Leoniden: That’s why the band still plays in small clubs

The indie rock band Leoniden from Kiel is releasing their new album “Sophisticated Sad Songs” on August 23rd. Singer Jakob Amr and guitarist Lennart Eicke talk in an interview with the news agency spot on news about sad songs, heartbreak and German song lyrics. The two also reveal what consequences their energetic performances have had, why they like to collect stolen goods at performances and whether they are aiming for an international career.

Your album is called “Sophisticated Sad Songs”: What does “sophisticated” mean in this case?

Jakob Amr: The German translation of “sophisticated” is a bit difficult, but sophisticated is a good description. It’s about making it clear that we’ve been writing “sophisticated sad songs” ever since we were founded. The image you get when you just hear this title is definitely a fog on the ground and a big grand piano and then someone in a suit comes along and laments his suffering in a deep voice full of vibrato. But what we do is in fact exactly that: We’ve always written things for a long time and meticulously and we devote ourselves to sad topics. We want to counteract this party band stigma that we have. Yes, it’s a party, but maybe a sadder party.

Lennart Eicke: I think everyone would know what is meant by “sad songs”. If you sit down at the piano, as Jakob just described, and let out all the sad things inside you in a sad Tom Odell-like manner, then it is somehow clear what is meant. We also interpret all these feelings, just differently than a Tom.

Feelings can perhaps be expressed better in one’s native language. Has singing in German ever been an issue for you?

Lennart: It’s funny that we like to be counted among German pop acts. Musically, that’s really far from what we do. We were musically socialized by Radiohead or Nirvana. Every band in Germany is encouraged to do something in German, but in a world that is much more globalized than it was 20 or 30 years ago, I find that absurd. Everyone here speaks English and watches Netflix in English, but suddenly everyone is making music in German. The world is actually so borderless. So why limit yourself?

Jakob: It’s become a running joke that we say: “We’ll make the next album in German.” German is a really great language, but it’s often very lyrical and intellectual.

The song “A Million Heartbreak Songs” is about how even when the millionth “heartbreak song” ends, another one will follow. What is your remedy for heartbreak?

Jakob: I think, just like the first line in the song says: Both my friends and family have advised me to just distract myself until it feels okay again. It’s the worst advice you can get, because it never really feels okay. Sometimes it’s good to wallow in it and acknowledge that you’re feeling bad. But sometimes it’s also good when someone pulls you out and you do something and accept that you can have good days again and that you deserve them. Heartbreak is like the flu. There are people who try homeopathic remedies, and there are people who take heavy medication, but in the end, time will fix it.

Bassist Marike has been in the band since 2021. How has the group changed as a result?

Lennart: It really revitalized us in a way. First of all, Marike is a gifted musician. She actually only stepped in as a temporary helper and during that time, things clicked pretty quickly. You could see that she could bring a dynamic that we had lost a little. We were caught in such a rut, and the pandemic had a lot to do with that, which completely slowed us down as a band that lives off of playing concerts and that was committed to doing so. It was a very frustrating time, and at some point it became exhausting to have to motivate ourselves again and again when everything was canceled and constantly postponed. Then a band is like a relationship. It can only function as well as the people behind it. Then suddenly Marike came along and brought the drive back with her. She didn’t know our rules and reminded us that we didn’t need any standards or routines and that we could write the record without them.

How do you experience the outside perception: Is a woman in a male band still something special?

Jakob: Unfortunately, yes. The good thing is that Marike is not the quiet bassist who stands at the back right. She is completely a front person, like all of us except Felix. She now crouches down at least as often as Lennart (laughs). All male bands that have a woman in the band at some point say this, but it’s true: We weren’t looking for a woman to do justice to the political aspect. With Marike, we just fit together on a human level. She could be the most gifted bassist in the world, but if we didn’t get along with her, it wouldn’t have worked out.

Lennart: It was never an issue for us as a band. Women have been involved in the entire production, in the crew that goes out with us, for a long time. So it didn’t feel like a revolution for us behind the scenes.

On Instagram you show the reactions of people who have obviously never seen you before and are surprised by your energetic performance with flying guitars. What has broken on stage – and on you?

