This Legend: Interview with LP and Ben
Legends are not born every day, but This Legend is well on its way to creating their own historic tale. In May 2014, former Yellowcard bandmates Longineu Parsons “LP” and Ben Harper once again joined forces to embark on a new adventure. Chris Castillo of Stanley and the Search and Steven Neufeld of HeyMike! made This Legend complete. The quartet has crafted their own sound in not only the new band, but also a brand new album that launched November 11 titled: It’s In The Streets. Showcasing their melodic pop punk/rock blend as well as their musical talent, this album carries the listener into the streets and beyond. Currently out on tour with $wingin’ Utter$ and Lagwagon, This Legend is developing a reputation as a live show not to be missed. By the Barricade interviewed Ben and Longineu when the tour hit The OC Observatory in Southern California to hear more about their story. The full interview transcripts follow.
- Ben Harper : Lead Guitar
- Longineu Parsons: Drums
Other band members:
- Chris Castillo: Vocals, Guitar
- Steven Neufeld: Bass
By the Barricade: Where does your band name, This Legend, come from?
Longineu Parsons: We spent days, weeks trying to find band names and finally the name Legend came out and we said, ‘This Legend’. Even that had gone through many changes but what it means is that when you are feeling down and you look in the mirror and look at yourself you say, “I am a legend. This Legend.” So it represents a positive way to bring you up from feeling down.
Ben Harper: I think we have also all been on some sort of a journey individually. It tags, This Legend, this journey but most importantly the name was available online. There was no other band name because every time we would come up with a name, someone else would have it. There was internet real estate for This Legend so we went with that one.
By the Barricade: Sometimes it does come down to what is available. Along the legend lines, if you could be any mythical, fairytale, or historical legendary character who would you choose?
Longineu Parsons: I would be The Predator.
Ben Harper: Of course you would! He is obsessed with Alien vs Predator.
Longineu Parsons: The Predator is a little better looking than the Alien. I would definitely come back as The Predator.
Ben Harper: I have never been asked this question before.
Longineu Parsons: Godzilla would be pretty badass.
Ben Harper: Hmmm, can I be a professional NFL football player? If I could live another lifestyle, I would want to be that.
Longineu Parsons: I back that.
By the Barricade: What do you want the legend behind your band This Legend to be? Or maybe, what do you want to stand for?
Longineu Parsons: We want to give people the love and appreciation for real rock music again. We feel like over the years the industry has gone through so many changes and a lot of things have gone to computers. This Legend is brought up on getting up on stage and all of us having fun and rocking out. When Ben and I started Yellowcard many, many, many moons ago, we were brought together as five or six guys that just had fun. We enjoyed being in the band together and playing music. Our energy level on stage was all-time back then. Over the years a lot of bands have gone more into the production side of things instead of putting their energy in. Back in the day, we grew up listening to Nirvana, Lagwagon, Pearl Jam, Bad Religion, NOFX and those musicians all played their instruments. What we want is for people to come to our show, rock out and love everything they are hearing. We want to feed off of them, we love our fans and there is nothing better than looking out and seeing people having fun and you are having fun with them. It is just one big interaction with each other and it is an amazing feeling. You can’t duplicate it.
By the Barricade: I’ve read some of your other interviews where you talk about going at this 150%. You are all about the music. What motivates you to keep going?
Longineu Parsons: We are all musicians and we love doing what we do. We love writing music and playing music and it’s the best natural high you can possibly get. This is what we do; this is what we live for. We feel that you either go all-in and give it your all, or don’t do it at all and go home.
Ben Harper: Go hard or go home. We realize we are a certain age and if we still have an opportunity to go out and play music and make people happy and inspire people, of course we are going to go. This could be it. It could be over 3 years from now. If we go 150% now, we can be like Lagwagon when we are 49 or 47 and still be doing it. Why not? We will grow older and become homebodies when we are 50.
Longineu Parsons: No way! We are totally going like The Rolling Stones. We will be 65, 66 still doing jump kicks on stage.
By the Barricade: Is it refreshing to start with a new band or is it exhausting.
Longineu Parsons: It is absolutely a very refreshing thing. A lot of people do not realize that when you are with a band like Yellowcard especially, who have written a lot of songs and a lot of songs have gone on TV and radio, you get into a routine of always playing the same songs over and over. It really doesn’t give you a lot to learn from because you are constantly in that pocket all of the time. I am not saying that you don’t learn anything, but there is a lot to learn outside the box sometimes. Ben, how many years did we determine Yellowcard has been around now? Seventeen years?
Ben Harper: In 1997, I swear it was March, 1997 when we first started.
Longineu Parsons: It is refreshing because over the years you learn things as a musician and you want to expand, but you get stuck in that box of playing the same songs so you don’t really get a chance to explore those options. In This Legend, we have put all the bells and whistles in. It is everything that I have picked up over the years from watching other musicians. I spend time watching other drummers and other bands in general. I have grown to like new music in that time too so I get to go into other areas and showcase that with This Legend. It is really cool and very refreshing to have the fresh start.
By the Barricade: You don’t have to play an entire set list of fan favorites, you are introducing them to new music.
Longineu Parsons: We can build new stuff and if we ever wanted to play those songs in the future, we could cover them.
By the Barricade: Longineu, in your interview with Modern Drummer, you mentioned that you have been drumming since you were 2, had your first show at age 5 and you have a very specific warm up preparation for your shows. Can you summarize that for the By the Barricade Readers?
Longineu Parsons: I have a routine that I do and the first thing that I do is that I like to get my mind in the right place. A lot of times when I am thinking something, it is what I am feeling at that moment. So if I am listening to Dave Matthews, that is cool or maybe I am listening to Pantera. I want to get my mind set so that I am in the zone that I want to be in. That is my first step.
