More about: Palm Reader

Eclectic five-piece Palm Reader are back with fourth studio album. Released via newly-signed label Church Road Records, Sleepless demonstrates Palm Reader at their best. Maximising on huge instrumentals and emotive lyricism in a track-list of ten blistering tunes, we get to see Palm Reader emerge from boys in the rock industry into a flourished heavy music band.

We spoke with frontman Josh Mckeown and lead guitarist Andy Gillan about all things Sleepless; from signing with Church Road Records, to recording in Devon, to future touring plans...

Gigwise: Can you explain Sleepless to us in a sentence? 

Josh Mckeown: Do you want to go for it Gillan?

Andy Gillan: Oh, no, no, you’re the songwriter! 

GW: Okay, we can sort out a sentence later on, but how would you describe Sleepless?

JM: The whole idea behind my writing across all four records, but especially with this album, is about fighting against something or fighting through something. Take the artwork, with the colour bleeding through, it’s almost like a form of positivity shining through the misery.

GW: How did you come up with the album title?

JM: Lack of sleep.

GW: I did think it might be a bit self-explanatory…

JM: Well, that’s not entirely it, it seemed to tie in quite well with how the album felt as a whole. When we were trying to figure out an album title, I suggested Sleepless in our WhatsApp and everyone was just like, ‘that sounds good, I’m not sure why but it works.’

AG: It was an evolution of a conversation. Josh had a phrase that he had come up with and we worked on it to try and make it a bit more poignant. Without veering off too much into pretentious land, Sleepless seemed to ring a bell with the amount of work we’ve put into it and the recording process – we were living at a studio in Middleham. Some people were getting up at 6 to walk dogs or sit and listen to stuff. I was usually up until about 3am and so there was activity for near on 24hrs a day. 

GW: It’s been two years since your last album Braille – what direction did you want to take Sleepless in? 

AG: We just wanted to take the next logical step from Braille, between everything we’ve put out there’s been a progression of sound. 

GW: You’ve pointed out you don’t like to stay in one genre/sound because you feel it can be boring for fans. What would you say are your top tips and tricks for staying innovative with each album?

JM: Myself and Andy both listen to a very wide range of music, that’s the majority of it for me.

GW: Whuch artists?

AG: Between him and I it’s very different 

JM: We don’t listen to the music we write; we listen to genres of completely different directions. It’s a breeding ground for finding new sounds, or new ways that music can affect you when you’re listening to it. For us it’s about honing down that particular feeling; figuring out how we can create that same feeling we get from listening to other music. 

AG: Yeah! What he said…

GW: I’ve noticed a lot of Sleepless feels very raw and emotive; can you talk to us a bit about the emotion that ran through this album

JM: Each song is about something different; the song titles weren’t an afterthought, but definitely more of a next step. We tend to get the songs done, and then think about naming them, unless the name jumps at us straight away. Musically the album is very cohesive, so it was very easy to write lyrical themes that had a similar ilk to them. As I said earlier there’s that theme of pushing through something. It all kind of gains a similar tone, it wasn’t a conscious decision: it was more of what each song feels like it needs. 

GW: You recently signed to Church Road Records, how has this experience been with them so far?

AG: We’ve been friends with them since day one; Justine and Sammy. Justine was pretty much running the label we were on prior to it collapsing. But she went out on her own, Church Road essentially started out by Sammy as a passionate project to promote small releases from obscure underground bands. Then from that point on, Justine, (the superstar), had so much goodwill from the whole scene and bands from her previous label, Church Road became quite a chronological step for her. She asked us if we wanted to move onto Church Road and it wasn’t even a conversation for us. Our manager presented it in our WhatsApp and we were just like yep! Besides the obvious speedbumps of being thrust into a brand-new label, it’s been absolutely smooth sailing, and a pleasure to work with. 

JM: Yeah, they’re fucking nailing it.

GW: How has the recording process been with Sleepless in comparison to your last three albums?

AG: We were in the studio around the 4th of January, so around the early 20s of December last year we realised we had enough material for an album. We then tried to squeeze in as much writing as we could without the annoyance of Christmas and New Year getting in the way. The recording process was great: we worked with Lewis for all of our records. Being in Middleham is like being in the middle of nowhere, there’s patchy phone signal at best. The Wifi is abysmal so we were really there to record, I think after the initial shock of being a million miles away from anywhere, focusing on making the best record we could became the only thing we could really think about. 

GW: How long did you spend recording?

AG: 19 days I think.

GW: Is this about the same amount of time you’ve spent with previous records?

AG: I think so: we did Braille in around two-and-a-half weeks! 

JM: The first two for sure were two weeks, but this one has felt different from the off, from writing it, to recording it, to releasing it. I’m not sure if it’s really a conscious decision, I think we’re all just a bit older so have tried a bit harder. 

AG: There’s also the fact I think we’ve pushed the boat out a bit more on experimentation, and so on. We’ve kind of listened to what we’ve written and questioned, is this too much like our older stuff? Do we want to go down that road or do we want to try something completely different? We waded out into pretty deep waters creatively, it got to the last few studio sessions and we were like, is this good? 

JM: If you think about it, between two and three weeks is a really short amount of time for a song to go to essentially a demo to this wild thing. We just chucked a load of stuff into it, leaving the studio with an album that’s basically screaming at you. 

GW: Would you say one of the themes in this album comes from you guys wanting to drive bringing a new sound?

AG: I think standing still for too long as a musician is really dangerous because as soon as you start resting on your laurels, you might veer off into the unknown. 

JM: There are some bands that are good at it, some bands are just great at playing metal, which is fucking great because I like metal. But there needs to be people doing everything!

GW: Are you happy with when you released Sleepless despite originally working on an earlier release?

Both: Yeah!

AG: Absolutely, it was only pushed back about four weeks. The only thing that’s made it a bit hectic was putting on the livestream on the Monday. But it’s all worked out pretty well. 

GW: How do you feel the response has been with this album?

AG: It’s been bonkers, I woke up on Friday 27 to all my social media icons blowing up. I was worried I was going to open up to 400 people on twitter like, ‘well this is shit.’ But It’s been really nice: people have had really nice things to say about it which is wicked.

GW: What exciting plans do you have for 2021?

AG: Some of the stuff we can’t talk about just yet, we don’t want to jinx it but we are planning! Obviously, festivals are something we look forward to every year, we are going to do as much stuff as we can within the limits of Covid. 

GW: Do you think 2021 sees you guys touring with this album?

AG: If we’re allowed yes, if not no!

JM: I mean touring is really great, I’d love to do it!

Sleepeless is out now via Church Road Records.

More about: Palm Reader