Sweden go getters LEACH have this ongoing energy that crosses over between the likes of thrash metal and hardcore metal. With that, their new album "Hymns For The Hollow", takes this combination of genres and energy to spare, with full on aggression, that the whole band just had to discuss it! Find out what was said about this album, the single from it and further plans on making even more music and even playing some shows!
1. Can you introduce yourselves to our readers, who are you and what role do you play in the band?
Bandphoto (from left to right)
Victor Liesto (Guitar)
Joachim Dahlström (Drums)
Markus Wikander (Guitar, Vocals)
Anders Nordlander (Bass)
2. Where is the band from and can you give me a brief history of your band?
Originating from Borås (near Gothenburg), Sweden. We've basically known each other/ been friends since 1st grade and started out in our early teens in 2003 at our local youth center. There were this project trying to get kids into music and at the same time helping out with instruments and the basic stuff that you need. All of us being big fans of the scene, we jumped on the chance to try it out. None of us knew a single note so lets just say it was kind of a rough start... ...and that dedication is king.
The following couple of years were spent releasing a bunch of demos. Released our first full length in 2012 with "Blindfold". Followed by the 2014 EP "Above all" and now 2018 we're current with our latest full length "Hymns for the Hollow".
3. How would you describe your music to those who have not heard it beforehand?
Despite the fact that we're obviously a quite heavy band, we've always been more about the punch than the heaviness. Always about the sort of "in your face" kind of attitude. Strongly influenced by the American metal and Hardcore scene, leaning more towards the crossover acts like Nuclear Assault, Agnostic front, Anthrax etc. Mix that with some Swedish acts like Raised Fist, The Haunted and Entombed - We might just be that freak of a love child and we'd like to call it Thrash'n'Roll.
4. What about the band's name, how did that idea come into place for a name like Leach?
Well that came about a few years in. We wanted something that sounded cool and that rolls nicely off your tongue. By that time everybody were doing the 3word- and even 4word names. Us always having the sort of underdog mentality we wanted to do the opposite - A short name that didn't really mean anything. Of course it's the word leech misspelled, like a Korn or Beatles kind of thing.
5. Which bands do you take influence from the most would you say?
Within the scene nowadays it will probably be bands like Power trip, Turnstile, Iron Reagan, Crowbar, Hatebreed, Terror. Will always love the old school stuff though! We're not narrow minded, love all sort of music. If it's good it's good you know.
6. How about the writing style, where you take inspiration from, what topics does your music tend to cover?
Of course it's cliché to say everyday life reflections, politics, social issues. But that's just what it is. I mean like the song "pragmatic youth" is a response to the polarization within the political time frame right now. The US elections, the brexit and the overall European rise of far Left/Right parties. Everyones going for the "easy" solutions towards complex problems. Everybody's screaming out their opinion without ever taking in another ones point of view. Our lyrics are more often about raising the questions and never about putting our opinions down someone's throat.
On the contrary we got the lyrics for "Do it", which is kind of an homage to the satiric lyricism of S.O.D. Covering the modern social media assholes that always have to tell the world what they're (not) doing, eating and that everything is perfect, but you actually know the person IRL so you know it's all bullshit and fake.
7. Tell me about your latest single called "We Have It All" ?
It's a straight forward kind of party vibe going on. Usually we tend to have working titles of what bands the actual song reminds us of. This one was called "TurboHives" after it's catchy guitar melody á la Turbonegro and the sort of steady 4-beat that's the trademark of The Hives. Lyrically it's about that feeling that many people seem to have these days. You seem to have it all - good life, good job, family and stuff. But somehow you feel unfulfilled inside. Like spiritually. So it's a play on words - We have it all, we have nothing, we have nothing at all.
9. Can you tell us something a little more about your latest album called "Hymns For The Hollow"?
This time around we think we got it right. With songs like super fast "New Low", the infectious riffs of "Chapter two" and the party anthems of "We have it all" and "Free from all". It's just a really good sum up of what we're all about. It's recorded and produced by ourselves and our good friend Mike Cameron Force (Enbound ao). Mastered by Jacob Hansen (Volbeat ao). The "Hymn for the Hollow" song is the last one on the album, a sort of ballad, acoustic with cellos and stuff but with harsh vocals - those two worlds colliding turned out really cool.
10. Why go with the decision to title this album "Hymns For The Hollow"?
The name of the album is all about that underdog mentality mentioned before. The songs on the album are the actual "Hymns for the Hollow". Hollow meaning the ones that are set estranged - Songs for the outsiders.11. When it comes to the album artwork, how does that relate to the title representation?
The artwork took a lot of inspiration from the style "Glitchart", which in shortly is about inducing errors on purpose by various means on them, thus creating "glitches". The methods used are kind of secret but it involved a great deal of playing around with the raw data of the image, all done in a proper D.I.Y manner!
Theres no greater symbolic meaning to the artwork, more than creating a vibe of hollowness. The head without facial features is the more salient expression for this. Also the old television test image and distortion in the background are also an expression for this, but in a more sublime way. The inspiration for these came from when you as a kid stayed up later then you were supposed to (and the rest of the family were asleep), watching television until the broadcast ended, and suddenly getting the feeling of being the only person left in the world, thus creating a temporary void or hollowness.
12. Do you have any tours, gigs for promotion of latest album?
We've had a good run with shows. We did GAM-rocken, a festival in Sweden primarily focused on black and death metal. Also had a blast in Zurich opening for Slapshot. I guess that's a receipt that we might fall into taste for a somewhat wide audience.
13. What else is in the works for the rest of this year?
Currently trying to fill up our schedule with shows. Also have plans for an upcoming EP maybe beginning next year but we'll see.
14. Have any messages for the readers?
Live long and prosper.
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