The Sweeping Soundwaves of Sleeptalk

The Sweeping Soundwaves of Sleeptalk

Sleeptalk is an up-and-coming indie rock band from Los Angeles who are beginning to make quite an impact all across the country due to their compelling music and constant touring.  They’ve opened for the likes of 21 Pilots and recently completed an ambitious cross country venture with their friends in The Color Wild.  Signed to Gold Standard Records via Artery Recordings, Sleeptalk has already unveiled an impressive collection of songs and are on the verge of releasing their debut full length over the summer.  On Day One of their tour, Highwire Daze Online sat down with Sleeptalk backstage at White Oak Music and Arts to find out more about the sweeping soundswaves of the amazing collective ready to launch it all into the big leagues!  Read on…

Introduce yourself and tell me what you do in Sleeptalk
Paul: I’m Paul and I play bass.

Anthony: I’m Anthony and I sing.

Jacques: I’m Jacques and I play drums.

Jason: I’m Jason, I play guitar.

Justin: I’m Justin, I play guitar.

Where are you based and what is your local music scene like?
Anthony: We’re from the San Fernando Valley. The local scene out here, over the years it’s been more hardcore music. But now there’s a lot of bands in our style – like more alternative / indie bands. It’s great, all the bands playing tonight are friends and we’re all doing the same thing out here. So it’s great way to start our tour. Everyone is doing some cool stuff.

What are you looking forward to the most about this upcoming tour?
Justin: It’s gonna be cool to get out there and see all these new fans and get more exposure for the band. Just being able to go out on the road and promote the music.

Paul: I’ve been playing music for about 10 years now and it’s really nice to actually be on a planned tour with my friends in a band and have it be something that feels really positive and constructive and moving towards a goal that we’re trying to reach together. It’s nice.

Day one of the tour, what’s the most nerve wracking part?
Anthony: Getting ready to go because I think we’re all super nervous about leaving something very valuable behind. It’s very nerve wracking but we’ll be OK.

Right now you’re home.
Anthony: We have one more day, technically.

Jason: Making sure everything works properly. That’s a big thing. I’m sure all of us haven’t left our family or friends, dogs whatever we have behind for as long as we’re going right now. So you gotta get used to that, but we’re looking forward to it. We’re ready to expose ourselves outside of SoCal.

How did you wind up connecting with Artery and Gold Standard?
Anthony: We were working with this PR company called High Road Publicity and Jared who owns it is now one of our managers and he used to work over at Artery on the management side. He teamed us up with Will and Eric at Artery and we were on the management for about a year or so and they’d came at us and said they wanted to branch out and get out of the metal scene. Not altogether but wanted to do more indie bands and they asked us to be the first band to do it. So we teamed up with Artery Recordings that way and it’s been great so far.

Let’s talk about a few of your singles. Is there any overall story or concept behind the new single, Love?
Anthony: “Love” is about being lost in a relationship. It doesn’t matter if it’s a boyfriend, girlfriend, it’s a relationship in general. Sometimes a lot of people put forth more of an effort than other people do. That’s what the song is about, mainly. The chorus is, “come back on your phone alone,” and a lot of people tend to push people off until they don’t have anyone else to be there for them. That’s the main part of that song. It’s very, I feel, a strong hook and a very strong meaning. So come back on your phone alone, that means you’re still there, you’re still open to that person and that relationship.

Indio, CA. What’s that song about?
Anthony: That’s about Coachella, hence the name. I go to Coachella every single year and with a huge group of friends. We all go out, drink, party and have fun. We watch live music and that’s what that song is about. The chorus is “don’t be afraid of a little sunshine” I’m not going to go completely into it, but it pretty much means to open your mind and not let anything hold you back and to be OK with exposing yourself to a different surrounding and new things. A lot of that has happened to myself and my friends and my girlfriend at Coachella. I wrote a song about it and that’s what came from it.

How close are you guys to releasing a full length LP, do you have a working title for it yet?
Anthony: It’s actually called Sleeptalk, we’re self titling it. It’s completed and ready to go, I think our release date is going to be in the early summer, late spring.

If Sleeptalk could open for anyone, either now or from the past who will it be and why?
Justin: If we could do any band going back in time, I think it’d be really cool to open up for Blink 182 considering Anthony and Jason are my older cousins and I grew up listening to Blink 182 since they did. So it’d be kind of cool to experience that.

Jason: I think Blink 182 will all be our answers for at least one band. I don’t know, I’d have to say Blink but I think opening up for Queen would be awesome. It depends on how far back you go. I can safely say that Blink 182 is one of the bands that we’d all answer.

Jacques: Yeah. I definitely think Blink would be up there for all of us. I think Blink would be there, if I had to pick one? I think as a performer and as a musician I think Michael Jackson would be really cool. He’s next to Queen, as you said. Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson are two of the best front men of all time. More modern times? I would probably say someone, maybe Angels and Airwaves.

Still Blink.
Jacques: Yeah, half of Blink. [laughs] or The 1975. I mean, Anthony and I and I’m sure all the guys love them.

Anthony: I’m gonna go way sideways with this, not way sideways, actually. I’m gonna go with The Cure. That’d be awesome. I love The Cure, I know Jacques loves The Cure. Robert Smith is a genius and I think that’d be so rad. Even then, if you want to go with a more modern band, I’d say The 1975 because their live performance is insane. It’s almost breathtaking. It’s crazy.

