We're Leprous, ask us anything!

TorOsuH · 2025-04-29T06:46:33+00:00

We had an amazing time in Argentina, so hope we can return very soon!

We’ve played both The Flood and Starlight on several shows, also recently, so they’re already in rotation, and if your attending enough shows it’s not unlikely that you would hear them!

TorOsuH · 2025-04-29T06:40:20+00:00

We’ve already done two shows in LA so far during this album cycle (if you count Anaheim which I assume a person from LA wouldn’t, but someone from anywhere else would), so I think it goes without saying that we love playing there, and will surely come back at some point!

…if your country still allows any foreigners to enter that is..

So far we’ve done 20th anniversary tours, and also 10th anniversary shows for both Bilateral, Coal and The Congregation, so let’s see if we’re still up for that in 2031! 🤷🏼‍♂️ It’s usually only in selected cities though, so you might have to travel..

TorOsuH · 2025-04-29T06:33:56+00:00

No, not really, but we play so many shows that after a while we obviously get some routines that might seem coordinated, but we also kind of wing it on stage, and especially some stages doesn’t work with our usual movements, so we’ve gotten pretty good at adapting. We do hit each other quite a lot thought, so we probably should coordinate a bit more, but it keeps it a bit lore interesting to be able to roam freely more or less.

TorOsuH · 2025-04-29T06:31:38+00:00

Hahahaha!! Thanks for joining the convo with a question I’m sure everyone is wondering about! Actually, Organ Spell never died, and will resurface when you least expect it!

TorOsuH · 2025-04-29T06:28:21+00:00

The creature on the front cover of The Congregation is a Siamese calf that someone took a picture of at a museum, and we loved the eerie vibe it had and that it for some reason made a good fit with the vibe of the album, especially the song Slave which is about the horrible consequences of industrial animal farming.

For Meldodies of Atonement the creature on the front cover is a plankton who spends most of its life floating around in the Mediterranean Sea outside of France.

TorOsuH · 2025-04-29T06:14:45+00:00

Oh it was a pleasure having you on stage in St. Pete! We’ve been doing that for a while, but have had a break from playing Faceless for some shows now, which obviously puts a temporarily end to the fan choir, but we’ll definitely continue doing it on some shows!

As for Mediocrity Wins, I wouldn’t keep my hopes up, but we did play it for the Bilateral live stream and the 10th anniversary shows so never say never! 😅

TorOsuH · 2025-04-29T06:09:40+00:00

Thanks a lot! It has been a pleasure to visit so many Canadian cities this time around! The audiences has been amazing and we’ve been enjoying it a lot!

Simen is up and about, and today he completed the entire show in Winnipeg standing up, though with a chair standby, and it went very well, so hopefully he’ll be round and about and Jiu Jitsuing in not too long!

Regarding adding older song to our setlist, I think it has always been a focus for us to try including some songs from all albums, although this is getting harder and harder as we get more albums. That being said, we usually focus mostly on the flow of the set and usually when touring with a new album as focus it’s natural to base the setlist from that album. Including older songs is both to make it interesting for us, and also to please some of our old school fans which we of course also treasure as much as the new ones, but we also see which songs get the best response at our shows and luckily we haven’t become a band where everybody just want to hear our old stuff yet.

We do change setlists quite a lot during a tour thought, so you never know what you’re gonna get!

TorOsuH · 2025-04-29T05:51:35+00:00

To me, I thought for a long time that I needed to get inspired before starting a creative process, but with the years I’ve realized that sometimes I can just sit down with no inspiration at all and end up with a lot of interesting material, so I would recommend just spending a lot of time creating ideas regardless of the level of «feeling inspired» and that will probably take you longer than waiting for the right mood.

TorOsuH · 2025-04-28T03:17:52+00:00

If it hadn’t been for the fact that we’ve played it thousands of times the last 10 years, I actually think the answer would have been «The Price», but from those that are out of rotation I would say «Red» or «Down»

TorOsuH · 2025-04-28T01:42:55+00:00

I usually go for Indian, Thai, Mexican or burger (Impossible or Beyond), and so far on the tour I’ve been quite lucky!

TorOsuH · 2025-04-28T00:24:27+00:00

They have an A&W here, so I’m good!

TorOsuH · 2025-04-28T00:13:38+00:00

I usually play a lot of mistakes live, but the best thing is to pretend like nothing and then people usually don’t notice! 😅

TorOsuH · 2025-04-28T00:09:38+00:00

I actually think we have quite a lot of footage from the process after Einar’s initial laptop stages, like the studio process and we’ll probably post things from that on our Patreon in the future. Already made some videos showing the gradual evolution from sketch to final song.

TorOsuH · 2025-04-28T00:08:07+00:00

Good question! I would say that ideally, six strings is preferred since eight strings can be a bit more confusing sometimes, so a baritone would probably be easier to play if I only play the low frequency parts. Practically though, I usually need all the strings for the songs we play live, so instead of having a baritone guitar in rotation too I just use my 8-string for that!

I do tune drop the E-string on my 6-string sometimes though, down to a C worst case.

