Sleeper have split and lead singer LOUISE WENER and drummer ANDY MCCLURE are starting a new band.
Wener said that Sleeper had split at the end of their tour last March but had kept the fact secret until now because they “didn’t want to make a big thing of it”.
The band’s last tour had seen a number of cancellations and downsizing of venues due to poor tickets sales.
Guitarist JON STEWART now lives in Los Angeles and plays with a US band called UFO BRO.
Bassist DAN KAUFMAN, who joined in October 1997, has returned to session work.
Wener explained: “We’d stopped working together as a band during the last tour and it just seemed like the best thing to do for everyone. Me, Jon and Andy are best mates, and we’ll work together in the future, but we just wanted to go off and do different things for a while. We’ve been together eight years!”
Wener said that the band decided to announce their demise after they finally negotiated a release from their contract with RCA last month, the parent company of their label Indolent, their home for the past five years.
“Everyone we knew there had either been shunted out or left,” continued Wener. “It’s like you’ve got nothing in common with your partner any more and they’ve got a bunch of personal habits that you find a bit disgusting.”
The band first found success with their gold-selling debut LP ‘Smart’ in 1995 and went on to have a host of hits such as ‘Sale Of The Century’ and ‘Inbetweener’, before their popularity waned following the Britpop backlash.
Wener said she remained unjaded about being in a band and couldn’t wait to get her new act off the ground.
She said she had already written a “bunch of stuff” and was in the process of finding some new bandmates.
“I don’t want to talk about it yet ‘cos I don’t want to jinx it, but it’s going to be different, yeah,” she said. “We’re veering away from the indie pop. It’s a more ambitious project than Sleeper was, a lot more diverse.”
Meanwhile, she said, the band were currently talking to other record companies about new deals, although she said she’d love to bring out material on her own label.
“We’re really looking forward to making records on our own terms. I’m going to be busy with the Listerine, washing the taste of corporate cock world out of my mouth!” she laughed.
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