Delta Sleep [Interview]
If you love math rock, you’ll adore Delta Sleep. Watch out for their new album Twin Galaxies (out June 15 via Big Scary Monsters and reviewed on TMMP here), and in the meantime, read forth and discover more about the new album, Delta Sleep’s creative process, and their drummer’s Haribo addiction…
Your new album Twin Galaxies is coming out soon. What thoughts/feelings are going through your heads right now?
Glen: I can’t wait. These songs feel like they’ve been with us (but not actually physically recorded anywhere) for ages. I think it feels like even longer for Dev and I, as we wrote parts of them with our previous bassist and drummer (Adam and Maria).
Devin: A lot of mixed emotions. I’m mostly excited but sometimes feel nervous / calm / happy / anxious / needing to go number two every 5mins – just hoping that people will enjoy it really.
Your music is pretty mental. How did you first get into mathy stuff?
G: In school.
D: Hard to say really – my family have always been into jazzy stuff, so I was exposed to unconventional song structures since [I was] a kid.
Then I went through puberty and had a massive punk rock phase. After discovering Refused and At The Drive-In, the rest is history.
How do you go about putting your songs together? They’re complicated, to say the least…
G: Play a riff over and over and over and try to put another riff with it. Play it over and over and over together. Realise that it sounds shit. Take it apart, start again, and again and again…
How would you describe each of Twin Galaxies‘ tracks, in just one sentence per track?
Assemble:
D: 5 year old kid discovers Casio keyboards.
Uncle Ivan:
D: Brutal sweetness dressed in an armour of memory foam spikes.
21 Letters:
D: Playful twiddly fun with a twist of bitter lemon.
Aspetta:
D: Smooth and soft like a baby seal’s butt.
Lake Sprinkle Sprankle:
G: One of the best days of my life wrapped up in a song – swimming in a lake near Florence, doesn’t get any better.
Spy Turtles:
D: Aquatic dreamy landscape.
Spy Dolphin:
D: The ending is really fun to play live.
Daniel Craig David:
G: 2 2 3 2 3 5.
Hungry for Love:
D: A relentless cacophony of sword fighting and jousting.
Strongthany:
G: One of our best friends (and former bassist) had a baby; we tried to come up with names that combined an attribute the baby should have and a potential name; Strongthany, Coolin Abracadaniel, and Bong were all contenders. Strongthany is now almost 1!
How would you describe your evolution as a band over the last five years?
D: We’ve toured a bunch and have become a lot better at separating band time with real life time. We went through a pretty big line-up change a year and a half ago and we now have a completely new rhythm section. The bass and drums sound a lot heavier now. We now have a drummer who’s addicted to Haribo; we’re not sure how to tell him, so we’re thinking of planning an intervention.
What are your passions outside of music?
G: I play PlayStation, enjoy art, long romantic walks on the beach, and cuddles. Up for casual no strings attached fun or something more serious.
D: I like making films and videos – sometimes for the band and sometimes not.
If you had to choose one moment as a highlight of your journey so far, which would it be and why?
D: There are so many crucial moments, probably signing with BSM and touring Europe for the first time.
G: Probably touring around Italy – we made so many friends, ate some incredible food and recorded in one of the nicest studios we’ve ever been to. It was dope!
Beyond June 15, what’re you planning for the remainder of 2015?
G: Festivals and a short UK tour in June, probably head out to EU/UK again in the autumn time.
What’s on your bucket list?
D: To tour the US and Japan, and learn at least four languages.
G: Tour Japan/USA. Play a gig in space. Record an album in the Large Hadron Collider (or underwater). Buy a PS4.
Links
Delta Sleep on Facebook and Twitter.
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