Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
Everything seems to be coming full-circle for Sleepy Kitty.
The group—comprised of Paige Brubeck and Evan Sult—was responsible for creating the logo and promotional materials for the very first LouFest in 2010. The pair were approached about the project after the festival's organizers read a feature on the pair in Eleven Magazine.
"It was the very first article on Sleepy Kitty," Brubeck recalls, wistfully.
The pair went on to create the posters for the next LouFest, and hope to stay involved in the art aspect of the festival in years to come. This year, though, they are moving from behind-the-scene artists to center stage musicians with an early afternoon slot on the festival's lineup.
And Eleven isn't just publishing features on the pair anymore—Sult is now helming the magazine as editor-in-chief.
"I realized that there was this kind of ship on the sea that didn't have a captain," Sult says. "Cities feel great when they have a...music centered publication that is like just getting by but is full of people who are real excited about, or knowledgeable about, or even cynical about music."
While Sult was taking over the first magazine to ever run a profile on the duo, Brubeck was teaching at a rock camp for kids ages 11 to 16—the same age she was when she first played in a band. Sult describes her job as "enabling kids to rock."
"My first show that I ever played like out in a band that I was in was at the Hi-Pointe and I was 13," she recalls. "I had a choir concert earlier that day, like a fine arts fair at my grade school, and then I had that show at night...A lot of these kids are the same age I was when I started playing so I'm just like, yeah man, get out there, book a show!"
Brubeck was the vocal coach, focusing on teaching the kids about "performance and kind of how to approach the stage."
Sult joined her one day and the pair played a show for the camp. Both are adamant that they learned more from the kids than the other way around.
"[The kids aren't] concerned with all the things that push people out of playing music yet," Brubeck says. "You're still in your parents' house with a guitar, you have nothing to do but play music...Once you're on your own, it's like there are all these things that try to push you away from that and try to force you to get in line...It's useful to remember that feeling and like try to do a show for our teenage selves."
Sult says he took their performance as an opportunity to impart some of his wisdom on the students as well, telling the gathered audience, "They have you all day, I only have you for an hour."
His advice: "If I can sing, anyone can sing."
"The voice I have is not the voice I'd choose," he says, explaining that he had never sung in any of his previous bands, starting only on Brubeck's insistence. He describes the music she writes as "baroque," defined by complicated vocal harmonies and musical riffs. She accomplishes most of the desired effects with looping in the studio, but occasionally tells Sult he has to sing, too.
"In a two-piece," Brubeck says, "you have to use everything you have."
"Occasionally I'll hit the right wrong notes," Sult concludes.
Brubeck's vocal chops come from years of theater and choir. Her flair for the dramatic often comes out in her songs—like the riff from George Gershwin's masterpiece "Rhapsody in Blue," played on a wailing, crunchy guitar which starts out the duo's song "Speaking Politely."
With songs as that pack as much of a punch as "Speaking Politely," it's no wonder one of the biggest lessons she says she passed on at the camp was to "hold the mic like you mean it. Don't get on stage and be like holding it soft, grab that mic, sing in it like you mean it."
Brubeck says she has been trying to find a way to get out from behind the mic, untethered from her guitar so she has some "room to wiggle."
That is exactly the opportunity they're going to have at LouFest.
They already have friends several friends lined up to play with them at LouFest. Vocalist and keyboardist Jenn Malzone—from bands Middle Class Fashion and Tight Pants Syndrome—and guitarist Gabe Doiron.
Both joined them during their 17-minute version of their song "Seventeen," which they dubbed a "Guitar Relay," that they performed at the RFT Awards Party.
"Something about the show has to be a next thing that we don't know if we're going to be able to pull off—a next unknown," Sult says. To which Brubeck replies, with a laugh, "I want to know that we're going to be able to pull it off!"
But if there's one thing that history has taught Sleepy Kitty, it's that they can pull it off—and usually get asked back to do it again.
