Israeli-based Lego Lepricons (“We’re musical leprechauns, making music instead of shoes, and the name is an extension of that thougt”) are a tough-rocking, hard hitting, future-focused guitar band. Marking their first trip to Dublin as part of YouBloom 2013, they talk about how the Israeli music scene present a commercial struggle, and their plans to surpass it…
You’re called musical Lego Lepricons, and you’re set to play Dublin. It’s probably not a stretch to say that this might be quite exciting for you. What are you hoping to do while you’re here? Will you visit the leprechaun museum?
This is very exciting for us and it is the first time we’re in Ireland and I have to say we’re quite amazed with the Irish people and their joy of life and love of music.
Unfortunately we have a busy schedule and we won’t be able to visit the leprechaun museum, but hopefully next time we will be there.
What are you hoping to achieve through You Bloom!? What attracts you to this particular festival?
I guess that we’re trying to achieve what every band is trying to achieve, recognition, new audiences, and perhaps new ways to spread our music world wide.
What attracted us to the festival was first of all the opportunity to visit the unique Ireland, and also we see You Bloom as a great platform that promotes new sounds and music.
This is the first date of a European tour for you. Is it your first time playing internationally? What pushed you to this stage?
We had a couple of gigs before You Bloom in Dublin and we’re in a middle of a European tour, but yes, this is the first time we play internationally.
We felt that we wanted to play our music everywhere, to different people and different cultures, not just on our homeland, we don’t set boundaries to our music when we create it, so why set boundaries on where we’re playing it..
We’ve heard your sound called ‘Space Rock’. Is that a description you agree with? How would you describe your own sounds?
This connects me a little bit to the previous question, it’s really hard to set boundaries and say, this is the type of our music, every time someone asks me to define the type of music we play, I get confused. We gave it the name ‘space rock’, because of the associations it gives us, and because of the general sensation we feel when we play it.
Most of the time, we’re in space when we play it.
As for the sounds, I see it as a mutation that changes figures all the time, I can’t touch it, I can’t see one face of it, I can’t grab it with my hands and lift it.
The music industry can be notoriously fickle. If you only had one song with which to introduce yourself, what would you go for?
I think that would be “well,I don’t think so” ,if you’ll listen to it you will understand why.
What’s your song writing process?
If I write on my own, i write on my guitar or my piano or I start with some loops on my computer, sometimes the lyrics comes first, sometimes it’s the music. When we write together, we mostly improvise and build shapes upon shapes, until we can see a character standing in front of us, sometimes we say, we want to be friends with this character, sometimes we let the character go.
Who are you musical inspirations?
A lot and still coming
A few: Pink Floyd, Sigur Ros, Sun Kil Moon, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead and more….
You sing in English… does it feel natural to express yourself in a second language like this?
Well, I can’t say it’s completely natural, sometimes it’s not easy for me, but I grew up listening to music in English, watching movies in English, we all did, a lot of our heroes speaks English, so even if it’s not easy sometimes, the heart feels good with it.
Israel’s politics is certainly controversial from the outside. Does that make it more difficult to forge a career as musicians than it might be for bands from other places? Do you feel a musical impact?
That’s why we’re musicians, not politicians, musicians shouldn’t have any territories or boundaries, just as music don’t have territories or boundaries, any one who thinks differently, is a fool. I see my self as Achilles when I play music, no country, no limits what so ever, I belong only to the music, and right now we don’t feel any difficulty coming from this direction , I guess we had the luck to meet only smart and lovely people so far.
For those of us not familiar with the Israeli music scene, who are the must-know artists these days?
We recommend : Shalom Hanoch, Berry Saharof, Asaf Avidan ,Geva Alon
The music industry in Ireland is struggling, in large part due to download culture and reduced gig attendance through the recession. Surviving through music isn’t easy. Are there any tips we can learn from the Israeli market?
Ha Ha, I’m really sorry I’m laughing, and I’m sorry to tell you, that the Israeli market is triple as bad then the Irish market, so maybe you can give me the tips.
Lego Lepricons play Twisted Pepper, Abbey St, Dublin at 9.50 on Friday June the 28th 2013, as part of YouBloom@Dublin.