LEVENde minner

NTB Pluss interview conducted in Oslo on Night Lilies. The key words of the album are memory and remembrance: how with age one forgets and falsifies memories, until a smell, a taste or a sound suddenly brings them back. That is exactly what happened to him in the summer of 1997 on a small Greek island: the scent of a flower took him straight back to childhood and youth in Scotland and awakened forgotten memories, some of which ended up on the album; all eleven songs have a real basis, even if not all of them describe his own experiences.

On Doll by Doll Leven says the band deserved a better fate but had only itself to blame for never breaking through: so aggressive and unfriendly that it made many enemies; he himself was violent at the time and thought that was right because his friends were the same. He led a life on the edge, and ironically it was precisely the severe assault that saved him: for two years he could not speak, for six years he could not sing, but he had time to withdraw to Scotland and take stock of his life – he emerged from convalescence a better person. A great deal of energy afterwards went into the centre for homeless drug addicts that he founded. He has enjoyed telling stories since childhood and gives them a fitting mood; Night Lilies is considerably warmer than Fairy Tales. The ending (destroyed by OCR) mentions Rolf Jacobsen, plans to set more poems by his “good friend” and other poets to music on the next record, and the October tour.