Kristian Leontiou talks about One eskimO

the new album, animation, and taking the show on the road on Thu 12th Feb 2009

One eskimO first arrived on the music scene late in 2007 with 'Hometime' (the video for which won a 2008 British Animation Award). The project is the brainchild of singer-songwriter Kristian Leontiou who first found fame at an early age with songs from his 2005 release 'Some Day Soon'. eGigs spoke to Kristian about the new project.

Being an eskimo you must feel at home in the current weather.
Ha, not today it's a bit slushy today. But, yeah it was a bit weird to have snow on my birthday, which was quite cool.

What is your musical background?
I started working in the studio when I was 15, and started working with a publisher at 17 or so, and I had an album out about four years back under the Universal label, and I've been working on this project for about four and a half years now.

Are you likely to return to any of the songs from 'Some Day Soon'?
No, for me it was quite difficult work, it wasn't really where my head was at, and amicably I split with the label, I think we were both on different pages really. I think they could see that as much as I could. I stopped working for them quite a while back, it took me a while to get out of my contract, and while I was doing that I was concentrating on this album. It was a massive thing for me to try and walk away from, but yes, I'm definitely not returning to that any time soon.

Have you got any advice for someone who might be in that sort of position?
I think I was lucky. Over the years I've met quite a few people in a similar situation. The first time you get thrown out there it is kind of difficult, I think I was lucky really, because it was quite successful. Successful enough for me to have been able to walk away from it in time. If it had gone better, I think it would have been more difficult, and I think it's one to thing to keep on trying but I've been very stubborn. You need to be, and with this project just to make sure everything is right, it on my shoulders and I want it to be my music. And visually I've spent a long time working on it.

I think that's the solution, don't just focus on being in it to to be a singer and just make music, try to get involved in everything really.

How did One eskimO come about?
It was a long time ago, I was in the States at the time, working over there, and I was on a flight back, I felt I was heading in the wrong direction. Visually I felt I was being pushed in a different direction to what my personality was, and I felt musically I'd written some songs, but production wasn't in my hands, and it got turned over quite quickly. In my naivety I just got caught up in it. I felt I wanted to make visuals to go along with the music, I felt that last time, that just having pictures of me just didn't suit what I felt like I wanted to do.

I first started writing the songs, and working on the music, a long time before any of the illustrations came up, although the idea was always for it to be illustrated. It just took a bit of time to pull it together. I just wanted to put visuals to go alongside the music.

How did the animation come about? Do you do the animation yourself?
Well with our first animation, I've been really fortunate, because luckily for me, I spoke to a few people about coming up with some ideas, and I didn't feel like I'd got it right with anybody at all. I'd initially come up with the character ideas and then a friend of mine just pulled some animators together. He was in the industry, he's in the animation world.

Animation is a nightmare, I remember working with my old label, and them saying for animation projects it's far too expensive and there's no way we're going to fund that sort of thing.

We got our first animation done on a shoestring in these people's bedrooms really, and then last year we won a British Animation Award for it. The first one had taken about six months or so to make, and now we have funding to do our whole album as animated, and it's taking them six months to do the whole album. So you can imagine how many people they've had working on it. It's just taken time to get to that level. The first one was just a massive labour of love by everyone involved really.

So will the album be released as a DVD? How will you present the animation?
The album was already written, as I said it was music first, and then illustrations after. The idea was just to get it done first. After we received the Animation Award it became an idea going on in my head, whether it would be possible to get this done, and then we had a few people ask us to look at the story, and then if they liked it they would give us the funding.

We haven't got funding from any labels, we've been able to keep on with our album and not go through a major, and got funding just through TV people paying for our animation really. I don't really know, the idea is just to get it done, and wait and see what happens. I know we'll put the album out as an album, but there will also be a visual thing too for anyone who wants that.

Your band are credited as Giraffe, Monkey, and Penguin, are they actually real people?
These are my guys, I worked with these guys for some time. The Giraffe, he started the live set as I started on the visuals with another friend of mine. A year into it, or maybe a couple of years into it I asked everybody what they would want to be. But I did say I wouldn't necessarily stick to what I said. They came up with all kinds of stuff, the Monkey just said monkey, and I think that just suits him totally. They're all kind of people.

So if you tour the album live will it be a four piece?
It's a four piece yeah, but there's been a lot of people working on this, but our main band is a four piece band, and the guys have been there since day one. We're hoping to stick to that, that's our line between our real life and the animations. We're not intending to just put up rear projections, we're hoping to have live visuals and animations for our live set. But they're the guys who have always been there, as we get bigger gigs it would be nice to get more percussion, and just more sounds really, but the core of the band is them.

From what I've heard of the single it's very meticulously produced, how long has it taken you to put together?
It seems like forever. It was really strange coming out the Universal label and the way that it's done there, which is just throw money at it and it's all very quick, these are the people to work with etc. I spent a long time writing these songs and then I was fortunate enough to meet Rollo Armstrong.

