Ethnic Legist is a visual kei band that draws its inspiration from Egyptian mythology and legends. The band's concept, telling the story of messengers sent to our century for the sake of revenge, has a big influence on their look as well as their music.
el-Ethnic Legist was founded in Tokyo by guitarist el on July 15, 2009. The band originally consisted of Yuma, who was called the third messenger, on vocal, el, the first apostle, HIGE, the fifth messenger, on bass, and sin, the seventh messenger, on drums.
Considering how young the band was, they were very active right from the beginning. Every month-and-a-half, they would organize an event called Pandora where several bands would perform together. Their first organized show, which was called Pandora Act1, was held on September 11, 2009 at Otsuka Red Zone. It was also the band's debut performance. That night, their first album, INDRA, was released across Japan. That date is also particularly significant for the band because the car they used to carry their material had the numbers 9-1-1 on its license plate.
A couple of months later, on November 11th, el-Ethnic Legist- released their first single, Asterte. Their second single, gaNeza, quickly followed the next month.
In February 2010, the band released the mini-album Anubis. Throughout the year, they continued with their monthly Pandora performances. On August 22nd, they released their third single, pārvatī.
In September, a little over a year after their formation, el-Ethnic Legist- had their first opportunity to perform overseas, embarking on a tour of Europe. The tour was organized by the record label Ramen Events and took them to five different countries, for a total of seven performances. During this tour they became one of the first Japanese rock bands to perform in Portugal. A self-titled, Europe-exclusive mini-album was also released by HINODE RECORDS to go along with the tour, including a mix of remastered older tracks and new songs.
Unfortunately, the next year saw vocalist Yuma leave the band due to creative differences. He resurfaced soon after as the vocalist of three very different groups: hard rock band Flash Back Vision, heavy metal band LIGHTNING, and LIGHTNING guitarist IRON-CHINO's doujin metal project IRON ATTACK!.
The remaining members of el-Ethnic Legist paused activities for a while to regroup, but they bounced back that June with a new vocalist named SETO, and surprisingly, two opera singers: myla and shaira. Driving home the fact that this was to be a new band from the previous line-up, they also shortened their name to Ethnic Legist.
Unfortunately, on September 11, 2013 guitarist and leader el announced that he would retire from the band to focus on his work composing and arranging music. It was an amicable departure, and el stated that Shu (formerly known as Shun from STRUSH) would be his replacement, and that SETO would take over his duties as band leader.
