Mye liv i Leven – Kreativ skotte i Norge igjen

Leven has become a kind of “Norgesvenn”; he is releasing his fourth album in four years and is coming in October with a full band for the first time. The songs “just poured out of him”; four albums, singles, EPs and a lot of touring have made him known above all in Germany and Norway. Nilsen summarises Doll by Doll (critically acclaimed “post-punk” band, silence after Grand Passion in 1982), the legend of the girlfriend, the choking attack and heroin, and the comeback in 1994. Leven laughs: apart from his “accidents”, it was wonderful to do nothing for years; all he ever had to do was live and observe – but when the songs came, he had to write them down, record them and play them.

Night Lilies is about memories and the tricks memory plays. On Robert Bly and the “Men's Movement”, Leven says Bly has sensible things to say about men and women. The hardest thing he has experienced was the break-up with his girlfriend two years ago because he had fallen in love with another woman; today he lives on the Scottish west coast with his new partner and her children. He wants to process this chapter on “Injured Women: The Leven Report”, which is meant to show that he does not write only about masculinity. Planned: a 6-CD box with Doll by Doll's complete work including the unreleased fifth album, and next year a new, differently sounding, possibly more electronic album with new people.

Tour dates in the text: Stavanger (20.10.), Kabelvåg (21.), Bodø (22.), Trondheim (23.), Førde (24.), Oslo (29.), Bergen (30.10.1998). Leven: apart from the reunion concerts with Doll by Doll in Bergen the previous year, he has never brought a band to Norway.