“We could call our band ‘Chairleg,’ and it wouldn’t matter.”
When frontman Larry Sprowls of—you guessed it—Chairleg made that comment to an interviewer a few years back, he never would have imagined he’d take himself up on it.
“It was actually an interview a lot like this one,” he muses, as I sit across from him at 1102, flanked by the band and many beers.
“I was in another band at the time,” he says, “and the rest of the group was giving these really typical answers to really typical questions. So finally the guy makes a comment about how our band name really didn’t fit our style. And it didn’t.”
He really didn’t think much of the statement when it was made. It was meant to be a joke, but also to make a point.
“Like I said, it doesn’t matter what you call your band,” he continues, “as long as you’re putting out good music, and you’re having fun with it. We don’t make music for everyone else; we make it for ourselves. If other people happen to enjoy it, then so much the better!”
So what we have here is a band who initially garners more attention for its name than for anything else. Is the irony lost on these guys? Larry puts me in my place.
“Absolutely not. It’s meant to be a little ironic. I mean, you go out and call yourself something like ‘Megadeth,’ and people are going to know what to expect of you. In our case, they hear our name and wonder what the hell we’re all about. That curiosity is what brings them in, and hopefully the music is what makes them stick around.”
Augusta is quickly gaining recognition as a reputable live music city, with such locally-based bands as Veara and Dead Confederate achieving success outside of their hometown. The scene is, however, a bit scant on thrash metal.
Despite that fact, the band has managed to amass quite a following in
Augusta and the surrounding areas, rarely leaving a gig with any leftover merchandise. Regardless of their burgeoning popularity, however, none of the guys ever see a dime for their efforts…but Larry and his cohorts like it that way.
“Every dollar we pull in from our gigs, merch sales included,” he says, “we put right back into the band. Whether that means buying better equipment or gadgets for the stage show, studio time, or more T-shirts, it’s all funneled back into the effort.”
The slow but steady rise of Chairleg seems to be occurring at a very opportune time, as the general music scene has witnessed a resurgence of hardcore and thrash music. To some, the fluctuations in trends can sometimes seem mystifying, but its all very scientific to Larry.
“This kind of music fades in and out so much because of the intense need for it,” he says, taking a swig from a fresh Bud Select. “Every now and then we’ll reach a point in history where everyone 25 and under just gets fed up and needs that release. So bands like Pantera come in and are the biggest thing in the world for a few years. Once that need is taken care of, though, they aren’t needed.”
“People don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore,” he continues. “Right now we’re at war with a country thousands of miles away, and nobody here really knows what’s going on. There’s so much political double-talk and misinformation, it’s hard to figure out exactly what’s going on. The best you can do is to get all the information you can, look it over and say, ‘Okay…what would I do in this situation?’ We’re just trying to help people do that.”
To Chairleg, painting lyrical pictures in a microcosm is the key to reaching people.
“If you look at our lyrics,” Larry says, “they don’t really seem to be about anything that important or far-reaching. But that’s because it all comes from my personal experiences…these are things that I personally deal with, and I put it out there on the listener so that I can get some help shouldering the burden! Hopefully that way, people can learn to deal with their own issues, and we can all move on to bigger things.”
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