My second step is to pick up my sticks and to warm up my fingers by doing stick twirls, running the sticks through my fingers and then doing rudiments. I learned the stick twirl stuff from Ray Luzier from Korn. He showed me all kinds of things with his stick twirling for warming up so I have always used that to do stuff. Also I get into stretching. I have a lot of yoga moves that I have learned and it helps out a lot to open up air passages and your muscles so I do that and it is really important, especially the older you get.
After I do that I turn off all of the music that I am listening to and I get into show mode. I check the crowd out and feel what the vibe is and then I am ready.
By the Barricade: How about you Ben? How long have you been a musician?
Ben Harper: I have been playing music since I was 12 years old. I met LP (Longineu) when I was 15. I had only been playing music a few years when we met. We all went to an arts high school so that helps. To get ready for shows, I just stretch because I jump around like a crazy guy on crack on stage. So I try to stretch as much as possible. I need to figure out better stuff because right now I am limping and can barely walk on the front of my foot because whatever I did on stage the last two nights, I have injured myself.
Longineu Parsons: It’s a bruise. I have gotten that too.
Ben Harper: Now that we are old, 33, it makes a difference. It is not like we are 23 and can just go, go, go. Sometimes you have to slow down a bit. I definitely medicate a little bit before I go onstage so that I am in a trance. Even if there are five people there, I find myself going off just as hard as if there were 500 so I try to keep that integrity. It is showing because people come up and appreciate that and miss that in some of the other bands. People see me going off and then they get into it and like the performance.
Longineu Parsons: It’s like going to see Pennywise, Lagwagon, NOFX or Bad Religion where the stage is active. That is a beautiful feeling to see. Rock ‘n’ roll was meant for energy and movement and having fun, rocking out, hitting hard, that was rock ‘n’ roll. That is what we are trying to do and bring rock ‘n’ roll back.
By the Barricade: You have alluded to this, but for someone who hasn’t heard your music, how would you describe This Legend in just a few words?
Longineu Parsons: Fast, fun, energetic, rock, poetic.
Ben Harper: Motivating. Let’s see how many adjectives we can use.
Longineu Parsons: Rhythmic, soulful, powerful, intense, tasteful, melodic.
Ben Harper: Other than just adjectives, it has easy, good melodies that people can sing along to. You can understand the words and it is all of those adjectives attached to it.
By the Barricade: Your album, It’s In The Streets is being released Tuesday. What can listeners expect?
Ben Harper: Every song is its own thing.
Longineu Parsons: It is a musical journey. Every song is different from the last. We have fast punk songs, we have slow, sentimental rock songs. It goes all over and it tells a story. That is what we want the fans to hear, we want them to hear our story and what we have to say.
By the Barricade: With that kind of diversity they can see more depth in the range of what you do. You do not have to have one genre sound in every song.
Ben Harper: Now mind you, this is our first record and we literally took the first songs we had. We really wanted to be a band as soon as we could possibly be a band so we could get on tours and get out to people. We already are looking forward to doing our next record because we have a little more time. You are going to hear even more diversity as we grow. This is our first statement and we love our record. We absolutely love it.
By the Barricade: You are on tour now with $wingin’ Utter$ and Lagwagon. Where do you plan or hope to go on tour in 2015?
Longineu Parsons: Everywhere! We are not cancelling out anything. We are brand new and we put everything together really fast and everything fell right in. We have a lot of people that are behind us as far as This Legend goes. They are starting to book us shows and this is our third tour and the first two were just us going out as our own headlining tour to touch our feet into the different cities and states.
Ben Harper: To see what it is like to be in the band together, see how much it is going to cost.
Longineu Parsons: We are learning about each other too since we are brand new. Ben and I have known each other the longest and we have known Steven for a long time. Chris is the freshest one of us as far as us knowing him. Now we are getting into playing possibly more outside the country too.
Ben Harper: We have been booked on two or three festivals and we have announced South by So What. There are some other spring festivals and Europe possibly in the works.
Longineu Parsons: Nothing is marked in stone yet. Who knows where we could be but our plan is to tour and touch everywhere. We want to go everywhere and play for everyone and spread our music out.
By the Barricade: You’re playing the first annual Cyber Tracks Christmas Party, and though it is not yet Thanksgiving, if the department stores are already decorated it seems fair game to talk about. What will you be doing at that show to set the bar for other Cyber Tracks events?
Longineu Parsons: We are going to do what we do best, we are going to get up and show the crowd who we are.
Ben Harper: We are going to be ourselves and enjoy being with our family which is our label. But, watch out because our lead singer is really into Christmas. He is obsessed and he has warned us already that he gets weird for Christmas. He might dress up as a gnome or something, I don’t know.
Longineu Parsons: That would be really funny if that happens. I am going to have to look away while I play.
By the Barricade: Is there anything else you would like to tell the readers of By the Barricade?
Ben Harper: Please buy our record.
Longineu Parsons: Seriously, please buy our record, check it out and support music the way it should be. Buy a CD, get a physical copy. We really look forward to seeing you guys at our shows. Thank you so much for those of you who know about us. For those of you who don’t know about us, we look forward to seeing you soon. Rock out!
Like This Legend on Facebook, check out their website and follow @ThisLegendMusic on Twitter to stay connected.
Keep it on Bythebarricade.com for more rock and punk and metal interviews, reviews, articles, and photos! Also, “Like” By the Barricade on Facebook to never miss a post. If you liked this article check out:
Interview with Adrian Estrella of Assuming We Survive
The Offspring and Adolescents Show Review
Kevin Lyman Spills Warped Tour Secrets
