There’s a unique pressure that comes with being The Next Big Thing. Excitement and experience abounds – but so too does expectation and pressure.
This is something that Sleepazoid, Australia’s Next Big alternative rock band, understands well. The five-piece – comprising lead vocalist and guitarist Nette France, bassist Josef Pabis, drummer Luca Soprano, and guitarists George Inglis and Jim Duong – have been steadily building momentum since they first formed in Melbourne in 2024.
Their accessible blend of gritty grunge and dreamy shoegaze has rendered their music catnip to Australian audiences.
Their release of their first EP, Running With The Dogs, led to a whirlwind 2025. They enjoyed knockout appearances at BIGSOUND and SXSW Sydney, and supported the likes of Faye Webster, Fcukers, and DZ Deathrays.
Later on in the year, they were announced as triple j’s celebrated Unearthed Feature Artist and as part of Laneway’s upcoming lineup, alongside megastar Chappel Roan and and everyone’s favourite greasy-haired band Geese.
Their July single 3AM garnered over 100,000 streams in its first week of release, their single New Age has enjoyed well over 500,000. And now, they’ve been gearing up for the release of their highly anticipated EP, which arrives today, February 5th.
The EP shares its name with that beloved single: NEW AGE. People are hungry for more, and expecting Sleepazoid to deliver.
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“Hitting the panic button now,” frontwoman France jokes over Zoom at the mention of the expectation surrounding the release, as her bandmates Pabis and Duong chuckle beside her.
“To be honest, we recorded this EP a thousand years ago and I’m now 80 years old,” she jokes, stressing that she is excited about its release, but ready to continue to make new art.
“The past year has been better than we could have ever imagined,” France admits. “The music’s been received so well, and if people keep liking it, that’s freaking awesome – it just means that we’ll be able to keep putting out more music for people to listen to.”
She mentions a sentiment once expressed by Missy from Mannequin Pussy: ‘I only subscribe to the notion that my best work is always ahead of me.’
“I think that’s a really nice mentality to have: just put stuff out, and don’t let that set any anxiety on what you do next, just run with the momentum,” France adds.
Do they feel a sense of disconnect with NEW AGE, now that so much time has passed since they recorded it?
“I think it almost takes on a new life, in a way,” Pabis says. “We obviously had a specific connection with the songs as we were writing them, and then again as we were recording them. And now that we’re putting them out and getting prepared to play more shows, it’s another exciting way to experience the music we’ve already written.
“I definitely don’t feel disconnected from the songs, it’s just a different form of connection than it was when we were writing and recording them.
The title of the EP is apt. As Duong puts it, “Everything we’ve experienced collectively in the last two years has just been new. Playing all these shows, meeting all these people, doing interviews like this… We for real are living in a new age.”
“Obviously the time that we’re living in right now is incredibly fraught and there are lots of things that are changing everyday, even just in the music industry,” France adds.
“The way that artists are actually able to make a living, the challenges that we as a community and a society face at large. I guess that’s the catch-22 of the present: you’re always living in a new age.”
It is no wonder that the title-track of the EP has been their standout hit. Its prime sentiments – shucking off old identities, entering unprecedented times – has hit a nerve.
The song honours the memories past and the memories to come, with poignant lyrics such as, “Some other day I'll show myself I went the right way. I really loved you, I know you know that. But what we cut down we couldn't grow back. So I won't hold my breath any more.”
With slashing guitar riffs and hazy atmospherics, NEW AGE manages to simultaneously exhibit both a hectic, invigorating energy and a dazed, dreamy quality. You can head-bang to it or tear up to it – the choice is the listener’s.
France says when she was working on that track in particular, the “new age” represented “going through a big change in my life, and accepting that change. I had to learn to welcome the growth that was required of me to really step into this chapter.”
Growth, for her, involved “noticing the little things that change about yourself on a day-to-day basis,” and then watching those changes compound, while still being able to hold love for former versions of yourself, former friends, former loves.
