Transported from a distant realm Fantasy warriors Legendry are a band with a rich history and plenty of stories to tell. We caught up with them to learn about the band and what they have in store for 2024!

TheNwothm: Hey there Legendry, I hope you are well! Can you first of all introduce our readers to the band where you are from?

L: Hails!  Legendry is:  Arcane Hammer, on four-string and piccolo bass; kicker, on drums and percussion; and myself on six and twelve string guitars, vocals, keys and assorted instruments.  The band is all located near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

TheNwothm: How did you guys choose the band name? It is pretty epic and bold!

L: The name came from reading Robert E. Howard’s essay on Hyboria.  While constructing the lyrics for the demos and what would become Mists of Time, I came across the phrase “mists of legendry”, and thought it would be an idea name, as it is a great description of our lyrical content.  

TheNwothm: I see you have been around since 2015 approximately! Can you tell us how and where the band formed and what you remember from those earlier days. 

L: The band formed when I was living north of Pittsburgh in New Castle, PA.  I started jamming with our original bassist, Choo, and he introduced me to Kicker.  The three of us started jamming and creating long improvisational pieces, somewhat like a jazz trio, but with Hawkwind and Manilla Road as guiding musical concepts.

TheNwothm: Did you have a solid idea for how you wanted the band to sound from the get go or did that take a while to develop?

L: Manilla Road was the biggest inspiration.  Since discovering them and the Crystal Logic album, I was completely obsessed with the sound.  It had mystery in it, and it wasn’t like anything else.  I wanted to create a sense of mystery as well in music.  The Mark of the Beast album was also a huge inspiration (more specifically this earlier version, as the later, more refined, Dreams of Eschaton was not released yet).

TheNwothm: Did the “Initiation Rituals” demo come together quite fast?

L: It did.  All I did to record the demo was place a microphone in the middle of the room and play the songs.  We did attempt to get the “best” out of the resulting sound, but there wasn’t much finesse involved.  Shortly after, I recorded Mists of Time in the same room, but with more careful technique.  Again, though, the recording was decidedly lo-fi, but it was not contrived or made to sound “bad”.  I did what I could with what was available at the time.

TheNwothm: Can you tell us more about the warrior that appears in the artworks for the band’s releases? Where did that initial idea come from?

L: The central character in our last two albums, and subject of the original concepts in the first two is a warrior with no name, but often referred to in the source texts as the Earthwarrior.  He is a person transported from earth to a distant realm, and has adventured between the worlds of Eryn and Faellnoch there.  The initial idea came when I set about the task of creating the album artwork for Mists of Time.  The song of the same name featured a central character, a warrior, who was to enter an ancient subterranean lair to battle a demonic entity in defense of the people who inhabited the nearby town.  The cover depicts him entering the ruins, and if you look closely, there is a structure with a doorway emitting a ectoplasm-like mist.

L: This concept, of a person trapped in realm, forced to become a “dungeon crawler” evolved from conversations between Kicker and I, and has grown into a full world with the most recent two albums as the first two-thirds of a trilogy.

TheNwothm: Do you think band branding and image is important these days for instance to stand out?

L: I think it is important in general.  I am an artist in several mediums, so Legendry, for me, is not just a band, but a world of sounds, words, and imagery.  This extends from the songs to the album art, to even the design of the LP sleeves, CD booklets, and things like shirts and patches.  I have designed everything except the first shirts we did for The Wizard and the Tower Keep, which were done by Soldier of Hell.

TheNwothm: Do you feel that passions/hobbies outside of music heavily influence the music you make together?

L: I collect a lot of medieval/Viking age objects – swords and armor, and I have made a lot of reenactment quality items as well.  It all becomes one thing for me, an interest in medieval and fantasy things, and a desire to add to that conversation myself in the form of creating my own.

TheNwothm: You had a very busy period between 2016 and 2019 putting out 3 awesome albums! From “Mists of Time, Dungeon Crawler and The Wizard and the Tower Keep” what tracks who you tell listeners to check out who are discovering you for the first time?

L: From Mists of Time, For Metal We Ride, Winds of Hyboria, and Phoenix on the Blade are my favorite tracks.  As for Dungeon Crawler, the title track, Rogues in the House, and Shadows in the Moonlight are standouts for me.  With the Wizard and the Tower Keep, I think my favorites are the title track, Earthwarrior, and Sorcery’s Bane, but being a concept album, I really think of it as one piece of music.

As a listener and fan, I prefer to listen to full albums from bands, as those contain the full expression of a group or individual at a given point in time, so I recommend listening to the full albums, rather than track by track, especially in the case of Wizard and Tower and our latest! 

TheNwothm: If you could all identify which album is your favourite from the three, which one would it be and why?

L: Wizard and Tower, without a doubt.  That album represents, for me, the first “real” output from the band, where all the pieces came together.  

TheNwothm: Looking at the bands out there which would you say have had a strong influence on the sound and direction of the band?

L: Manilla Road, Pagan Altar, Manowar, and Warlord are probably the biggest obvious metal influences, but we are inspired by much more than just heavy metal.  Some other massive influences are:  Wishbone Ash, Camel, Marillion, Dead Can Dance, and Jethro Tull.  The world of dungeon synth in form of Mortiis, Secret Stairways, Depressive Silence, Thangorodrim, Lord Lovidicus, Fief, and Jim Kirkwood also are great inspiration, particularly as the soundtrack to my sessions painting the album artwork.

