Newcity Chicago: I Need Sleep
Published by: Newcity Chicago
Date: February 20, 2009
Format: Web (www.music.newcity.com)
Type: Music Feature
Sleeping Beauty: I Need Sleep will hit anything
“It’s just pop, a little messy. But we like it that way,” says Justin Powers, when describing I Need Sleep’s sound. Call it messy or chaotic or disjointed at times, but whatever it is, it seems to be working.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2003, current member DL and former member Dan Huff, not to be confused with Dann Huff (the one with two n’s) of the eighties rock band Giant, formed a band. They began by playing their music on the sides of busy streets and then, with the addition of Powers and other core members, their music was taken from the roadsides and into houses and bars and music venues.
Powers, a recent Columbia College graduate, is the band’s Chicago presence, while most members still reside in Knoxville and others live around the country in cities like New York and Austin. But while they are spread across the U.S., they all come together in Knoxville to write and record with the band.
Though Huff is no longer a member, he remains a large influence on the band’s sound. “There’s nothing fake about it,” says Powers of Huff’s current approach to music that he records in his studio—located in the back of his truck. “He plays almost every instrument, but in his own way. He only does one take when he records, even if he messes up.”
I Need Sleep has adopted this same method of making music. “None of us really know how to play the saxophone, but we still use it. Guitars are just so boring these days, not to say we don’t use them because we do, but it’s way more fun to play trumpet or steel drums.”
The band’s live performance is very percussion-based, with random hits on virtually anything that will make a sound—tin cans for example—as well as traditional drums and cymbals. “We let our live performances define what we’re playing,” says Powers. “Dancing is always a good idea, even if the sounds you hear don’t make sense.”
This ideology has also carried over into the recording of the band’s newest EP, “Welcome to Monsters.” “The recordings we’ve done in the past have been very polished and ended up sounding nothing like us. The new release was recorded at our house, and helped us connect better the music with the performance, lots of recording and dancing in the kitchen and bathroom. There were lots of noises that most people would take out of a recording to make it sound ‘better’ that we left in. It just felt more honest.”
In the past, the band has done some touring on the east coast, with a appearance at CMJ in New York in 2006, and this summer, the band plans to branch out even further, hitting the Midwest and the East Coast and eventually heading west.
As well as the band’s current EP, which is available for free download at ineedsleep.bandcamp.com, I Need Sleep has also recently recorded and released a “Free Jazz” cassette tape on the Speed Tapes label, with a limited pressing of only thirty copies. Plans are also in the works for a full-length later this year on Portland-based Swim Slowly Records.