It’s been some time since Leaves’ Eyes popped op from the fresh metal soil, but now metalrage finally had the chance of knocking on the door of Alex Krull and Liv Kristine Espenaes (well, actually it was their e-mail box) and ask them some questions. Liv got our mail and kindly answered it.
If you want to know what Liv has in common with grunting, keep on reading, you’ll find out soon enough!

How exactly, did you come up with the name ‘Leaves’ Eyes’? I’ve been wondering that ever since I heard the (awesome!) record...

“Leave” sounds like my first name, and the second word is a body part of mine. That’s all, actually.

A couple of months have passed since the release of ‘Lovelorn’. How are you faring now? Still on promotional tour or maybe even writing songs for the next album?

We just finished our European tour before Christmas, but promotion is still going on parallel to recording our new album. At the moment we are recording the drums with our new drummer Moritz Neuner (Darkwell, Graveworm a.o.) in one of our recording rooms and guitars in another, thus a lot of things are going on at Mastersound studio (www.mastersoundentertainment.de) right now.

How are the reactions on ‘Lovelorn’ so far? Don’t people think of it as Atrocity with a female singer too much?

The reactions have been fantastic world wide, both from fans and press. Atrocity and Leaves’ Eyes are a big family, doing different kinds of music.

I read all about that little incident in France. I’d love to know more about that? What was the reason for the police to arrest you, for example?

The police told us to move our bus which was parked for loading in front of Moulin Rouge, but it was impossible due to the fact that tourist busses were parked before and in front of us. The police then decided to arrest our bus driver. We told them that it was senseless because without our bus driver the bus cannot move, logically. Then they got angry, arrested four of us and attacked us. With the help of the German Embassy we were able to get the band members out of prison 3 hours later. Of course the police wanted money from us because we had been parking too long!

How was Leaves’ Eyes born, anyway, considering it consists of members of the band Atrocity and you?

I had had the idea for quite a long time as I first sat down and wrote the concept for Lovelorn. I showed it to my friends from Atrocity and they liked it. A couple of months later we had signed a record deal with Napalm Records and released our first album!


Don’t Alex and you find it difficult living their life as a couple in public?

There is no difference for us as a couple whether we are in the public, working in our studio or at home. We feel so comfortable being together and we are an unbeatable team!

I mean, don’t they ever have a fight?

We never have fights, but every now and then we have our discussions, but these concern the things which are typical for couples, like who should do the cleaning and who should drive to the bakery on early Sunday morning. It’s really no more worse than that.

How did the lyrics of ‘Lovelorn’ come to be?

I was pregnant at that moment and this, together with Nature and my home country, inspired me to write about love.

Does it bother you that people refer to Leaves’ Eyes as being a gothic metal band, considering your distinctive sound?

No, not at all. I love this genre; I love this kind of music. However, personally, we all have different musical tastes in the band. I, for example, listen to Black Sabbath, Madonna, Edvard Grieg, just to mention a few. The various tastes is what makes our sound distinctive.


I read something in an interview with Leaves’ Eyes I found hard to believe a couple of days ago: you love to grunt! Is that true? I know a lot of people who would love a juicy answer to that question =)
If it’s true, who are those ‘grunting rolemodels’ (apart from Alex ;P)?

He-he, I like that question! I love to imitate other people’s voices (I’ve been doing this since my early childhood), and sometimes I do imitate growling, also that of my husband, he-he.

At my birthdayparty not too long ago, I put on ‘Lovelorn’ and all of my non-metalfan friends loved it! Can one state that Leaves’ Eyes is music for pop-loving musicfans, too?

I want to make as many ears and hearts happy as possible, no matter what kind of music they usually like to listen to.

Love,

Liv