon

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Hurt!Frank

Digital fanart by Hootsweets of a sick Frank and concerned Gerard

Frank is often involved in hurt/comfort stories due to his under-performing immune system and numerous canon injuries. Presumably the most common Frank trope, either as the focus of the story, or as a plot detail. For example:

• yobrothatssick, a 2011 Livejournal-based challenge dedicated entirely to sick!Frank stories.
• Unholyverse by Bexless features Frank getting hurt in many, many ways, to the point where getting health insurance is a major high of the end of the series:

"Dude," Frank said reverently. "Health insurance?"

"I know!" Brian said gleefully, and Frank grabbed him and hugged the shit out of him, ignoring it when Brian said something unimportant about not being able to breathe.

"I love you," Frank said fervently. "I love you so fucking much."

Brian laughed and patted Frank's shoulders, before pushing him back and saying sternly, "Don't take this as an invitation to get sick, though, okay?"

Hyperactive!Frank

Frank is often characterized as excitable, hyperactive and overly friendly, with little regard to personal space.

Asshole!Frank

Related to the previous, Frank is sometimes depicted as a (more or less lovable) asshole. For example:

• 'Assholes in love' Frank/Jamia verse by brooklinegirl: Turn It Up and follow-up ficlets.
• The Good Life by sinsense: asshole!Frank/Brian Schechter.
• ASSHOLE EYES: THE STORY OF FRANK IERO'S STONEY GAZE picspam by desfinado, with captions such as:

Frank takes advantage of any opportunity to dress in a costume that shows how little he cares about you
Even being interviewed, Frank has no problem looking unimpressed
Other times, Frank uses cancer sticks and asshole!eyes to show he's not only bored with you, but GRUMPY ABOUT IT
IS IT TIME TO GO HOME YET

ProRev!Frank

There were so many occurrences of sweaty Frank rubbing himself all over his bandmates during the 2007 Projekt Revolution tour that it gave birth to a slew of sex pollen and heat fics. For example:

• Pinch Hitter, written by bexless, podfic by greedy_dancer: a crossover with Adam Lambert.
• ain't nothing but mammals, a Frank/Gerard pwp by mwestbelle.
• Irresistible Force/Immovable Object by 7iris:

Everyone on the tour jokes about it: oh, Frank's in heat. He laughs along, and then drags Jamia into the back after shows. Then Jamia has to go back to Jersey for a family emergency, and it's not quite so funny anymore. Playing makes it worse. On stage the third night, Frank bites Gerard, licks Mikey, rubs up against Ray, and climbs on Bob's kit twice, despite the riser.

See also Run by mrsronweasley, a werewolf au.

Clean!Frank

He is occasionally described as being very neat and hygiene-conscious, especially in contrast to the Way brothers. In 2009 someone asked bandrandom_ref if this trope was pure fanon; it appears to be extrapolation based on a few suggestive comments during interviews and Life on the Murder Scene.

Dog-lover!Frank

He is often depicted as an animal lover, who wants or owns many dogs. (Either started or encouraged by Bob Bryar's October 2008 myspace update: "frank has 19 dogs now.") For example:

• Frank has 19 dogs fanart by theopteryx on livejournal (2 November 2008)
• The Jamia, get the checkbook! meme, which originally involved Frank begging his wife for more dogs before becoming a catchphrase for cute dogs in general.
• black and white drawing of Frank with his dog by MiaGB on deviantart (February 3, 2015)
• Puppies! by Lizlemay (August 26, 2015)
• untitled art by happy_humbug76 on Instagram (May 29, 2018)

Frank Lero

Due to the resemblance of upper case "i" and lowercase "l", Frank's surname is often misspelled "Lero". This became an in-joke within the band (Frank is credited as Lero at the end of the official "I'm Not Okay" video, Frank's twitter handle - set up by Gerard - was misspelled for a long time)^{[citation needed]}. The fandom ran with it, with Frank Lero popping up in meta and fanworks as Frank's (evil) twin or doppelganger.

• The One Where Frank Has an Evil Twin (and is a Secret Virgin Who Probably Should Have Taken Up Knitting) by theopteryx (23 February 2011), podfic by xojemmaxo. Author's notes excerpt:

  This started because of two things - brooklinegirl and mrsronweasley had a bit of a rough day, and T linked to an article where another reporter named Frank as Frank Lero and I said BOY I’D REALLY LIKE A STORY ABOUT THIS.

Example Fanworks

Picspam

• picspam by shrift (Apr. 17th, 2007)
• Picspam: Frank's guitars by sassbandit on dreamwidth (2011)
• picspam of Frank playing guitar by erraticonstilts on livejournal (2009)

Meta

• Frank Iero's Tattoos: A Catalog, part 1 and part 2 by spritesam (2008)
• F.T. WillZ: a Masterpost by totheend (2020)

Fannish Resources

• frnkart tumblr (created 2015)
• Frank Iero tag at Archive of Our Own