Sleepazoid enter a New Age with new EP release

Sleepazoid aren’t just dominating SEO rankings with their standout name; they’re also winning over hearts and minds with a sharp, finely crafted brand of alt-rock. Emerging out of Melbourne last year with their Running With The Dogs EP, which featured the infectiously rocking track ALICE, the four-piece have kept the momentum with the release of their New Age EP this year. MICHAEL HOLLICK sat down with guitarist George Inglis and drummer Luca Soprano before they headed off on their first UK tour to dive into the evolution of their sound, the distinct influence of the Melbourne scene and how audiences are responding to their new era.

Congratulations on the new EP, New Age. Did you do anything special for its release? 

George and Luca: We went on a big tour.

No Perth on that big, big tour though…

George and Luca: We just couldn’t factor in Perth for this tour, unfortunately. But we love you guys! And there are so many influential bands out there. Tame Impala and Pond, of course. Very influential. And we love Stella Donnelly, Ullah, Spacey Jane—the list goes on and on, to be honest. Promise, we’ll get there as soon as we possibly can.

I’ll hold you to that. But I’m interested now. How was your big tour?

George and Luca: Honestly, the turnout across the whole thing was huge. We did the eastern states’ capitals and then back home to Melbourne for a beautiful sold-out crowd at the Northcote Social Club. That was lovely, such a super nice way to wrap up the tour.

There’s a lot of deserved buzz about you guys at this point. What were crowds like? 

George and Luca: There were some singalongs, so that was a definite first for us. It’s pretty unreal to be playing a song and have the whole room singing along. We had a couple of shows in Brisbane where, literally, that’s all I could hear. It was pretty awesome.

Is there any track that seems to have really captured people’s imagination?

George and Luca: I would say Fig Tree, oddly enough. It’s a great song, but I have no idea why that particular one. I guess maybe because it’s a softer intro; a lot of our songs rip pretty hard from the get-go. Fig Tree is one of those repetitive things that the more people sing as it goes, the more people add to it.

You mentioned before you’re from Melbourne. Coming from there, how much do you think the city and the Naarm band scene specifically influence the “Sleepazoid sound”?

George and Luca: Oh, massively. I think there’s a certain grit or an urgency to a lot of the music coming out of Melbourne right now that we definitely tap into. We grew up going to shows at places like The Tote or the Old Bar, and that atmosphere, that kind of close-quarters sweaty energy, is something we always try to bake into the recordings.

And it’s not just the venues—it’s the community. You’re constantly surrounded by other musicians who are pushing boundaries, whether it’s in the punk scene or the more experimental side of things. It forces you to not just settle for a generic sound.

And how does that translate into writing? Is it a democratic process, or is there one person who comes in with a skeleton and you all add parts to it?

George and Luca: It’s a bit of both, honestly. Sometimes I’ll have a riff or a specific melody that’s been rattling around in my head, and I’ll bring it to the guys. But New Age, for example, the title track of the EP, was much more of a jam. There’s a specific telepathy you get when you’ve played together for a while where you know exactly where the other person is going to go with a transition.

Does that make the recording process easier, or do you find that you overanalyse things once you get into the studio?

George and Luca: We are definitely overanalysers. We spent way too much time on the drum tones for this EP. But I think that’s because we want it to feel authentic to the live show. We don’t want it to sound too polished or clinical. We want it to sound like four people in a room making a lot of noise.

One thing that I was wondering about was the interludes. They’re quite majestic, and I wanted to know if they have any deeper significance.

George and Luca: We like the concept of tying songs together without there being a loss of motion or a loss of something. It’s still moving, so the whole thing with 22 and 85 and things on those EPs is that they are almost like sonic glue. They move you through the whole thing without you having to stop. It’s an element of cinema that we want to bring to the music.

I believe you’re going to the UK this week, but can you tell us the plan for the rest of 2026? Are we looking at a full-length album, or are you going to keep the EP momentum going?

George and Luca: We’re definitely writing. There are a lot of skeletons for new songs, and some of them feel like they belong on a bigger project. We’re not rushing it, though. We want the debut album to be exactly what we hear in our heads.

For right now though, it’s just about getting overseas and seeing how people respond to the music in a completely different environment. It’s going to be a lot of van time and a lot of cheap coffee, but we can’t wait.

Sleepazoid’s New Age EP is out now.