By Kris Ketonen
The members of Vancouver three-piece Sleep Science are determined to get as far out of their comfort zone as possible. The progressive rockers are embarking on their first-ever Canadian tour, a trip that will bring them all the way to Montreal and back to the west coast. A big step for a band, to be sure. But that’s the point.
“We love playing here [in Vancouver],” says Taylor Nichol, who handles vocals and guitar for Sleep Science. “We love playing to our fans here, and our friends and our family and all that, but … getting out of our comfort zone, that’s when we’re kind of in our element. That’s when we’re ‘okay, everything’s on the table, we’re going to show you guys what you’ve got.’”
Why, then, did Sleep Science wait so long to embark on their first big, comfort-zone-leaving tour? They’ve been performing for about five years, after all. Nichol says it all comes down to timing, and ensuring the proper finances and opportunities were in place before hitting the road.
“It’s a bit of a grind being a band nowadays,” he says. “A lot of bands are DIY now.”
And while the tour is the focus at the moment, the guys in Sleep Science (the band also includes Dan Lomonaco on bass and Alexander Moscrip on drums) are also planning a return to the studio.
So far, the band has a six-track EP, titled Avoiding the Cure, which was released in 2014. That was followed-up in March 2016 with a single, “Tears for the Money.” Now, the band is aiming to record another EP this summer, Nichol says, and more touring is also in the cards.
“We’re already looking into possibly touring the U.S.,” he says. “Of course, we’ll probably end up going across (Canada) again before the New Year. We’ve got a lot of stuff planned—we’re really excited.”
In the meantime, Thunder Bay fans will get a chance to see Sleep Science live at The Foundry on April 26. Nichol promises “an experience” for audience members. “Because we’re a three-piece, we’ve really gotta be tight, we’ve gotta be full, we’ve gotta keep people interested,” he says. “It’ll be like a roller coaster in a sense, in terms of time signatures, melodies, sounds that we create—a little bit of everything. I think it’s a very all-around good set.”
