CoreLeoni: Leo Leoni Proves Rock Music Never Stops Evolving.
Interview by Paul Marshall
Another late night in New Zealand means another conversation with Europe. While most of Auckland is winding down, I'm pouring another coffee and waiting for the screen to light up. This time it's Leo Leoni, founding member of Swiss hard rock giants CoreLeoni and the legendary Gotthard, calling in from his studio in Lugano, Ticino, where the afternoon sun is baking Switzerland under a relentless 38-degree heatwave.
The contrast couldn't be greater.
"Hello, hi!" Leoni beams as the connection settles. When I tell him it's 11.30pm in New Zealand his eyes widen.
"Wow... 11.30pm? Wow! It's time to go to bed!" he laughs before adding with perfect timing, "As long as you bring Cinderella home, then that's fine."
Straight away the interview feels less like a press obligation and more like two music fans chatting across opposite sides of the world. Being English myself, conversation inevitably drifts towards the weather before we get down to business. Leoni, thankfully, has escaped the furnace outside by hiding in an air-conditioned recording studio.
On screen he looks every inch the rock star. Long blonde hair flowing over black clothing, rings and silver jewellery catching the studio lights, there's an effortless swagger about him. Yet behind the image is a remarkably grounded musician who has spent more than three decades helping define one of Switzerland's biggest rock exports.
With CoreLeoni's new studio album Generection arriving on September 11 through Reigning Phoenix Music, I wanted to understand how someone already carrying the responsibility of Gotthard finds time to nurture what began as a side project.
"CoreLeoni is my new baby... sort of," he smiles.
That "new baby" has quietly grown into a fully-fledged band over the past nine years.
"It starts off as a project and then ends up as a band."
With Gotthard only just wrapping up another busy European festival season, the schedule sounds exhausting.
"We've just finished the festivals. We've got three more shows this summer and then I hit the road with CoreLeoni."
Sleep, it seems, is optional.
I mention that when I toured Steve Harris during British Lion's New Zealand visit, where one night Harris was playing an intimate club before stepping onto the stage of a sold-out arena with Iron Maiden barely 24 hours later.
Leoni instantly relates.
"That's kind of what we're doing actually with Gotthard and CoreLeoni. The most tricky thing is sometimes there's not much time to sleep, but I'm happy that I can do this. I wanted to do it."
When I ask whether he prefers clubs or stadiums, his answer perfectly captures why musicians like Leoni remain so relatable.
"I love to play where people are," he laughs.
Then comes a surprisingly thoughtful observation.
"I think 3,000 to 6,000 people is perfect. Any bigger and people just tend to watch the screens. You lose that real contact with the audience."
It's a reminder that despite decades of success, connection still matters more than spectacle.
The album title itself immediately sparks curiosity.
Generection sounds like a made-up word until Leoni explains the philosophy behind it.
"We grew up with Generation X and the Boomers, then Millennials and Generation Y... but there's no Generation Rock."
He compares the progression of rock music to human evolution.
"Like Neanderthal... then Homo erectus... then human. This is the evolution of rock music."
Suddenly the title makes perfect sense.
It's evolution.
That evolution is perfectly represented by the album's first single "Generation Rock." The accompanying video, set inside a grease-covered garage workshop, cleverly mixes veteran musicians with young aspiring players.
When I ask who the children are, Leoni smiles.
"The first one is my son."
He explains that his son was simply singing into a microphone at the studio one day, so he grabbed a camera.
The remaining children belong to family friends.
"The video is about picking up an instrument. If you're lucky enough one day you'll be on stage... and your parents will be in the audience being your fans."
It's a beautifully simple concept that quietly reminds us how every generation of musicians inspires the next.
Looking back at CoreLeoni's beginnings, Leoni reflects on just how much the band has changed.
"The first two records were like Greatest Hits Part One and Part Two because we re-recorded songs from Gotthard's first albums."
Then came the turning point.
"We decided to write our own songs."
Age, he admits, has changed more than just the material.
"When we started Gotthard we were twenty. Those days are gone. Our heads are different now. The mentality changes. You think differently about what you want to tell people."
It's an honesty that gives Generection its emotional weight.
I ask whether he consciously changes his guitar style between Gotthard and CoreLeoni.
His answer is classic Leo Leoni.
"I'm just doing what I do naturally... you wouldn't go to the beach wearing a leather jacket, right?"
Simple.
Funny.
Entirely accurate.
Songwriting, he says, rarely follows rules.
"I'm playing guitar every day. Sometimes you're just mucking around and suddenly there's a lick or melody that sticks."
As for which song took the longest to record?
"The next one..." he laughs loudly.
"...because it isn't finished yet."
It's one of several moments where his dry humour keeps surfacing.
When I ask which riff made him grin the most on the new album, he points straight at "Generation Rock."
"All of a sudden the riff was there and then click, click, click... everything came together."
Leoni has no interest in dazzling people with impossible technique.
"I'm not composing super technical chords. I keep things simple... whatever fits the feeling."
Instead he speaks passionately about the hypnotic repetition found in classics like Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" and The Guess Who's "American Woman." Mid-conversation he even breaks into the iconic Zeppelin riff, proving that even rock legends still get excited by great songs.
Talk inevitably turns to influences.
"The Beatles are number one."
Then comes one of the funniest quotes of the evening.
"If you look into the Bible of The Beatles you'll probably find they went to the moon before the Americans," he jokes with an unmistakably mischievous grin.
The humour quickly gives way to admiration as he names Gary Moore, Ritchie Blackmore, Eddie Van Halen and recalls hearing Peter Frampton make his guitar literally "talk" on "Do You Feel Like We Do."
"That blew me away."
Perhaps the most heartfelt moment comes when discussing vocalist Eugent Bushpepa.
"He has God's gift that not many people have."
Leoni first discovered Bushpepa during the Eurovision Song Contest in 2018 while watching him perform “Mall." (English translation meaning Yearning) Years later, when CoreLeoni needed a singer, his name immediately resurfaced.
"There was this Albanian singer... and I thought, 'Wow, this guy can really sing.'"
That admiration has come full circle with Generection, where Bushpepa revisits his own Eurovision-era composition "Yearning," giving it fresh life within the CoreLeoni universe.
Listening to Leo Leoni speak, it becomes obvious why both Gotthard and CoreLeoni continue to thrive.
There's no ego.
No manufactured mythology.
Just an enduring love of guitars, riffs, melodies and audiences.
Generection doesn't sound like a band trying to recreate yesterday.
It sounds like musicians who have accepted where they came from while still looking firmly ahead.
Rock music has always survived because each generation hands the torch to the next.
After spending half an hour with Leo Leoni, it feels safe to say CoreLeoni aren't simply carrying that torch.
They're adding fuel to it.
If Leo Leoni could discover the remarkable voice of Eugent Bushpepa through a Eurovision performance, then perhaps there's another discovery waiting for listeners too. If CoreLeoni isn't already on your radar, Generection, released on September 11 via Reigning Phoenix Music, is the perfect place to start. So make sure you check out the new album when it hits all major streaming platforms and music retailers. Sometimes rock doesn't need reinventing, it simply needs musicians who still believe in its power, and CoreLeoni are proving that the next generation of great rock music is already here.