Rockers Sleeper Agent are Quickly Taking Over

by Janelle Engle

When I first spoke with Alex Kandel, lead vocals of Sleeper Agent, she warned me she was feeling under the weather. But you would never be able to tell if it weren’t for her slightly raspy voice. As far as her energy level was concerned, it was going to take more than a sore throat to slow her or the band down. I’d also venture the sore throat might be due to the the string of non-stop touring Sleeper Agent has been doing since they first caught the eye of producer Jay Joyce less than four years ago.

The band could be thought of as a sudden success group considering they went from their small town in Bowling Green, Kentucky to sharing the stage with power house rockers like Weezer and New Politics in a short period of time. But this is something Kandel does not exactly agree with. “It doesn’t feel that short to me. It’s hard to judge those little markers of success because we’re always looking toward what the next thing is. We’re never going to feel like we made it,” says Kandel, who has been on this journey with Sleeper Agent almost since their start. 

That kind of fierce determination is what landed Alex Kandel the gig with Sleeper Agent in the first place. The band had originally started as a duo of singer/guitarist Tony Smith and drummer Justin Wilson. Then Kandel, only seventeen years old at the time, maneuvered her way into the group using nothing more than the utter persistence of a girl with a dream. “I more or less weaseled my way in and convinced them over time to let me be in the band. They didn’t want to be hanging out with a seventeen year old but I just kept acting like I was already in the band and eventually they let me play a show,” says Kandel, laughing about her early days as the little sister of the group.

It helped that Kandel was also belting out Adele covers at open mics with ease. Her melodic, sweet voice, powerful belt and range was a flawless match for Sleeper Agent’s garage rock sound. Since then, the band has become a sextet with keyboardist Scott Gardner, guitarist Josh Martin and bassist Lee Williams completing the rest of Sleeper Agent.

Sleeper Agent’s energy was also mirrored in 2011 with the release of their first album Celabrasion. According to Kandel their first and only album release took about three or four days to write before they went into the studio. The result was an alternative rock album full of radio friendly songs that are likely to get the crowd dancing and singing along (albeit with great difficulty considering Kandel’s extensive range.) But the biggest difference between Celabrasion and Sleeper Agent’s upcoming release, About Last Night, is the time frame. While Celebrasion was a matter of days, About Last Night was worked on meticulously for a year.

“We spent a year on it, came out with forty songs in different styles and rewrote those songs again and again and then somehow narrowed it down to a record,” says Kandel. “This record is a totally different direction for us as a band, but one I’m really proud to take and one that I think shows more of what people liked about the first record.”  The bands current single, “Waves”, shows this different direction with a cheerful, almost borderline indie sound. Fans will be happy to know it is still just as energetic as the radio friendly rock singles were before.

Not only does Sleeper Agent arguably have the coolest name out of all the bands, considering it comes from Battlestar Galactica, which they are all huge fans of, they also have an infectious energy within their music that reflects their very positive attitude. When asked what’s in the future for the band Kandel passionately answered, seemingly without giving it a second thought, “Everything. I want to do everything.” And it is that kind of fiery attitude that has brought this opening band into their own.