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Ray Toro

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Ray Toro

Raymond Manuel Toro-Ortiz, most commonly known as Ray Toro (born on July 15, 1977 in Kearny, New Jersey) is the lead guitarist and one of two backup vocalists for My Chemical Romance. He is recognized in the band by his signature fro, and is most commonly nicknamed "Torosaurus".

Biography

Childhood

Growing up, Toro's father worked at the post office in the shipping department, and the family lived on a "dead end" street where he grew up in a Puerto Rican and Portuguese household. "There was definitely a funny collection of people hanging around my block," the guitarist told the magazine Alternative Press. "There was this guy who was this drug addict. Every couple of weeks he would OD and pass out outside my house. I would see the ambulance come and take him away." In the My Chemical Romance DVD Life on the Murder Scene, he explains how he wasn't allowed to go and play because they were finding bodies in the local parks, and in West Hudson Park river which was right around the corner from his house. Toro says that due to incidents like this, his parents didn't want to let him out of the house onto the streets by himself. Contrary to popular belief, he did not attend high school with any of his bandmates, but instead attended Kearny High School.

Music

Ray's older brother was the main influence in Ray's taking up the guitar. He bought Ray his first guitar and introduced Ray to the likes of Queen, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Toro started playing guitar during his sophomore year. It wasn't until a few years after graduating high school that he met Gerard Way and Mikey Way through a mutual friend from Gerard's art school. The three remained "loose friends" until September 11th when Gerard Way saw the bodies fall from the World Trade Center, and decided he wanted to do something with his life, to help people. He called up Matt Pelissier and together they started My Chemical Romance along with Mikey Way and Ray Toro. Gerard stated on Life On The Murder Scene that this was sort of a final "ditch effort". Toro is a major contributor to all the My Chemical Romance instrumentals, as well as writing the majority of their music, and he often helps rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist Frank Iero to write his guitar music. Toro often harmonises his guitar solos, as heard on "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)". He has also been credited by Mikey Way as a "metalhead" due to his love of Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne. Unlike his bandmates, Toro is not a big fan of punk rock (although My Chemical Romance recently did a cover of the Misfits song "Astro Zombies Toro cites Randy Rhoads, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Slash, Jimi Hendrix, Kirk Hammett and Jimmy Page as his guitar influences and has been quoted as saying, "I'm into classic rock and metal. All of my style is patterned after these guys." He also had a large role in the music video for My Chemical Romance's first single from Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)".

Toro's guitar usually uses the left speaker in The Black Parade.

Guitar playing style

A lot of Ray's intricate musical stylings have come from the influences of the great guitar masters, Randy Rhoads and Brian May. Toro's guitar playing style has been heavily influenced by heavy metal of the 80's such as Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth. This can be heard in many of the rhythmic parts he plays with Frank Iero. Frank mentioned in the DVD Life on the Murder Scene that Ray grew up learning Metallica albums. He also said that their two styles of guitar playing are two that shouldn't work together but do. A lot of his solos are based on hard rock and blues metal from the 70's, but have a very pop sound influenced by Johnny Marr, as mentioned on the Life on the Murder Scene DVD. He uses mostly power chords and makes it flow with the general ambiance of the music the band creates. On the latest album The Black Parade, distinct Brian May influences can be heard in his playing, most noticeably in his solos. He has been asked by the band Alkaline Trio to play on a song with them.

Ray is a huge fan of 1975 - to present heavy metal band Iron Maiden.

Equipment

Previously, Ray played an Epiphone Elitist Les Paul Standard which has a mahogany body, maple top, and a rosewood fingerboard and a Gibson X-plorer. His current stage guitars include a '91 & a '93 Gibson Les Paul Standard, and a Gibson Les Paul Junior. On stage, he uses a Marshall JCM 2000s® DSL100 with two 1960A cabinets. He doesn't use many pedals in his stage work, but he has a Jim Dunlop Crybaby wah, a Boss EQ pedal, a Boss Pitch Shifter (to do harmonies), Boss Chorus Ensemble, and Electro-Harmonix POG Polyphonic Octave Generator, which can be set up to play one octave below, an octave above, or two octaves above.

References

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