Sleepytime Gorilla Museum rocks out

'Sleepytime' drummer says group plays 'rock against rock' 

Kelly Lewis 

The End Records

By KELLY LEWIS

calendarplus@tucsoncitizen.com Sleepytime Gorilla Museum does not make your grandmother's music. Unless, of course, your grandmother is a fan of screaming metal bands that emerge dressed as human puppets with a special knack for headbanging. "We are out to destroy ourselves with rock and roll music," says SGM drummer Matthias Bossi in a phone interview from Milwaukee. "We play in the form of rock which is called 'rock against rock,' which means we are destroying ourselves with the very thing that we advertise." A band too experimental to be confined to one category, SGM bridges metal and circus sounds, culminating in what comes across as a mixture of White Zombie and Slayer. Songs are filled with the noise of everyday objects - trash cans, housewares. And SGM will go as far as inventing instruments to create particular sounds, as the band did with the Piano Log, which, at nearly 7 feet tall, is made with piano strings and played with two sticks. "It's all singularly Sleepytime," Bossi says. "It has this fantastic sort of homemade aesthetic. . . . The backwoods, shanty town, bits and pieces of coil sort of sound, and it's beautiful and shabby." Working with all of these different noises means that the recording process, entirely self-produced, is rather lengthy. "History has said that it takes about four years for a record to come together because everyone within the band is such a perfectionist and things need to be a certain way," Bossi says. Yet, somehow, the band that has been more or less underground since its inception in 1999 has managed to record its most recent album in less than two years, since it signed with The End Records in 2006. "The album will be out in May and it has been named 'In Glorious Times,' which is kind of an ironic title because it is kind of a dark and lonely record, for sure," Bossi says. "It's a very personal album and I can only touch the surface of what it's about, but I would say that its overarching theme is that it is a tribute to a very close friend of ours who passed away last year." An ensemble that has made its mark through years of nonstop touring, SGM is once again gearing up for continent-hopping fun, sharing the stage with Secret Chiefs 3, whose members include Trey Spruance (formerly of Mr. Bungle). "We took a year off to make this record, but all this band has ever known is touring," Bossi says. "This is a big jump we are doing here, but our batteries are recharged and we are totally ready to get back on the road and get touring." IF YOU GO What: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum in concert, with Secret Chiefs 3 When: 9 p.m. March 22 Where: Solar Culture, 31 E. Toole Ave. Price: $15, all ages Info: 884-0874, www.solarculture.org