Hold up! Remember The Sleepy Jackson? i.e. Empire Of The Sun mastermind Luke Steel’s OG alt-rock band from the early noughties?
Well, turns out they’ve got a brand new album in the can.
In a new piece from Fairfax Media about Empire’s latest star-studded outing Two Vines, interviewer Chris Johnson casually dropped the bombshell that Steele played him a “new Sleepy Jackson record” that he’s been working on in his spare time during their pow-wow, along with “a phenomenal sounding project with Daniel Johns of Silverchair”, which has been long-teased and is supposedly coming soon.
The ARIA Award-winning Sleepy Jackson, who formed in the bowls of Perth back in 1998, haven’t released any material in over a decade (since 2006’s underrated classic Personality – One Was a Spider, One Was a Bird FYI) but the band never officially broke up; just sort-of disappeared into the ether while Steele moved on to other projects like Empire.
Speaking to Faster Louder back in 2009, Steele reported that the band’s third LP had been written, but shelved due to a lack of interest from their record label, EMI.
“[The album should be out] definitely in the next decade,” he said at the time (and we’re defs closing in on that deadline!)
Then, four years later in 2013, he revealed some more info: “I did nearly finish [the album] and then [Empire Of The Sun] started. And for everyone this is the big kahuna kind of thing now.” #noshit
“I think Sleepy will have its time once we have toured this a bit,” Steele added.
“But yeah, I have most of the songs done.”
Well, flash-forward to 2016 and it sounds like The Sleepy Jackson’s fabled third record might finally be ready to reach our ears.
Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re gonna go blast Lovers on repeat til it does.
Watch: The Sleepy Jackson – ‘Come To This’