Paul: I would say The Who just because growing up playing bass, listening what to John Entwistle was ridiculous and Keith Moon and the sync with the bass and the drums and just the raw feel of that band. I feel like we have a couple of songs and we have a couple of feelings that correlate a lot to how that band carried themselves throughout the years.

What was that experience like opening for 21 Pilots?
Anthony: It was so nerve wracking. That was the most people we’ve ever played in front of, I think it was 2000-3000. But I remember when we started playing “Phenomenon,” which is our opening track, I looked back at Jacques and my leg was twitching like crazy. I looked at him and was like, holy shit, this is insane. It was such a rad experience and we are a little worried going into it. What if these kids don’t like us? The band that was opening for them before got kicked off the tour because no one liked them. So going into it, we were really worried. We’re confident in our music and stage presence and just how we go about our band and it was awesome. A lot of those kids are still diehard fans of ours to this day. So we have people driving 6 hours from Sacramento to come see us in the valley.

Jacques: Starting from that show, or maybe the one before, I actually keep a journal on myself and I wrote that whole thing down I think it was the day after. I felt like shit and I had to go to school the next day. It was all terrible. But in that journal there’s a lot of things like, him looking back and me and being like “holy shit! what are we doing!?” This was amazing, I don’t know how we even landed this. Having his legs uncontrollably shake. I remember, it’s so interesting to talk about because it almost seems like a blur. You try and soak that in so much. A moment like that so much, but it almost still never comes back. When we were there, it was incredible. We’re forever grateful that we had that opportunity. It was an experience like never before. It was amazing.

Jason: I will say that we were nervous and we didn’t know how the fans were going to treat us. The moment we stepped foot on stage, they cheered like we were the biggest band in the world. From that moment on, we were still a little nervous. You want to sound good for these kids, they never heard us. They gave us a very good vibe, which probably helped us play well. That was over a year ago, so the songs that we played – we don’t even play half that set anymore. Our set now is completely different. That’s the fans, were the best thing about that show to me because they gave us the confidence to go out there and kick ass.

Justin: I remember when we found out about that we were going to play that show, it was like wow we’re going to open for 21 Pilots. They’re an amazing band. They play an awesome live performance. Just being able to see that was really cool. I’ll never forget when we pulled up to the venue in the van, there was some kids camping out and when we pulled out. Yeah – it was really cold. Middle of December, yeah. So we pulled up and a few kids got out of their tent and they were looking at the van. I remember Paul had a red beanie on so it kind of looked like maybe we were 21 Pilots or something. [laughs] I’ll never forget that, and also after we played our set, it was really cool and I looked back at Jacques and he throws a shirt and I looked at where the shirt goes, and it gets stuck in the light rack at the top. Then I was moving, alright let me grab my cables and I stepped down and the fire alarm went off and I thought I did it. But I don’t know what caused that, but it was crazy because we were like oh my god! We made the fire alarm go off! We didn’t know if they were coming out on stage or what happened, but it was awesome. I loved that experience.

If the music of Sleeptalk was a donut, what kind would it be and why?
Justin: I would say a pink sprinkled donut [laughs] like the one in The Simpsons. It would just definitely represent the style of our music. You have a good bass and you just sprinkle some flavors on top.
Jacques: I definitely think it would be something a little less common. I think it would be something, I don’t know, like an apple fritter or something. Let me tell you why, because personally I love apple fritters. I think they’re absolutely delicious. But I will say, the way I’m gonna tie these two in is because apple fritters remind me of when I was younger and there’s a lot of this music and the lyrics that makes me reminisce of old things. Whether it be a time that Anthony was writing lyrics or Jason or Justin were writing something or Paul had a funky bass. That makes me reminisce a lot. That’s why I think it’d be something like an apple fritter because I used to eat them a lot when I was younger. I love the feeling of nostalgia. So I definitely it’d be something a little more nostalgic, to be honest.

ALL: That got really deep!

Anthony: I’m gonna go with bearclaw because it’s super heavy on the outside but it’s so nice and sweet on the inside and I think that’s what our music is. It’s like a big teddy bear. That’s our music in donut form.

Paul: I’m gonna say donut holes because it fills you up on the inside, it’s what you’re missing. It hits that – just that empty center, it’s just what’s there. [laughs]

Jason: I guess a jelly donut because when you – [laughs] we just, I don’t know. We’re wet. [laughs]

What’s up for you guys after this tour is over?
Anthony: We’ll be heading out back on the road, not sure on the dates yet but we will be heading back out and we’re actually going to be putting out our second or third single, it’s gonna be called “Strange Nights.” We’ll be doing that and a video for that. That’ll be mid-april and then touring after that. Then the record.

Jacques: Start planning on releasing the record, kind of get all that together. All the fine little bits that we have to tweak, not on the actual songs but the whole background stuff. Artwork and what not. I think touring as of now and coming back and tweaking that little stuff, definitely.

If anyone wants to contact you where would they go?
Anthony: You can find us on Instagram and twitter at @slptvlk it’s short for Sleeptalk. You can find us on apple music and Spotify and YouTube. /sleeptalk.

Jacques: Or you can find us on Artery Recordings.

Unknown: Or Grinder. [laughs]

Sleeptalk will be performing next at The Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles on May 14th!

Sleeptalk is:
Anthony Fitzpatrick – Vocals
Jason Fitzpatrick – Guitar
Justin Melchor – Guitar
Paul McGill – Bass
Jacques Harmandjian – Drums

(Review and Band Photo by Ken Morton – Live Photos by Jack Lue)

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