SLEIGH BELLS with CSS and PRINCETON at Sound Academy (11 Polson), Tuesday (May 17). Doors 8 pm. $20. LN, RT, SS, TM. See listing.
Sleigh Bells refuse to take a moment’s pause to savour their successes of the past year.
They’ve been too busy “selling out” in a couple of senses of the term: by playing their packed shows and licensing their songs to almost anyone.
The high-decibel Brooklyn noise-pop duo toured for months straight and are now doing it again, all while working feverishly on the follow-up to their breakthrough first album, Treats (Mom+Pop/N.E.E.T.)
The band’s producer and guitarist, Derek Miller, says he has a sea of material and even a title in mind for the new record, though it likely won’t be released until early 2012.
“Alexis [Krauss] and I, we’re both very restless creatively,” he says of the band’s singer. “We’re always, always writing. Whether it’s a loose idea on my iPhone voice recorder or on [recording software] Logic, it never really stops.”
Nor will it any time soon if demand for their music, an aggregate of hard beats and melodic vocals, keeps up.
Treats has sold about a half-million copies worldwide, and its songs have been featured in places as diverse as the Spanish-language U.S. network Univision, teen television drama Gossip Girl and the trailer for Abduction, a starring vehicle for Taylor Lautner after the Twilight film series.
Miller says he and Krauss have not been choosy about music licensing.
“I’m not sure if we’ll always do it, but it really made sense the first time around,” he says. “We license on a case-by-case basis, and unless it’s a commercial for the Nazi party, we’re usually okay with it. People see those ads more than our music videos. It’s been huge for us.”
Huge enough to earn Sleigh Bells a solid fan base, which includes a number of major acts, many of which have reached out to the band for production. A lifelong fan of pop music, Miller says that once his group has established itself with a few more albums, he looks forward to making music with chart-toppers like Katy Perry, who was spotted last month waving a glow stick in the crowd during the band’s Coachella set.
Perry and Sleigh Bells almost hit the road together this year, Miller reveals.
“There was talk of our playing some shows together, which I know would surprise some people, but it just never panned out scheduling-wise. She does pop music really well. It probably is a little ridiculous and over-the-top, but that’s okay. Music can be absurd. That’s fine.”
Also fine: the support the band received from another important musician, Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, founder of Chicago-based festival Lollapalooza, which Sleigh Bells will play in early August.
Farrell recently said that of all the bands at this year’s fest (among them Eminem, Muse, the reunited Death from Above 1979 and a litany of buzzed-about acts), he was most excited to see Sleigh Bells.
In spite of his pledge not to read press about his own group, Miller was unable to avoid the news.
“My mother has a Google Alert set up for Sleigh Bells and she forwarded that to me,” he says. “I always get really mad when she does it. But that quote was pretty amazing. There are a lot of bands playing.
“The fact that he singled us out is great. I mean, like, shit.”
music@nowtoronto.com
