Creative Thinking
Einar Solberg didn’t intend to write a long song. He doesn’t even like them. Yet, sitting in a comfortable chair by the fire, laptop perched on his legs, the Leprous singer and main songwriter began composing what became the 11-minute, avant-garde epic The Sky Is Red. On it, his high-pitched wails drift precariously over complex percussion, as the music builds towards clipped choral bursts which sound like doomed souls protesting in Hell. Hearing it, an outsider might conclude that Leprous had decided to go full prog.
“I was trying to do the opposite, actually, but it seems there’s still too much in my blood!” Solberg laughs. “Because I don’t like long songs, even. I think they’re usually filled with way too much stuff that could have been thrown out. I thought The Sky Is Red sucked in the beginning because it was too weird for what I was aiming at.”
“If I want to be impressed, I’ll watch Usain Bolt running. If I want to listen to music, it’s because I want to feel something.”
He played it
