How Nearly a Decade of Friendship Fuels Their Unique Sonic Identity
For nearly a decade, Sleepersound has been more than just a band—it’s been a brotherhood bound by a shared passion for creating immersive, emotionally rich music. Their journey together has been defined by deep friendship and an unspoken understanding that transcends words, allowing their sound to evolve organically. From late-night jam sessions to the meticulous crafting of their third full-length album, My Own Dead Love, the band’s dynamic is built on trust and mutual respect, a foundation that fuels their creativity and sustains their unique sonic identity.
Loyalty is at the heart of Sleepersound. In an industry where bands frequently shift members or fall apart, these musicians have remained steadfast, dedicated to both their art and each other. They embrace a fully collaborative songwriting process, where every voice matters and each instrument weaves seamlessly into the fabric of their music. This commitment to one another has allowed them to push artistic boundaries, blending influences from post-rock giants like Mogwai and Radiohead to classical composers like Chopin and Tchaikovsky, all while maintaining a signature sound that is distinctly their own.
Above all, Sleepersound is a testament to the brotherhood that forms when musicians create something meaningful together. The bond they share is evident in the way they write, perform, and support each other through the highs and lows of making music. As they prepare to release My Own Dead Love, their connection is stronger than ever, proving that when a band is built on friendship, loyalty, and trust, the music that emerges is as timeless as the relationships that sustain it.
Evan Toth: Welcome to Sleepersound on the show. As I was just saying to them, it's been a long time since I've had such a large group. We've got a big roundtable discussion. Maybe we should start with everybody going around the room here and just introducing themselves and what they play and just saying their name.
dn: Hi, Dan Niedziejko here, drums.
ezt: Dan on drums. Who's next?
mc: I'm Mike Campisi. I play Bass.
ezt: Mike Campisi on the bass.
dd: David D'Antonio, on the guitar and singing.
ezt: All right, David.
dd: Also, tea, I'm going to be running to pick up some water that's boiling off the oven in about a minute, but I will be right back.
ezt: That is good. We know where you are and we know how to find you in your kitchen. You guys are joining me-- everybody in Milwaukee today, beautiful Milwaukee?
mc: Yes. It's all right. It's good today. It's cold.
dd: It's cold. Actually, I'm going to take you guys with me to get some tea.
ezt: All right. We can do that, too. We'll come along on the journey with you.
dn: Evan, you're going to be cold in about a day.
ezt: I know. It's going to get cold here. There's something coming. Well, is it snowing by you right now, or that's not yet?
dn: No, not yet. We're getting that tomorrow and then you're going to get it right shortly thereafter, I think.
ezt: Well, I really do love Milwaukee. I actually spent some time, I spent about a month in Milwaukee when I was doing Tony and Tina's wedding. We did a stop at Milwaukee. I wish I could remember the creepy hotel that I was in. It was a very interesting, strange old hotel, where the hotel rooms had interior windows that you could open that went into an abandoned hallway. It was very strange place to be for a month, but I really like Milwaukee a lot.
dn: I'm not sure I know which hotel you're talking about.
mc: I used to live in a hotel. It was like half residential, half hotel. I thought you were going to say the place I used to live.
dn: Was it haunted, Mike?
mc: I can only imagine.
ezt: This was definitely a haunted-type place. You must know-- I bet I could-- Is there some old--
dn: Is that the Ambassador?
ezt: That sounds like--
dd: Or the Iron Horse?
ezt: No. Iron Horse doesn't sound-- It was small. It was smallish.
dd: Stanley. Just kidding. That's not in Milwaukee.
ezt: Stanley?
dn: No.
dd: That's not in Milwaukee.
ezt: No, no, no. Wow. That's a nice hotel, though. I don't know. I guess we digress there. We'll have to figure it out and I'll email you guys. We're here today to talk about your forthcoming record, Sleepersound. I'm trying to get it so that I don't get a blur there. My Own Dead Love, a dark title for this album, but it's a really cool album. I've really been enjoying it lately. Maybe we could start with the album title. Where does that come from? There was certainly a feel there with the name of the album.
dd: I'll jump in.
ezt: Go ahead.
dd: All right. You guys, feel free to chime in however you want. First of all, we were trying to encapsulate this story over the last few years of writing this music for quite a while. I could talk all day about this because there's so much to it. It reminds me of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who spent his whole first half of his career combating what philosophy was called metaphysics of presence, this modern obsession with encapsulating the idea, or whatever the idea is, whether it's a text or a person or something else.
