Photo by Linda Wildemann

“It will be my band forever,” Sleepercar leader Jim Ward said in between sips of soda water at NYC’s The Library bar. It may be a surprise to some but Ward’s “new band” leaves the post-punk aggressiveness of his other bands At The Drive-In and Sparta behind for a more stripped down, alt country-esque roll. 

I say “new band” because Sleepercar was conceived during the last days of ATDI. He let his idea of what the band should be grow while he forged on with Sparta, releasing three albums and touring the world for the last seven years.

With Sparta currently on hiatus and label-less, Ward decided it was time to go full-steam ahead with Sleepercar for the year. Recently, the band released their excellent, debut full-length West Texas (Doghouse). 

People will continue to ask the usual questions. “Will you do an At The Drive-In reunion?” “Is Sparta breaking up?” It doesn’t seem to phase Ward. He’ll continue to hop in the van and dream of collaborations with Ministry’s Al Jourgensen. 

A lot of people think Sleepercar is your new band but it’s been your project for a couple of years. Why was it on the backburner for so long?

Jim: At the time, I had been figuring out how to do this. Initially, I was just going to start a country band. I didn’t want to mimic what I liked. I wanted to infuse what I am and how I write. It took me six years to learn how to sing the way I wanted to. It has to be a slow progression. It’s like learning how to play an instrument. 

Read more after the jump.

Did you have a different vision of what the band would be before?

Jim: If I started a band seven years ago that sounded like this, it just would have sounded like The Old 97’s. It wouldn’t have sounded like me. Take the time and let it grow. That was my main goal. I was having fun with Sparta. I was in no big rush to do anything outside of that. It took awhile to get to a point where I was ready for a break.

Some see this as a solo project but you have a backing band out with you. 

Jim: Yeah, I run it like Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. I’ve been in a collective for fourteen years and it’s nice to be the captain. You have to have a crew and I don’t ignore that by any means. They all have their say.

Do you prefer the band or the solo thing at this point?

Jim: I like having the band. Every time I think of doing a solo tour, I put it off again. A full, proper solo tour [would] be really hard on my psyche. It’ll happen at some point.

Was there a particular moment with Sparta that made you want to pursue Sleepercar more, for the time being?

Jim: We had a meeting last June. All the management was there. It was like, ‘ok, we need to start planning the rest of the year. Let’s start talking about 2008.’ I had been thinking about it and I knew I wanted to finish the record at some point. It was in that meeting where I looked at a calendar and said ‘I’m going to be thirty two next year. I want to go now. Let’s take 2008 off.’ Everybody was fine with it. It wasn’t a big deal. We were on the road for fifteen months. Keeley [Davis, guitarist for Sparta] just got married when Threes came out. He never really got to be home for the first year and a half of his marriage. I know he’s just enjoying being home and designing. I don’t see any reason to be on any timeline. I don’t have any label contracts right now so I can do whatever I want. I want to take advantage of that. I’ve been under a major since I was twenty three.

How did the label react to you saying you wanted to take a break?

Jim: They had first right refusal on the record [Sleepercar's album]. I had to send in the demos. They actually said they want to keep it. They wanted to do this as a full-time band. But before I finished the record, they let Sparta out of the contract. It was an experiment with Hollywood. I don’t have any bad feelings. The people that made that decision were board members that I never met. The people that I love at that label were all really upset. We don’t sell fifty million records. I think they thought that if we went there, other bands would want to go there. This sort of Sonic Youth / Nirvana situation. I don’t think those times exist anymore. It wasn’t an artistic thing. It was just ‘you’re not making us fifty million dollars.’ Fair enough, I don’t want to make you fifty million dollars. Fuck off.

How does El Paso come alive in the songs that make up West Texas?

Jim: Most of what I write is at home. I do the fine tuning and recording at home by myself. I think there’s a lot of relief in the album. There is not a lot of urgency to this music. It’s very laid back. I think it’s because when I’m home I’m way laid back. These guys that I’m touring with have never seen me on tour so they are like ‘dude, you are uptight!’ I’m balancing an enormous amount of things at the same time. Family, touring, career, the future, and how I am going to eat.

How do you react when a seventeen year old comes up to you and talks about how much your music has influenced their life?

Jim: I’ve met kids that are thirteen or fourteen that are like ‘you’re a big influence on my band.’ That makes me laugh, in a good way. I like that my history has inspired people. I’d like to inspire them into thinking they can do it. There is nothing special about me. I don’t believe in the mysticism of stardom.

Does it feel like things have come full circle because of that tour you announced with the Old 97’s recently?

Jim: The coolest thing is that they e-mailed me. The guitar player just said ‘like your record, we should do some shows.’ It was just like, ‘fuck, how perfect!’ It was even better that it wasn’t through an agent. I didn’t pitch it to them. He was hanging out with his teenage cousin and he told him that we had been e-mailing each other and he almost crapped his pants. Which is nice cause they can see that I have fans of my own.

I think it’s funny too that people seem to ignore what you are currently focusing on. First, it was with At The Drive-In and the break up. Now with Sparta and the hiatus. People are always so focused on the past work instead of the present. I’m sure people throw that Coachella level reunion equation at you all the time.

Jim: Every year. I just like when they start throwing out the dollar amounts. ‘So will you do it for five million?’ I don’t know. I can’t imagine ever putting those shoes on again. I lived it already. A lot of people just want to see it.

A lot of the people that want to see it probably weren’t there.

Jim: Yeah, that’s the thing. I have my own memories. I don’t hang out with people I went to high school with. I don’t hang with those guys. I don’t know them anymore.

Now the message boards are saying ‘is Sparta breaking up?’ Do you ever find yourself getting annoyed with that?

Jim: You just got to deal with it. It’s not going to change. I’ve had to deal with that almost everyday since the band went on hiatus. At this point, I’m really good at understanding it. There are only so many times you can sit down with a kid and talk about how rad they think you are. Which is nice but it’s not the way I was raised. I had a guy the other night that would not stop for like twenty minutes. Just going off! The merch guys I was hanging out with on the tour were dying laughing. They knew me but hadn’t seen it on this tour with City & Colour. Nobody really knew us. It’s a totally different world. They loved us because of the music not because of the band’s I’ve been in.

Sparta definitely had the influences from your past on it. Is Sleepercar a statement to your fans that you can do something completely different?

Jim: Even with At The Drive-In, we got much more popular after we broke up. I’ve never really been in a wildly successful band. I’ve been in a band that became popular postmortem. I never felt any pressure to carry on that success because I’ve never really had that much. I consider myself successful because I’m able to make a life out of this [but] I want to make records.

Do you think you’ll continue doing this for the rest of your life?

Jim: The thing I can say about Sleepercar that I can’t say about any other band [of mine] is that it’ll be my band forever. Nobody can end this except for me. I think I’ll be making Sleepercar records forever. At some point, I’m going to make a really heavy record. I just want to find a new level of heaviness. Al Jourgensen [of Ministry] lives six blocks from my house in El Paso. The first time I met him, I was probably one of ten people in the world that was like, ‘tell me about Pailhead!’ That’s one of my favorite records ever and he was like ‘nobody ever says that.’ Someday I’m going to get the guts to appoach him and say ‘let’s make the heaviest, emotional record ever made.’

Tags: Interview, Jim Ward, News, Sleepercar, Sparta //