Sleep for the Weary delivers their aggressive yet melodic brand of alt-rock from Nashville, TN. Vocalist Ian Shannon’s solo work (In To and Out From, 2014) bears the band’s name, but his fervent voice is bettered with the inclusion of band members Robb Edmondson (drums), John Hurst (lead guitar), and Eric Woodrow (bass).

The group transcended its former sound, burgeoning into their intimate alt-rock style in support of the full-length album Nocturns (2016) and in the creation of their upcoming releases of Readings: 1-3 (forthcoming 2018). Sleep for the Weary’s songs are at once intimate and expansive. The songs don’t promise answers, but instead ask the listener to immerse themselves in the mysterious. They ask you to close your eyes, lean in, and see where it leads you. Their latest EP Catharsis dropped in April.

In this interview spotight, I jam with Sleep for the Weary as we discuss the latest release, motivations, challenges and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)

Together as a band, we’re based out of Nashville Tennessee. Robb and Ian both live in Nashville, with Eric nearby in Lavergne. John, however, lives in Evansville, IN. He makes the 2 1/2 hour drive to rehearsals and recording sessions, so he’s our official and perpetual “employee of the month”.

I guess I’ve always liked saying we make music for thoughtful people. People willing to challenge and express themselves. Thus far it’s been mostly dark and heavy in nature. If you prefer familiar terms, we might be somewhere between Nirvana and Tool. But we love trying new things. We’ve experimented with everything from more ambient shoe-gaze sounds, to heavier grinding and chugging from our metal influences. So while we might be at home on the darker side of hard rock, we like to take you places you might not have planned on going when you first press play.

What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?

We’ve all been playing since our early adolescence. We come from different parts of the country, but we share a similarity in our paths. Playing in different bands, honing our skills, finding our voices, discovering ourselves. Music is so deeply ingrained in us that it’s what we are driven to do. But it’s the process of creating and sharing that keeps us going. We live to turn over the next stone. There’s always something new. We’d be depriving ourselves if we stopped. I think that keeps our music sincere for us. That it satisfies a deeper need as opposed to a lifestyle or monetary gain.

How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?

Catharsis is very different from nocturns in that it’s the first time everyone had a hand in the writing process. While I might bring a skeleton of a song to the table initially, we worked together to make it something more. Something special. There’s more influences at play. Sometimes the song would write itself, and sometimes one of us would hear it going somewhere a bit too comfortable and flip our part around to get the others to see something new. Robb played a big part in that with some of his polyrhythmic drum and percussion ideas he’d introduce. John writes leads very differently and more proficiently than I did on Nocturns. And while Eric likes to allow the song room to breath in his bass parts, he still found subtle ways to drive and direct the feel from within the structure. That allowed me a lot more freedom to explore ideas and lyrical concepts than when I was writing the earlier material. It became much less predictable.

Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?

We are some of the least proficient social media users compared to what I see a lot of bands doing. Not faulting anyone for their use or lack thereof of social media. But it’s just not a strength of ours. We’re totally down to interact with people. But as a quartet of introverts, social marketing starts to feel like force feeding people for us.

Unfortunately for us, that’s one of the primary ways people discover music. We try to make ourselves as accessible as possible by putting our music on every platform we can. But the visibility is definitely a struggle when there are so many options. But it’s equally important that we be true to ourselves so as not to undermine the music we’ve made and hold dear.

Technology helps us embrace the trends. However, we enjoy finding ways of steering fans to connect with music the way we do. Sometimes a physical medium forms a different bond. Sometimes loving a band leads you on a treasure hunt. We like to satisfy those appetites as well, which can’t be accomplished by putting everything everywhere. So we find ways to recreate experiences we had growing up and listening to our heroes. SoundCloud exclusives and facebook live performances are fun for us in that respect. When you become a fan of ours, we strive to make that as rewarding as possible. So we try to set ourselves apart by just being ourselves.

Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?

Our website is a great place to start: sleepfortheweary.com

But we welcome you to join us on social media and share us with your friends. Whether that be Instagram, facebook, twitter, YouTube (Sleep For The Weary), SoundCloud, or anywhere else you’d like to interact with us.

Anything else before we sign off?

The most important thing at this point that we can say is thank you. Thank you Joshua for giving us an outlet to share our music with others on MTM. Thank you to anyone who is taking the time from your busy life to read this. We are so grateful that our music has afforded us the opportunity for our paths to intersect with yours. Every time you press play on one of our songs, every time you share our music and pages with others, every time you put on one of our t-shirts is a gift and a privilege for us. We will keep creating, not only for our own sake, but in the hopes we can make it up to you for giving us a chance and believing in us.