Today, we sat down with the band Leper Messiah to talk music inspiration, heroes and much more! Be sure to check out their new album Fell Creatures below after the interview!
Interview:
What is your inspiration to write your music? Is it your surroundings?
Lots of things find their way into our music, but generally we write about struggles and hardship, and good ol’ fashion sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, too. Oftentimes, ideas strike us on the road or at gigs, so the surroundings sure are important; sometimes it’s an interesting person you meet, another time it is a wacky situation developing in front of the stage, or just something you read that fills you with vision.
What type of music did you listen to growing up?
Hard rock was big thing at my school when I grew up, and I had a couple of older friends who got me into Kiss and Twisted Sister and AC/DC, things like that. My real musical awakening, however, came with the Apatite for Destruction album by Guns N’ Roses. Apart from such acts, I was also, as a Norwegian, very much into A-ha for a while. In the 90s, though, everything changed when I discovered David Bowie.
Is there someone you looked up as a hero?
Oh, David Bowie for sure, and Iggy Pop, too; great, charismatic artists who, despite of their bravado on stage, were/are real compassionate people. Those two deserves all the love we can give. I’m also a great admirer of Tom Waits; a fantastic songwriter and a real interesting performer.
If you weren’t a musician, would you be doing today?
I’d be a fiction writer. Actually, I’m trying to build a writing career on the side of the rock thing, writing Bronze Age fantasy murder mysteries and thrillers. It’s all about telling stories for me, stories of people and their struggles, whether in music or in fiction. Art takes many forms.
What advice do you have for our fans out there that want to create music?
Go for it! Creating is always worth the while; it feeds the soul and nurtures your passion. The struggle comes when you try to break through with your art, that’s tough. But you don’t HAVE to do it professionally to enjoy making music, of course! Create for your own pleasure if you want to.
If you DO want to “make it” as a musician, know that it’s a lot of hard, thankless work over a lot of years. It can take decades to reach professional levels, so you better start early. It also helps if you are stubborn, driven, and ever so slightly mad. But perhaps the most important quality of all is luck. Nobody can train their luck, of course, but the longer you pursue your dreams the greater are the chance that one day you’ll be at the right place, at the right time, meeting the right people, with the right pitch that gets you in the door, be it a record company or sponsor or agent or whatever.
So, good luck to anyone starting out!
Well, this has been a joy! On behalf of Leper Messiah, I’d like to thank Drop the Spotlight for inviting us in. Let’s do it again, sometime, yeah?
People can reach us at: https://www.facebook.com/TheLeperMessiahBand
Music:
