Get to Know Sleeper's Bell | Meet the Angels 001
Sleeper’s Bell is the Chicago-based folk duo of Blaine Teppema and Evan Green. They’re the latest band out on Angel Tapes, our emerging artists imprint, and we’ve got an exclusive Q&A and Playlist from the band as the first installment of our Meet the Angels series. Check the questions (answered by Blaine!), add the playlist, and listen to Clover — the debut Sleeper’s Bell album — wherever you get music.
Sleeper’s Bell music feels rooted in your relationships with your friends. How do you decide what makes it into a song and what stays between the homies?
That’s a good question! I guess I just kind of work under the guise that nothing is off-limits. A bunch of my friends are writers, so I think they understand the impulse to want to capture certain moments in art. And I will usually double check with a friend (or even an ex) to make sure the song is something they’re comfortable with. I would be willing to change the lyrics if I had to, but so far no one has made any complaints.
We’ve mentioned your day job as a librarian in nearly every press release we’ve send out. Do you think your line of work does anything to shape your music?
Definitely. I am an archivist at heart. I work really hard to make sure things are all in their place. I spent a long time on the orders of Clover and Umarell because I wanted them to tell a cohesive story. Not the mention working with kids provided a lot of inspiration for Clover because it’s a really healing thing, and forces me to remember the really beautiful parts of my own childhood.
Best things you’ve read in the last six months?
Probably A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin. It’s a collection of short stories that are all semi-autobiographical. My friend Connor was nagging me to read it for years, and I wish I would have listened to him sooner. There’s this story about the Lucia-esque character going to live with her sister who’s dying of cancer, and one of the last lines is, “Actually, love is not a mystery for me anymore.” I started crying just typing that. I try to repeat that to myself when I’m spending time with friends and family.
People are always surprised when I tell them you are quite tatted up. Which tattoo was your first and which will be your next?
That’s funny, I just wore short sleeves at my new job for the first time today and my coworker freaked out. He was like, this is so incongruous with your personality. I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I just love them! It’s another archival impulse, I guess. And I was living with a tattoo artist in quarantine and proceeded to live with two more tattoo artists over the years, so I was getting them all the time. Anyway my first tattoo was the aquarius sign (lol), my best friend did it for me in my attic when I was 14. I gave her one too. I’m not sure what my next tattoo will be! Probably something from my best friend Sky. She is pretty incomparable.
What’s your favorite thing about being a Chicago Band?
It’s the best community ever. And super passionate, like, landlocked energy. I grew up in the suburbs, so I went to a lot of skramz and emo shows as a teenager. My friends in high school were in this skramz band called Thisishowitendedintokyo, and whenever they played a show the singer would keep a big trash can next to him because he would throw up from screaming so loud. It was awesome. Even though our music is so different from that, I try to keep that same energy- no pretense, just honesty and intensity. The veil between performer and listener should be really thin.
Who are three Chicago Bands that people need to get with?
Honestly, the three musicians who opened for us at our album release show. I got lucky that they all said yes. Leo Paterniti’s songwriting blows me away, not to mention his live band. Tara Firma is incredible and her voice makes me melt. Henry True is an all-time favorite too.
If someone were to watch a movie on mute with Clover synced up - which film would you recommend they pair with the album?
Lol awesome. I recommend the Hubley collection. It’s a compilation of John and Faith Hubley’s crazy avant-garde cartoons from the fifties through the nineties. Specifically two shorts from that — “Moonbird” and “Windy Day” — are all timers. I grew up watching those and I used to project “Windy Day” behind me when I would play house shows. It worked really well.
Which song on Clover took the longest to finish?
In terms of writing, definitely “Clover”. Because I wrote the melody and the lyrics to the first verse when I was 16 and wrote the lyrics to the second verse when I was 18. In terms of production, maybe “Bored.” It was the only song we didn’t record live, so it was a lot of piecing together different instruments. And it’s longer than the others, and I’m anti-bridge. So we had to find other ways to keep it interesting.
Lastly, what can you tell us about Sleeper’s Bell LP2?
It’s written! We’re working on it. I think it’s gonna be really amazing.
Check out Sleeper’s Bell’s False Spring playlist
chicago favs + select tunes from Mount Eerie, Kitchen, 22º Halo, Dorothy Carlos, The Cradle and more.
LISTEN / BUY CLOVER!