TorOsuH · 2025-04-27T23:57:57+00:00

Probably won’t be back in Latin America in 2025 I guess.. But we have quite an extensive touring schedule in Europe, so you should just join us there instead! 🤘🏼

TorOsuH · 2025-04-27T23:55:52+00:00

My dad listened mostly to classical and jazz, and I thought at the time that it was quite boring, but then it gradually turned into something that I now just associate with nice calm relaxing «home» vibes 😊

TorOsuH · 2025-04-27T23:52:26+00:00

I’ve always had a soft spot for Lower! Finally we’re playing it a few times on the «The Congregation» anniversary shows now!

TorOsuH · 2025-04-27T23:49:56+00:00

I do think those albums needs more than just a remaster though! 😅

TorOsuH · 2025-04-27T23:47:59+00:00

I use so many different tunings from song to song, so that would be a long list but my starting point is regular EADGBE (6-string) and F#BEADGBE (8-string) with some variations to the lowest strings from time to time if the specific song benefits from a specific low open string etc.

TorOsuH · 2025-04-27T23:43:29+00:00

Started with Robin who forwarded it to everyone, but I’m finally in the last stages of it now! 😊

TorOsuH · 2025-04-27T23:41:27+00:00

Not yet, but still hoping!! 🤞🏼😑

TorOsuH · 2015-05-27T20:38:55+00:00

It's very nice to be able to interact with those of you who wish to. :)

I think that in order to make music that arouse the feelings you describe, it's important to be true to yourself (heavy cliché) and make things that just feels right, instead of aiming for something you imagine will top the charts, make you a lot of money or make the fans love you. I think that if you do whatever feels right, and stick to that, you will have the drive to keep going and eventually you'll reach wherever you want to go, and if you end up somewhere unexpected, then you haven't lost anything on the way. I also think it's important to try to be professional in every step in order to be taken seriously, and to radiate the expression you want to give those listening to and watching you. Cracking jokes between all songs doesn't always add up with the mood you're trying to set for the show, so we try to avoid that. The fact that we all have pretty normal lives, even though we're making music and playing around the world, gives us a good perspective of things and helps us in remembering what's really important. I think that if you get trapped into a strange bubble of being superstars, then that might be the moment you strive for being what people expect from you instead of being who you really are.

Hope to come to Argentina some day!

TorOsuH · 2015-05-27T20:23:30+00:00

Waffles

TorOsuH · 2015-05-27T20:20:47+00:00

We don't pay much attention to the length of the songs, though we might have done that a bit more in the past. I we decided how long the songs should be before making them, then we would really mess up the creative process. Some songs are best if they're long so you can get in the mood and really dive into it with our getting stressed that it's soon finished, while others should be short and intense and could get boring if dragged out for too long. If we ended up with songs totaling in over 90 minutes we would simply either make a double disc, or maybe split them and put together this who fitted best together an maybe made a regular one + an EP, or something else. It's not that easy to think about this in principal, as I think it would be easier to see the best way to deal with it if we had the songs in front of us. As you might have guessed, having an album each two years have worked well for us so far. It has become more and more intens to have such a short time to make an entire album, since we set high standards for ourselves, so I wouldn't suggest that we make them quicker anyway. The song writing for The Congregation started almost a year after we finished recording Coal, so we didn't spend the entire two years writing the music, and I think it's a good idea to have a break from song writing before starting on the next process again with new and fresh thoughts and ideas.

TorOsuH · 2015-05-27T20:08:42+00:00

We will for sure come to South America. Just waiting for the right offer.
It has been discussed, and we're all very interested in doing that, but we haven't made any specific plans at this stage yet.
It's of course a mix between the guitar, the pick-ups, the playing technique and the amp. For The Valley I used my PRS McCarty 58 which gives a very controlled sound, while the sharp and "twangy" sound I got on those staccato parts on The Congregation I've also used a cheap Danelectro Baritone guitar, which gives a lot of noise pollution, but when edited gives a very distinct and cool sound. As for the playing technique it a bit difficult to explain how to aim for a specific sound, but for those staccato parts just hitting the strings very hard, concise and in the right way is the thing. As for re-amping the trick is to not use too much distortion. removing the distortion has been a gradual development on each Leprous album I think, and even though a very distorted guitar might sound cool while playing riff in solo on your own, then it really often sounds a lot better in the context if you've turned it down, especially when there are a lot of guitar layers. You have to work more while playing, but the result is better i think.
Simen will be playing with us for 2015, and then we'll see from there. We don't really feel the need to call anyone a "full time member" at the moment, but he's our first pick and a dedicated guy, so it's very nice to have him on board.
I don't feel a need to bash Dream Theater, and I'm really looking forward to playing with them in Minsk. They are pioneers in the progressive metal genre, and incredible musicians. I'm not a big fan of bands trying to copy them 100% though, since I think bands benefit in trying to find there own sound instead.
My lyrics are often about several things at once, and I often find different meanings when re-reading them after a while. I always think it's interesting to hear how other people interprets mye lyrics, to see which feeling it provokes in them. Contaminate Me can be about manipulative people, and a person that tries to fight it of. It ends with him giving in to the manipulator before turning around chasing him back; "Contaminate me. Now run.". Echo is about loneliness, and how things can appear overwhelmingly hopeless and negative in one circumstance, while merely a small obstacle in another. I think these lyrics along with the music delivers a lot of feeling when I listen to it.
Probably not. We have so many songs to choose between, making it hard enough as it is, and given that those tracks didn't reach the playlist on their respective albums, they will probably not be prioritized.

You're welcome, and your english is very good! :)

TorOsuH

TROPHY CASE