Jim Shearer is probably known best as the host of Subterranean, a show we worked on together for three years. I recently asked him to interview Ligion, the frontman of the band that shares his name. I reviewed their debut album, External Affairs, last month, and it currently resides on my list of the Top 20 Albums of 2007 (so far). Here are two MP3s from it (“On the Way” MP3 and “Get Over Me” MP3) that you can stream or download. For more information on Ligion and the highlights of Ligion and Jim’s conversation, read on.

LIGION OF DOOM

Nobody likes to wake up early on their vacation, but as fate may have it, New Music Nation came calling on Ligion’s frontman and namesake when he was taking a much needed one-week break from touring. External Affairs is the album, eleven songs that mix together rock stylings like a powerful king-sized blender. While chatting from the sands of Myrtle Beach, SC, frontman Ligion (Lig for short—pronounced leej) informs us that his band will be back on the road soon, have a new video in the works, and why they always use “I” before “E.”

Jim Shearer: One phrase that always seems to come up when describing Ligion’s music is: “hard to pinpoint.” Is that good, bad, or a little bit of both?

Ligion: For new bands it’s a hard thing, but for us it’s something we went for. We didn’t really want to sound like anybody else, so we take that as a compliment. Sometimes though, when people haven’t heard us yet and you try to describe what we sound like, that can be a little bit of a hindrance.

JS: What’s said when people try to describe you?

L: People have run the gamut. They compare us to bands we don’t sound anything like. It’s pretty funny when they pick a band that isn’t even close to us. I don’t know? We just like to call ourselves a rock n’ roll band and we stick with that.

JS: You guys started in Cleveland?

L: Yes. We formed in Cleveland in 2002.

JS: How did you then make the pilgrimage to Tennessee?

L: We played in Cleveland for about a year. I had lived in Nashville for a couple years and came through some contacts there. June, our guitar player, was traveling back and forth from Chicago to Nashville. That’s where he and I met. The Buzz [a Nashville radio station], started playing our song, so we decided to relocate to Nashville to kind of exploit that radio play and some of the contacts we had there.

JS: What’s the scene like in Nashville?

L: I think a lot of people would be very surprised to see how many different kinds of bands are going on down there. Bands are getting signed left and right out of Nashville. It’s a hotbed right now.

JS: On your bio you mention how we live in an age where you can download a band’s best two songs for a buck. You also talk about the integrity of an album. How is Ligion doing their part to save the album?

L: (laughs) I don’t know if we’re freedom fighters for the album. We really made an effort to put an album together that made sense, from song one to song eleven. The audience can be the judge to see if we succeeded or not.

JS: Speaking of “the album,” what are some great blueprints?

L: Probably The Cure’s Disintegration, U2’s Joshua Tree, Milli Vanilla, whatever that was called—

JS: (laughs)

L: Pearl Jam’s Ten was a huge album for me. What else? The [Beatles’] White Album, that’s a good one that did pretty well.

JS: I think that Ligion could be a band that helps bridge the gap between mainstream and indie rock bands, however there’s probably a bunch of indie kids who wouldn’t even give you a chance just for the fact that you’ve toured with bands like Saliva and Crossfade. Does that upset you at all?

L: I can’t think about that. We just do what we do. The Saliva and Crossfade tour was a huge opportunity for us to play in front of bigger audiences—and really, we want to take our music to the masses as indie or non-indie as that is.

JS: Speaking of Saliva, their song “Ladies and Gentlemen” was the theme song to Wrestlemania this year. Because you toured with them, did you get any special Wrestlemania perks?

L: (laughs) No, but I think we met a few people who should be in Wrestlemania—there was some very interesting people out on the road. I’m not going to lie, I’m not a huge wrestling fan. I do remember back in the day, my Dad took me to see Hulk Hogan wrestle Randy “Macho Man” Savage when I was about ten years old. That’s about all I remember about good ‘ol wrestling.

JS: What’s going on next with you guys?

L: We have a video that’s coming out in the next two to three weeks for “Get Over Me.” This month, we have our own headlining gigs and then in May we go out on the road with Soil, which we’re very excited about.

JS: For the spelling of your band name, using an “i” instead of an “e,” was Legion already taken?

L: No, the “i” was very much on purpose. It’s actually “religion” without the “r-e.” Most people thought the spell-check on our computer was screwed up, but low-and-behold it wasn’t. We did it intentionally.