When asked how sleepazoid is feeling about their upcoming Laneway appearance, there’s a second of silence before a disturbing sound emerges from guitarist Jim Duong, who’s been quiet for majority of the interview.
“Whaaaaa,” he squeals.
Composed of vocalist and guitarist Nette France, bassist Josef Pabis, drummer and vocalist Luca Soprano, and dual guitarists’ George Inglis and the aforementioned Jim Duong, the Zoiders have taken Melbourne by storm.
The Naarm alt-rock quintet’s debut EP in late 2024 exploded onto the Melbourne music scene like a shoegaze shotgun loaded with fuzzy, energetic bangers, landing triple j radio rotation, extensive playlist support and hundreds of thousands of streams.
With EP number two, NEW AGE, releasing 5 February, the band has spent their time between releases selling out headliners and supporting big ticket internationals like Fcukers and Faye Webster.
sleepazoid
- WHEN: 13 FEB
- WHERE: LANEWAY FESTIVAL
- Tickets: here
Check out our gig guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
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Almost immediately after Duong’s squeal (which I’ve decided is the only way to describe the sound he made), he elaborates as if we all hadn’t just burst into laughter.
“We’re grateful. It’s crazy. It’s just nice to be alongside so many bands that we have listened to and look up to,” Duong says.
It’s quite rare for a band to go from their first gig to sharing a poster with the likes of Chappell Roan, PinkPantheress, Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers and Geese in such a short time.
But their success hinges on their cemented identity and brand. They’d spent a long time refining their sound before even playing their first show, and France even admits they chose the name sleepazoid because they “wanted to find something that had good SEO”.
Pabis says the time spent honing their sound, along with crucial support of their own record label Surreal Sounds, was what helped the band cut through the noise.
“We spent the best part of a year and a half also just writing and jamming with each other, not playing other shows, because a lot of times you can quickly just go into playing gigs and then you kind of just roll from there.
“Then being fortunate enough to work with our label, Surreal Sounds, from the get-go to get that into life was how we got it started,” Pabis says.
Though the band is still fairly young, there’s already a noticeable development in their sound. Where their first EP, running with the dogs, had a frenetic energy to it, NEW AGE lowers the overall pace and cranks up the atmosphere.
“The first EP, it was just us going in and being like, ‘Okay, we’re going to be a loud rock band,’”
Duong says. “The second EP was, ‘Okay, how can we do that, but make it feel a bit more emotional?’ which is the space where that songwriting comes from.”
The sense of vulnerability is evident in France’s lyrics, where she explores the pain of breaking up with a long-term partner.
“One of the key themes to the EP is heartbreak and it follows this journey of being out and walking through the city,” France says.
Working with filmmaker Nikola Jokanovich, each music video helps thread this narrative throughout the EP.
The EP’s titular track jumps back and forth between states of renewal and sombre reflection. The verses see France sing over driving drums and textured guitars as she reinvents herself on a night out, strutting down city streets in “D&G jeans with a rhinestone pattern/ slick back hair for the aerodynamics”.
Then the chorus, with its half-time rhythm, bright guitars and angelic vocals, offers a plaintive moment of lucidity (“I really loved you, I know you know that/ but what we cut down, we couldn’t grow back”).
“You follow the thread through the night. You’ve got Fig Tree where I finish the night out and I’m at home, and that’s the more reflective, somewhat melancholic kind of aftermath that happens when you’ve processed something like a big breakup,” France says.
“I think Nikola did a really good job at listening to the body of work as a whole. He was so run and gun. He filmed, directed, edited, color graded… He did everything. He really just kind of ate that idea up and was like, ‘Yes, let’s do it,’” France says.
Looking forward, the band has some big plans. After their EP tour in Australia in March, the band is bringing their sleepazoid sound to the UK.
With an impressive buzz around them and ambitious aspirations, sleepazoid has certainly proved they aren’t a band to be slept on.
Read more of Beat issue 1737 here.
