Guide Cover: Sleepy Tea

Member answering/role: Tom Wearne – vocals/guitars/keys 

How long have you been together? It’s getting on two years now. Sheesh.

How did you all meet? We’ve known each other for years, playing and touring in various projects. Sleepy Tea came to be as a response to the music that we were all making at the time. We needed an outlet for those down-tempo moments you have in life. 

You’re on tour in the van – which band or artist is going to keep the most people happy if we throw them on the stereo? Our go-to driving music is nearly always instrumental; Bibio, Teebs, Jonsi & Alex, Locil. It helps you float above the rage.  

Which Brisbane bands before you have been an inspiration (musically or otherwise)? There are countless Brisbane artists who inspire me creatively. I feel lucky to know so many talented people. It’s inspiring to see people you know from around the traps start to kick goals and do good things on a national and international level – bands like Violent Soho, Emma Louise, Airling, Yeo, Art Of Sleeping and Holy Holy. It keeps you looking up and gives you that energy to keep working at it. 

What part do you think Brisbane plays in the music you make? Brisbane life is generally tits. It’s hard to fault wearing shorts 11 months of the year.  Perhaps living in paradise doesn’t give you an outlet for the angst so it finds its way out in the songs. 

What reality TV show would you enter as a band and why? I saw a Japanese game show where two girls were playing a sort of tug-o-war blowing a cockroach back and forth inside a length of clear tube, trying to get it into the other’s mouth. I played trumpet for years, so it would be roach-town to anyone who dared oppose me. 

What’s in the pipeline in the short term? Launching a music video, playing some shows and then heading back into the studio in the next two months! Happy days.