With that desire to encapsulate that idea already is the admittance that the idea you're trying to encapsulate is already dead and gone. If you substitute that idea with a person or with any other object of desire, whether it's, I'm thinking of an extreme, but Fentanyl, for example. Not that any of us are plagued by that, but an object of desire that is extreme, such as, let's say, fentanyl, which impacted the life of somebody in my family during the writing of this album, or the desire to just have oneness and complete yourself.
Desiring those things and then acting on that and then realizing that once you have obtained it, it's actually not what you were looking for in the first place. There's still something bleeding about all of us, still open wounds about all of us as human beings. I think that was really at the center of our writing of this album. Funny thing is, the album title came right out of the works of poetry of Antonio Pucci, Italian poet, who coincidentally, due to a forbidden love, took her own life by an overdose.
Her story of placing all of your effort and your love in your whole life is something that's not acceptable, to find out that it is essentially not even going to be congruous with your old means to live is where that comes from. We were in a van, actually. I don't remember where we were driving, but at this point, it was Mike that was reading the book of poems by Antonio Pucci, and he just sprang up out of nowhere and yelled out, "My own dead love," which I think you twisted the words around a little bit too because it was originally an Italian poem, anyway. I don't know, because I've looked for the exact phrase in her poetry and it's not that. We've definitely acquired the words in that way. It was a really-
ezt: What's the story, Mike? Who's translating the Italian here?
mc: Well, Dave's our native Italian speaker. It's fun, you're hanging out in a van, it's, what do you do for that period of time between point A and point B, and Dan drives because the van is a monster. It's a 1973 or what is it?
dn: It's a '74 Econoline. It's three on the tree. It's really a beast. It's an old beast.
mc: Well, it's good. Dan's the only one who can drive the thing. He's the only one who's strong enough to actually turn the wheel. As we drive around, Dave and I are always trying to keep each other entertained. He'll give me these books and I read the English, I read the Italian and stuff, and for whatever reason, that phrase had jumped out at me, and I don't know where it is in the book.
dn: Well, I remember it vividly, actually, it was, we were driving back from a four-day stint. We were all exhausted. This was January of last year. I think we had four members at the time. It was an exhausting couple of shows, but good. We were tired, and I remember we were cold, wet. Some of us were coming down with what was going to prove to be COVID. Then we all got it because we were all in the van together.
Just thinking about some of the songs and what they were about. I remember us saying, "Maybe this is too dark of a name or something." Then I realized, in hindsight, we're all getting sick. We're driving in a cold van in the middle of winter. It was really-- I guess maybe next time we name an album, we should be on a beach when it's a hundred degrees or something.
ezt: Instead of My Own Dead Love, it's My Happy Living Peace.
dn: Sunny Day.
ezt: Who's missing today we have Dave, Mike. Kenny, Kenny's not here. What is Kenny doing in the band?
dn: He's no longer in the band.
ezt: Oh, how awkward.
dn: He had left, and this was a foreshadowing of maybe what was to come, because in a strange way, we overcame that in the past year prior to releasing the album as well. He had to leave for whatever personal reasons, family and just change of life, and no harm, no foul, we're in good terms with him and everything. It's just that shifted us a bit as well.
ezt: That was the choice. Well, I only ask because I know the album isn't really officially out yet, but his name is back there as a member. I thought he was still there.
dd: He's still very much our close friend and we obviously never even batted an eye at the thought of keeping his name on there. All of the album artwork and everything came out later after he had announced that he would be leaving. Since he was a part of the recording process, we definitely wanted to keep him on there, and love him very much. The name of the album also ties in so many other things, including there's a reciprocal story about the album artwork related to the name, and also just an acknowledgement of Kenny being gone is, similarly, we miss Kenny, bottom line, and so there's a little bit of respect to him and his music and his artistic contribution on this album all up in the name as well.