I was working down at his studio, he heard quite a few tracks, but there was one in particular, that just made his mind up, and he just said, "Look I'd love to produce the album with you, and work on a few tunes, and you can use my studio." I was writing for quite a long time, we went and recorded the album as a live band as well, in the same room, which is kind of rare these days.

We had everyone mic-ed up for literally another couple of months, and then even maybe another year after that we were just adding sounds and delays and taking that real live sound and turning it into 2009 really. Bring it right up to date, I like all those electro sounds but I just wanted a core album that was totally acoustic, and live and the drums are all on a wooden box, we haven't added kits, it's just a live sound that's had more life added to it, and it's taken a while.

You joined Rollo for Faithless' 'Hope And Glory' song, is there anyone else you'd like to work with in the future?
There's loads of people, it's weird I got asked this the other day, and I haven't really thought about the question, because I listen to so much at the moment. I do feel there's a lot of good stuff out at the moment. There's the guy Four Tet who I just think makes beautiful sounds, quite inspiring, not so much vocal producing but makes a great sound, I'd like to work with him. I've been listening recently to Whitest Boy Alive, and Bonobo, and there's a few people out there that I'd like to do something with. I mean I could say Radiohead, there's so many people I could say, but Four Tet I think is quite a cool sound, and I don't think many people know his inspiring stuff.

What else are you listening to at the moment?
Well I'm listening to quite a few things, I went to quite a few festivals this summer, I went to Rock Werchter and I saw MGMT, quite early on in the year, Manu Chao as well, Whitest Boy Alive, quite a mixture really.

Would you like to take One eskimO to festivals?
Yeah, ideally you would. The bigger we get the more kind of visual shows we can put on and grow as a band. It's all about us getting out there. It's quite weird at the moment because we're getting a lot of attention from our animation, but it's all about us getting out there as a live band. We recorded the album as live band, and the idea is to get out and do as much touring as possible this year, and get everyone to hear what we're doing.

Have you got tour dates lined up yet?
I think the end of March and early April is when we're going to kick off, they are being lined-up at the moment which is really nice. I think we've got a couple of gigs before then too.

How are you going to present it live, is it going to be a Gorillaz type thing?
No we'll be at the front. This is the breakdown between our reality and our animations. It's quite a nice little intimate set up that we've got, it's quite quirky, everyone in the band is multi tasking. Sometimes our guitarist is doing rhythm, along with our drummer, and stuff like that. The more funding we get the more money we get in, because we're not with a label at the moment it's whatever we can throw at the project. It would be nice to get rear projections, but not just of our animations, because obviously we'll have them on for every song. The idea is to get a real mixture of live, as our drummer is playing it would be nice to filter into our Giraffe, it would be nice to mix it up for our live set. You can now take animations, and illustrations into the audience now with 3D lighting. So, it would be nice the further we get down the road, to do that, and put on a proper show for people, rather than it just being a four piece band.

Is this a one off concert project or will there be more?
This has been on my mind recently, I've loved this project it's taken me into new worlds, with the animation from it being an idea, I'm getting back the final stages of my animation now which is an hour long, which is my album, recorded how I wanted it. It feels like so many people are involved, and everyone who has been involved has been involved for the love of it. It hasn't been because of how much they've been earning from it. I'm so proud of the project, and because I've been so focused on it for the last few years, other ideas do pop up, but I'm so involved in this I don't know where we'll end up. It's nice to see everything developing. It's amazing to see my story in animation and put to my album that I worked so long on. It's nice to see everything coming together.

So, I don't know, I'd love to do more projects like this one, but I'm still focused on this one at the moment.

Do you think you'd ever split off the animation, so it just stands as a film in its own right?
It's hard to say at the moment, I feel I've taken such a long time writing the story for this, and the animation takes up a lot of time. I feel that this year it's time for me to go out and tour it. It's about me getting back in the studio and writing more songs and not rushing through them. So I feel that my focus as live band is to get out there as a live band. I feel like my name is on what I've done and developed so far. So I do feel maybe I won't have so much of a role in writing a story for it, because I think it's one thing or the other. If I take this year to tour, and write an album, and then to try and carry on the chapters, I don't think I can focus on that. I need to make sure the album sounds right before any of that, so I don't know. The first thing I need to do is just get out and tour it, and just carry on writing really, which I do all the time.

The animation itself, with it being in that media is the material suitable for children?
The album is not written for children, I think there's an innocence in the whole project. I wanted to make a beautiful album, and I wanted images to go along with it. It's not been written for kids but it's very suitable. It wasn't written with that market in mind, but I think you can get lost in it as an adult or as a child. I hope it does, I think it does.

The new single, 'Kandi' is released on Monday 23rd february on Little Polar, with a package including Cicada and Tom Neville mixes, which will be followed by the Rollo Armstrong-produced album 'All Balloons'.

article by: Scott Williams

published: 12/02/2009 13:28



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