My Neighbours Hate Me...

"My girlfriend cheats on me, I haven't phoned a friend in months. Whisky makes me sad

When I smoke I don't feel bad And I just lost my job" (taken from Leaf's "Numbness"). Rather miserable words from a band that's on average twenty. But then, with lyrics ranging from songs about girls, friends and "not as much about situations than how we feel,usually". But despite their tender age, Leaf have probably seen more of the world than your average John ever will. Singer Boaz was born in Tel Aviv, guitarist Kenny first saw the lights of day in Brussels, and drummer Andrew hails all the way from, erm, Chelmsford (he did live in Athens for six years though!). Their bassist is called Alex, but he was busy going on holidays when the interview happened.

To spur your imagination soundwise, it might be useful to know that albums that "changed their lifes" are Nirvana's "Nevermind", NOFX's "So Long & Thanks For All The Shoes" and Green Day's "Dookie". Further influences include The Get Up Kids ( hoorah!),The Beatles (duh!), Pixies and Weezer. So what you get with Leaf is catchy tunes, distorted guitars and the occasional shouting.

Despite having only played very few gigs in the UK, Leaf have recorded a huge amount of tracks and are currently about to release their first UK EP, which is yet untitled. Besides recording notoriously, their activities include football ("I play football, kind of badly, every so often"), going to the pub and "Andrew gets pissed and jumps in bushes" and "we piss of neighbours. We get come in at, like, four in the morning and we have fights that last two hours, even Mike Tyson couldn't do that". At that point eloquent Andrew tries to rescue the offdrifting conversation with "oh, and come to our gigs! We need beer and we need accomodation!" .Just that you know.

Coming back to the history of Leaf...naturally the group first met in...Milan (Italy that is), and after bumming around with their instruments for a short while, they formed Leaf. That was seven (!) years ago. They first met at school (cliché here we come...) and "we used to play our school disco and we got chucked out cos Ken got expelled". Leaf also played on their school's roof. "Noone could hear us, they could just see us standing on the fucking building. We thought we're The Beatles".

By now Boaz, Kenny and Andrew have all moved to London, where they teamed up with Alex (after trying several bassplayers) earlier this year. But although Leaf are in fact students, they insist on not being a student band.

Despite having been going for such a long time, this was Leaf's first ever band interview. And who said drummers are always the quiet ones? Talking about Leaf, drummer (no, actually it has to be "fucking drummer", seeing that Kenny insisted on that one) Andrew managed to keep talking non stop for nearly an hour, trying to convince us he had been to prison cos "it would be a good story", even though he actually never got imprisoned at all. There's definitely a potential for a future career of Sun "Leaf in whatever horrid shocker" here. Talking about careers, Leaf's plans for the future do seems to be a little indifferent, ranging from "hopefully we get signed in the near future, then you can buy it and then we will have money for beer" over "I want to live off the band. I don't wanna be rich, I don't wanna be famous, I just wanna have enough money to live", to "I want to see someone walking down the street in a T-shirt that says Leaf on it. Even if it's my street and it's like, my friend".

And whilst still being on the road to fame, rockstardom has already begun with classic incidents such as room-trashing. "None of us were allowed in that hotelroom cos it was under my dad's name. And my dad wasn't there so we took 25 people into that hotelroom after the gig. Some people were sleeping underneath the bed, other people slept in the bath. There was a big cigarette hole and my mum was very pissed off".

For some bizarre reason the conversation then drifts off to mullets. It is revealed that Andrew did actually have a mullet at some point and he announces that "mullets are really cool". Realizing what shameful thing had just been said, the error is swiftly being rectified. "What he really said was 'munchkins' are cool!". Right, things got mildly out of control at this point, without even asking we hear that Andrew once stepped on a cat, Boaz has been bit by a hamster, which the inspired Kenny to launch the "Free Chester" campaign. Please note, Chester is the bespoken hamster. And if that wasn't enough, we also get an insight in Leaf's philosophy which apparently includes being generally Straight Edge (yeah, right) and that they would never mime. Apart from Boaz who would in fact mime if he was offered a million quid. We are also forced to witness Kenny's very convincing "Darius-Hit me Baby one more Time" impression.

