Leonard Luka combines a soulful, vibrant voice with deep-groove rhythms and kaleidoscopic sounds, delivering fresh indie-soul and R&B tunes. An independent artist from The Netherlands with Indonesian/Dutch roots, he found his voice in the piano, playing jazz and Motown-infused soul. After a break to connect with his roots in Asia and Oceania, he returned to create music, singing, writing, and producing himself. Just before his live performance at Hidden Gem with a 6-piece band, we had a quick chat about his background, bubbling projects, and future plans.
I'm Leonard Luka and I can be described as an indie soul artist, which is kind of a fancy name for just a really nice blend of styles that I love, which incorporate jazz and R&B, soul, but also electronic and indie sounds, inspiration from all kinds of timelines. What you're about to see is me at my full potential, so with six people behind me, which is the biggest band I have played with yet. Normally it's only me with two or three / four max, but now it's the seven of us, so I'm really looking forward to it.
How did this specific constellation of musicians come together?
My core trio is Jeroen Batterink on drums and Thijs van Zutphen on the bass and also most recently on backings and a bit of sampling. I don't live for a long time in the same place. So Jeroen is from Amsterdam and Thijs is from Utrecht. And yeah, they were recommended to me that I should play with them. We get along really well. We are also friends besides just playing, but we definitely missed some female power on stage.
Maddy is also a friend of a friend, musician circles are very small. I had this image in my
mind of just a really cool chick, not only singing, but also doing percussion. She's a multi-instrumentalist as well, plays a lot of instruments. Today she's keeping it small though, because I'm already bringing along six people.
For the first time today, Davy is on the guitar. I met him through Thijs' .multibeat project. And on the percussion is Gino Groeneveld, a well-known percussionist for bands, like Nusantara Beat and Jungle by Night. And Lucas Santana is just a really cool cat, a Brazilian guy, plays the flute, plays the sax, he just needs to hear it once and I can let him fly.
Tijmen de Nooy Photography
How do you feel in this current chapter of your life, in your music, in your art?
It's been a difficult year for me personally, so there were a few setbacks in my private life,
but also I got married, so there's different sources of energy flowing through me right now. I also felt like when you guys selected me to play here, I thought it's time to really grab this moment and come full circle with this work I've created over the past years. Because what you're going to hear isn't something that has been made in like three months. There are songs that are five years old already, some two years old, but together they form this work that I'm really proud of. And performing them in a really big group really fills my heart with joy.
Is there a message you’d like to convey in your music?
A lot of the work that you're going to hear is from my album "LAUT", which is going to be released later this year. "Laut" translates to "sea" in Indonesian. And what I like about that word or the symbolism behind it is just like the flowing mechanism of good times, bad times coming through. There's a lot of colonial history flowing through my family, my DNA, which I felt consciously, and subconsciously. So I always try to come to terms with that history through my music. I'll play some traditional instruments here and there or, play with the words a little bit. But in a subtle way, when I notice that there's really like-minded people, people who share my DNA like Gino and Davy and Maddy in the band, they immediately are
drawn to these small things. So that makes me happy. It's not on the nose, but it's important to me. And I want to give people, who feel the same like I do, the feeling that if you want, you don't always have to make your point in a very activistic way. You can do it through art and let the people decide for themselves. It's kind of this Asian subtlety thing. But yeah, that's my way of telling, of performing. And also in my lyrics, I feel at my most happiest when people come up to me after a show and they're like, "Oh, that song, you know, I really felt it's about this and this." And I'm like, "Yeah, it's totally about a different thing." But I mean, that's the important part, is that you resonated with it. So yeah, that makes me happy.
I just love songs. I grew up with songs like my parents listened to the whole Motown collection. Or the old jazz standards. And they were just little stories encapsulated in this play with words and harmonies and chords. I really love the craft of songwriting.
I try to be what you're going to hear. So there's just like beautiful songs. I hope they're beautiful. But to me, that's kind of an art that's maybebeing lost in the future. I feel it's going that way. Shorter attention span, digital revolution.. People have less and less time to really want to hear a story. But if they do, they'll be rewarded for it. I believe, strongly believe in that.
What’s in store for Leonard Luka in the near future?
The album, from which I'll be performing most of the songs today, is coming out in October. The first single is up on the 26th of July. And then hopefully we'll play a lot! So there's a few things up in the air, but I'm always really careful to promote them before they are definitive. But the release itself is really a sort of a new reset point in my career.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Just believe in art, people. Never give up on art. Never. Even myself, and I share this feeling with a lot of artists, need everything to come by financially, mentally, but art is the way. Even if you don't consciously know it, you know it when you are confronted by it.
There was a teacher of mine who said, "Art awakens, but you only know it when it's right in front of you." So, yeah. Art awakens.
Keep up with Leonard:
Steppin' Into Tomorrow stands with artists & labels and encourages listeners to support them by buying their music directly from Bandcamp. If you've enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop.
Comments