The Underground Sounds Of America: He Is Legend

Welcome to the latest installment of U.S.A.: The Underground Sounds of America, our series that shines a spotlight on the most underrated rock, metal, punk, and hardcore bands in the United States. Each week, we ask one band member to answer five unique questions so you can get to know them better. Because if you aren’t already a fan of the artist featured below...you should be.

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The He Is Legend you hear on the band’s upcoming sixth album, White Bat, may not be quite the band you've heard in the past. The Wilmington, North Carolina, quartet’s career has taken countless twists and turns, seeing them move from emo-informed hard rock to gut-punching metalcore over the course of their sixteen years. Now, their sound has taken a step in a grimy, weed-drenched direction, adding a healthy dose of hot-asphalt monster rock that smacks of artists like Rob Zombie and Weedeater.

In fact, the band’s tenor has changed so much that when asked what track the band would use to introduce a newcomer to their music -- a staple of the Underground Sounds series -- frontman Schuylar Croom doesn’t have one.

“Honestly, that question is difficult to answer, as I have been there throughout the entirety of our existence,” says Schuylar. “I’m sure I would have to judge the person by their appearance or musical taste and then plan which song accordingly.”

If White Bat’s listener had to be personified based on the album’s sound, they’d be rocking some ripped jeans, a denim vest with zebra-print lining, and a bad case of road rash on their face. The album shifts between guts-deep metalcore riffs and raucous, sun-baked highway metal, merging the two musical flavors together to create music that’d be perfect for blaring at the most brutal strip-club on the side of a haunted highway. The video for the band’s second single, Boogiewoman, is a flickering fever dream of silent film clips, horror imagery, and neon sex, driven by the track’s epic chorus.

“It’s a killer closing track,” says Schuylar. “We usually know the opening track and the closer before we go into the studio with the material.”

Drunk on diesel and slasher flicks, we sidled up to Schuylar to find out what makes He Is Legend tick, grind, and ooze.

1) Name He Is Legend's five biggest musical influences.

1. Pantera
2. Nirvana
3. Deftones
4. Led Zeppelin
5. Marilyn Manson

2) If He Is Legend could put together their dream tour, who would be on it?

I mean...at the moment if I had to just spurt out a bunch of names, I would probably say Queens of the Stone Age and Metallica...but touring with Deftones is probably the one that we bring up all of the time. We just did a tour with The Damned Things...that was pretty epic. I dream about doing that again.

3) Does Wilmington, or North Carolina as a whole, influence your music, and if so, how?

I believe it influences me about as much as a watermelon, a flower, someone dying or a break up, or the ocean...what is inspiration really?

4) Can you tell us some of the stories or meaning behind the album? Why is the bat white, and what's going on with Boogiewoman, the single for which you just did your latest video? That chorus is massive.

White Bat is a moniker For the fictional character created lyrically for this record.That just closes out the story...you’ll have to listen in full for the meat. I love music and I hope every chorus could do that! It certainly is nice to hear.

5) Tell us about a time on tour where everything went terribly wrong or miraculously right.

One time long ago we got to hang out and pet this really cool dog. I heard he died recently. So there’s both.

That’s a tough question we always get, but you know tour is just that: ups and downs, not very glamorous, kinda boring. The shit we love or hate happening to us is probably not the same kind of stress that anyone else would give a shit about. 64 hours on a non stop drive across the country with your best friends is that the best thing that could happen to you, or the absolute worse

He Is Legend's White Bat comes out Friday, June 28th.