Frank Iero and the Patience to Kick Off U.S. Tour at High Dive

The “rock and roll cockroach” talks his band’s rebirth, ever-changing names and return to Gainesville after the biggest turning point in his life.

Frank Iero and the Patience will kick off its U.S tour Wednesday, June 21 with a concert at The High Dive. The punk rock veteran returns to Gainesville in support of his sophomore album, “Parachutes.”

“I feel like Gainesville has a really rich musical scene and history to its scene,” lero said, recalling his previous shows in the city and his friendship with local musicians from bands like Against Me! And Hot Water. “I’ve always had good experiences in town.”

His last time in Gainesville was about two years ago promoting “Stomachaches,” his first musical release and solo project since the dissolution of his former band, My Chemical Romance.

“I’ve been going for a long time now. I feel like I’m a rare breed in that respect, and I’m very proud of that.”

This time, he’ll be touring with songs he thought he would never get the chance to perform live.

“You’re going to hear a lot of songs off the new record, and you’re going to see a band that has a newfound life because we’ve been through a lot these past seven months,” he said, referring to an accident the band survived in Australia last year.

Iero, Evan Nestor, his brother-in-law and guitarist, and Paul Clegg, his manager, were hit by a bus in a nearly fatal accident in Sydney about two weeks before the release of “Parachutes.” The event shifted the musician’s perspective and marked the tone of this album’s touring cycle.

“There’s an intensity and a love for living and getting to play,” he said. “I think that is a huge driving force for the band right now. It’s incomparable.”

“I decided to start naming the bands after things that I need or require in my life.”

Besides the band’s new outlook on life, what distinguishes the “Parachutes” era from Iero’s previous work has been its creative process. When he made “Stomachaches,” his focus was not on whether that music would see the light of day.

“I wasn’t really writing a solo record; I was just writing songs,” he said. “A friend asked me what I’d been up to, we played a couple of things, and I ended up with a record contract.”

For “Parachutes,” he took the experience and confidence he gained from two years of touring as a solo artist and the advantage of having a contract in place, and — for the first time — he consciously sat down to write with the goal of making an album and with his audience in mind.

Iero addressed his followers between the accident and the album release via a post on his blog, in which he called himself “New Jersey’s rock and roll cockroach.”

Like the bug infamous for its tenacity, he proved to be physically hard to kill, but he also made clear that his career in music shows no sign of stopping.

“I’ve been going for a long time now. I feel like I’m a rare breed in that respect,” he said, alluding to many artist’s fleeting lifespans in the industry, “and I’m very proud of that.”

And although his passion has remained the same for almost two decades, his openness to change is reflected in his projects’ ever-changing names. He released his previous album under the name frnkiero andthe cellabration, and he is sure that Frank Iero and the Patience will not be the last rebrand.

The formulaic placing of his name at the beginning of the title is his way of remaining easily identifiable, but the end of the phrase seems to be wildcard.

“I decided to start naming the bands after things that I need or require in my life at that point,” he explained.

With each project, musicians go into the studio with an opportunity to evolve and reinvent their sound. They might work hard to change what people think they know about their band, but if they call it by the same name, “people resoundingly say, ‘You sound different,'”he said. “Well yeah, no shit.”

So, changing the name of his project when he feels he has achieved a goal or acquired a quality is something he finds therapeutic, “and that’s the point of making music: to learn from it and solve some of the issues that you’re bringing up in the songs that you’re making,” he said.

“There’s an intensity and a love for living and getting to play.”

Admittedly, Iero has started writing music after the release of “Parachutes.” His experience during and after the accident will surely shape his writing, just as they have done everything else in his life.

“Not a day or moment goes by that I don’t feel everything’s different,” he said. “I don’t know if in a good way or bad way. It’s just different, and I’m okay with that. It’s part of my reality now.”

However, he said he and his band are aching to visit new places and will focus their energy on touring generously before releasing more music.

Tickets to see Frank Iero and the Patience are available at Ticketfly, Hear Again Music and Movies and The High Dive box office. Silent Rival will also perform. Doors are open at 8 p.m.

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