The Sleep-Ins

The Sleep-ins began when Chad Corley, five days into his new Australian life, met Englishman Stefan Pope at a Sydney guitar shop. "I was there to meet the owner for a job, but he wasn't in," recalls Chad. "I talked to Stefan for a while, and was immediately impressed. I didn't even need to hear him play; it was obvious from the start that we were on the same wavelength." That wavelength – the sound that would define the Sleep-ins – is a soaring, melodic and often thundering indie rock with a cerebral nod to the Pixies, Polvo, Shellac and The Shins.

Chad got the job, and in the ensuing days met Australian and fellow employee Josh Schuberth. The Sleep-ins would rehearse for the first time a few weeks after that, and played their first show a month later. Says Josh, "we had to be careful about the guitar shop owners not knowing four of their employees were in the same band...it gets quite suspicious when we all show up for work a bit dreary-eyed because we were out late gigging the night before; but we all knew what we wanted to do, so it's no surprise we got right to it."

And get right to it they did, eventually touring in Australia, developing and road-testing their material, which included songs co-written with Mock Orange drummer Heath Metzger. What they ended up with was not only the album Songs About Girls & Outer Space, but also the material for a follow-up. "It's really quite extraordinary," Stefan adds, "Chad moves to another country, without a job or any contacts, and with only a guitar to sell if he runs out of money; within weeks he's working and he's gigging. And he still has the guitar!"

Along the way, the Sleep-ins found time to record their creations. Each member of the group also has talents and experience in producing and engineering, so the urge to self-produce their music came naturally. "The only thing we lacked was a proper studio, so we did things part-by-part over a period of some months, wherever anyone would give us time and space to work,” remembers Chad. Ultimately, the Sleep-ins made use of at least half a dozen locations on two continents. Stefan includes, "by the end we'd recorded in peoples' homes, flats, a farm, an old warehouse and maybe somewhere in there an actual studio." Nevertheless, the result is impressive not just because of the process, but because of the sounds they managed to capture. Songs About Girls & Outer Space defines a unique sound for the band and utilizes the best of modern and vintage technology to get there. Indeed, this is a group whose star is rising, with singles on Australian and American radio, a new home with the label Ingot Rock in Asheville, NC, and the addition of Mike Johnson on guitar. Also, the Sleep-ins no longer work in a guitar shop, though they still like to visit.