Their songwriting process is “fairly collaborative.” Pabis says, “We have really nice creative chemistry as a group.” Their chemistry – and their care for one another – is evident even through the static of the Zoom screen. They chuckle and gently jest, they praise and listen to each other.
France explains that songwriting helps her to work through changes and new emotional landscapes. “After writing the songs, I can continue on with my life, and the songs, they become these little time capsules of that part of yourself.”
She glances around at her bandmates, arctic blonde hair bobbing. “It’s such a privilege and a gift to be able to do that with people that I love and trust.”
Performing, then, allows her to observe the way that other people find meaning and affinity with the emotions she was working through while songwriting.
“It’s a celebration, being able to see other people connect with the songs,” she says. “It transports me back to when I wrote the songs, but now I have distance from them. I have hindsight.
“It can be difficult to share if it’s a particularly painful or melancholic song and you’re still dealing with that,” she admits. “But I think a lot of the themes that are in those more vulnerable songs are things that lots of people have been through: heartbreak, changing identity, changing surroundings. All those things, I think people resonate with.”
Duong describes the more melancholic songs as being “harder” to play live. “I find myself choking up during Fig Tree.”
Fig Tree touches delicately on the themes present throughout the EP: new, old, the journey between the two, what changes, what remains the same. On the song, France hauntingly warbles her way through the line, “When you feel love, does it ever go away, or does it just change?”
With Fig Tree, as with all of their music, Sleepazoid asks questions they haven’t yet found the answers to – but the questions are worth listening to and pondering alongside them. Nette describes Fig Tree as the “softest” and “most delicate thing” they had done together as a band – something that fans will surely expect them to do more of.
The EP was produced and mixed by Jack Nigro – known for his work with Ethanol Blend, The Amity Affliction, and Skegss, amongst others – at Sonora Studios.
“It was really nice to have someone like Jack lead the project,” Duong says. “I think these songs are more emotionally charged than the songs on the first EP, and I think he really understood that.
“He helped us to get the emotions across, despite the fact that we’re making loud music. He just felt like another member.”
“He’s a great collaborator, very emotionally intelligent,” France agrees. “He really cares about making artists feel comfortable to get the best takes they can.”
“He was also very good at stepping back and letting us do our thing,” Duong adds. “I remember sitting back after the first take of NEW AGE and thinking, ‘Wow, this is going to be something.’ And here we are, that song is our biggest song.”
Though nerves are, of course, high, the band is feeling good about the Australian music landscape, and where they fit into it. They recite some of their favourite current acts, including The Belair Lip Bombs, Beryl, dust, Armlock, Shady Nasty, The Empty Threats, Twine, Folk Bitch Trio, Way Dynamic – the list is extensive, but they specify that they could go on.
Some Australian musicians have a fraught relationship with their own national, artistic identity – but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
“It’s definitely not something we cringe about,” Pabis says. “We’re just creating music in the space where we are, and for us to be labelled as Australian music – that’s just what we are.”
“I like it,” Duong says amiably.
“Music in general is such a hard nut to crack, and having the support that we have means a lot to us,” France notes. “And so many great Australian artists have paved the way for us.” She mentions international success stories such as Amyl And The Sniffers.
“It’s an honour and a privilege to be where we are right now,” Duong adds.
“I had a vision, then I stepped in it,” Nette sings on NEW AGE. Sleepazoid is gearing up to take that step into a new world, hand-in-hand.
Sleepazoid’s NEW AGE EP is out now. Tickets to their upcoming EP tour are on sale now.
Sleepazoid – NEW AGE EP Tour
with special guests Beryl
Friday, March 6th – Dissent, Ngunnawal/Ngambri/Canberra, NSW (With Body Shirt)
Saturday, March 7th – Waywards Ballroom, Eora/Sydney, NSW
Thursday, March 12th – Blute’s Bar, Meanjin/Brisbane, QLD (With Koady)
Saturday, March 14th – Ed Castle, Kaurna/Adelaide, SA (With Placement)
Saturday, March 21st – Northcote Social Club, Naarm/Melbourne, VIC
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
