North Carolina’s He Is Legend has a history of alienating its fan base through changes in direction between records, and they’re about to do it again. Next month, the group releases ‘It Hates You’, its first album on their new label, Tragic Hero. The new record is a great rock album, chock full of aggressive guitar riffs and, perhaps more interestingly, melodic, soulful vocals – a welcome change from the army of screamo bands now populating the hard rock scene. WTDP? has a chance to talk with guitarist Adam Tanbouz about the new record, the songwriting process and his ‘lame’ gear.

WTDP?: Tell us about recording ‘It Hates You’. You did that in North Carolina, right?
AT: It was like three hours away from home, so it was real close, super comfortable. And we did it with one of our friends, Mitch (Marlowe). We recorded it in three sessions so like we’d write a group of songs then go up there and record them. Then a couple of months later we’d have a few more songs written and we’d go up and record them in another session. It was kind of a weird way to record, but it was really cool because we were super comfortable being close to our house and doing it with one of our friends. Going into the record, we wanted more from ourselves. We wanted to really just say fuck it all and do exactly what we wanted to do and do some things that we knew were going to completely alienate people. We’ve done that before. The whole inspiration for this album was no holds barred and to do exactly what we wanted, and if we’re proud of it then that is all that really matters I guess.

WTDP?: How does the songwriting process in the band work? It is individuals contributing full tunes for review or is there a jam component?
AT: It is usually me and Steve or me, Matt and Steve in our practice room. I’ll have an idea and throw it out there and Matt will tell me if it’s cool or Steve will tell me if it’s cool. Then we’ll just sort of build on that one central idea until it becomes a song. Once the song it written, Schuylar will come in and if we keep on playing it and keep on thinking its cool then it will usually exist as a… we don’t throw a lot of stuff out, we just end up not using stuff, putting it on the back burner. There were a couple of ideas that we wanted to put on this album, but they never really panned out… like a lot of riffs that we had that we wanted to put on there and shit like that. I think every band writes differently. However you can make it work and do it the best you can.

WTDP?: What about your gear? What’s the rundown as far as amps, pedals and your number one guitar?
AT: We used one amp on the entire record – a (Mesa) Dual Rectifier… the most boring amp ever, but that’s what we got, you know. It is the exact sound that I play with live with a mic on it. I think we used an Orange sometime for cleans, but other than that it’s the most basic, boring guitar gear ever. All of my shit’s broken. That might have something to do with it. It’s pretty boring – Tube Screamer, Dual Rec, EMGs – the exact same thing that everyone else on this planet is using. My guitar is an LTD. I bought it when I was like 18 from a guitar store. It’s old… paid around $400.

WTDP?: The song that struck me as the most radio friendly off the record, and possibly off any He Is Legend album, is ‘Party Time!’ What can you tell me about that one?
AT: ‘Party Time!’ was just was a simple song… more straight-forward than anything else we were writing at the time. It has sort of a Queens (of the Stone Age) feel to it. It just felt so much more straight-forward than anything else we were writing. It’s got a pretty standard chorus. It’s kind of a standard, boring rock song, but it is fun to play… it kind of has that feel to it.

WTDP?: I got a real Foo Fighters feel from that song.
AT: Yeah. A lot of our music has Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters influence. We really like those bands a lot.

WTDP?: How about the first single, ‘The Primarily Blues’? That one is dense.
AT: It all sounds weird when it’s me, Matt and Steve in the practice room playing the skeleton of a fucking song. Then we get in the studio and I want to lay down 37 different things. I went ahead and did it, so it is going to sound different live, but what you hear on the record is what the idea. If the song can be it’s utmost, that is what you’re hearing on the record.

WTDP?: My favorite song on the record is ‘Stranger Danger’. How did that one come about?
AT: I think that was the first song that we wrote for this record. I just had that middle part. That jammy, melodic build-up part… We had that as an idea, as a chord progression and I wanted to use that so I wrote the song around that. We tried to have the actual little tinkling guitar line through the whole song. It’ll actually play through the whole thing and I don’t know if it is actually going to come across on the record, but that guitar line links to the next song on the record, which is ‘Don’t Touch That Dial’.

WTDP?: What about the album name, ‘It Hates You’? What are we to take away from that?
AT: We thought it sounded cool. It gives the listener an idea of what they might be in for. Hopefully the album actually sounds like it really, really hates you.