It’s time to take a gamble on a Band of the Day again. That’ll make sense when you see where they’re from…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We are from Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.
How did you meet?
Jaime, Tony and I met in high school but as far as being in a band, Jaime reached out to me one day on the FaceBook then we asked Tony if he wanted to join. Once he said “yes” we looked for a singer. We found Mike on an app called Band Mix and the rest is history.
How long have you been playing as a band?
I would say coming up on 3 years now.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
That’s funny you say that because it’s very true! Ultimately we just sat in a room and came up with really stupid names at first (Star Sailors being one of them). After we got that out of our system we just tried to find something that we liked and felt like described us and the sound we we’re going for… and that’s pretty much it. Unfortunately no cool backstory here!
What are your influences?
I feel very lucky to be in this band because every member is extremely eclectic in their musical taste. Tony Likes a lot of hard rock and post hard-core, but he also is very much into EDM and pop, and grew up on extreme metal so he’s very rounded. The same goes for Jaime and Mike. Jaime really likes unique and abstract bands like Sounds of Animals Fighting, Stolas, Portugal the Man… While at the same time enjoys really aggressive bands like Every Time I Die, The Devil Wears Prada, Norma Jean… His palate is very broad.
I’m probably the most bland out of the group. I’ll listen to all spectrums of rock but it’s usually just that… rock! If you looked on my Spotify top 5 you’d find Billy Talent, Thy Art is Murder, Bloc Party, Protest the Hero, Bring Me the Horizon, etc… (see what I mean?)
And Mike, being one of the most eclectic, listening to everything from Drake to the Black Dahlia Murder to Matchbox 20 To European yodeling (no, I’m not joking).
If you like what we do, consider joining us on Patreon for as little as £1 per month!
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
I believe what makes our band unique is the fact that we don’t have any rules or barriers. We would never write something to try to be relevant or be “in the now”. We just write what we think sounds good – no matter what sound, no matter what genre, as long as it’s Sleep Eater we’re Completely fine with it.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
We don’t have any concepts that we live religiously by. Mike who does a huge bulk of the lyrics. He usually just likes to make it personal, or an experience he went through, or a philosophical viewpoint he’s thinking of at that time. So whatever seems saucy in his head.
What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
Altogether I believe we’ve played about 30 shows give or take. We are definitely still beginners as far as the “live show” is concerned, but what we lack in the experience we make up for it enthusiasm. How’s that?
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
OK, this is a 100% true story. We were playing this venue in downtown Vegas Called the Cornish Pasty. The parking was garbage so we just tried to find areas behind the venue in like an alley type of situation. Halfway through our set (mid-song!) our friend Cody lets us know that Tony’s car is getting towed! He had to put his bass down, run outside and take care of it. He had to haggle the tow truck driver and ended up paying them I think like $200 on the spot! After everything was said and done I believe he was able to finish the last two songs or something. Yeah we can laugh about it now but at the time Tony was not a happy camper.
Don’t fancy Patreon? Buy us a one-off beverage!
What are your plans for the next 12 months?
Well as far as live shows we have to wait until all the Covid restrictions end. Our game plan as of now is just to promote our upcoming album (Humanity – plug, plug, plug!) as much as possible while we write the next batch of songs. We have already started fleshing out some ideas and after the first of the year we are going to get a space and start the next phase!
If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
If I know the band I believe we would have a local act open for us. Any band that took the time to help us along the way. The bands that come to mind for us would be Capital North, leatherboundCrooks, The American Weather, Duct Tape Shoes, Sheiks Of Neptune (one of my personal favourites)… ultimately just people we clicked with. We definitely would want to support their ventures any way possible.
As far as supporting a band… I can only speak for myself but I believe we would be stoked with supporting Thursday. Not only did we grow up with that band but Geoff Rickly (shameless name drop) was awesome enough to actually review our album and give us pointers, so again we would like to pay it forward any way possible!
Check out this month’s BotD Playlist on Spotify and YouTube
Sleep Eater: facebook | soundcloud | spotify | youtube
