A Swift Ascendance

"The best thing about being nominated for an ARIA was almost getting to meet Taylor Swift,” Otto Wicks-Green, one quarter of sleepmakeswaves, says, making light of the success that followed the band's debut album …and so we destroyed everything. But wait a second, what's this “almost” business? What went wrong with meeting the country pop princess?

“What went wrong? So many things. I think it was mainly that as soon as she walked in I approached her, and I think her bouncer has learned to recognise what I'm tentatively describing as the 'crazy eyes'. Now, as someone who was there technically as a colleague of hers, being a musician with a VIP pass, I felt like I had a right to meet her, but apparently I didn't. The bouncer just stood in front of me, he didn't even say anything, he just looked at me as though to say 'not going to happen' and that broke my heart... On the plus side though they had free wine at the dinner.”

Dealing with his heartbreak, Wicks-Green threw himself into sleepmakeswaves to dull the pain. The band set about international touring before retreating from heavy touring earlier this year to focus on album number two. With good inroads made into that new record, the band are heading out for a national trek to road test some of the new stuff and to launch an album of remixes, aptly titled ...and then they remixed everything.

“It was a really pragmatic thing for us to do,” Wicks-Green says of the remix album. “We'd spent the last few years touring pretty heavily throughout America, Europe and at home here so we hadn't had much time to write new stuff. We were touring pretty DIY, so when you're sitting in the back of a van, getting lost down some back alley in Europe at 4am, you can't really write music that requires all the focus and persistence that we think you need to write music. But when we were travelling we met all these amazing bands, and so we figured, 'Why don't we take advantage of the fact that we know all these awesome people and get some music out there which doesn't involve us putting in the months and months of writing that it normally would'.”

The band's latest national tour will see them playing tracks off the remix album, as well plenty of other stuff, old and new. “We put a lot of effort into crafting two separate setlists that showcase the journey of the band so far…” Wicks-Green says. “We just want to challenge ourselves, that's part of what we enjoy about touring. Being able to overcome all of the roadblocks that you find in the way. And also, we just want to put on the best show that we can. Any time someone comes out to see us play that's incredibly rewarding, so we need to put on the best show that we can for them.”

After the tour sleepmakeswaves will hole up in rehearsal space to keep working at album number two. “We're planning on getting a record out as soon as possible. Hopefully early next year, but these estimations about recording times can often end up as double what you think. Hopefully that won't happen to us this time, and we'll have album number two out early to mid 2014. Song titles TBA. Album title TBA. Everything TBA, but we've made some really strong progress on the music, which is really exciting.”