Stepping out of the shadows, Leprous have come into their own this year, performing to packed crowds on their European tour with Devin Townsend and becoming the ‘must see’ act of the Euro summer season. The band released their new album “Malina” in August this year to critical global praise and have crafted songs that are both catchy and progressive. They return to Australia in 2018 as part of Progfest after making their debut tour in the country in 2016, we speak to mainman Einar Solberg about the tour, their latest album, the recent success of the band and more.
Andrew: I guess you must be crazy busy being on tour and doing a lot of press and that kind of thing.
Einar: Actually right now I just came home from tour which went really well and I managed to take, not the week off but a pretty quiet week by my standards. I just went to my cabin [in Norway] where there was some snow there and stayed by the fireplace for the week so I’m fully charged.
Andrew: Coming off a big tour like that, how do you decompress and relax during your off time?
Einar: The main difference with this tour and the other ones was that this was a much bigger success than other headliner tours we had done before. So it went really well, we had a lot of sold out shows. The shows went really well, I didn’t lose my voice so we ended the tour with a really good feeling and not really being that tired even though we had one off day in 33 shows. It just went so well that it was, ‘OK we’re home now, let’s just start with the next project soon’.
Andrew: Sure and you will be here in Australia very soon, in January next year. You have a series of shows, headliner shows and doing the Progfest as well which is a big deal in Australia these days so it’s good to see you coming back.
Einar: Yeah it’s going to be really amazing to be back in Australia and I’m very happy that it’s going to become a routine to go to Australia after a new album so I’m very happy about that.
Andrew: Yeah I guess we saw you early last year where you toured with Voyager, how was it for you?
Einar: The tour with Voyager was fantastic, it was above all our expectations. I remember because we had no touring experience at all in Australia, we had never been there before so we didn’t know what to expect so we enjoyed that we saw a lot of dedicated people with pretty decent shows since having never played there before so that was really good for us. I think this time it’s going to be even better.
Andrew: What were your first impressions of the country and the people? What did you get up to in your time off?
Einar: I think it’s a very nice and relaxed atmosphere that I really enjoyed. It’s a very good place to stay and even though Norway and Australia is super far away from each other, culturally it’s really not that different. It’s very western oriented in both cultures even though you are as far east as you can get [laughs] but it’s a culture that we kind of know from before a little bit because we love Australian TV shows which is kind of similar to American and English culture. So I love it very much except you have a lot of exotic and cool animals [laughs].
Andrew: [laughs] Well obviously you are coming here in support of the new album you had put out a few months back, “Malina”. It has the trademark Leprous sound but what can you tell me about these songs and how was the writing and recording process this time around?
Einar: It was a bit weird with this album because we started writing it with the idea to kind of perfect what we started on the previous one “The Congregation” but then it turned out very far from that because during the songwriting and recording process we just completely changed direction and preference. There were a couple of songs here and there that could have done well on the previous one but in general it’s a very different emotional landscape than what “The Congregation” was. I don’t know what we were thinking, thinking that we would do kind of the same thing because that’s not really who we are and we’ve never been that kind of band. We’ve always wanted to make each album have it’s own distinct character, that has always been a very important thing for us.
Andrew: Yeah it obviously has that progressive element that you guys are known for. One of the noteworthy things about this album is you had a change on guitar players, how was that transition and what was it like with a new member?
Einar: Well it was weird with the departure of Oystein [Landsverk] because he’s been in Leprous since 2004 so it’s been a very long time in our professional career. However there was a transition period that Oystein didn’t do many shows with us because of other obligations, work and family etc so it came to a point where he just made the decision where it was impossible to do both and dedicate himself to Leprous. So when we asked Robin [Ognedal] to join, he had already done one US tour with us as a stepping player and we had known him for ages so we knew that he was definitely the right man for the task and considering he just had one month to prepare for the album, I think he did a really great job. He’s such a fantastic guitar player.