ezt: That's cool and you do mention the artwork here, which, again, I don't want it to be blurry. I'm having a little trouble with my thing. I'll have to turn off my thing, but it is a beautiful album cover. What was the tie in there that you're referring to? It really looks great.
dd: Eric Newtson.
ezt: Newtson.
dd: Yes. Can I tell the story guys? Are you good with that?
mc: Sure.
ezt: I'm going to let you guys battle it out. You know each other better than I know you guys, so you can feel free to elbow each other around in this conversation as much as you like.
dd: Again, similar, we make all these ideas together, and it's a lot of discourse and back and forth ideas, generation, and reiteration. This album, I knew from the very beginning that I wanted a very close friend of mine who was on my side through a very difficult part of my life, I wanted him to create the art for this band. He's an incredible artist, and that would be Eric.
We were still in this idea-generation phase, trying to figure out what we wanted, and these ideas just all converged around the same time, which led to what we have now with the picture of the two Ravens in freefall. The idea for the Ravens, Mike, I feel like, it came from you, but it wound up being this idea of two Ravens. It was, again, at a moment of desperation, but actually, it's a moment of play. This is just common practice. Mike, can you share a little bit about the Raven behavior?
ezt: Ravens like to kid around too. Ravens like to fool around too?
mc: Ravens are one of very few species that will mate. They stay with each other. They take a mate, and they stay together for a large portion of their life, in general. That's a thing that they do, and so part of their bonding ritual is that they fly up very high, and they'll clasp claws, and they spin down together.
ezt: Wow.
mc: It's really beautiful, like an act of reconnection that they do. For me, I don't know, Ravens, they're super cool. It's one of those animals that I'm interested in. You look at them, and you go like, "Man, that bird that's hopping around in my neighborhood crows," and things are very similar. They're very intelligent. They can recognize people. It's really fascinating.
I've read a few books about the birds, and I was into them, and I'm like, "I love this imagery of these animals and the way that they can stay together for a long time." They just ride. They're almost together-- it's almost like an act of trust, like a trust fall. That was the original concept behind, like, "Hey, this would be really cool. It ties into my own dead love, like reaffirmation and finding yourself. It just fit. I think that idea was one that we were batting around a little bit. When we came up with the album title, we were like, "Oh, I think this could actually work."
ezt: Good for you.
mc: Eric was so instrumental in making that happen.
dd: I can plug in just a little bit more on this, how it involves Eric, because it really closely involves a personal moment for him. His dog, Odin, passed away during the beginning of this whole process of determining our album art. Odin, the Norse god mythology holds that he was forever separated from the human world, but would send in two Ravens to be his eyes on the living world that you and I inhabit. There's this saying that whenever two Ravens are present, Odin is with you.
I didn't tell Eric this, but I have been coaching him on the story of free fall and play that the Ravens in love do, that Mike just explained, but in the back of my head, I knew that when we released this album, we were going to tell Eric the story behind this is also meant to include you and to be an homage for your lost loved one. We want to do that because we believe that music and creation together should be co-therapeutic, and we felt that this opportunity would be both like a gift in return for him creating our album artwork that we could say, there's something about somebody that was very close to you that's forever memorialized on the album artwork.
ezt: Wow. You guys are smart. You guys are deep thinkers. I'm just curious about you. You seem to all be very much on the same wavelength. You seem to be very good friends. What's the story of the band? How long have you guys known each other, and how did you meet? What's the quick biography of the group?
dn: 2016.
ezt: That's not long ago. I feel like you guys went to elementary school together.
dn: It feels that way. I can honestly say that I feel like I've known these guys longer than I have. It's weird. It's one of the few things I knew pretty quickly after meeting these guys, that I could work with them easily. It's not often you get that telepathic nature when you're playing with people very quickly. Sometimes you have to be playing with them for a while before you can feel people musically, so to speak, but I got that with these guys right away.
mc: What was pretty interesting, when we started this project, I remember my first time. I think you and Dave were plunking around a little bit before I actually fell in, but I remember the first time we got together, I think we knocked out two of the three songs that ended up on the very first DP within the first practice or two. It was really incredible. I remember leaving practice, and I was like, "Holy cow, that was really something." I don't think I've produced that caliber of music quite that quickly with people that I don't know. It was almost immediate that we knew that the project was going to work.
