MUSIC INTERVIEW: SLEEPER AGENT

The Sleeper Awakens, Turns the Amps Up High & Rocks Out Loud

One of the best new bands of 2011 might be one of the most inaccurately named: The hallmark of Sleeper Agent’s melodic spiky garage-pop is its immediacy. To hear "Get It Daddy" or "Love Blood" is to love them, and to see the band’s infectious energy live on stage is all is takes to become a fan. A big part of the Bowling Green, Kentucky band’s fun is the dueling male/female vocals of Tony Smith and Alex Kandel, and on the day their debut CD, Celabrasion, was released, they sat down with Buzzine’s Stefan Goldby in Hollywood, California to talk beginnings, recordings, and a special night in 2010 when Alex stopped hiding and started really rocking out on stage -- a sleeper no more…

 

Stefan Goldby: Though the band first formed in 2008, Alex didn’t join until last year. Since then, the past twelve months have been exciting times and rapid growth. Tony: What was the biggest difference in the band pre- and post-Alex?

 

Tony Smith: The biggest difference was probably Justin [Wilson], who is now the drummer, went from being the lead singer to hiding behind the drum-kit – going from the front to the back of the stage. So I feel like he feels like his role as the star has diminished a little bit…

 

Alex Kandel: It was his decision… [Smiles]

 

TS: It was his decision, though. He was just a born drummer. And also the focus has shifted onto song crafting and melody, and everybody is working for a song instead of shock-value, as we were in the beginning – just loud and…

 

AK: …a rowdy bunch of college boys…

 

TS: …who wanted to do nothing but drink a case of beer and spit on stage. We’ve come a long way since then, and as I’m growing and maturing myself, I feel like it was a welcome change.

 

AK: There’s still the occasional bit of spit, though.

 

TS: But that’s all accidental now.

 

AK: Yeah. Or out of necessity.

 

SG: So now Justin is the secret weapon in the back – at some point will there be a grand reveal?

 

TS: He hits the drums harder than anybody else I know.

 

AK: I don’t think he’s much of a secret back there. [Laughs]

 

SG: Typically, it is a manager, or even a booking agent, but for Sleeper Agent, your first real support for the band came from a producer. When Jay Joyce said something along the lines of, “There’s something here; there’s something I love,” what was it that he identified in the music that made him want to champion you guys?

 

AK: After getting to know Jay, I think that the reason he was so attracted to us, as far as the demos that we had at the time, a lot of it has to do with his background, because he’s always been in rock & roll: That’s where he got his start, was playing in a band, and he could really connect with us. He’s in a position where he’s such a great producer that he does some really great records that are also country – he just got a #1 record with Eric Church – but he also uses that as a way to do these projects with bands that wouldn’t have a chance otherwise – projects that he really enjoys, which I’m thankful that we’re one of them.

 

TS: Also, it was really appealing to him because it was almost kind of innocent, virginal, and we were almost naïve because we weren’t weatherworn by any kind of management or label or anything like that. We did everything backwards.

 

AK: Completely backwards. Produce a record… label… then booking agent.

 

TS: It was booking agent before label.

 

AK: Was it? And then management. It was like, “We have all this stuff, so now we need to manage it.

 

TS: Actually, tour…then management.

 

AK: Yeah, that’s right. [Laughs]

 

SG: Obviously everything happened fairly close together there, judging by the fact that you don’t quite have the order straight in your mind yet… And the album recording itself was pretty damn quick. Only having a week to record the album was a necessity at the time, but looking back on it now, what do you think was the biggest benefit of really having to go in the studio and hit it so quick and so hard?

 

AK: I think the fact that we had to do it in such a short time made it very honest and from the gut. There wasn’t over-thinking; there wasn’t that much changing to what we originally had written, and it was very “this is what we do,” because there was no time to change any of it really.

 

TS: No over-thinking whatsoever. There were a couple of songs where she’d be doing a vocal track and I’d go outside and just write the lyrics of the next song. Not because I was lazy prior, but it was like, “Hey, let me come out here with you. We’ve got a week to get it together… All right: Here’s our record.”

 

AK: [Laughs] Yeah, I think Jay got frustrated at one point because he was like, “Let’s do the vocal tracks,” and we were like, “Uh…”

 

TS: We had the lyrics written on our phones, so he was like, “What happened to rock & roll?”

 

AK: Yeah, it was just like, “Where are the songs you’re about to sing?” [Laughs]

 

TS: He was like, “You sound like you’re reading off your phones,” and I’m like, “Well that’s what we’re doing.” But he’s like, “Just take 20 minutes, and you guys have a moment and figure out where the song is heading,” so it was great.

 

AK: The whole recording process was such a quick, exciting, and focused period… It felt very vicarious. Like if we sink or swim…it just all blends together. I couldn’t tell you what song we did on what day unless I really try to go back in my memory maybe.

