Jonah Bergman sweeps a layer of thick, curly brown hair from his sweat-soaked face, wraps his fist tightly around the mic, and bellows from the pit of his gut: "We are Schooooolyard Herooooes!"
The bassist's words echo through Memorial Stadium. Thousands of teenagers, gathered at Bumbershoot's Mainstage, bounce up and down, sending a deafening storm of cheers and applause into the air.
Schoolyard HeroesâBergman, guitarist Steve Bonnell, drummer Brian Turner, and singer Ryann Donnellyâare used to performing to frenzied crowds. The quartet, who came together just after the turn of the millennium, often sell out all-ages shows at local venues like the Vera Project and El CorazĂłn, filling places with fanatic teenagers who hang on the band's every word.
Here at Bumbershoot, the Heroes are in a new element. The gigantic venue is far from full, but with at least 12,000 kids insideâand more coming every minuteâit's the largest crowd the local zombie-rockers have ever played to.
It's serendipitous that they're there in the first place. PostâBlink-182 offshoot +44 were supposed to fill the coveted Saturday-evening time slot, opening for Panic! At the Disco and Gym Class Heroes (Heroes is the new Horse, clearly). After +44's last-minute cancellation, Schoolyard were called in to replace them.
"I was certain that it was a prank phone call," Bergman would say a few days later about hearing the news. "I almost hung up!" Now Bergman, Donnelly, Bonnell, and Turner are elevated 10 feet over what looks like the entire teenage population of Seattle.
A majority of the crowd probably had no idea who the hell the Heroes were 10 minutes ago, but the band quickly won them over the same way they've won all their fansâby taking the stage in a flurry of lights and artificial fog and flaunting a chaotic, magnetic stage presence, metal-inspired guitar licks, and a booming low end.
Songs like "Serial Killers Know How to Party," "Dude, Where's My Skin," and "Violence Is All the Rage" aren't as morbid as their titles imply. Schoolyard take their songwriting seriously, but they approach the over-the-top material with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. Like the script of a B horror movie, there's a lot of blood and a lot of screaming, but more fun than fear.
Twenty-year-old Donnelly confidently shimmies across the stage in a short black party dress. Her light skin is flawless, accentuated by the deep black hair that frames her face. Her eyes are circled with shadow and dark liner; her lips are the color of iron-rich blood. She's petite and beautiful, but it's her chilling, operatically trained voice that really slays the onlookers. As she hits her first high note of the evening, the place goes apeshitâthe crowd explodes into three simultaneous mosh pits. Crowd surfers are plucked out of the mob one after another by yellow-shirted security guards.
Donnelly does nothing to calm things down. She slowly climbs the light rig on the side of the stage, drawing even more cheers. She hangs for a minute, dangling by one hand and one foot on the poles, and thrashes her head to the monstrous beat with a huge, slightly possessed grin on her face. Twelve thousand pairs of eyes are glued to her. She's loving the moment more than anyone who's watching.
* * *
Three days later, Bergman is driving a gray Chevy Express through Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, en route to Cleveland. This is the fifth, maybe sixth, national tour for the band. In the past, they've toured with the Fall of Troy, Vendetta Red, the Matches, and Portugal. The Man, among others, and this next month is being split up in two legs. The first half is with the Birthday Massacre, and the last half with the poor man's Canadian Green Day, Sum 41.
This tour coincides perfectly with the September 18 release of their third full-length, Abominations, their strongest, most focused record yet. It's also their debut release for their new label, Stolen Transmission.
Based in New York, Stolen Transmission is a subsidiary of Island/Def Jam, home to the Killers, Jay-Z, and Fall Out Boy. The label is run by Rob Stevenson (known for signing the Killers, FOB, and Lady Sovereign) and Sarah Lewitinn, aka Ultragrrrl, a former Spin magazine columnist notorious for self-aggrandizing anecdotes about boozing it up with rock stars. Lewitinn gained a reputation as a flash-in-the-pan tastemakerâa gossip columnist and music-industry wag who latches onto trends, gaining notoriety for not doing much of anything but being there when they happen. She is the Paris Hilton of rock 'n' roll.
Bergman and Co. are confident that Lewitinn's heart is in the right place, though, certain that she's one of the hardest working people in the business. She can't be all that bad if she recognized the talent and drive within Schoolyard. Several labels showed early interest in the band, but failed to follow through; Stolen Transmission (the label that Lewitinn describes as "the rebellious kids with rich parents") stuck with them.
"The first time I saw Schoolyard Heroes was in Boston, and 30 seconds into the first song, I wanted them," Lewitinn recalls. "I knew Ryann was a star; I knew Jonah was a star. All of them, they were a little constellation of awesomeness."
"Ideally all we wanted was to be on a label like Epitaph or Equal Vision," Bergman says. "We wanted a big indie that had enough resources to push the band, but at the same time let us do whatever we wanted artistically. I don't think our band is that crazy, but to these other labels that are supposed to be putting out weird, crazy music, we are."
After their 2005 release, Fantastic Wounds, gave them a taste of success, Schoolyard Heroes were anxious to record new material, but frustrated by the lack of label interest. They were stuck in the place of having outgrown their local indie home (the Control Group) without having a new place to go, so they prepared to record their third album with John Goodmanson, paying for the project out of their own pocket. Stolen Transmission came around just in time.
"On paper it looks like it's either the best of both worlds or the worst," Bergman says. "You can be on the indie label that has all the same troubles as a major, or you could look at it like you're tied in with major labels, but they're not throwing money around recklessly like majors do. You have more control over your career, what your band is and will be. Things have been awesome so far. Knock on wood."
* * *
Donnelly climbs down the rafters, back to the stage. She stands at the edge, gazes out over the crowd with that blood-red grin spread across her lips, and then looks the 10 feet down into the photo pit below her. In the blink of an eye she's on the ground and heading for the audience. Dozens of hands grab at her arms and legs as she looms over the crowd, standing on the barricade that's holding back 12,000 kids from crushing the stage.
Turner, a usually quiet redhead, beats the shit out of his drum set while Bonnell is on his back, wailing a technical guitar riff. Bergman towers over him and beats his low-slung bass to oblivion. The noise reaches a climax, the guitars feeding back as both Bonnell and Bergman toss their instruments against their amps.
They absolutely killed, and right now, evident by the thousands demanding more, no one in the crowd wants it to be over.
Bergman grabs the mic again. For now, there's only one thing left to say: "We have been Schoolyard Heroes! Thank you, goodnight!" 