It obviously takes a lot of time to learn how to work with each other and respect each other in our different creative viewpoints and things, but it's been pretty good. This album, I think, came together faster and easier than anything we've done before as well.
dn: It's interesting, and I know I just said it wasn't that long ago but 2016, it's almost 10 years ago. It's in about nine years, eight and a half years, something like that.
dd: I want to say this, too. I love those two dudes. Dan and Mike, I love you guys. It's been almost 10 years, so within 10 years of a lifetime, you get to go through some major milestones with people, foreseen ones and unforeseen ones, difficult ones and beautiful ones. 10 years is a long time, and I think over that, through that, we've built in so much trust to help us even be better at writing, but also be there for each other, and I really do think--
I'll just stop there. I just appreciate these guys. We send each other love messages all the time, just to say like, "I love you guys. You guys are so great." I'm so thankful that we have each other, that we're doing this. Let's keep pushing because it's a great thing that we have together.
dn: You guys are ruining my image now. People will think I'm soft.
[laughter]
mc: Dan is pretty soft in the entire band.
[laughter]
ezt: I'm a musician too. I've been in a hundred bands over the course of my life, and I know exactly what you're talking about. There are guys I've played with that I haven't seen in 5, 10 years, and you still text each other on your birthdays or whatever. There's something about that relationship that you do build with a fellow musician. That's hard to explain to people that aren't musicians. I guess you might think of it as working with someone, a co-worker that you really admire or really enjoy their time, but music is different because there's this magical musical quality there that you're communicating with.
dn: It's a bit of a marriage.
ezt: Yes.
dn: It's like being married to a few people. I know that sounds creepy too, but you deal with a lot of things, especially, like I said, riding in the van together, sleeping in weird places, just dealing with things you don't normally deal with with normal people, bodily functions and the fun of the road and just dealing with everything. You see it all.
mc: Yes, it's that too. Because music and art, in general, are just tied to your state of mind and your state of being. You have to be able to work with people through not only they're very high creative states, we're ultra-productive, we're very creative, we're working really hard and progressing, also the very low spots that just drag you down and stifle creativity, and as a band, that can kill it.
Looking at Kenny making the decision to bow out of the project, I think that was a super mature thing. We had a conversation about it, and he was like, "I hope you guys aren't mad at me." We were like, "How can we possibly be mad at you? It's a life choice." I think it was super mature of him to realize that in his personal life, he was ready to make a move and that the band didn't fit. He was gracious enough to say like, "Hey, everything I've written is yours. I give it to the project." We were like, "We'll 100% give you credit, whatever it is." He knew creatively he couldn't be there anymore, so he stepped out. I think that was a great thing for the band. It was a very generous contribution. Working together, it's not-- Being in a band is not just a hobby for us. It's a state of being. It's a flow state. I personally love it and I don't know what I'd do without it.
ezt: Cool. Back to the music a little bit. As I said before, the record is really beautiful. I enjoyed it very much. It's one of those records that I played it in a loop over and over. I was flipping it over and just enjoying it. There's a very big cinematic sweep to it, but it also has this rhythmic strength. It's this rhythmic rock and roll, and yet it's this ethereal thing too. How do you guys balance that in the writing, and of course, in the arranging in the studio and putting that stuff down onto tape or digitally, however you recorded it?
dn: We respect the song. If I think about you saying rhythmically driven at times, yes maybe so, but then I also try to be cognizant of not overplaying, just from a drum perspective. The most important thing is knowing what not to play and to also respect space. I think in a way, we all are doing that, not just drums. We talk about it a lot. In fact, last week, we were writing another song, a new song. We're really pleased at how we're able to dissect things, self-critique and help one another realize what we should be doing, what we shouldn't be doing, picking it apart, maybe not taking feedback personally, if somehow it's not working. That you could go around the room and we'd all have moments where that's happening. It's just a give and take.
ezt: David's like, "Oh, yes, you need to work on not taking it personally." I'm just kidding.
dd: You know what? We all wear very much a Buddhist hat when we write together because it's so personal and yet we try not to take things personally. We're creating music, writing words around some of the most important aspects of our life here, but giving each other feedback on how to express it, that's so sensitive. We do, I think, a really good job leaving our ego at the door. That is absolutely a key part of our writing process.