 

TS: Yeah, because the only members we had at that time were myself and Alex and Justin as the drummer, so we were just making up… bringing in people to do bass. Once I found Josh (Martin) to do guitar… We just needed somebody who would just play guitar for a couple days and we have a friend who knew Josh, and we brought him in, and he learned the parts the night before. So it was all very like dominoes – everything just falling in place and ending in this… what you hear now.

 

SG: And what we hear now is correct, because the CD it stores today. But it was already out digitally a month ago – So, as a band of the moment, singing lyrics off of your phones… Was there a conscious plan there to stagger the release date? Was it just that iTunes wanted it sooo much?

 

TS: iTunes definitely wanted the record first, and since it’s such a powerhouse in the music industry today, how you can you say no when you’re at such a starting point in your career?

 

AK: iTunes helped us out a lot: We had a free single of the week, and I think we’ve gained so many fans from that – people that wouldn’t have been introduced to the music any other way – seeing that come up on the iTunes store and trying it out, and they either loved it or hated it, which to me is a great thing.

 

TS: It was very polarizing – the music: extreme disgust… and extreme enlightenment with the song.

 

AK: [Laughs] Which is good. You don’t want any wishy-washy, like, “Um, it’s okay.”

 

TS: Yeah, we don’t want any “meh’s.”

 

AK: Yeah, as long as there wasn’t any of that.

SG: Beyond provoking a reaction, what do you (in the middle of the ever-changing music world) measure artistic success with? Music sales? Sold out shows? Facebook friends?

 

TS: I think having people show up for you is, right now, the biggest part of success for me, because if I’m supporting a bigger band, and the more kids are there for us, I’m like, “Well I’ll be damned…”

 

AK: Yeah, that’s been the biggest way that I mark how we’ve grown over the past…even month, is we’ll hit a city that we’ve been at and we’ll see what once was a few kids and maybe some people that were there because their friend’s band is showing up, turn into kids singing along to your whole record and filling up this tiny bar you’re playing at. That is a huge definition that we’re doing something right.

 

SG: So where does that leave today with the album coming out? This would have once been the be all and end all, but now it’s just another wave: What do you hope happens this week?

 

TS: I think we hope the album consistently and gradually gains some momentum, and it’s not like “Buzz Band of the Week: Sleeper Agent,” next week: “Buzz Band…whoever.” So I think our idea is to push this record for as long as possible.

 

AK: We’re gonna work this record really hard. [Laughs] We’re gonna keep touring on it.

 

TS: This album is a year old to us, but to everybody else it’s brand new, so let’s hope we can just keep our act together.

 

AK: It’s really exciting to have this chance now that more and more people will have the record in their hands, and now we’ll have more of a platform to go perform and to really grab those potential fans and make them our fans.

 

TS: And it’s not really out until it’s on vinyl anyway…

 

AK: In our definition.

 

SG: You can make a fan before your very eyes through a live show, but beyond that, with everything else in flux, I loved the, “If you dig us now, you can tell everyone you liked us before that one song was in the car commercial” t-shirt. Nice work! But if all bets are off, and all tactics are elastic… are there any ways that you won’t use to get your music in front of a potential fan?

 

TS: To the best of both worlds, it’s a youth and experience idea when you’re talking about the rules of the industry these days. We’re in such a flux period that there’s really no telling how it works anymore. Is it iTunes? Is it…

 

AK: … Spotify, the cloud, or the subscription service ideas…

 

TS: … Pandora… Can you be your own label manager, etc.?

 

AK: It’s a matter of what works best for what you want to accomplish. There are so many different definitions of success in a band now. There’s a lot of bands that define success in the fact that they can put out vinyl singles every few weeks and tour the country on those…

 

TS: Or appear on multiple blogs…

 

AK: So it depends on what you want for your band or what your band can fit into, I guess, as far as what you want to define success…

 

TS: I think success for us is just the ability to keep on doing this and be able to sustain healthy lives.

 

AK: It could be terrifying to be in a new up-and-coming band with the industry changing so much right now. That’s one way to look at it, but I think it’s also a really exciting time because this new batch of bands coming through – it’s going to be the test to see what works now, and you’re in an exciting time in music…

 

TS: It’s either the full collapse or the resurgence – who knows?

SG: I don’t know a lot about the music scene in Bowling Green, Kentucky, but I’d imagine it’s not gigantic: Is that a fair assumption?

 

TS: It’s a little cult-ish, I would say.

 

AK: It’s not like every kid that’s in high school talks about that show they saw last weekend at school; it’s a very small group of kids… that I was in in high school at least… that are the kids that love music and the kids that will go out to shows and not just go to Nashville to see the person playing at the Ryman.

