A palpable emo spirit and affinity for shoegaze defined ‘Seeds’, the latest EP from Canadian band Guilty Sleep.
The three-track project, the first in what will be a trilogy of EPs, carves out a new sonic lane for the five-piece with a dazzling assortment of stomach-churning drums, sneering punk vocals and even some acoustic flourishes.
All of it is bound by Guilty Sleep’s mastery of an emogaze sound, which they channel “from a place of trauma and heartbreak [as] an outlet to express those feelings,” the four-piece tells us in a recent interview.
Below, we caught up with the band for a deep dive into their latest EP, their collaborative process, and their plans for future releases. Scroll down for the full interview, as well as to listen to Guilty Sleep’s new EP ‘Seeds’.
HAPPY: What are you up to today?
GUILTY SLEEP: These days we’ve been working on our game plan for next year. Currently waiting on mixes for our next project, working on new songs and preparing ourselves for the shows we have coming up.
HAPPY: Tell us a little about where you live, what do you love about it?
GUILTY SLEEP: Our band is proudly from Winnipeg, Manitoba here in Canada. From an outsider perspective our city gets a lot of flack for being grimey, small, and worst of all, boring.
We find that once you start getting into it, it’s hard not to fall in love with how tight knit the arts scene is here. With how small our city is, it’s quite easy to network and grow niches here.
HAPPY: What did you listen to growing up?
GUILTY SLEEP: Because the age gap between our members spans 10 years we all grew up listening to different things.
With Eric being our oldest member and Los being our youngest we share a lot of music from 90s/00s grunge and nu metal to edm and underground hip hop from the 2010’s.
I feel like each member really connected over the emo and shoegaze revival from the past decade. We listen to a disgusting amount of Gleemer and Title Fight.
HAPPY: Who are your artistic heroes, and how have they influenced your work?
GUILTY SLEEP: We’re fairly blessed to all come from different influences as a band. Eric brings influences from a lot of folk and emo outfits such as City and Colour, Ben Howard, The Used and The Hotelier.
Haise bleeds for all things shoegaze but mainly gravitates towards bands like Whirr, Drop Nineteens, and local legends Daphne Bleue, now known as Seventh Dose.
Nick comes from a very core background introducing the band to the sounds of Norma Jean, Bound in Fear, Carcosa, and Whitechaple.
Liam, drum wise, was trained as a jazz drummer but combines that style with his love for edm and rock such as Nirvana, Buddy Rich, and Skrillex.
Los, our newest member, fills in the spaces of our sound with his heavy slowcore/indie influences from bands like Duster and Julie.
HAPPY: Can you describe the creative process behind ‘Seeds’, born out of early basement sessions with your new lineup?
GUILTY SLEEP: Seeds came from the first round of basement demos the band made after the original members met.
Once we added Los to the mix we had a session of listening to our recordings and trying to decide what songs could use a third guitar and what sounds like Guilty Sleep.
A lot of the songs we had were written before we even formed the band and felt like a good starting point to reshape our sound and begin our process of refining it.
HAPPY: Your vocalists, Eric and Haise, bring different styles to the table. How do you approach vocal harmonies and trade-offs?
GUILTY SLEEP: Eric and Haise initially formed the band over a slice of Shorty’s Pizza. Originally Guilty Sleep was going to be split into 2 bands with Eric and Haise fronting each project.
Quickly we realized that our styles weren’t too far off from one another so Haise just settled on Guilty Sleep since the name was cooler.
For writing a lot of the time Haise will drive Eric home from practices and they’ll go over ideas on vocal melodies and lyrics. Realistically, both of us tend to “just go for it” when doing harmonies since we’re typically separated on stage.
Each of us have different writing styles for lyrics so a lot of times we’ll write stuff based on the general theme of the song and trade off for the different sections.
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HAPPY: What punk influences have shaped your sound?
GUILTY SLEEP: We tend to gravitate heavily towards the nature of grunge and shoegaze bands of the 90s.
We’ve been compared to and take a lot of inspiration from Hum and the stage presence that My Bloody Valentine used to bring back in the day.
We love a lot of heavy and beautiful sounds so bands like Turnover and Knocked Loose definitely inspire us a lot sonically.
HAPPY: Can you discuss the role of catharsis in your music?
GUILTY SLEEP: A lot of our music, especially lyrically, comes from a place of trauma and heartbreak so being able to have an outlet to express those feelings and have them reach out to people that can relate to it is really special to us.
There’s something each member of the band feels when we create something that makes us go “this is the one.” It’s quite freeing being able to write the things we do since there never seems to be any judgment from one another.
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HAPPY: ‘Seeds’ is the first of a trilogy of EPs. Can you hint at the themes or sounds that will emerge in the next two installments?
GUILTY SLEEP: The goal we have with the trilogy is to define our sound through a loose narrative that we try to keep as open as we can for the listener.
We find that each member of the band has a different answer as to what the project means to them and we really want to convey that.
We’ve already finished recording for the second EP but we really feel that the new stuff we’ve been writing for the final installment has been the most defining songs for us as far as the development of our sound goes.
Los has been working a lot on building out his guitar rig so we’re super excited to share the new tone.
HAPPY: Lastly, what makes you Happy?
GUILTY SLEEP: As dismal as our lyrics tend to be, we really thrive on being around loved ones. You’ll often see us partaking in the great Canadian culture of going out for drinks with our friends.
Honestly, the band is a big part of our individual moods as well as for all of us it’s really the one thing we have going on right now. It also helps that we get a good amount of love in our city. We love to perform and get a crowd moving.
