Wild Sleep

Photo by, @aztec.mami

Meet Wild Sleep

Dreamy beyond words NYC’s Wild Sleep will send you and your friends into a Charlie Brown-esque dancing fit. High energy and heavy reverb is the name of the game with this lovely group. Their 2020 release Blue Mood cranks the energy up to 11 dipping into some serious psychedelic/ hard rock vibes. In our latest interview, we chat with Chris, Edgard, Freddy, and Sam about inspiration, music stores, and the band's origin story.

“THE OBSERVATORY” A fill in the blank by Wild Sleep

Our class went on a field trip to a MOIST observatory. It was located on top of a WATER, and it looked like a giant ISLAND with a slit down its CLOUD. We went inside and looked through TIME and were able to see WAVES in the sky that were millions of SHADOWS away. The men and women who DROWN in the observatory are called FIELDS, and they are always watching for comets, eclipses, and shooting TAPESTRIES. An eclipse occurs when a NIGHT comes between the earth and the WHALE and everything gets SLEEPY. Next week, we plan to FLOAT to the Museum of Modern DRINK.

Would You Rather

only eat burritos or pizza for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

Chris: Burritos 

Edgard: Burritos

Freddy: Burritos

Sam: Pizzarito

Some Questions with Wild Sleep

How did Wildsleep come to be?

Sam: I met Freddy thru an ad his old band put up on Craigslist. They were looking for a singer/guitarist and their influences seemed similar to mine so I thought fuck it why not. We had like 2 or 3 practices before they fired me. Not long after that, that whole band imploded and I hit Freddy up like a month or so later to jam and we’ve been inseparable since. We’ve had a whole bunch of lineup changes but Freddy and I have been constant. We were lucky to find Chris and Edgard cause they work the best out of anyone we’ve ever been with.

Where is the best music store in New York City?

Edgard: rough trade is such a huge store and on top of being able to buy the music that you want, there’s always cool shit there like Q&As, live performances

Freddy: rough trade is probably the last good thing about music in NY right now

Chris: I haven’t bought a record in so long I really don’t know.

Sam: I don’t buy records physically but if instrument shops count, I really love the Sam ash by the AMC in Manhattan, it’s always so empty and there aren’t a million people playing stairway to heaven or smoke on the water everywhere.

What was the creative process like on your latest release, “Blue Mood”?

Sam: It was really fun and organic surprisingly. For those two songs, in particular, Freddy and I brought in little ideas of riffs and the rest of us just filled out the rest in a jam. “Blue Mood” is the flip side to our previous mini-release “Rose Room”. The vibe ended up being way darker than anything we’ve put out before, like a little more introspective than the kinda poppier stuff we were getting a little used to writing at the time. I think lyrically I wanted to dig in and get to know my psyche a little better too so I challenged myself to be a bit more vulnerable in that sense. Big shoutout to my boy Paul Renna who did the artwork for it! He made us these huge paintings for the EP covers and we kinda ran with his color scheme for the title. It’s funny how things can work out that way, the project takes a life of its own organically and kinda names itself in away.

What is your favorite park in New York City? Why?

Chris: Astoria park, I have so many nice memories there, I love watching the sunset there, I remember going to the pool there when I was a kid. I think I smoked weed for the first time there..maybe don’t put that in haha. 

Edgard: Randall’s Island, I love it because it’s beautiful scenery, you can go there to BBQ, the view of the waterside is beautiful and it’s cool that it’s in between the Bronx and Astoria.

Freddy: Teardrop park, it’s like a park no one knows about and I can be by myself and there’s a beautiful duck pond and you can see New Jersey from there too. 

Sam: Inwood park, my reason is probably 90% based on nostalgia but I really do just love it I never get tired of going there.

How do you hope the music scene in New York grows or changes from the effects of the pandemic?

Edgard: sigh I really hope nothing changes so much as I wish it goes back to normal but if I were to want something to change I would just like ppl to be more considerate of each other like wash your fuckin hands!!

Chris: I just hope people appreciate it more cause no ones been out for months and it’d be nice to see people not take local music for granted anymore.

Freddy: I hope everyone realizes why they do what they do.  I hope if anything this time has been a nice reflection for everyone to see why we do what we do. We know now what it was like without it.

Sam: I’m just hoping we could get back to it in general. It’s scary to think we’ve already lost a whole year to covid and it sucks when you hear about venues closing down. 

How has your style/writing/performance changed since your 2017 release, “//Wildsleep”?

Sam: Well we’re quite literally a different band, we have different band members.

Freddy: Yeah, we have experience playing with so many different members so aside from that, we’ve had to adapt. The versatility didn’t come from years of playing so much as it did from adapting to each new member’s play style.

Sam: I think in the beginning we were really trying to find our footing. Whereas now with Chris and Edgard there’s a type of synergy between the 4 of us that we can come up with stuff easily because we all can sort of predict each other’s moves and compliment them.

What are you doing to stay creatively inspired right now?

Edgard: I’m just tryna take more of an initiative to play other instruments because being a drummer in a band kind of occupies my mind in a sense where I feel like I should take the time to explore more options.

Chris: I started painting which is nice to explore different avenues of creativity, photography is cool too. I feel like when you do music so often like we do it kinda feels like there’s pressure and visual stuff I can just enjoy it for what it is, it’s weird.

Freddy: I am studying guitarists I’ve always looked up to, I’m revisiting old riffs and seeing how to make them better. Also looking at our peers cause they’re very talented.

Sam: Jamming with the guys keeps me inspired, I’ll playback the voice notes of older jams on my phone and write to them. I’ve also been drawing on my iPad just to balance myself out, I feel like if I put too much focus on one thing for too long I burn myself out.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

Freddy:  Thank you for considering us, hope everyone stays safe. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell 

Chris: There is no ethical consumption under capitalism

Edgard: Truly is a terrible drink and white claw should monopolize the alcoholic seltzer market

Sam: Wear your mask so we can shake that ass