Leoniden: Why perfectionism goes through with them
The Leonids from Kiel, these are the two brothers Lennart (guitar) and Felix Eicke (drums), Djamin Izadi (synthesizer), JP Neumann (bass) and singer Jakob Amr. After the debut album "Leoniden" in 2017, the indie band from the far north now released their second album "Again". Why they are incredibly proud of this album and why sometimes the perfectionism goes through with them, Lennart Eicke and Jakob Amr told the Munich news agency spot on news in an interview.
As far as popular music from Germany is concerned, at the moment you are not that secret secret anymore. How does that feel?
Lennart Eicke: I doubt that. We are more likely to be interviewed than in real life, so we're supposed to have grown a bit bigger. But if we compare the tour we played a year ago and the tour we're going to play over the next few months, we'll notice that as well. There are some shops just ten times as busy. It was always normal for us to play in front of 30 people. And now come 300 to 500 to 1000 people. This feels very good to answer the question.
Is your life dream coming true?
Lennart: Yes! He has been doing this for some time. Within our lifelong dream, we expand and always put another goal. So you can keep yourself happy.
What's the next big goal?
Jakob Amr: Right now we are in an exciting phase. Today is the day that "Again" appears. An album in which we have spent 9000 hours of work and on which we could not be more proud. There is a big tour ahead and the goal is to play each concert as if it were the first and last one at the same time. And to survive, that would be fine. This is at least number one for me.
How much does your musician life bring you to your limits?
Lennart: We do not free ourselves much. Actually not at all. After releasing the first album, we immediately went on tour. Then we came home and immediately started writing "Again". That was about a year and a half ago. We played 100 concerts last year. We played 100 gigs this year and wrote and recorded the album in between. That's a lot of work around it. Especially if you have your own label. We are sometimes quite stressed and do not pimp much.
You also call yourself best friends. Are there moments when you come together?
Lennart: We even argue a lot. More than other best friends.
Jakob: We are more than just best friends.
Lennart: We've gotten into the habit of talking to anything that bothers us right away. And then not in a diplomatic way, but just as it bothers us.
What is your unique selling point? As a band?
Jakob: We put an incredible value on our live show. We plan with a lot of perfectionism. And on stage we're crazy in the head from the first to the last note, just go crazy and dance, because that's the time of the day we do it. With huge passion. And we are a band that always wants to push everything to 110 percent. I think that sets us apart from other bands: that we always take much longer to be satisfied.
Lennart: We are nerds. Although we are completely relaxed in terms of genre boundaries. But in all other ways we are pretty strict. We are in part neurotic and right control freaks who do not want to give anything out of hand and would rather think it through three or four times or talk and discuss. Until we can really be sure that we have found the best way for us. We leave nothing to chance.
Are you worried that your do-it-yourself character will be lost over time?
Jakob: The most important thing is that you work with people you really trust, who you are friends with, that you like. We will not take that off.
Lennart: The work will definitely not be less. Here and there you need support, because it is just too much for five people. There were times when this band was more of an office job for us, because we packed all the pre-orders, for example. For such things we need help. But only in the implementation.
But where does this energy come from and you can handle it all?
Lennart: That's our weird, maybe unhealthy ambition. Because we like to incite each other. There is nobody who wants to slow down somehow. It feels very natural and right, for example, to get up at four in the morning to go somewhere. No matter how tired you are. We're doing it for fun.If one of us has a bad day, the four others immediately realize that without having to talk about it. This happens every time you get up with the wrong foot.
Is one more focused as a band in a smaller city like Kiel?
Lennart: Jacob is living proof of that.
Jakob: I moved from Hamburg to Kiel for the Leonids. Before that, I moved to Hamburg from the need to belong to a cultural scene. Even with this naive thought, I move to a big city and then it will be fine. But when I moved to Kiel, we immediately noticed that it pushes us forward again. That we can be so much more concentrated. The city has some nice cafes and clubs to go to. And from my perspective, also very nice people. With this not oversaturated cultural offer Kiel is simply a great place. Kiel is really crazy when it comes to driving. We could go to Copenhagen and back twice before we are in Munich, for example.
Lennart: Just because you live in Kiel does not mean that you're there 365 days a year and missed everything. Kiel has really, very cheap rents. We have a rehearsal room, which is right on the beach. With 80 square meters. We do not have to share that with anyone and I think bands from Cologne, Hamburg, Munich and Berlin can only dream of that.
What is the biggest reward for your work?
Jakob: The biggest reward is to play our music live in front of people you know, even though we do not know people. That remains the core of what we do. The thing we love about everything.