ezt: Cool. You've got a lot of different inspirations here. You can hear some Radiohead, you can hear some West African things going on. Since I have the three of you here, I thought maybe it'd be cool to just go around and maybe you could talk about some of your individual musical influences or things that you grew up with, or maybe something that you're listening to now that even if it doesn't influence the record that we're talking about here, maybe just as something that you're enjoying. I know people love to hear those recommendations.
dd: Go, Dan.
dn: I was just going to say, rhythmically, if you talk about the things that I love the most, the drumming, I have two cats named Buddy and Ed, after Buddy Rich and Ed Shaughnessy. As a kid, I used to sneak viewing of the Tonight Show. I got bitten by the drum thing because of the famous drum offs between Buddy Rich and Ed Shaughnessy. I love that kind of big band jazz, started liking that as a kid. I like Terry Bozzio, I like Bill Bruford, I like Tony Allen, James Gadson. Those are all the ones that are big to me. Alphonse Mouzon, who did a lot of work with Betty Davis. Light in the Attic reissued her stuff a few years back. Funk like that.
ezt: Oh, I didn't know that.
dn: Oh, you got to check that out. That was Miles Davis' wife for a while, Betty Davis.
ezt: I didn't realize. I know I have some Betty Davis records. I have some reissues, but I didn't know that she was married to Miles Davis.
dn: Yes, for a couple of years, I think. She was a model. [crosstalk] Absolutely. That band is a killer band. I think one of the guitarists went on to be the guitarist for Journey, oddly enough. It was stack full of jazz players session guys.
ezt: Heavy hitters. How about you, David?
dd: Oh, so for me, as a guitar player playing it out in this band in particular, definitely some West African influences there, especially like Ali Farka Touré and Tinariwen. If you've ever heard of these guys from Mali or Tuareg guitar playing, Les Filles de llighadad. It's just an incredible way of expressing the guitar. It's just very different rhythmically as well as melodically.
I also grew up listening to or heavily influenced by certain styles of classical music. For example, the first movement of the first violin concerto by Max Bruch and the violin sweeping cadences and runs, it has always been a part of me and what I bring to the table when it's time to compose, or even just play the guitar solo.
When it comes to composing parts and piecing parts together, I do think of it with a lot of that influence that I hear from those guys from back in the 19th century, so Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Max Bruch, Shostakovich, the layering that we see in that era of music, and as well as sometimes you might hear a riff that doesn't get repeated ever again. I love it. I'll spend the rest of my life trying to unpack it, and that's cool with me.
ezt: The album has some Chopin and Tchaikovsky nods there. I guess that's coming from you.
dd: I think so. It definitely is an influence for me. I don't want to speak on behalf of Mr. Campisi or Dan.
dn: I grew up in a household that my sister was a trained pianist. There was a lot of classical flowing through the house too, but I was always the guy that wanted to play the drums because I didn't want to play that piano my sister was playing. I wanted to hit the drums, which was funny.
ezt: You got to do your own thing.
dn: Exactly. You should know, though, that Dave is an incredible drummer as well. He actually went to college at first on a percussion scholarship.
ezt: Wow. That's pretty significant.
dn: He can play
ezt: That's more than just a passing fancy, Dave.
dd: It's a niche.
dn: You should know he grades me. Every practice, I get a report card.
ezt: He's like, "Don't take this personally in this band, but you need to work on your paradiddles."
dn: Exactly. "You drags and your flam is not good."
dd: Paradiddles, that's hilarious. Mike, what about you?
ezt: What about you, Mike? What do you like listening to nowadays or maybe when you were a younger kid?
mc: I'm the black sheep of the band. I love music that has cool drum and bass things. I get into that meditative state when I listen to music. I like LCD Soundsystem. I've been really lately. I know it's just like pop. Pop music like Lola Young, her new album is just amazing. It's pop. It's perfectly executed and I just love it. It's got these really great hooks and these bass lines that are just-- That's the kind of music that really gets into my head. I love coming at it from that perspective.
ezt: I love pop. I love good pop.
mc: Good pop is really something special. There's a lot of garbage pop out there, for sure. I can't get into that, but every so often, you just hear this album and you're just like, "Holy cow." Like, "This is just so catchy. It's an earworm from start to finish and I love it." I grew up in a household with music. My dad played piano and he had a little electric organ in the house. I've got pictures of myself when I was a year old sitting at that with him. Music's been prevalent throughout my life.