Enough now, onto the more, er, serious stuff. Please not that: In the following questions we shamelessly abused a) the fact they all grew up in the 80s and b) the fact that series like BBC2's "I love 198..." are currently stimulating the nation's 80s nostalgia. Hence: Leaf are not to blame for the contents of this interview, they were forced into doing this.

Right, we're gonna push them straight into this....Knight Rider or the A-Team?

"I liked and watched both. Italian television was great because I got to see loads of TV series all the time on TV1. I have seen all the classics, Wonder Woman, Charlie's Angels, CHIPS (the one with the two policemen on motorbikes), Airwolf, Dukes of Hazard, McGyver, Magnum PI, TJ Hooker, the Billion Dollar Man (or whatever), Hulk and obviously A-Team and Knight Rider. I can probably sing you all of their themetunes actually. Unfortunately they were all in Italian. Although I liked Knight Rider a lot (ok, I admit it), I still think A-Team was my favourite. My brother and I always played it and it was cool even by 80s standarts. The fact that it was for completely different people fighting with each other and helping each other out really did it for me. I especially liked Face for some reason, I thought he was dead cool. Add this to the fact that his name was translated as "Slap" in Italian and you get what I mean. Also the ludicrous machines they built in almost every episode were great." (Boaz)

And what is the first toy you can remember?

"Berny Bunny, this little thing went everywhere with me until we went on holiday to Brussels where I somehow managed to let him out of my sight and some bastard kidnapped him." (Kenny)

"One of the first toys I remember owning is the full castle from He-Man. My little brother still uses it sometimes, but I don't actually remember if it's He-Man's castle or the bad guy's, Skeletor I think. Apart from that I think I had countless amounts of toy cars." (Boaz)

Talking about He-man figures...

"I remember the series was one of my favourites. Again, I have about thirty action figures somewhere at home back in Italy and again my little brother (he is twelve) still plays with them sometimes. I don't actually have any memory of actual character names apart from the obvious good guy and bad guy. But my favourite toy was the blue one with spikes all over him and a metal ball for an arm." (note: that has to be Spikor!) (Boaz)

"Oh yeah!! He-Man rules...He-Man himself was my favourite character...the guy was a chick magnet..." (Kenny)

When being asked if they prefer Danger Mouse or Inspector Gadget, they agree on Inspector Gadget (damn!) because "the girl on the programme was fit" and "Because of all the cool shit he did. I loved the way he could easily mistake hos own dog for an old woman".

Well, obviously Boaz and Kenny are too young to have realized the great benefits of 80s clothing such as shellsuits and legwarmers...

"Honestly, I don't remember much of what I had, I do remember lots of dodgy multi-coloured jumpers. But like most other kids I can only blame my parents. My band mates take the piss when they see old pics of me cos they reckon I had an Afro. That's not exactly what I would call it, but it was still a very dodgy hairdo, I regret to say." (Boaz)

"Probably one of all those sking tight Adidas track suits...But I was after all only a kid." (Kenny)

Another thing about the 80s was the footwear. Luminous socks, anyone?

"Luminous socks are cool. I wear them to bed cos I'm scared of the dark!" (Kenny)

It is a well-known fact that musical taste takes time to develop a certain decency...so what skeletons lure in Leaf's closet?

"I remember spending a lot of my pocket-money on MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice tapes which is quite embarrassing. The odd song was good but nowadays I would never spend on the entire record. I also think I was a big Michael Jackson fan around the time that Thriller was released. But I guess that was alright at the time. Oh, and Kenny was a big New Kids on the Block fan!! Fortunately, Nirvana came and changed my life..." (Boaz)

"Sadly, I am ashamed to admit it, that would have to be Boys 2 Men...I think it was like the 5th CD I bought...but I have hidden it away somewhere. Nobody will find it!" (Kenny)

Moving away from the 80s, in which decade would you most like to live in?

"It'd have to be any time in the Roman Empire cos nobody gave a shit about anything. You just went out and killed loads of people...it must have been great!" (Kenny who's obviously planning to launch a career in serial killing)

"I quite liked the 90s to be honest. Lots of cool music, decent fashion, hmmm. Alternatively the 60s, Elvis is the man!" (Boaz, who obviously has no remembering of Shaggy's "Oh Carolina" and Two Unlimited topping the charts in the early 90s. Oh dear...)

May the power of Grayskull be with them....