- Hi and welcome to this interview. Tell us about your latest release "Duplicity, Beings".
Our first album!
"Duplicity, Beings" is an introspective journey, a dialogue between two opposed personalities, forced to live in the same body. Each song presents the point of view of both personalities, sometimes explicitly, as in the title-track, sometimes in a hidden way. The aim is to lead us to look at the world from different perspectives, a way to be able to do self-criticism, to finally reach a common solution, an inner peace.
- How would you describe your sound?
Many would call us nostalgic, ‘cause of our rough sound, which is very reminiscent of 90s grunge or 90s-00s alt-rock, but this is not our aim. Starting from that point, we are trying to shape a new path, an alternative direction to the one taken by Rock music to date. We are open to almost every kind of contamination; each member of The Leaf has a different artistic derivation and we are trying to take the best from each of them.
- What do you write about?
We are Millennials, we live in existential distress by definition. We channel this distress into our songs, very directly actually. Love, friendship, guilt feelings, feeling like an alien, daily stuff.
- What do you listen to when you are home?
As mentioned earlier, each of us chews a different slice of music, Gloria prefers R’n’B and Alt-Metal/Hard Rock, Alessio ranges from English Indie Rock to Grunge, Riccardo has a more Classic-Hard Rock base, Luca has an American Post Rock and Alt-Rock imprint. We do have a wide common ground, but we think that our differences make our strength.
- Your favourite live performance so far?
Definitely, the Muse’s HAARP live from Wembley, no doubt.
- Your favourite albums?
Not easy, if we were forced to choose only one of them with a gun aimed at the head:
Moral Panic – Nothing but Thieves (Gloria)
Led Zeppelin IV (Alessio)
Blood Sugar Sex Magik – RHCP (Riccardo)
The Downward Spiral – NIN (Luca)
- A musician you would like to meet for a beer?
Alive:
Conor Mason (Gloria)
Eddie Vedder (Alessio)
Steve Harris (Riccardo)
Maynard James Keenan (Luca)
Dead:
Janis Joplin (Gloria)
Chris Cornell (Alessio)
John Lennon (Riccardo)
David Bowie (Luca)
- What would you ask for backstage, if you were the most important band on earth?
A meditation session (Gloria)
An Italian Espresso, sugarless (Alessio)
Barbeque and sausages (Riccardo)
102 puppies (Luca)
- What are your plans for the near future?
Playing around as much as possible, The Leaf were born in the middle of Covid lockdown, we didn't have many opportunities to perform, so now our main focus is on booking to perform:
we want to have a confrontation with the public, we want to communicate, we want to rock!
Other than this, we are already working on a new album, right from the introduction it has proved to be a very ambitious project, we hope to have some news for the next year.