Welcome to In Conversation, our interview column where we chat to our favourite artists on the cutting edge of music. Returning to our string of interviews at 2000trees, we had the pleasure of chatting to long time favourites of BoolinTunes. Joe chatted to Bec and William of Terminal Sleep about their recent run of shows, the Melbourne and Australia scene and their upcoming album.
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Joe: You initially released the single “Death Therapy” in April 2022, from then until now, how has the journey been for you?
Bec: Pretty surreal, I think it’s gone pretty fast as well, it doesn’t feel like it’s been three years. Sometimes I can’t believe we’re on the other side of the world right now.
William: We’ve had some pretty crazy personal moments this week. Last night, we played with Still In Love, and all the members in that band used to play in bands I grew up listening to. Then Nick Worthington did a fucking guest spot for us. I was just standing there like, “Dude… the guy from Dead Swans is doing a guest spot for us”. It’s been a wild, really cool few years. Stressful as fuck, but honestly, so worth it.
Joe: There is quite an organic feeling to the way Terminal Sleep has grown. You’ve done it independently for the past few years. And even over here, I kept seeing your merch more and more at shows, even local shows in Cheltenham. Is there anything you can put down to how you’ve managed to garner such support?
Bec: I can’t believe it either, it’s pretty trippy for me because this is my first band, so I don’t really have anything to compare it to.
William: I think one of the big things is, like, most of us except Bec have been in bands before, metal bands and all sorts of stuff, so we kind of knew the ropes going in.
This time around, we were like, “Alright, we’re doing a band now, but we’re all old heads in the game”, so let’s do it properly. That meant paying for everything out of our own pockets, and yeah, we spent a fuck ton to get started. Good recordings, a proper music video, just really investing in ourselves from the jump.
And from there, you just hope for the best. You don’t know where it’s going to go. I think that’s one of the key differences when you’re doing it now, you’ve got that experience, and you’re willing to put yourself in fully to make it the best it can be at the time.
Joe: You came here last year with Kublai Khan, how did coming back here again this year come around?
Bec: We got offered a few festival slots and figured it was a good chance for some exposure. Then a few more offers came in, and we were like, “Fuck it, let’s build a tour around these dates and make the most of it”. And honestly, it has been great. We’ve had a lot of fun and the reception’s been really solid. What’s been especially cool is seeing people come back, a few who saw us on the Kublai shows ended up coming to a festival set or one of our headline gigs. So yeah, people coming back like that made us feel like, “fuck yeah“, we’re doing something right.
William: It’s been really cool. Like, we played Swansea last night in Wales, and there was this one kid who travelled two hours, had to take a bus, wait around, all this effort just to come see us. And I was like… “you did all that to watch our set?” That’s pretty fucking hectic.
It’s moments like that which really hit. This run’s been a bit of a trip, honestly. Especially with us doing our own headline shows, we’ve done some support slots too, but having those moments where people come out of the woodwork and say, “Yeah, I listened to you on the internet like three years ago”, and now they’re making the journey to see us live… it’s just crazy for us.
Joe: In the Melbourne scene it feels like there’s something really special going on, with the likes of yourself, Starve and Skora. Then there are new bands like Takoba, for example. There is such a strong scene there, what do you put the quality of the Melbourne scene down to?
Bec: I think there are so many other bands across Australia, like in Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane… even the Tassie scene is picking up. It’s definitely not just localised to Melbourne when it comes to the talent coming out of Australia.
William: Even when you move outside metalcore and into other subgenres, there are always these underappreciated bands. In every city in Australia, there’s elite-level stuff happening. Take Blind Girls, for example, kind of scramzy, they’re absolutely incredible. It’s one of those things where only the people who are into that kind of scene really know about it.
Bec: I think a lot of Australian bands work really hard, because our population isn’t anywhere near as big as somewhere like the U.S., and the level of exposure just isn’t the same.
Joe: Blind Girls were over here recently, then there are the likes of Volatile Ways too, for example.
William: We really badly want to come over here with Volatile Ways.
Joe: If you brought them over here, that would be really fucking sick.
William: We’re working on it, they’re like, the homies. They’re the best people. It would be such a fun tour if we did it.
Joe: Moving onto more recent bits, you signed to Nuclear Blast recently, has that been in the works for a while?
William: Probably longer, to be honest. The single only dropped a couple of days ago, but we actually recorded it back in August. So yeah, it’s been a long time coming. There’ve been a bunch of different things behind the scenes, I won’t get into all of it, but the last six months have been pretty hectic. Things got pushed back a bit, but we finally got it out there. It’s been sitting in the woodwork since maybe mid last year.
That said, the team we’ve worked with, they’ve been absolute angels. We’re really lucky and feel genuinely privileged to be in this position, surrounded by people who actually care and support what we’re doing. It’s been super nice.
Bec: Yeah, no like, “it had to be out by a certain date”. But they were super flexible and totally understood when we needed to push the release back. So yeah, it’s been great.
Joe: I’ve heard so many good stories for them, too, in terms of being able to work around people’s medical conditions. It does feel like they’re stacking up so many good bands in terms of yourselves, God Complex and PSYCHO-FRAME.
William: It’s good they’re doing that. They’ve still got all the legacy bands they’ve had for generations, but it’s cool they’re still tapped into what’s current, still on the pulse. Signing God Complex for example, or getting Malev[olence] on board, stuff like that is actually sick.
A lot of older labels, especially those early 2000s labels, are just trying to survive off their legacy acts. And when they do try to bring in new bands, it doesn’t always land. Nuclear Blast always kind of been on it, they’ve got the right people working there, people who actually know what’s going on and what’s cool, people who are really in touch.
Yeah, and the thing is, it’s about the music, which is the main thing. But it’s not just that, they’re actually going to shows all the time, they’re out there, part of the scene. We’re splitting heads and hanging out with the same people.
Joe: How is the new album coming along?
William: I’ve got a shitload of songs demoed already. I’ve got my pre-prods done, and next we’re going to do more pre-production on those to hone everything down, hopefully to about 10 songs. It’s pretty wild, and it takes a while.
Bec: It takes a while, the new songs are a taste of the direction we’re going. If people like that that, they will like the album.
Thanks to Bec and William for sitting down with us to have a chat at 2000trees. You can check out our coverage from Terminal Sleep‘s headline tour here, and our coverage their 2000trees festival set here.