I was sitting here as I'm trying to think about this question, and it's like I don't even know how to answer that question, because music to me has always just been there. I'm into Radiohead. I'm into full concept albums. You mentioned with this album having a flow to it, a cinematic flow. That's so important.
Track listing, and how does the album start and end? Can you flip it over and go from the last track to the first track? Those are the things that I really obsess about and think about when we're putting out music, is what does it actually mean to be a good album? Great songs come all the time. I really think an album as an entire concept is very, very important and becoming a lost star. It's getting eaten up by digital delivery and-
dn: Singles.
mc: Singles.
dn: As we're releasing singles.
mc: As we're releasing singles.
[laughter]
dn: [laughs] We're doing that. We're shooting ourselves in foot a little bit.
mc: It's being both things though, right? [crosstalk]
dn: We got to do it all. Nowadays you got to do it all.
mc: We got to do it all. The concept album is still there if you can do it. That's special, if you can. If you can pull off both, man, you got it.
ezt: You got it. You got something.
dn: One-
ezt: This did-- Oh, sorry, go ahead. I was just going segue into-
dn: I will just say one last thing. There is an artist that we've all been listening to recently that is incredible, Nala Sinephro. Endlessness is the latest album. Dave turned us onto to that. That's pretty incredible stuff out of the UK.
ezt: I don't know who that is. I'm going to have to check that out.
dd: Artist's synth jazz intersection right there. Super beautiful, very romantic and just great.
ezt: Really cool. Sounds good. We're talking really about, I listened to your record on vinyl. By the way, it's great pressing. It sounds good. It's here on, I guess this is Coke Bottle Green, which is one of my favorite colors. Although it makes it difficult to figure out what track is what, but that's okay. It's part of the fun. How do you guys feel about physical media? Is anybody here a vinyl person? Are you a physical person, or how did you feel about choosing to put this on vinyl?
dn: Honestly, in my mind, I grew up with vinyl and it means something to me. I think it's real easy these days to not have tangible products. I think if you can get people that are into the music, because we're into our music, obviously, and we really want people to listen to it. In many ways, we are releasing singles, but I think our music, in many ways, is best served as a long stream. Listening to it on a physical, the act of sitting down with this object, putting it on a turntable, maybe even putting your headphones on and getting lost and not getting up, or not hitting a button and just skipping around. Listen to the whole thing.
ezt: This is a headphone album.
dn: Oh, good. I'm glad that's coming through.
ezt: Anybody disagree with me? I'm wrong?
mc: No, no.
mc: It sounds way better with headphones. It sounds better than we wrote it.
[laughter]
ezt: How about you other guys, physical media, or anybody on that? I'm curious if you're not also.
mc: I love it. I love collecting vinyl. Being able to actually hold something, it feels pretty cool. Take the record out of the sleeve and check it out, see the center art, read the lyrics on the back, I think that's special.
dd: Same. For me, vinyl's a different way of listening to music, too. It's not like I just put on a playlist on Alexa and I'm going to do chores now. I have to tend to it. I want to be so close to it so that I can hear it really well. Can't go too far or I'll miss the opportunity to flip the record. It requires a little different level of intentionality, both the act of listening, but also the act of curating and selecting, because I'm not going to spend all my money on records. I'm pretty selective about what I purchased for vinyl. That goes to my living room and stays there. That's a very sacred place for me to listen to music and connect with myself.
ezt: As I mentioned earlier in the interview, I love Milwaukee very much. Here we are, we're talking Milwaukee, we're also talking Italian poetry. We're talking Tchaikovsky, we're talking Chopin, we're talking about a lot of different things. How do you guys fit in in Milwaukee, in that scene, or are there other bands, or is there anyone that shares some of these interests? You know what I'm trying to say? How's it going in Milwaukee?
dn: I think Milwaukee's a very approachable town. People are very friendly, very nice. I think there's a lot going on in Milwaukee that people don't necessarily realize on the surface. I do think in a lot of ways, we're not like a lot of bands around here. I do think when we play sometimes, it's hard to find bands that sound like us. That's okay because we often find bands that sound a little different but are still excellent. Putting that together is still wonderful. We still try to get out of town a lot.
