Scene: Two guys, Doug Robinson of The Sleeping on the left, Ryan Hunter of Envy On The Coast on the right, both in t-shirts, jeans and comfortable shoes, sitting on a no-frills wood-frame cloth covered couch. Plain white linen drapes adorn the background. The two are bookended by end tables with cylindrical lampshades, and in the foreground, there is a small coffee table. On it, are a bag of tortilla chips, a small bowl of hummus, a camera, and a glass of water.
It’s a story that writes itself. Mostly because it pretty much did.
We set the two singers out with an idea: why don’t you interview yourselves? The two guys—good friends—made a list of questions for each other to ask over the course of a little longer than a half an hour, and videotaped it.
As it turns out, they asked each other some of the same questions that music journalists would have asked them, with their press cards and Communications degrees. But there is a different angle here, one you’ll see. They traded questions, taking turns, and we chopped and screwed them into two interviews.
—Patrick Slevin
RYAN ON DOUG
Ryan: So I know you have some new members who have just joined the Sleeping. I wanted to know how it’s been going, how it’s been different from prior lineups of the Sleeping. How’s it been?
Doug: It’s been amazing. It’s like totally different, but it’s still the Sleeping. I think the best part about it is that we’ve always been a band—we’ve always had different elements of everything—but I’ve always wanted to get a little edgier, and I feel with the new lineup, we’ve gotten way more edgier. It’s not cheesy heavy or anything like that, it’s just an energetic rock heavy that we’ve never had before. So far everything that we’ve written is super upbeat. Paul, our new guitar player, has just been insane with writing new stuff, we also have a piano player coming out with us this tour, his name is Chris and he’s awesome too, and everything has been super rad with him as well. We thought adding a new guitar player and a piano player wouldn’t click; it all just clicked right away and it’s just been insane. I’m really excited to play these new songs on the tour.
Ryan: I saw some kids talking online too that were stoked that you brought in Chris as well, really excited to hear that whole element of things because you had keys on the last record and everything, so I’m stoked.
Doug: It should be sick because Chris is a piano player, you know? When we were looking for piano players to try out on this tour, we didn’t want kids who were like ‘I’ve got a synthesizer, let me play,’ kind of thing.
Ryan: Do a handstand every five minutes.
Doug: Exactly. He plays. We have an organ on the road with us and stuff like that, he knows his gear and it’s really awesome that we have somebody knowledgeable like that.
