Sleep Waker has been signed with UNFD and will release their sophomore album Alias on July 23rd through the label. The new single is called “Distance” and you can find the video below.
Hunter Courtright, the band’s vocalist, said:
“‘Distance‘ is about loss — more specifically, losing someone very close to you. For me, it’s about witnessing my grandfather struggle with dementia. His passing really hit me and it was a very hard and emotional experience. I immediately knew I needed an outlet for that feeling and started working on the lyrics that eventually turned into ‘Distance.’”
Drummer Frankie Mish commented:
“When writing ‘Distance,’ we realized this was the perfect song to round off this album. We had most of the songs finished and this demo just sat there as a lead and a chorus, and the further we got into the process, the more we realized we really needed something to stick out as a major emotional point in the album. Once that clicked, the song just easily flowed out.”
Mish, regarding the concept of the band’s upcoming album, said:
“When I had the idea to start the band, I had insomnia and sleep paralysis. It was a big thing in my life. I had the name Sleep Waker, I was playing around with logos and stuff like that. And then Hunter mentioned he had insomnia as a kid. So we bonded over that connection.
Each release has had a theme built around experiences we’ve had in dreams, or concepts based around sleep. ‘Lost In Dreams‘ established that, and ‘Don’t Look At The Moon‘ was all about sleep paralysis. But we tagteamed the lyrics this time. I write from a lot of my personal experiences of nightmares and dreams. Overall, our overarching theme has always been the band name itself.”
Courtright continued:
“I’ve had hallucinations. I’ve had the feeling of someone sitting on my chest, and monolithic figures staring at me from the corner of my bedroom. That stuff’s definitely still interwoven throughout the album. But things really took a shift this time. On this record, my lyrics are quite literal and personal. Everything I wrote was either situational to my life, or about how a person can be changed by a life event or circumstance, thus creating an alias.”
Alias track listing:
01 – “Alias”
02 – “Skin”
03 – “Strangers”
04 – “Cold Moon”
05 – “Melatonin”
06 – “Insomniac”
07 – “110 Minutes”
08 – “Serenity”
09 – “Synthetic Veins”
10 – “Distance”
