Gerard Way Loved This 'Umbrella Academy' Scene So Much, He Wrote A Song About It

You probably know Gerard Way best from his days as My Chemical Romance's frontman. Since the band's split in 2013, the musician has been focused on his comic series, The Umbrella Academy, for which a TV adaptation hits Netflix Feb. 15. He also released his debut solo album, Hesitant Alien, 2014 and a handful of other songs. And though Way didn't write new music for The Umbrella Academy's soundtrack, he did contribute covers of Simon and Garfunkel's "Hazy Shade Of Winter" and The Turtles' "Happy Together," both featuring fellow MCR alum Ray Toro.

Plus, the show has a pretty incredible original score composed by Jeff Russo, who has written music for shows including Fargo, Star Trek: Discovery, and Power. When Syfy debuted The Umbrella Academy's title track earlier this month, Russo told the outlet that,"With such an eclectic group of characters, writing themes was super fun." and that "many different personalities got many different musical motifs and feelings."

Aside from Russo's score and Way and Toro's tracks (which are kind of, sort of a mini-MCR reunion), the Umbrella Academy soundtrack includes songs from Three Dog Night, Bay City Rollers, They Might Be Giants, Radiohead, Queen, the Doors, and Nina Simone. It's a wide range of musical styles and eras very befitting of the aesthetics of both the Netflix series and the comic that inspired it.

And Way has already teased the possibility of him writing more music for The Umbrella Academy in the futur. "There were very early conversations about me potentially scoring," he recently told Billboard, "but there was no way given my schedule that would work. But I'm sure down the line I’ll be covering more songs for the show."

Way also said that shooting the series has already started to inspire new, original music that could appear in later seasons. He continued to Billboard:

"When I was on set the very first day and we were watching the very first shot which was a scene between Ellen [Page, who plays Vanya] and Aidan [Gallagher, who plays Number Five], it's the very last shot of the pilot and they're talking about the end of the world and it's supposed to cut to black. And a song popped into my head for that, and I started writing this song that I ended up recording. I haven’t finished it yet, but it's a song I would love to give to the show."

He further revealed that he didn't choose the songs on the soundtrack — screenwriter Steve Blackman wrote them into the script — but that the '80s and '90s were always part of his inspiration for the comics.

So while the My Chemical Romance frontman maybe hasn't contributed as much music to the Netflix series as you may have expected, there is a definite link between his music, tastes, and the world of The Umbrella Academy. Heck, as demonstrated in the gif above, umbrellas were a memorable part of the "Helena" music video — it's clearly all connected.

Correction: This article has been updated to accurately reflect the original singers of "Hazy Shade of Winter."