 

TS: My experience was the bar scene, and it’s very cult-ish and there’s a healthy group of people who already support local music and will go to the bar shows and support bands. What’s great about Bowling Green is that every show is like a gem – it’s not like, “Oh it’s Monday. Who’s playing?” It’s like, “Well it’s Wednesday, and this band is playing there, and they’re not playing again for God knows how long, so we should go.”

 

AK: And the house shows there are really incredible…

 

TS: Because they always sound like crap, it’s always hot as hell, but they’re probably the most fun you’re ever going to have, as a band or as an observer.

 

AK: [To Tony] You’ve lived in Bowling Green your whole life, but I moved there my freshman year of high school, and my first experience at a house show – it wasn’t a band playing; it was just a DJ – but I was a freshman in high school so it was also my first party that was an actual party, and I remember I snuck out to go… or I weaseled my way into going – I can’t remember.

 

But I remember thinking it was just something out of one of those cliché teen movies or something, because it was just a mass of people, and these kids actually danced and they actually had fun, and they accidentally burned someone with their cigarette during their show. And these kids on garbage bags – they taped them down to the floor and would slide down on them in the rain. It was just insane. And I think in Bowling Green, because there’s nothing else to do, they know how to have a good time.

 

TS: That and also we have a really great college radio station, and they try their hardest to put on big shows once or twice a year.

 

SG: Within that small scene, your friends in Cage the Elephant have also been having an amazing time over the past couple of years…and you’ve been out on tour with them recently… Is there a sense of them learning anything that they have been able to pass along to you, in terms of advice or insight?

 

TS: I think that myself and Justin and Scott (Gardner), some of the older members of the band – definitely watched them go through their trials and tribulations. They were stuck in Europe for well over a year, and then they come home and it’s like, “When is your record coming out over here?” and they were like, “I don’t know…”

 

So yeah, they’ve taught us a lot throughout the journey we’re having right now of all their little missteps and mistakes, and it wasn’t two weeks ago when we went to a comedy show in Bowling Green – those are getting big in Bowling Green - stand-up comedy. Matt (Shultz of Cage The Elephant) and I went to a comedy show, and he took me aside and kind of slapped me on the wrist for things I wasn’t doing. So they’re like older brothers…

 

AK: Yeah, in that sense on the business side as well as on the creative side – they’re really great people to bounce ideas off of, especially when we’re on the road.

 

TS: Before either band was ever really signed, we’d sit in rooms and hang out and play guitar until like four in the morning…

 

SG: And so everything comes back to playing live music. That’s where it all happens for you. So, what do you feel like are the things that come together for a perfect night on stage for Sleeper Agent?

 

TS: We don’t run out of breath.

 

AK: Yeah, I think that’s, right now, the hardest thing. I think right now the thing that I’ve been learning to strive for is this balance of feeling like we’re all technically there; it sounds tight, but also the energy level is there. Because there were three shows in a row where the first one – it was in Columbia – where the crowd was just super fun and they all knew the record, and we had such a blast, and you and I were jumping around; it was just crazy fun, but it might not have technically sounded great. We were not as tight as we normally were.

 

Then there were other shows where there’s ten people that show up and we sound perfectly fine because we’re more focused on that, I guess. So recently we had a show where it felt like both of those were perfectly in check – we were still energetic and we had a total blast and got people involved, but it was still tight. So to me it’s just this weird balance.

 

TS: You’ll never find a lapse of energy in a Sleeper Agent show, though. If we’re playing to 2 or 200, it’s always the same show.

 

SG: What do you hope that crowd walks away thinking?

 

TS: I want to pay it forward and tell two friends, and have their two friends tell two friends, and so on and so on and so on, and hope they come back.

 

AK: Yeah, I hope they have a lot of fun. That’s the whole point.

 

TS: And maybe they’ll start a band.

 

SG: What’s been the single shiniest, best, rock-star moment for Sleeper Agent so far?

 

AK: We had two dates in Chicago, both at the Vic Theater with Cage the Elephant, and they were a few days apart, and that was extremely fun, when we were on tour. That was how the tour was ending too…

 

TS: So many legends have played the Vic, like Bill Hicks – the comedian – played the Vic. He’s one of my favorite people of all time. I think Sam Kinison…I’m just talking about comedians now...

 

AK: But those were really great moments for me because I’ve met more and more fans, since we’ve played Chicago since then, that talk about that show still, and those two shows were great because the venue was amazing, the people that work there were amazing – which has a lot to do with how I feel about a show sometimes, is how the staff will treat me.

 

SG: Like if they took all the brown M&Ms out for you… ?

 

AK: No no no! More like if they let the 18-year-old girl inside to use the bathroom. That’s actually been a problem.

 

TS: Or if the sound guys are dicks, which happens to us a lot.

