Ten years ago, the music we had was utterly amazing. 2008 saw the rise of post-hardcore, pop-punk and an accolade of other tasty little subgenres.
Many bands haven’t stood the test of time for one reason or another, but one of the lucky few still standing today, and about to embark on a ten-year anniversary tour of Australia. “It’s a long time,” says the band’s keyboard and bassist, Alex Wilson.
“I’ve been quipping it’s longer than any relationship I’ve been in. It’s a really good thing for us that we’ve lasted this distance, done all the stuff we’ve done and are still mates, still get along and are still excited about making music together.”
The longevity of the Sydney post-rock band is largely down to their open-minded willingness to be flexible in their sound. For Wilson, as the one guy in the band who’s been present at all points in sleepmakeswaves’ ten-year history, quipping aside, it does make him contemplative. “I think we’ve had a ten-year history because we never planned on having a ten-year history,” he says. “It’s almost like we achieved these things that were secretly our dreams, because from the start we acted as if they were never going to happen.
“Not having these big ambitions led to a focus on the musical side of things and having fun together as people, then inadvertently, they end up being massive assets you can draw on.”
What sleepmakeswaves play today certainly doesn’t sound like what they were playing ten years ago. They’ve evolved, improved and grown, and they’ve had their buddies there the whole time. “I think it’s also, and I’ve often said, the kind of music we do is a double edge sword – the bad edge is constantly having to fight against the perception that because you’re an instrumental band you’re boring. It’s a deal breaker for some people and that’s a shame but there are a lot of weird little perks that come along with it.
“One of them is because, even at our coolest, we’ve hung just under the threshold of trendy, that means we’re immune to the trends at the same time – like whatever happens in trend world, it tends not to affect us too much. Our development and journey as a musical act tends to happen parallel to what is going on in the mainstream,” Wilson says.
He calls that parallel movement a bit of a pain in the arse because he does see there are a lot of good things to be had from being in the indie mainstream. “There are a lot of things that are good to avoiding that shit fight as well,” Wilson says. “That ability to float under the radar has actually allowed us creative freedom and longevity outside of the trends of the past decade.”
Heading out on tour to celebrate ten years of touring and recording, sleepmakeswaves will, of course, be celebrating the release of their debut EP In Today, Already Walks Tomorrow. Perhaps most excitingly, the band will be joined on tour by founding member Jonathan ‘Kid’ Khor returning on guitar for these shows.
“I think what makes this possible for someone like Kid to come back and do this tour is the core idea of what sleepmakeswaves is about – you might call it a feeling, or a sound, a combination of those and an idea – but the core essence of what the band is, is firmly established to make it a comfortable thing for someone to step away from a little while and come back to participate again.
“Because we’ve stayed true to our core idea and deepened our relationship with it in what we do over the years, it means the fans have an implicit trust in what we do. It doesn’t matter who’s up onstage at this point, there’s trust that it’s going to fit together as part of the overall package that people have come to expect from us. There’s a sense of ‘We know what we’re about and we’re comfortable giving that to the people,’” Wilson says.