We're playing shows throughout March, coming up, for instance, in different towns. Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Louisville, Dayton, Madison, Minneapolis. Trying to get out through the Midwest. I don't know that there's a scene where we could say we "plug into" squarely in Milwaukee. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like we're weirdos, maybe we don't really fit anywhere, but we're trying.
ezt: Interesting. All right.
mc: There are some, definitely, cool things happening. I feel like it's been the last three or four years, I would say maybe. There's some more synth forward, synth pop kind of stuff. Shoegaze has started to become far more popular than it was just a few years ago. I'm not going to say we were a very shoegaze band, but there are certainly elements of it in there. Shoegaze and post-rock and those explorations of new classical and whatever you want to call it. We've got a funny sound that does fit in with a lot of things.
We've been lucky enough to always find a bill that we can shoehorn our way into. Lately, it does seem that there's been more of that experimental, cool synthy, dreamy rock. That's where we thrive anyways. I don't know.
dn: Evan, do you think we fit into some category? I'd be curious what it is. I want to know.
ezt: That's a good question. I think in listening to your record, you get different opinions as the record goes by. You're like, "Oh, okay." For a guy that listens to a lot of music, I start out and I'm like, "We're doing this thing. Then we're starting to nudge it. It's a gentle nudge. Then I go, "Oh, wait a minute." It was really interesting to follow the circuitous root of your musical styles through the record. It wasn't that anything was abruptly different or that you took any really strange turns, but I think that there's a gentle flow of a lot of different things. It's mesmerizing on the album, I thought.
mc: Thank you.
dn: Wow. Thank you. That's great. I love to hear it when someone says something like that because-
mc: That's really nice.
dn: It feels like maybe we're getting it across. That's good.
dd: I think just I want to add, because I was thinking about this question of, I've never thought about it before, does Milwaukee influence our writing? That's what you are asking. That's the question I'm wondering. I think, ultimately, I would say no. I love Milwaukee. The truth is that, for me at least, the music is truly an expression of homesickness, of longing for a few things that are out of my physical reach right now.
One is that my hometown-- I moved around a lot as a kid. There really isn't a hometown, but I am from the Chicago suburbs, and then the St. Louis area. I lived in Italy, I've lived in France. There's this sense of trying to reconnect with some of those spaces and the meaning that I've had there. I'm sure that if I left Milwaukee, I would be writing love letters to Milwaukee as well. We tend to take for granted the thing that's the closest to us. That's definitely playing a role in the music.
ezt: That's an interesting way to put it. The other question is, and we don't really have to answer that, but what is Milwaukee music? Which, again, there's no answer. I remember in my time there, I spent a lot of time at this club, I think is it on Brady Street? Is that Brady Street?
dn: Yes, it was Brady Street.
ezt: It was called the Nomad. Is that still there?
dn: Oh, the Nomad World Music. It was a world music kind of place.
ezt: Okay. Maybe I went to the wrong place. That was my impression of Milwaukee. I went to the world music bar, but they had great funk bands. It was very surprising to me. Also, the first time that I'd really seen some of this stuff up close, it was very visceral, and the guys were getting on the bar and playing and there were tubas and it was just so intense and fun. When I think of Milwaukee music, maybe you do fit in in the way that there was a vast amount of different kinds of things that people were really open to.
dd: I think you're right.
mc: That's interesting. Yes. I guess maybe that's why we don't feel like there is a music scene in Milwaukee. Milwaukee has so many festivals. I guess for-
ezt: Yes, Summer festival is a big one, right?
mc: -anybody who's never been here, it's insane. All summer long, it's music festival after music festival, street festivals and neighborhood festivals and everything. Maybe we take that for granted. It's a weird little estuary, Milwaukee.