 

AK: But those two shows were pretty fantastic, and hanging out with Cage, who are like family to us, in between…and I love Chicago as a city.

 

SG: As do I, and I also love your video for "Get It Daddy." It’s a fantastic song and a really fun video. What do you remember about that schoolhouse day?

 

AK: Shooting the video was interesting because of the location. It was an abandoned schoolhouse in Galveston, Tennessee…

 

TS: Which is “sticks” Tennessee, near Nashville, but not…

 

AK: … it was out in the middle of nowhere, basically. But lots of heat, no air conditioning, so we had fans everywhere, because of how hot it was in the middle of summer in this building already, let alone performing and moving around and destroying piñatas. It took about 18 hours to do. We were all so exhausted by the end of it, but it was almost like this euphoric exhaustion. I can’t believe that our job requires us to destroy piñatas all day.

 

TS: Sometimes.

 

AK: It did at that moment.

 

TS: What I remember most is I woke up late, I didn’t get a shower in, and [laughs] just jumped in the van and drove to Galveston, paced around for a couple of hours waiting for everything to be set up, and then the rest of it is a blur. I don’t know. We got home at 3:30 in the morning, and we left at 9:00 a.m. I was sore…

 

AK: I remember being nervous with Justin with the weapons, though. Because we had a lot of weapons to choose from, and a lot of them didn’t make the video, but some of them that we weren’t even using in the video – Justin would just sit there and throw a ninja star at the wall and I’d just be like, “God…”

 

TS: Yeah, Justin had a field day with weapons.

 

SG: So those are things you’ve learned to keep away from Justin…

 

TS: He’ll find them anyway. What was one the other day he found? He picked up a welding mask the other day and put it on, started playing with it and a basketball. He always finds little dangerous things to play with.

 

AK: Sometimes he’ll just have a pocket knife and start flipping it around, and I’m like, “What are you doing? We’re in a tiny van!” [Laughs]

 

SG: Another kind of dangerous game is one the media loves to play: pigeonholing new bands. But dueling male and female vocals does set up a number of artistic comparisons in everyone’s mind. For you guys, are there any that are actually valid, that are artists that are exciting to be compared to?

 

TS: I think that of a lot of the comparisons we get, there are a couple that are valid. If The xx is brought up, they definitely inspired a lot of the vocal interplay between Alex and myself…

 

AK: Yeah, we worked at a coffee shop together and we played that record to death.

 

TS: And if we ever got New Pornographers, that would be a dead-on comparison because Dan Bejar, AC Newman, or Neko Case – they’re always interacting with each other and feeding off each other.

 

AK: We got Be Your Own Pet today. That one is pretty accurate because, before I ever played a note with them, they brought it up, and I didn’t know who they were, and they made me sit there and watch Jemina Pearl videos all day.

 

TS: Alex was like, “This is how a girl rocker should do it!” [Laughs]

 

It’s almost her year anniversary of actually performing at a show. Prior to that, she was hiding behind mic stands and her hair.

 

AK: I still hide behind my hair a little bit.

 

TS: On October 1, 2010 she exploded out of nowhere at the Starry Nights Music Festival.

 

SG: It sounds like there’s a final moment we need to talk about there...

 

TS: Starry Nights Music Festival is something that is trying to become an annual huge show in Bowling Green, and it’s put on by a lot of locals, and it’s great.

 

AK: Matt and Brad (Shultz) from Cage are a big part of it.

 

TS: And the first two years it was like they set up a stage on this acre of land, and “let’s invite four or five bands,” and it was just a party for the night.

 

AK: It was more like a campout with bands playing.

 

TS: And the third year, which is the one we played at, they had Ghostland Observatory, they had Daniel Johnston, they had Freelance Whales…

 

AK: Just tons of amazing bands.

 

TS: Terrible Fruits, Jeff the Brotherhood… And it grew from more what you’d expect out of Kentucky to be this legitimate thing.

 

AK: It was actually reminiscent of Bonnaroo, I guess…

 

TS: … it was freezing cold...

 

AK: … it was in October, yeah. But it was still just a really great time to see people. It definitely gave Bowling Green a little bit of notoriety, because there were people there from Texas that drove all the way just to go to that show.

 

TS: And I think Alex just maybe fed off the energy and just exploded that night into something that was a little more interesting and rock & roll…

 

AK: It was just a really exciting time for me too. That was around the same time that we were getting label interest.

 

TS: That was actually three days before… three days later we got a couple of phone calls…

 

AK: … Oh was it three days?

 

TS: No actually, the next day we met with somebody, and we were all just giddy, like, “Really? You want to put our record out? That’s awesome.”

 

AK: It was just an exciting time. And I actually got fired for playing that show from my job at Pac-Sun. [Laughs]

 

Sleeper Agent’s debut album, ‘Celabrasion,’ is out now on Mom + Pop Records.