A 1990s indie icon has announced her return to music, 20 years after touring with Britpop’s biggest names.
This singer made an appearance on The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X on Monday to tease her band’s comeback.
The group’s hits included Nice Guy Eddie and What Do I Do Now?
Notably, the band, who last toured in 2018 were part of the infamous Blur Parklife tour in 1994, which saw them party with Damon Albarn and almost get chucked off the tour for stealing his band’s backstage snacks.
Their frontwoman, now 58, went onto marry the drummer in her band and has forged a new career as a successful novelist in recent years.
Also a mother of two, she has decided to reform her indie group and told Chris Moyles that they are working on ‘amazing’ new music.
Can you guess who the Britpop icon is?
A 1990s indie icon has announced her return to music, 20 years after touring with Britpop’s biggest names
It’s Sleeper frontwoman Louise Wener.
In conversation with Chris Moyles the singer/songwriter teased that she was writing and recording new music with Sleeper, saying that she was ‘loving it.’
‘I’m demoing stuff now, and it’s coming about in a slightly different way that I’m not going to talk about too much, but I’m really, really loving it. I’m really loving it,’ she teased.
Louise formed Sleeper with bandmate Jon Stewart whilst studying at Manchester University in the late eighties.
They went on to have eight UK hit singles and three UK top 10 albums during the 1990s and even contributed music to the soundtrack of the pop cultural smash hit movie Trainspotting.
Sleeper supported Blur on their Parklife tour, later recalling to The Guardian that ‘there were a lot of groupies, a lot of drink and drugs.’
‘But as a counterpoint to all the rock’n’roll excess, they had a decidedly middle-class rider and the centrepoint was a giant platter of exotic fruits and foreign cheeses,’ she added of Blur, before musing that was how her band were nearly kicked off the tour.
‘One night, we sneaked into Blur’s dressing room and destroyed their cheese plate. The band were furious, ignoring us for days afterwards, and it was the closest we came to being kicked off the ticket.’
‘It seemed you could get away with almost any level of drunken and boorish behaviour on tour, but heaven help you if you messed with their cheese plate.’
Sleeper frontwoman Louise Wener has revealed she is writing and recording new music with the band, admitting she is ‘loving it’
Louise formed Sleeper with bandmate Jon Stewart whilst studying at Manchester University in the late eighties – Pictured L-R Diid Osman, Louise, Jon and Andy McClure (who Louise went onto marry)
Notably, the group, who last toured in 2018 were part of the infamous Blur Parklife tour in 1994, which saw her party with Damon Albarn
Their inclusion on Blur’s tour saw the band’s fame rocket and Louise soon became a sex symbol of Britpop and landed TV roles including guest presenting Top Of The Pops.
The band would go on to split in 1998, with Louise and drummer Andy McLure marrying.
They settled in Brighton and had two children and Louise formed a new career as a novelist whilst Andy taught music.
She has four books under her belt: Goodnight Steve McQueen, The Big Blind, The Half Life of Stars and Worldwide Adventures In Love as well as her 2010 autobiography, Different for Girls: My True-life Adventures in Pop.
In 2017 Sleeper decided to reform and embarked on their first tour in nearly 20 years. They also freleased two new albums: The Modern Age, released in March 2019, and This Time Tomorrow, released in December 2020.
Louise told Chris Moyles how she suffered stage fright for the first time ever during the band’s comeback tour.
Sleeper had eight UK hit singles and three UK top 10 albums during the 1990s and even contributed music to the soundtrack of the pop cultural hit movie Trainspotting (pictured in 1996)
In 2017 Sleeper decided to reform and embarked on their first tour in nearly 20 years. They also freleased two new albums: The Modern Age, released in March 2019, and This Time Tomorrow, released in December 202
Sleeper’s inclusion on Blur’s tour saw the band’s fame rocket and Louise soon became a sex symbol of Britpop and landed TV roles including guest presenting Top Of The Pops (Louise pictured in 1996)
‘I didn’t have any sort of mechanisms, probably, that some people have if they know they’re going to experience that,’ she explained. ‘And I was like, “I can’t do this, I literally can’t walk out there. I’m just going to go home!”‘
She got through it by blasting Courtney Love ‘really loud on my headphones, and that sort of cured me.’
‘You’re a team leader, aren’t you?’ she mused of life back with her band. ‘You know, and the rest of the band are like, “Oh God, what are we going to do? Like, she’s collapsing! What do we do? What do we do now?”
‘And it’s like, “it’s fine.” And I was like, I walked out, put on my red lipstick, “Let’s go.” And it was absolutely brilliant. And I’ve not had it again, thank God.’
Tune into The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X weekdays from 6:30am – 10am and on Global Player
