Adam Kennedy talks to Brit-Pop icon Louise Wener of Sleeper ahead of the group’s North East return this May.
Having had this prolonged period of downtime due to the pandemic, with almost two years off the road, what’s life been like for Sleeper?
It just felt really strange because, obviously, we’d been away for a very long time before that. After coming back and having that sort of huge interruption, it just felt like things had been snatched away from us. But we did manage to do gigs last year and going back to them and seeing audiences was so joyful. I remember walking out at our first gig back – during or after the pandemic; however, you want to shape it, and it just felt really electric.
You’re about to hit the road to celebrate the 25th anniversary of your seminal album, ‘The It Girl’. How much are you looking forward to getting back out there and playing this legendary album in full to fans?
I think we’ve been looking forward to it for quite a long time. I think playing an album in full is always quite interesting because everyone knows what’s coming. There’s that lovely sense of anticipation you get from an audience where everyone’s wondering quite how you’re going to do it. There’s a real interaction between the audience and the performer when you’re playing an album that way. I love that album; it was a huge thing for us.
Are there any tracks on the album that you’ve never actually performed live before?
I think we’ve performed everything at some stage, but there are definitely tracks on that album that we haven’t played since the ‘90s. I think those are the interesting ones because it’s like playing new material almost. You are back in the studio, and you’re rehearsing, and you get that same kind of feeling that you had when you first started playing them. I think that’s really interesting as a band, and hopefully for people that love that album and come to see those songs.
‘The It Girl’ contains several classic songs for the band. It was also Sleeper’s most successful album. What do you remember about the writing and the recording of that album? It must have been an exciting time for the band?
It was – because there was a feeling of it really building. I remember ‘What Do I Do Now?’ I wrote the riff for that on a tour bus in America. I can remember being on the tour bus and being a little bit knackered. Back home, I remember finishing writing ‘Sale of the Century’ and going across Hampstead Heath. I stayed up all night writing that song and went to Hampstead Heath to see the sunrise because we thought, oh my God, this song is really great. So, there were lots of gorgeous moments about writing it. And there was a sense of the band sort of growing in that movement.
Sleeper will perform at Boiler Shop in Newcastle on Sunday 1st May where the band will be playing their classic release ‘The It Girl’ in full to mark the album’s 25th-anniversary tour.
Tickets, priced at £25.00 in advance, are available from boilershop.net.
