SLEIGH BELLS

There’s a good chance you’ve already got Sleigh Bells on high rotation. A band as loud as this could hardly go unnoticed for long. Their debut album Treats was only released in June, but the blog-cogs have been turning in overdrive since early demos of tracks like Crown on the Ground started popping up in 2009. We caught up with Derek Miller, the beat making/song writing/guitar playing half of the New York sound pop duo to talk meeting, writing and touring just in time for Field Day and their headline shows in January.

The Sleigh Bells project had started to take root in Miller’s mind and laptop long before he met vocalist Alexis Krauss. “I already had a tonne of material and had gotten in the habit of asking pretty much every girl that I met if she was a singer,” Miller explains. “One day Alexis came into the restaurant I worked at with her mum. She asked what I was doing in New York. I told her I was looking for a vocalist and Alexis was like ‘Oh, I sing’. It just went from there.”

Miller explains they started recording almost immediately and that he threw himself into writing music practically solo. And the result? Sleigh Bells sound entirely modern. Their off-kilter approach to pop plants their sound firmly in 2010, something that caught the ear of M.I.A, who went on to put out their album on her N.E.E.T label (with New York’s Mom + Pop). “One of our friends played our music for her and she really liked it and got in touch and came to New York two weeks later,” Miller says of their introduction to M.I.A. “She’s great. I think we have a similar take on pop music. We’re coming at it from a weird angle, but it’s still pop music. It was flattering and encouraging because before that it was just our friends and parents listening to us.”

Miller’s modest waiter budget was a key influence on the loud and lo fi early demos bandied around the blogosphere. “I had very few resources, like really shitty drum machines, so the only way to get them to sound good was to blow them out when I was balancing it,” he says. “It was the only way I could make it sound energetic and intense. It was totally a necessity, not an aesthetic decision.”

The album, however, is the more streamlined incarnation of that sound. “I got a much bigger sound library and had options. It was no longer just, ‘Well here’s that one kick drum that I have’.”

And Treats isn’t just a noise album. Krauss’ vocals, moving easily between soaring soul singing and sassy lyric spitting, makes the album a very easy listen. “Before Sleigh Bells, I played in a hardcore band when I was younger, and she played in a pop group and I sort of like the push and pull of it. Instrumentally, I really like heavier music, but the screaming is less interesting for me. Having a female vocalist is nice, because I can get away with being really heavy without coming off as macho or overly aggressive. I really like that idea.”

The duo are heading our way in a matter of months and are excited at the prospect of playing to Aussie audiences. “It is incredible for me to have fans in Australia because I played in a hardcore band before this when I was a teenager and in my early twenties. That was pre-blog, so it’s amazing that we’ll show up and some people will already have our record and know it. We’re just really grateful.”

Catch Sleigh Bells at Field Day 2011 and January 7 at Prince Bandroom, Melbourne and January 8 at The Forum, Sydney.

By Erin Moy for Pagesdigital.com