James Dewees played keyboard on your favorite emo album.

Mathematically speaking, it's at least likely that Dewees was rocking the keys on your favorite album, as he's worked with everyone from My Chemical Romance to New Found Glory aside from his longstanding role in the Get Up Kids and perennial side project, Reggie and the Full Effect. Between his musical skills and his sense of humor, he's been a welcome addition to many bands since he originally began drumming for Coalesce two decades ago.

But now he's got a new (well, kind of new) project with friend and former MCR bandmate Frank Iero called Death Spells, and their debut album, Nothing Above, Nothing Below, just dropped.

Myspace sat down with Dewees at the Taste of Chaos festival a couple of weeks ago to talk about Death Spells and all of the other bands he's been a part of. 

MORE: Top 8 Moments of Taste of Chaos

How did you and Frank Iero get started on Death Spells, which has a very electronic feel?

Frank and I were living in North Hollywood across the street from the studio when we were working on the MCR record that'll never come out, and when everything [with MCR] had slowed down, we would just sit at the computer and make dark, fucked-up music. We had like 400 files, and Frank was just sitting there one night screaming over these electronic songs. He was like "I can scream over this. We can do this!" and I was like "What the fuck do we know about electronic music?" We said we could just put up a video screen and no one would know the difference.

When MCR broke up in 2013 and we moved back to the East Coast, we went on tour with Mindless Self Indulgence for like two weeks and it was a lot of fun. We talked about putting out a record because we had like 14 finished songs, but then I did the Kickstarter for Reggie and Frank put out his solo record and we lost three years. Now it's 2016, and Frank and I always talk about how we have to put that Death Spells record out. The worst thing about it is I did it in [digital audio workstation software] Logic 9, so it's totally incompatible four years later. I had to downgrade a fucking hard drive backup just to open up the files.

It's going to be fun to see how a UK audience reacts to Death Spells, because they're like really into that shit. It's going to be interesting because we haven't gotten together and done this for a long time. It'll be great because it's fun to do. It's just a passion project.

What's it like working with Frank for all these years on both MCR and now Death Spells?

He's honestly one of my best friends for a long time. All the guys in MCR have really been my best friends, but Frank and Gerard have been like brothers. My wife and I went through tragedy in April and May, and death is expensive. Frank Iero sent me money and I was like "I don't want your money, we're fucking friends!" He gave me the Death Spells advance because he didn't need it so I could pay for the cremation and do what I had to do. Like goddammit, how do you say thank you to someone for that? I told him I'd drive to Jersey and mow his lawn for the rest of his life or something, whatever he needs.

He's just so nice. When I do something really stupid, he won't say "Yo, that sucks." He'll take like 20 minutes to be like "You know, you're a great guy and I really respect your ideas, and you're an awesome musician, but do you think that should be there?" I'm like "You should've just told me! In like 30 seconds tell me it fucking sucks." I'd much rather have that.

[The interview was briefly interrupted by Adam Lazzara of Taking Back Sunday (who also sang during Reggie and the Full Effect's set earlier in the afternoon) sitting on Dewees' lap and the two showering each other with compliments.]

Why did you decide to start Reggie and the Full Effect while you were already in two other bands?

I was playing in Get Up Kids and I was playing in Coalesce, and I had all these other songs that didn't fit either band. I'd bring them to Get Up Kids or Coalesce and be like "Hey guys, what if we did this on a song?" and everybody else would be like "Yeaaaahhhh... No." I put out the first four-song Reggie EP just for fun in '97, and all the people we were on tour with for the Get Up Kids thought it was hilarious. It's funny, because the songs are so easy, but the easier they are, the more we're going to fuck them up when we play live. It's only three chords, that's why it's hard.