Andrew: It’s a big task to learn all new songs for a musician like that but also knowing him for such a long time must have really helped him ease into the band.
Einar: Yeah definitely, it helped. We’ve known him since 2005 or 2006 and he’s been in other bands surrounding us so he was a very natural choice.
Andrew: And with the new songs, how have the fans been responding to them when you’ve been playing them live and can we expect many of the on this Australian tour?
Einar: They get really good feedback live. The news songs, it’s usually like that with us. On the internet people are blabbering about us playing old stuff but once we actually play live we always see much better feedback when we play our later stuff! So it works like that, it’s not always the people who scream the loudest who actually represent the popular.
Andrew: Yeah I know what you mean, it must be difficult to please all the fans as there’s always going to be people out there who are going to be disappointed but I guess you can’t really focus too much on that.
Einar: Well exactly, we need to distance ourselves from the expectations because if we start thinking too much about that it will blur our vision a little bit of what we’re doing and it’s better to distance ourselves from the opinions of people and trusting our own opinions.
Andrew: So I want to go back into your history and how you got started in music. Listening to your music there’s a vast and different kinds of influences that I can hear in there but who were some of the musicians growing up that sparked the idea to want to play music?
Einar: It wasn’t really like that for me because I was a hip hop and rap kind of guy when I was a teenager, doing breakdances [laughs]. I was into that kind of stuff and maybe a little bit of punk rock and grunge and that kind of thing. But when I got into music I just loved being on stage, I really loved that part of it and I started with a kind of a punk rock-ish thing because that was the easiest thing to play and the easiest to do with a lot of attitude and a little knowledge. So we started off with that and then it gradually evolved and I started singing first and then I started using keyboards which I got as a gift when I was 14 or 15 and I suddenly started using that after it had not been used for several years. I started using it a bit and then suddenly I started composing simple stuff on it and then I just got completely hooked and everything just went from there. So it wasn’t like one single guy, I just kind of fell into it. It was actually my sister who asked me to join this kind of project / band where we had some tutors that was helping us out in the beginning so that’s how we started. And then Leprous started out very shortly afterwards actually when I got into the symphonic metal kind of thing, but very immature of course!
Andrew: There’s a lot of different stuff that you can hear in Leprous’ music so I guess it’s a combination of not just your own influences but everyone in the band collectively who bring their own inspirations to the band which makes your sound unique and different I suppose.
Einar: I guess even though in Leprous’ case everyone’s contributions are very important but in the song writing, I write more or less everything with the music and me and Tor [Oddmund Suhrke, guitars] will share the lyrics. And that’s happened because we’ve had so much people quitting the band over the years because we’re super active but continued to lose money. I understand why people don’t want to be a part of that for too long.
Andrew: When was the moment when the band was really taking off to the next level so to speak?
Einar: Well it never really happened like that, it was just very gradual. Maybe the biggest thing that happened for us like that was probably the tour we just did now actually because compared to the previous tour we did in 2015 in Europe, this was such a massive success for us. We had 10 sold out shows and almost all of the other shows were pretty packed and close to sold out and we had never ever experienced that before. The tour has always been like, ‘OK there’s a bit more people than last time’, and now it’s like 3 times as many people as we had 2 years ago. So that was really a, ”Wow something has happened here’.
Andrew: Well that’s good to hear! We are looking forward to seeing you in Australia again, it’s fantastic to see you back again. Thanks for your time, really appreciate it and we will see you very soon.
Einar: Yeah I’m looking forward to it so much!
PROGFEST 2018
Leprous, Voyager, AlithiA, Orsome Welles, Meniscus* & Dyssidia
Saturday, January 20: The Factory Theatre, Sydney
Sunday, January 21: The Triffid, Brisbane
Saturday, January 27: The Corner, Melbourne
Leprous headline shows
with special guests AlithiA
Friday, January 19: Badlands, Perth
Thursday, January 25: Jive, Adelaide
Tickets from wildthingpresents.com
facebook.com/Progfest