Jakob: Everything, just everything (laughs). But you learn from it: Lennart now has guitar straps that are almost indestructible and his guitars are round and light and no longer square and heavy. There was also a phase when Lennart was always biting Djamin’s back. He put chili on his back, which burned so much and he had to go to the dermatologist. Nobody really won that (laughs).

Lennart: I’ve had to get stitches backstage too. Recently half of my finger fell off and it bled a lot. But that’s what we’re here for, to really take the risk and not be cautious. It’s our freedom, where we can let loose. That’s why we go on stage.

You’ve been to a lot of festivals. What were the best experiences?

Lennart: The summer is characterised by the fact that we have a great contrast programme. We play the biggest festival slots we have ever played. It was unbelievable that we were allowed to play in front of 55,000 people at Hurricane. At the same time, on the way to the festivals, we play road shows in small clubs, in front of 100 people, where we played five or six years ago and wouldn’t really do today. From these highly professional festivals to these DIY shows, where we bring the bare essentials onto a two-by-two-metre stage, everything is just fun. That’s what makes this band special, that we seek out such adventures. Other people might go to an amusement park, but we play a concert in a much too small venue with 100 percent humidity for the thrill (laughs).

The thieves’ band Leoniden have struck again. You like to take a “souvenir” from festivals, which you then sell in your shop. How did that originally come about?

Jakob: We need to get rid of some of our criminal energy (laughs). The first time we took a small sign from a small shop in Bielefeld. We explicitly had no desire to turn it into a Robin Hood operation. We just wanted to take something away.

Lennart: The idea came about because we were on the road a lot a few years ago and it was normal for us to pack up a lot of catering before we left because we didn’t know how long we would be sitting in the car. We weren’t used to the fridges being so full everywhere. And then at some point the idea came up that we would not only sell T-shirts and records in our shop, but also stolen goods, because we were always short on cash (laughs).

In addition to the festivals, you have also decided to do small shows and travel a lot for your live performances. Mental health is becoming increasingly important, is that also an issue for you?

Jakob: I do think that we deal with breaks in a more structured way. I don’t know if it started because of the forced break due to Corona, but I do have the feeling that we have become a bit more sensible. But when I talk to other artists, I realize that we are still completely crazy. We are really high performers and we don’t have to take a leaf out of their book. If someone needs a break, we have the utmost respect and of course make it possible, but that rarely happens.

Lennart: It is definitely the case that when we need a break, for example to write a record, we can now take it. We are no longer so driven by having to go on tour, because otherwise the whole financial construct collapses. We can take time off in a much healthier way. On the other hand, mental health for us means that it is good to be on tour. Of course it is always exhausting and in the end it is stressful, but it is what we want to do and always the place in the world where we feel comfortable, somewhere in the tour bus and on some stage. That can give you a lot of strength. And we have been able to improve our structures enormously. We no longer drive around the country in our own Sprinter.

In the autumn you’re going on tour again, including to the UK. How does that differ from performances here?

Lennart: The concerts are of course a hundred times smaller than here. The audience is usually a funny mix of people who met us at support shows and a handful of Erasmus students who have already seen us in Hamburg or Munich and are really happy to hear the Leonids for 15 euros (laughs). You probably have to go really far away to Malaysia to find out that they don’t exist.

Speaking of which: Do you hope to play more internationally in the future?

Jakob: As we have proven this year, the adventures that make you happy are right on your doorstep. You don’t have to play a New Zealand tour, you can just drive back to Bonn. But I love discovering the world in a musical context. I’m not usually a big travel fanatic, so if we were given a Japan tour for next week, we would pack our things straight away. I’d be up for all of that, but I’m not going to put it on my bucket list, that would be presumptuous. Then I wouldn’t appreciate the privilege of the life I’m already able to lead.

Lennart: There are only 365 days in a year and we are fully booked. It is important to us that we not only play in Munich and Hamburg and Leipzig and Berlin, but also in Fulda, Trier and Tübingen. If it somehow happens, we would say yes straight away, but we don’t have the time to think about an Argentina tour right now.

Jakob: The reality is that bands that go abroad and come back happy and give you the feeling that they’ve made it have usually spent 100,000 euros to be able to do it at all. I would say that we’re not doing so well financially (laughs). That’s the reality of bands that work in a DIY context and basically do everything themselves.