LEPROUS (Eng.)
– Hello, lots of thanks for answering our interview. How is everything going into the LEPROUS’ camp right now?
Everything is very good! We have a done a lot lately, like releasing a brand new album, making a music video and playing shows as usual. Right now we’re preparing for the summer festival season.
– You have just released your new album, «Coal». How are the first reactions being? And what are your expectations on it?
The reactions are splendid! People really seem to like it. I think everyone in the band is very happy with how the album turned out, so we’re not too concerned with reviews and such, but we do have gotten some pretty awesome reviews, so that’s nice.. It’s nice to get recognition for your work though. But the most important thing is that we ended up with something we’re proud of and can stand for. We’re happy the album is finally out and now we just want to get out there and play it.
– After giving the album some spins I could say it has a more honest feeling than your previous albums. Did anything on the creative process change this time around?
We do too, so thanks for noticing:) The process was quite different because we simply had to work within a much shorter time frame than what we’re used to. The previous albums were written over a long period, something like 23 years. That gave us a lot of time to write a lot of different stuff, but it had the downside that things weren’t very connected or consistent. There were simply too many ideas in one place. “Coal” on the other hand, was made over a course of just a few months, from start to finish. That made everything faster, but the writing process itself was what we normally do. We just had to make quick decisions, and write stuff as we went along. Also, we weren’t completely done with the album before we started recording, so a lot of stuff happened on the spot. Along with the fast writing, I think that’s why it ended up honest. All that spontaneity in the studio.
– It also has a really dark and melancholic feeling. What does affect on the mood on your albums? Is each record you release a mirror of a certain moment in time?
A lot of people are asking that question, but we never really base our albums on real life events. The music is of course implicitly affected by what we experience in 
our life and what we listen to, but there were no lifechanging events, so to speak. Maybe we all just needed to get some energy out during a stressful time or something. Either way it ended up that way it did, and we’re very happy with it, and the dark feeling worked out nicely I think.
– I also think it has a more straightforward approach. Was this what you were aiming for or do you just let things flow naturally?
I think it’s was a natural development from the approach we had. We felt we needed to do things a little differently than before to make things more consistent, so we tried writing the songs based more on simple ideas and make wider use of repeating motifs. Instead of cramming something we thought was cool into an existing song, we would work on what we had already and not just rush on to something new and different to get us out of “trouble”. But there’s still a lot of experimentation. Maybe even more than before, but it’s just a bit different and more fluently interleaved with the framework of the song.
– Talking about such, do you think this opus will help you getting a broader audience?
That’s hard to say. There’s always people who will enjoy what you’ve done before more than anything you will come up with later 🙂 But we’re very satisfied with what we’ve done, and we sure hope to get some new fans. ‘Coal’ is more “stable” in a way though, so it might sit better with more people. Too much stuff going on tends to scare off a lot of people (laughs). There are less surprises in a way, but I think we have still be able to keep our experimental side.
– Anyway you haven’t left aside your usual dynamics. For instance tracks as «Chronic» took my attention, as it has an almost theatrical vibe. What’s the story behind this song?
A lot of ‘Chronic’ was actually composed prior to meeting for rehearsals, so it was more a matter of joining everything together nicely in a band setting and develop it further. Having all the parts work together, and make some changes to keep a nice and natural flow. Actually playing the music with other musicians also very often results in much more energy than you’d get from composing stuff on a computer. We had a lot of fun working on it, and think it turned out nicely. It’s also a song that works nicely in a live setting, so you will definitely see us playing the song live!
– There’s also one monster of a tune called «Contaminate me», which lengths 9 minutes. Probably one of your most complete songs to date. How did this song born?
On ‘Coal’, there’s a lot of long sections and places where we take our time to develop a theme and we don’t rush as much as we did before. Because of that there’s also a lot of atmospheric stuff and more vocal layers etc. ‘Contaminate Me’ almost felt like a kind of reaction to all of that, because it’s heavier than most of the other songs on the album. It seems like we wanted a kind of outlet for all that energy that was built up. It’s a song that ended up being progressively heavier and more chaotic as it developed and we just kept on adding more stuff to feed that aggressive feeling. The ending has this apocalyptic feeling to it, and just leaves a wasteland after the storm is gone.
– In fact you’ve had Ihsahn on that track as guest artist. How did everything arise? I guess it may have had something to do the fact you played with him live.
Very early in the process of making ‘Contaminate Me’, we discovered that we wanted a different voice for the song. Having worked with Vegard Tveitan for several years, it was a very natural choice for us. He has this very characteristic desperation and energy in his voice that emphasized the feeling we wanted the song to have. It just pushed everything up a notch, and made particularly the ending even better than we’d hoped for in the first place. He’s very talented and creative, and he brought that little extra aggression we were looking for.
– You were the live band for IHSAHN, in fact I could say your previous «Bilateral» was some kind of launch pad for you, as you also managed to tour Europe or even play at the US. How mportant was that album for the LEPROUS’ career?
Actually, ‘Bilateral’ wasn’t released until after our first tour we had with Therion and Loch Vostok. I think all of the music was complete though, so we played a few songs from it because we felt the material was much stronger than ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ and we had played old those songs for a such a long time already. But that tour really helped us out. We got to play a lot of places and we realized there was interest out there in Europe. The year after we joined a long European tour with Amorphis, which landed us even more fans. Those two support tours really helped us get a foothold in Europe and it made us have the guts to go out on a headlining tour the year after. Surprisingly to us, that tour worked out just the way we wanted and enabled us to book the tour we’re doing this fall. Hopefully that will be even better! 😀 ‘Bilateral’ was released in a critical point in our career and it helped us launch ourselves in Europe, and hopefully ‘Coal’ can do something for us in the US and UK markets. Those are definitely our next targets!
– You have also helped with the production duties. How positive has this been for the band?
Well, we’ve always done that I would say. ‘Coal’ is the first album to have quite a lot of “unfinished business” when we started to record, but the other albums were in large parts complete to the last note. All of the songs were written and rehearsed, especially ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’. That album was recorded in “The Abyss” in Parlby, Sweden, and all the work was done before we went down there. We had a 3week stay to record and mix almost everything, so there wasn’t time to do anything else but hit the record button. ‘Coal’ needed a bit more work, but we recorded most of it at home ourselves. It’s a bit of a challenge to record stuff yourself, because you are your own worst critic. But the other band members always listen through everything to make sure everyone are on the same page and the material sounds great. Only then do we pass it on to the studio for putting everything together. We did vocals, drums, and some lead and effect guitars in the studio, so we got some great expertise from Heidi Solberg Tveitan and Vegard Tveitan doing that:)
– All this about «Coal» being said; how could you describe it in just 3 words?
Dark, passionate and atmospheric.
– And finally, what are your near-future plans?
First of all, we’re going to prepare for the long festival summer. We’ve been booked for a lot of cool festivals this year, so we’ve got a busy time ahead of us. The rest of the year will be spent further promoting our newest release out on our biggest headliner tour of Europe yet. Over 40 shows will be played, and we sure hope to see as many fans as possible along the way! 😀
– That’s all, thank you once more for answering our questions. If you want to add some final words; feel free to do it.
Come see us in Europe this summer, or during our long tour in the fall! We’ll be sure to get you your money’s worth!
– Øystein S. Landsverk