TheNwothm: In your spare time what do you like to do when you are not making epic sword raising heavy metal?

L: I would say that Legendry is what takes up a great deal of my spare time, as I am involved in nearly all aspects of running the band.

TheNwothm: The “Heavy Metal Adventure” EP was put out in the time of the pandemic as well as a “Mists of Time / Dungeon Crawler” split. Like many other bands do you feel that period affected your writing or made you more creative?

L: That time coincided with a lineup change, when Kicker and I were working as a duo before Arcane Hammer joined.  We set about to create a kind of “prequel” EP, paying homage to some bands and composers who inspired the band with three covers (Basil Poledouris, Jethro Tull, and Manilla Road), and an original song, with heavy metal as an inspiration.  At the time of writing Heavy Metal Adventure, the Up the Hammers festival had been cancelled, and we had numerous friends displaced in various states of travel trying to return home, so this inspired much of the lyrics.  We were all on a heavy metal adventure in some way.

Kicker and I had just finished the drum tracking in my basement rehearsal space when the world went into lockdown.  I was left with endless amounts of time to record parts for the EP.  When it came time for bass tracking, we enlisted the help of Manilla Road’s Phil Ross as a session player, and he sent his tracks remotely.  Keeping with the Manilla Road theme, their drummer, Neudi, released the album on CD and vinyl EP via his Golden Core label on ZYX Records in Germany.  It was great working with both of them on the album, and an honor to work with members of one of my all-time favorite bands.

TheNwothm: 2023 saw the release of your brand new album “The Immortal Wept” which we loved by the way! Can you tell us about the writing and recording process of the album, favourite tracks and who produced it?

L: The writing process for the album started with writing the novelette entitled “Beyond the Mirrors of Faellnoch”, published in DMR Books’ Swords of Steel: Omnibus Edition.  This story details the second part of the concept trilogy referred to as The Earthwarrior Cycle.

From this point, I began developing lyrics and writing riffs.  As with our other albums, all songs are written together as a group.  Usually I will start with a riff, and we will work the rhythms and basslines together in improvised “jam” sessions.  We wrote the album in order, from beginning to end, as two long pieces of music, to be split into “songs”.  We took great care to have one song lead directly into the next, sometimes transposing the key of riffs to fit the song before it.  We tracked a full album demo in our rehearsal room once everything was in place, and I went in and demoed out all of the keyboard parts and acoustic instrumentation. 

We entered Redwoods Studio with Arthur Rizk in October of 2022.  With him, we tracked the full album live as a trio, and I overdubbed the vocals and rhythm guitars there.  We did the same with the Wizard and Tower album.  This time, we did the full instrumental album in one day, and I did the overdubs in the following day.  We went into the studio with a lot of rehearsal time on the album, so it was a fast process.  It also bears mentioning that we never use a click track, which allows the song tempos to “breathe” a bit, as they do in some of the classic 70s rock and metal recordings.

Following this, Arthur sent a rough mix to me with all the timing in place (the full album as one 43 minute piece).  I then tracked all of the mellotron and Hammond organ parts, acoustic 12-string, mandolin, gongs, tubular bells, glockenspiel, taiko drum, and various wind, fire, and sword sounds.  We also had guest appearances by Drea on backing vocals in The Prophecy, and a multitude of violin tracks performed by Dee C. on The Bard’s Dream, The Prophecy, and the title track.

From there it was all sent back to Arthur in a series of massive files that he compiled and put into the album.  I think what he returned to us sounds absolutely magickal.  

TheNwothm: How do you feel the band has progressed since the early days and how do you think “The Immortal Wept” reflects this evolution?

L: I think that we have become much more focused on what we are trying to achieve, and we have diversified our sound from other bands, both classic and contemporary.  Time Immortal Wept reflects a singular vision, and every aspect of it down to each note on each instrument is planned and specific.

TheNwothm: Looking back at 2023 how do you feel the year went for you?

L: I feel the year went very well, however much of it was “behind the scenes” work up until the release of the album in October. 

It must be mentioned that our experience at Stormbringer II Festival was fantastic.  Evgeny of Adamantis did a wonderful job, and was supportive through all aspects of the fest.  The location, Ralph’s Rock Diner is one of the last real punk rock venues:  its wild and unhinged, and impossible to fully describe.  It was filled with bizarre junk and artifacts, hastily attached to the walls and ceiling.  Everything from old signs to pinball machines upside down in the rafters, to creepy rotting taxidermy and giant haunted house props.  The walls were thick with band stickers everywhere, and crude spray-painted murals.  The bands were all amazing, and it was a great showcase of new bands, with Destructor being the only older act in the lineup (and amazingly intense!).  The vibes all around were very positive, and everyone seemed to be having a great time.  

TheNwothm:  What is in store for fans in 2024? Any tours lined up?

L: The biggest thing we have in store for this year is our first European show at Keep it True Rising in Germany.  It has long been a distant dream to bring out music over-seas, so this is a true honor and hopefully the first of many festivals of this nature.  

We have some other things in the works for the year, which will reveal themselves as they are settled.

TheNwothm: Where can fans buy your music and merch?

L: Fans can still get our new LP and CD from No Remorse Records (www.noremorse.gr), but there are very limited copies!  

We also have a variety of items available on our bandcamp at:  ww.legendry.bandcamp.com

TheNwothm: Anything else you would like to mention?

L: We just want to thank the fans for their overwhelming support of the new album.  These things empower us to create these worlds for you!  Eternal Hails!