dn: I would say, the other thing too is it's interesting in that we're not really like a festival band. We're not a beer drinking, get out there under the tent at noon kind of band. I guess I'm just saying, there's lots of types of music, lots of bands in Milwaukee some of which aren't always represented at festivals.
ezt: I would almost argue with you about that because I would say, as I said a little earlier, you do balance the rhythmic and the ethereal. That's what I keep coming back to. You've got this really scholarly, ethereal angle, but at the same time, it's got a good beat and you can dance to it.
dn: [laughs] Good. That's awesome. All right, I'll take it.
ezt: I think that's the cool thing that I see with you guys.
dn: Oh, good. Awesome.
ezt: What's next? We've got the record out and you've got the van, you got to get the new spark plugs in the van and spring and summer are coming. What are some of the plans for you either in Milwaukee or beyond Milwaukee?
dn: Well, yes, we got more shows coming up March, a couple in April, one or two in April and then May. We're trying to book beyond that as well and just get out and make sure that we can represent our music. We're trying to get out as much as we can so people get to see it and experience what we're doing more so than just streaming it or something. We're writing another album. We're starting on that already, so more songs are in the hopper.
ezt: Okay. What about the other guys? Do you guys have any hopes and plans about the band that you've been waiting to tell Dan? Maybe now's the moment that you've been mean. Spring something on Dan.
dn: There you go. Breaking news.
mc: Dan, we have a costume you have to wear now.
dn: All right.
dd: Dan, you're out of the band. Just kidding.
ezt: He can't be, he's got the van.
mc: Yes, what are we going to do?
dd: It's his van.
mc: No one else can drive it. Yes, I think we've been kicking around the idea of trying to put together an actual tour this summer. Something regional but going a little further east and a little further west than we've been able to do. It requires some time and coordination to make that happen. The world has been incredibly difficult. Dan has been racking himself in order to book our shows. We've some partners that are helping us out, but Dan's putting in a ton of effort in order to coordinate these. It's hard the last few years, the pandemic and all of it, has really taken a toll on music venues and local music scenes and everything. Being a weird small market band, it's been difficult for us to get out.
I think the last year and a half or so, it's really gotten more meaningful again. We've been able to book out of town with pretty good success. Just better venues, better shows, try to get some people there and get the word out. I think we're doing some planning to fire up a Patreon. We want to do some more exclusive content.
As we mentioned, streaming is difficult. It doesn't really lend itself very well to the concept of Sleepersound. I think we want to start looking at Patreon as a way to connect closer with fans and maybe do a little bit more in that physical media space around vinyl records, but also just mailings and exclusive merch t-shirts and things like that. We've really been kicking this idea around a lot and how do you really create a community with your fans? We want Sleepersound to be something that people feel like they're a part of, more than just, "Hey, yes, it's that band from Milwaukee."
ezt: Right. Cool. David, do you have any hookups at some clubs in Chicago or what's going on?
dd: No, not really. I have not been trying as hard as I should. Truth be told, I'm a Catholic school principal on the side.
ezt: Hey, I'm a principal too!
dd: No way.
ezt: Really. Yes, not I'm not a Catholic school principal, but I did go to Catholic school,
but I'm a principal in a small high school for kids with a special education needs.
dd: Get real.
ezt: Yes.
dn: Wow, educators.
dd: We have so much to talk about.
ezt: Two rock and roll educators.
dd: I'm working at a great little school here in Milwaukee of about just under 400 kids, K to 8, and it's a wonderful school. I've got an incredible team. My students are the best in the world, equally as good as yours, I bet, but it feel great. Because it's a Catholic school and you associate a lot with private schools that they're under serving students with special needs, we're working our butts off right now to build up our special education resources and build up a whole special ed program. We should talk. That's awesome.
ezt: Absolutely.
dd: Anyway, what I was getting at is I pour most of my time regarding this band into FaceTime with the guys and practices and composition and writing. I haven't been doing a lot of the legwork for booking as a result of that. Just time. You got to prioritize where you put your energy as you go, very well. Yes.
ezt: Well, very cool guys. I really thank you so much for your time and thanks for the great record. I wish you luck. This has been a lot of fun. I appreciate your time again doing this with me. Thank you.
dn: Oh, thank you.
mc: Thanks, Evan.
dd: Thanks for having us.
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