Date Published: 06-Apr-2011

Hotly tipped electro-pop band the Sleep Thieves play the Róisín Dubh this Saturday night at a free gig to showcase their much-anticipated debut album, which hits the shelves on Friday.

The release of Heart Waves is a milestone for the Dublin-based trio, whose acclaimed live performances saw the Irish Times proclaim that the group had played one of the top ten gigs of 2010 alongside the likes of Blondie and Snoop Dogg.

The band will hope that it has transposed onto record some of the energy of their live performances, having succeeded in unleashing an infectious floor-filling contagion at venues throughout the country.

The story of how the Sleep Thieves got together is as unusual as their unique blend of guitar and vocals against a lively, synth-laden backdrop of electronic clashes and beats. They’re not childhood chums, they didn’t go to school together and as far as they know they’re not related.

In fact, when Sorcha Brennan, Wayne Fahy and Derek Murphy formed an electronic pop band in 2009, they had never set eyes on each other before. If band membership were marriage, then the Sleep Thieves are mail-order brides.

“We got together in response to an advertisement that Wayne had posted on a music message board looking for new members of a band – we were complete strangers,” recalls Sorcha, the group’s lead vocalist and synth player.

“But we still clicked right away and one of the first songs that we ever did together, Osumi, is actually on the new album. In one way, the fact that we knew absolutely nothing about each other was a good thing and it gave me a lot of confidence because the lads had no preconceived notions about me and I’m sure it was the same for them.”

Composed of spare parts from a number of defunct bands that had run their course, the Sleep Thieves had an eclectic chemistry that has given them a unique sound of irresistible electronica and the silken vocals of their leading lady.

“I became the main singer and wrote all of the lyrics, which was a big jump for me,” she says. “In all three of the bands that we came from, none of us were the front person so when we got together each of us had an equal say. That’s one of the good things about being a three-piece: it’s majority rule and it just takes two people to agree for a decision to be made.”

Bass guitarist Wayne had been playing with a heavy rock band called Mendoza before being inspired to post the advertisement on the ‘Lonely Hearts Club Band’ message board. He bought his first synth player and fell in love with the sound.

“He decided that he wanted to do electronic music, while the others wanted to continue with indie rock. He left and they went on to form I Phoenix,” explains Sorcha.

“For my part, things were going pretty well with a band called Butterfly Explosion and we were trying to finish an album but we couldn’t agree on certain things and it began to look like we’d never get it finished. I wasn’t enjoying it anymore and I had always said to myself that, if I wasn’t having fun, I would stop doing it.”

She hasn’t looked back. “I’m very happy doing what I’m doing now and it’s more representative of me and representative of my experiences,” she says.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.